Radioactive Communist Zombies

How to Cut Carbon Emissions from Cars

A new report says the U.S. can cut greenhouse gas emissions from transportation in half by 2050.  The New Yuck Times reports:

The United States can cut greenhouse gas emissions from transportation in half by 2050 with strategies ranging from cutting speed limits to imposing road pricing, according to a report released today by federal agencies and environmental and industry groups.

Examining about 50 transportation strategies, the report found transportation emissions could be reduced 24 percent by 2050 by acting to change travel behavior and land-use patterns. The emissions reduction hit 47 percent by adding road pricing techniques, ranging from pay-as-you-go insurance to charging Americans for every mile driven.

In other words, we can cut emissions from transportation in half by restricting your freedom to drive.  And did  you catch that bit about lowering speed limits and charging you per mile driven. 

This is all to get you out of your car and into public transportation.  Good luck if you don't live in a city with decent (relatively) public transportation.  Of course, you still might end up next to the proselytizing Jehovah's Witness who only bathes in odd months.

Just have to wait for the Democrats to make it a law.  Waxman-Markey II, perhaps.

0.006% of Deficit

Wow, they did it.  In fact they exceeded their goal.  After President Barack Obama asked Federal agencies to find $100 million in savings, they rose to the challenge and found: $102 million in savings.  Too bad that's 0.006% of the projected budget deficit this year.  In other words: meaningless.  Here's a good visusalization courtesy of Political Math:

 

But, oh, the effort to acheive those savings.  The Wall Street Journal in a front page article (sub probably required) outlines the lengths government bureaucrats went to.

The list of 77 spending cuts, which the White House is calling "the $100 million savings challenge," reflects the vastness of government -- and its vast inefficiency. Hundreds of millions of dollars in savings were found simply by casting around for areas to trim.

Still, the reductions barely scratch the surface. "Some of these cuts are so small they would be a rounding error of a rounding error in the federal budget," said Brian Riedl, a federal budget expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation. They also show how "unbelievably outdated" the government is, he said.

"I mean, emailing around the daily press clips instead of printing them out and distributing them? That should not have been necessitated by a presidential order."

For example, they will now print on both sides of a piece of paper.  And the Forest Service won't paint their trucks ugly green anymore.

This is, of course, ridiculous.  One hundred million dollars in a $3 trillion budget is close enought to nothing as to be nothing.  Maybe they should have gotten rid of the nearly $800 billion stimulus.  That would have saved some real money.

And now we're going to add a trillion-dollar health care bill.  That's 10,000 times the amount that was saved. 

This $100 million isn't a drop in a bucket, it's a drop in a swimming pool.

What you Lose under Obamacare

(Hat Tip: Instapundit)

The President keeps saying if you like your current coverage, you can keep it.  But people who have actually read the bills in the House and Senate say that both bills restrict your freedoms.  Fortune lists the "Five Freedoms" you'll lose under Obamacare:

If you prize choosing your own cardiologist or urologist under your company's Preferred Provider Organization plan (PPO), if your employer rewards your non-smoking, healthy lifestyle with reduced premiums, if you love the bargain Health Savings Account (HSA) that insures you just for the essentials, or if you simply take comfort in the freedom to spend your own money for a policy that covers the newest drugs and diagnostic tests -- you may be shocked to learn that you could lose all of those good things under the rules proposed in the two bills that herald a health-care revolution.

In short, the Obama platform would mandate extremely full, expensive, and highly subsidized coverage -- including a lot of benefits people would never pay for with their own money -- but deliver it through a highly restrictive, HMO-style plan that will determine what care and tests you can and can't have.

So what are those freedoms exactly?

1) Freedom to choose what's in your plan.

2) Freedom to be rewarded for healthy living, or pay the real costs.

3) Freedom to choose high-deductible coverage.

4) Freedom to keep your existing plan.

5) Freedom to choose your doctors.

Instead, you'll be shuffled into an HMO-like arrangement with one primary care physician that will make decisions for you as to whether you need to see a specialist and what specialist you'll see.  But there's a catch:

The danger is that doctors will be financially rewarded for denying care, as were HMO physicians more than a decade ago.

