After Gutenberg

jcwinnie

Definitions of intractable on the Web: “A problem so computationally demanding that the time required to solve it is prohibitively long. Such problems, which are not solvable in polynomial time, are said to be in the class NP.”

Climate Progress Kari has more on the response from the European Union to the United States being in the class NP.

jcwinnie

Via a guest post in Cleantech Blog, the premier cleantech site for commentary on technologies, news, and issues relating to next generation energy and the environment, Jim Rogers, Chairman, President and CEO of Duke Energy, acknowledges: “As the third-largest coal consumer in the United States, and one of the largest greenhouse-gas emitters, Duke Energy has a responsibility to be part of the solution.”

The Jim Roger’s solution is more coal.

Customers who live in the Midwest, the Great Plains and the Southeast did not choose to get a large portion of their electricity from coal – it was a matter of economics, geography and geology. They should not be punished for decisions made decades ago, in good faith, using the best and lowest-cost technology of the time, with regulatory approval – and long before anyone knew about the impact of carbon emissions on climate change.

And before we dismiss coal as a viable energy source for the future, consider this: The U.S. is sitting on more than 250 years of coal reserves, more than any other nation in the world. This rich natural resource has untapped potential for ensuring our country’s energy security. The challenge is primarily technological – to find smarter and cleaner ways to use it, such as carbon capture and storage. Until those technologies are available, we must continue to use our existing coal resources and protect the interests of consumers who rely on coal.

“But, that’s insane.”

jcwinnie

God, bless the Emperor
Fossil Fuels that I love.

After stripping out all the tax provisions the bill easily passed 86-8 in the Senate. Guess that demonstrates without a doubt what is important to the Senate.

jcwinnie

Photo by ChinchillaVilla
“Bollocks to all that stuff.”

Yep, just like the Senate, the House had the same need to be seen as green, while taking care of business in every way. The Energy Bill passed handily, 314-to-100, reports David Roberts.

‘twern’t ’nuff Roscoes.

“I really would like to vote for this bill because we desperately need an energy bill. The world and particularly the United States faces a real challenge on energy in the future. But I cannot vote for this bill primarily because of the corn ethanol mandate.

A recent article in The Economist noted that our use of corn for ethanol doubled the price of corn about a year ago. Farmers then moved lands from soybeans and what would have been in soybeans and wheat to corn. We now have further increased the cost of corn and we’ve increased the cost of soybeans and wheat the world around.

And one of the members of the United Nations says what we’ve done is a crime against humanity. The effect we’ve had on gasoline use has been absolutely trifling.

The National Academy of Sciences says that if we converted all of our corn, all of our corn, to ethanol and discounted for fossil fuel input it would displace 2.4% of our gasoline. Mr. Chairman, this really represents one of those times as the old farmer says that ‘the juice ain’t worth the squeezing.’ We can do better.”

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.)
on why he voted against HR-6, the energy bill

jcwinnie

David Roberts reports that “The Institute for Policy Studies has a new Foreign Policy in Focus report:” "The Budget Compared: Military vs. Climate Security."

As you’d expect from the name, it’s a close look at how federal dollars are allocated for military vs. climate protection, and as you’d expect from, you know, being awake, there’s an enormous disparity. It’s pretty astonishing nonetheless. Here are the reports major findings:

• FINDING: For every dollar allocated for stabilizing the climate, the government will spend $88 on achieving security by military force.

• FINDING: During the last five years the ratio
of military security to climate security spending has averaged 97 to 1.

• FINDING: In FY 2008, as well as during the
past five years, the government has allocated
for climate security only one percent of what it has devoted to military security.

• FINDING: The U.S. government budgeted
$20 to develop new weapons systems for
every dollar it requested to develop new technologies to stabilize the climate.

• FINDING: We will devote 50 times as
much to arming the rest of the world as to
helping it prepare for and avoid global
climate catastrophe.

jcwinnie

Quiz time

“What do war, Congressmen, Senators, and the defense/offense industry have in common?”

“The answer,” says the Rev. Richard Skaff, “if you haven’t already guessed is ‘profits’.”

Conflict makes money for the military industrial complex, and the cronies they place in Congress, the Senate, and the White House.

An investigation by Ralph Forbes from American Free press reported on May 05, 2008 that more than a quarter of US senators and congressmen have invested at least $196 million of their own money in companies doing business with the Department of Defense (DoD) that profit from the death and destruction in Iraq.

The report also edifies that 151 members of congress invested close to a quarter-billion dollars in companies that received defense contracts of at least $5 million in 2006. These companies got more than 275.6 billion from the government in 2006, or $755 million per day, according to Fedspending.org. In 2004, the first full year after the current Iraq war began, Republican and Democratic lawmakers-both hawks and doves invested between $74.9 million and 161.3 million in companies under contract with the DoD. No wonder the Democratic congress kept approving the enormous spending bills on the war, since a significant portion of it happens to end up in their deep pockets.

The report elucidates further that investments in these contractors yielded Congress members between $15.8 million and $62 million in personal income from 2004 to 2006, through dividends, capital gains, royalties, and interest. Certainly, as the war went on and escalated, so did the increase in profits.

Interestingly, the report also mentioned that members of the senate foreign relations and armed services committees which oversee the Iraq war had between $32 million and $44 million invested in companies with DoD contracts. Per example, war hawk Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), chairman of the defense-related Senate Homeland security and Governmental Affairs Committee, had at least $51,000 invested in these companies in 2006. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), who voted for Bush’s war, had stock in defense companies such as Honeywell, Boeing and Raytheon, but sold them in May 2007.