It’s finally arrived.
A year too late, unfortunately for the nation.
Category Archives: Business
Oil And Gas
The new green energy:
…as profits from wind, solar, biofuels and other alternatives consistently fell short of expectations — and as the fossil fuel business boomed — things got complicated. Venture capitalists and other investment funds started stretching the definition of clean technology almost beyond recognition in an effort to make money while clinging to their environmental ideals.
Today, clean technology investment funds are not trying to replace the fossil fuel industry, they’re trying to help it by financing companies that can make mining and drilling less dirty. The people running these funds acknowledge the apparent hypocrisy, but defend a more liberal definition of clean technology.
“Oil and gas will be with us for a long time. If we can clean that up we will do the world a great service,” says Wal van Lierop, CEO of Chrysalix, a Vancouver, Canada-based venture capital firm founded in 2001.
Shat a shock, that profits “consistently fell short of expectations.” Perhaps, like the president and his campaign-donating cronies, they had unrealistic expectations. Or more likely for the latter, they just expected the taxpayer to make up the difference.
Fifty To One
A new climate education project:
50 to 1 cuts across all the noise and fury surrounding the ‘climate debate’ and gets right to the point: Even if the IPCC is right, and even if climate change IS happening and it IS caused by man, we are STILL better off adapting to it as it happens than we are trying to ‘stop’ it. ‘Action’ is 50 times more expensive than ‘adaptation’, and that’s a conclusion which is derived directly from the IPCC’s own predictions and formulae!
Here’s a link to the Indiegogo site.
ObamaCare
Just how ignorant is its namesake about it?
Well, to be fair, he could be just lying.
[Update a while later]
Unravel it, and you get a train wreck.
Actually, you get a train wreck just in trying to implement it:
Baucus isn’t the only Capitol Hill Democrat worried about a “train wreck,” according to The Hill. Even those not yet on Capitol Hill have distanced themselves from the unpopular program. Elizabeth Colbert Busch, a Democrat running for a House seat in a South Carolina special election, called the ACA “extremely problematic.”
As 2014 draws ever closer, and the true scale of the problems of ObamaCare become apparent, expect more Democratic incumbents to commiserate with their constituents about the “extremely problematic” “train wreck” they imposed on them. They had better not expect the voters to let them off the hook, however, no matter how many times Obama tells them they have nothing to worry about.
Everyone running next year against an opponent who voted for this monstrosity should make it a focus of their campaign. Even if the opponent renounces their own vote to attempt to save their seat (that’s the polite word…), their judgment should be called into question.
The Bee Mystery
I hadn’t known about this:
Researchers are making headway in mapping the genes that help bees overcome these obstacles, including which genes help them safely break down pesticides. Now researchers have identified several compounds that help turn on those genes. They’re present in honey, something commercial bees don’t get to keep–their food supply is taken for human use, and bees are feed sweet substitutes like corn syrup.
Wenfu Mao and colleagues found three compounds in honey that increase the expression of a gene that helps bees metabolize pesticides. The most important chemical is something called p-coumaric acid, which is found in pollen cells. By eating honey, which contains pollen, the bees are exposed to a compound that basically boosts their ability to break down dangerous chemicals. So honey substitutes like high-fructose corn syrup may compromise their health.
You don’t say. Corn syrup isn’t good for anyone. No reason to think it would keep a bee healthy, but apparently the industry fooled themselves into thinking so.
Now that they understand this, maybe there’s something they can do about it, and still harvest honey.
Soviet Central Planning
ObamaCare will be no more effective than it was, for exactly the same reasons.
The Green EU
It took an economic disaster for them to reduce their carbon output:
But the data shows that even though EU economic weakness and US natural gas are responsible for significant drops in emissions in the developed world, developing countries, led by China, continue to drive the global total higher.
This underscores the disconnect between green policies and green results. The US hasn’t checked off many items on the green wish list for domestic legislation; Europe has. But it turns out that the introduction of the euro and the subsequent economic disaster had more to do with European emissions drops than Kyoto or the shambolic carbon-trading program.
The usual suspects are headed to Bonn next week for another forlorn attempt to carve out a meaningful global climate treaty. Meanwhile in the real world, the challenge is to find a way for developing countries to continue rapid growth without driving greenhouse gasses and other pollutants to potentially dangerous levels.
That’s assuming that the high levels of the “other” “pollutants” is more dangerous than slow economic growth, of course. And meanwhile, it turns out that the US has twice as much oil, and three times as much gas as we thought. And “peak oil” continues to recede into the future, to the tears of the Malthusians. Which are delicious.
[Update a while later]
Gazprom (and the Russian economy) are in trouble, too:
The US has begun exporting gas to Europe, and has also ramped up coal exports by more than 250 percent since 2005. The net result has been to knock Gazprom back on its heels. The WSJ reports that the negotiations with Bulgaria were heated, with Gazprom’s negotiators shouting in frustration on several occasions.
In public statements, however, the Russian company remains defiant (and perhaps in a state of denial) about the implications of the shale gas boom…
Well, that’s one tactic, I guess. Not one I’d recommend, though.
The Stupid Party
It is understandable that Tennessee senators Corker and Alexander would oppose the idea for the usual home team reasons, but why aren’t other Republicans jumping on board and upping the ante? (Probably for the usual deference/log-rolling reasons; they’ll want Corker and Alexander to support their home state pet projects down the line.) I recommend that Republicans suggest adding the Bonneville Power Administration in the Pacific Northwest, and watch the Democratic senators from Oregon and Washington object. That’s probably why Obama didn’t include Bonneville along with TVA. Memo to GOP: Go big with this idea.
But they won’t because…see post title.
Falcon 9 First Stage
Considering the recovery options.
The Democrats Lost The Sequester
Plus, it’s long past time to privatize air-traffic control. My long-time associate and friend Bob Poole at Reason has been promoting this for years.