So maybe your doctor will be rewarded for keeping you from the specialist you need to save your life.

There's a reason Obama wanted these bills railroaded through Congress as fast as possible: the more we learn about them the worse they look.  And if enough people stand up to their Congressmen and Senators and say they don't want to be in a federal HMO, the less likely they will pass.

Environmental Concerns Stopping Wind Power

You try to have "clean" wind power and what happens?  An endangered species gets in the way.  That's what's happening in Washington State to a proposed wind farm near the coast.  The marbled murrelet (a bird) might be threatened by the wind farm's turbines.  The Seattle Times reports:

[T]he proposed 82-megawatt wind project in Pacific County would be within the flight path of the robin-sized seabird, which was listed as threatened in 1992.

So no green energy, thanks to environmental concerns.  Sometimes I think environmentalists don't want us to have any energy.  That couldn't be it, could it?  Or will they only be happy when you are living by the buzz of a single compact fluorescent bulb? 

Climate Change in Iceland

News report today that the potato crop in Iceland (I didn't even know they grew potatoes in Iceland) is being adversely affected by the unseasonable weather.  Could it be because of climate change? 

Could be.  You see, it's too cold.  As the Iceland Review reports (link original):

South Iceland has been experiencing an unusually cold weather recently, with temperatures even going below zero at night.

Yesterday,mbl.is reported that due to the coldness, the potato plant has been damaged which affects the crops. Bergvin Jóhannsson, Chairman of the Potato Farmers Union calls that the fact that this is happening in July highly unusual.

(I assume that's zero celsius or below freezing.)

Now, what are we supposed to think?  Isn't climate change (nee Global Warming) supposed to, you know, make thing warmer?  Well, since temperatures haven't increased for nearly a decade, just maybe global warming has stopped (despite increases in CO₂) because it is and was a natural process.

Could be.

Wind Power Complicates Power Generation

The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is tasked with providing power to the Northwest U.S. from a series of hydroelectric dams and one nuclear power plant.  From its website:

 BPA serves the Pacific Northwest through operating an extensive electricity transmission system and marketing wholesale electrical power at cost from federal dams, one non-federal nuclear plant and other nonfederal hydroelectric and wind energy generation facilities.

Now that wind generation has been thrown into that mix it has complicated matters significantly.  According to a story in the Seattle Times, wind energy's frivolous generating habits makes the BPA scramble to balance power needs with power generation:

In the space of one hour last month, electricity generated at wind farms in the eastern end of the Columbia River Gorge shot up by 1,000 megawatts - enough to power some 680,000 homes.

Less than an hour later, it plummeted almost as much.

Sitting in front of 10 computer screens in a fifth-floor room of the federal Bonneville Power Administration headquarters in Portland, Kim Randolph had to react quickly.

Working from a keyboard, she diverted millions of gallons of water away from massive turbines spinning in Columbia River dams and sent it around the dams.

The 17-year veteran power operations specialist remembers how fast she needed to work as a wind storm caused generation to peak and fall three times over eight hours.

"You have to get it in hand and get it in hand very quickly," she said.

Getting it in hand is a balancing act. It means balancing the power generated by 31 dams, a nuclear power plant and now wind farms in order to send a stable flow of power into the BPA's 15,238-mile grid across the Pacific Northwest.

Not balancing generation with demand can cause power outages and/or brownouts (we've discussed this before).  And for the BPA it's further complicated by requirements to keep water flowing for fish to migrate past the dams:

In coping with the variations, the BPA has at times adjusted flows through dams at rates that exceeded guidelines established to protect fish.

"It is stressful. You have the threat of fish issues on one hand you are trying to prevent, and at the same time you're trying to meet load," [Randolph] said.

And it'll get worse as more wind energy comes on line.

Once again, we see that there are no perfect solutions.  Wind power may be "clean" and "green" but there are cost involved in its expansion and use.

Buffalo: A Quagmire

Report out yesterday that in 2002 the Bush Administration considered sending troops into Buffalo, New York to arrest terrorist suspects.  As Reuters reports:

The Bush administration debated testing the U.S. Constitution by sending troops into the suburbs of Buffalo, New York to arrest a group of men suspected of plotting with al Qaeda, The New York Times reported on Friday.

