Category Archives: Political Commentary

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Technology and Society

Biofuels

44 Comments

This looks like a pretty big breakthrough:

Just how fast are Rice’s single-celled chemical factories? On a cell-per-cell basis, the bacteria produced the butanol, a biofuel that can be substituted for gasoline in most engines, about 10 times faster than any previously reported organism.

“That’s really not even a fair comparison because the other organisms used an expensive, enriched feedstock, and we used the cheapest thing you can imagine, just glucose and mineral salts,” said Ramon Gonzalez, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Rice and lead co-author of the Nature study.

Gonzalez’s laboratory is in a race with hundreds of labs around the world to find green methods for producing chemicals like butanol that have historically come from petroleum.

“We call these ‘drop-in’ fuels and chemicals, because their structure and properties are very similar, sometimes identical, to petroleum-based products,” he said. “That means they can be ‘dropped in,’ or substituted, for products that are produced today by the petrochemical industry.”

I wonder what the catch is, if any?

[Update a while later]

The man-made miracle of oil from sand. And as Glenn Reynolds points out, it’s “ethical oil,” not “conflict oil.” And we’re a lot farther from “peak oil” than many want to think.

Stories like this make baby Algore, their lord and savior, weep bitter tears.

Business, Education, Political Commentary

Unions Lose Again

12 Comments

Despite all their millions, they came up short:

…almost 350,000 people voted in Tuesday’s recall elections — and Republicans won 53 percent of the total vote. After blowtorching the state with negative ads and benefiting from a favorable timetable, the unions could still only get 47 percent of Wisconsinites to support their effort.

This should make the unions think long and hard about whether they want to embark on a mission to recall Gov. Scott Walker next year. Doing so successfully would easily cost them five times as much as they just spent — and even with their recent deluge of cash, most of the public still didn’t support them at the polls. Additionally, the extra time will also give Walker’s reforms more time to work — and once the public sees that schools can manage their affairs effectively without being hamstrung by union regulations, organized labor’s argument gets even weaker.

…More from Mickey:

That’s a) in an off-year election where union turnout usually makes the difference b) in famously progressive Wisconsin c) after spending many millions d) with a nationwide media and organizing push e) when labor had a galvanizing issue in Gov. Scott Walker’s direct assault on the institutional collective bargaining power of public employees, which led to a dramatic walkout by Democrats.

They’re slow learners. Though when it comes to one of the unions, they’re slow teachers as well.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

I Love The Smell Of Fear In The Morning

14 Comments

The Dems are starting to get worried about their presidential prospects next year. They should be. But here’s the myth that will apparently never die:

Some Democrats are even feeling “snookered” that Obama fooled them with his brilliant 2008 campaign…

There was no “brilliant 2008 campaign.” They ran the only campaign they knew how to run, because they had a cipher on which everyone could project their fantasies. Given the level of Bush fatigue, how awful the McCain campaign was, and his response to the midst of the bank meltdown, any Democrat would have likely won. I hope that they continue to nurture this myth, though, because it will result in many mistakes in the campaign next year from hubris (including keeping people like Plouffe and Axelrod, who mistook their own luck for brilliance).

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Music To My Ears

31 Comments

Al Gore is ranting in frustration that no one buys his climate BS any more.

[Mid-morning update]

Climate skepticism isn’t a fringe phenomenon:

CC. To what extent did you feel like you were standing alone in resisting the man-made climate change theory back in the 1990s?

“It was difficult. I knew that many of my colleagues at the Association of State Climatologists agreed with me. But many of them wouldn’t say anything because they were worried about losing their jobs or just plain having their professional lives made difficult. Frankly there’s a lot more money supporting the other side. Things would be easier if you just go along with them.”

CC. “You’d say that now there’s a lot more money supporting the man-made climate change side of the issue than there is on the side of the skeptics?

“Oh yes, it’s been that way for a long time.”

Yes, though you’d never hear it above the din of the screams about oil money.

[Update late morning]

Climate Depot responds to Gore’s rant.

[Bumped]