Some of President George Bush's advisers, notably Vice President Dick Cheney, contended that a sitting president had the power to use the military on U.S. soil to sweep up the men, known as the Lackawanna Six, and brand them as enemy combatants, the newspaper said.

Cooler heads prevailed and the FBI arrested the men who later pleaded guilty.

But what if Bush had sent troops into Buffalo.  The press would have immediately declared it a quagmire and leftists would insist we pull out and call for the  "Buffaloization" of upstate New York security.  Keith Olbermann would say Bush invaded Buffalo for the chicken wings and the New York Times would publish pictures of what happens in the Buffalo city jail.

Most Climate Change is Natural

Whats this?  Another scientific study showing that most climate change is due to natural processes and not human activities?  Yep.

Investors Business Daily reports in an unsigned editorial:

[The] research, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, indicates that nature, not man, has been the dominant force in climate change in the late 20th century.

"The surge in global temperatures since 1977 can be attributed to a 1976 climate shift in the Pacific Ocean that made warming El Nino conditions more likely than they were over the previous 30 years and cooling La Nina conditions less likely" says co-author de Freitas.

"We have shown that internal global climate-system variability accounts for at least 80% of the observed global climate variation over the past half-century. It may even be more if the period of influence of major volcanoes can be more clearly identified and the corresponding data excluded from the analysis."

So at least 80% of climate change is natural.  You sure it's worth devastating the economy for the other 20%?

Of course this research is being ignored (or denied) by global warming alarmists (i.e. the main stream media, the Democrat party, enviro-wackos).  Does this prove there's no global warming caused by humans?  No, but it puts doubt into the "Settled Science" of climate change.

Wind Turbines Block Traffic

There are always trade-offs.  There are no perfect solutions.  And wind power is one of those things.  It may produce CO₂-free energy (unreliably) but they kill birds, are big and ugly.  And they block traffic, according to a story in the New York Times:

In Idaho and Texas, trucks laden with tall turbine parts have slammed into interstate overpasses, requiring hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs. In Minnesota last year, a truck carrying a tubular tower section got stuck at a railroad crossing; an approaching train stopped just in time. Also in Minnesota, a woman was killed last September when her car, driven by her husband, collided at an intersection with a truck carrying a wind turbine. (After a police investigation, local officials found that the truck driver was not at fault.)

And in Belfast, Maine, they constantly block traffic:

Trucks carrying silvery blades nearly half a football field long have been lumbering through this placid coastal town all summer, backing up traffic as they slowly exit the roadway. Huge, tubular chunks of tower also pass through. Tall pieces of machinery looking somewhat like jet engines travel at night because they require special routing to avoid overpasses.

Transportation is such a huge deal for wind turbines that it can cost $100,000 - $150,000 per turbine just to get it to its final destination.

And the need to transport the turbines on roads by truck limits their size, so larger (and more efficient) turbines aren't possible.

So you can have your clean energy.  Just don't expect it to keep traffic lanes clear.

ObamaCare: Government Take-Over of Your Health Care

(Hat Tip: Washington Policy Blog)

Lest there be any doubt what the Democrats Spendocrats intend with their "reform" of our health care system, you just have to look to the language that they have voted down.  Never mind that they tell us it's to get more people on insurance.  Never mind that it's to save money (it isn't).  What it's about is to control your health care.  It's about putting an unelected bureaucrat in charge of your medical decisions taking out you and your doctor as the primary decision-makers about your health.

How do we know this.  Because this amendment was voted down:

“(k) Construction - Nothing in this section shall be construed to allow any
federal employee or political appointee to dictate how a medical provider
practices medicine.”

There can be only one reason to vote that down: to ensure that "federal employees" and/or "political appointees" CAN dictate to a medical provider on how to practice medicine.

The Spendocrats want the government to make medical decisions for you.  I'm sure those decisions will be as informed and compassionate as IRS rules.

Welcome to the brave new world of ObamaCare.