Mountaintop Rule Changes

Coal is Dead.

Today, the Army Corp of Engineers have announced the suspension of streamlined permits for mountain top removal that have been routinely issued to the coal industry. The proposal would prohibit the use of permit NWP 21 for the purpose of surface coal mining in the states crossed by the Appalacian mountains - Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Coal mining operators would be required to obtain individual permits for each propject under the Clean Water Act, which includes increased public comment on individual projects.

During this period of suspension public comment is invited on the proposed rule changes.
You may address comment by regular mail before August 14, 2009 to:

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Attn: CECW-CO (Attn: Ms.
Desiree Hann), 441 G Street, NW., Washington, DC 20314-1000

or, you may log in to the Federal erulemaking portal at:

http://www.regulations.gov

Be sure to identify the rule change by using docket number:
COE-2009-0032 when addressing comments.

Please note that the Corps of Engineers does not accept faxed
or emailed comments.

The Perpetual Flu Season

The Perpetual Flu Season

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Maryland, my Maryland - Lacrimosa

"Do you not fear Death and all your Sins laid bare?"
- Davy Jones, Pirates II

"Things fall apart and the center cannot hold."
- William Butler Yeats, the Second Coming

LACRIMOSA

Despite the New Age notion that technology is out to kill US, it seems, yet again, that Yankee know-how is providing solutions to the problem of providing clean energy alternatives to help free US from dependency upon fossil fuels. Such a loosening of the deadly coils of burning things - oil, coal, uranium or whatever else that smokes - would permit this country to alter their foreign policy to the point where War is not so easily appealed to as a solution for every problem. Not appealing to War is appealing in and of itself but it would also loosen the grip of lobbyists in Washington who pervert the budget process of the federal government to the extent that we spend more money on blowing things up than all of the rest of the world combined, leaving far too little resources for the social benefit programs like universal health care, quality public education, smart agricultural policy, and the desperate need to rebuild the country's infrastructure before it literally falls into ruin, that are screaming for funding. All of these changes and the strong economic base on which they depend, can only occur when clean, renewable and inexpensive energy sources are developed. The key to our national security and rational foreign policy, the key to a strong, well-balanced economy, and the key to a resilient and just social fabric is a sound energy policy. And frankly, it doesn't much matter what the rest of the World does; if the US doesn't get its act together sooner rather than later, then Mother Earth is going to have one helluva time with planetary menopause. And we've all had mothers go through that, haven't we?

As in any revolution beyond our control, several things are happening at once:

By this time, most of US are familiar with the general outlines and consequences of Global Warming. But what most people don't quite yet understand is that as planetary warming progresses it increases in speed. That's because as the ice that has trapped so many carbon deposits below the surface melts, those trapped gases - in the form of organic peat - release their imprisoned poisons at a faster and faster clip, thus accelerating global temperatures and the resultant havoc caused by more frequent and violent hurricanes, droughts, wildfires, etc., .

Rational people will naturally respond to this quickly emerging catastrophe with calls to develop clean sources of energy and do it fast. The Europeons are doing something. The Germans are even going so far as to install more and more solar paneling systems in a country where it rains everyday. The globe-trotting Saudis and nuclear armed Israelis are cooperating on solar energy plants, just as the Israelis and Turks cooperate in sharing water resources. But what are we doing? What are the Russians doing? What are the Chinese doing?

This is where rationality breaks its head against a brick wall.

Let's start with our 'enemies' and rivals, first, so we can feel better about allocating blame before too much of it lands on US. Well, the Chinese are building coal plants faster than they can have babies. Why are they doing that? Could it be because our invasion of Iraq has cut down a supply of light, sweet crude Oil from the world's markets, thereby forcing the Chinese to look elsewhere to power their economic expansion, that, by the by, we encourage through the selling of so many US Treasury bonds to them to finance our own debt-laden economic expansion? But I can hear some people now: "Good, let the Chinese choke on their own soot; it's no concern of mine." That might be a wise policy were it not for the fact that one of the ancient powers of Mother Earth - Gaea*, to those on speaking terms with her - is called the Wind. And the Wind is blowing that soot through the prevailing trade winds to guess where? US. Maybe, if we hadn't been so intent upon controlling the second largest oil reserves in the World, the Chinese would be burning Oil instead of Coal. But who knows? People may yearn for the days of the London Fogs and Tuberculosis and other forms of lung disease, which gave rise to stories we all love from Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo. Suffering, after all, is a reliable source of great literature.

Fine. The Chinese won't change because they can't change because we won't let them change because we need them to hold our spare change before we spend that change on Changes that might save US.

It's always been the Russians fault, anyway. They're out there selling their cleaner natural gas when it should have been ours to begin with. What the hell was keeping Boris Yeltsin drunk during the 90's and the breakup of Yugoslavia all about, anyways, except to build a natural gas pipeline from the Caspian basin to Europeon markets that we could control? But the Russians are a little more powerful than the Iraqis and a little more savvy than the Chinese. They knew what we were after in the first place and snatched victory from the maw of defeat at precisely the time they needed to. Good chess players do this all the time. And Gazprom, under Putin's control, is a great chess player.

Which leaves US. Do we really need to depress ourselves further by wading through the litany of environmental sins this country has committed? We all know who we are and what we do. Let's just say the skies don't turn brown by themselves, water has never been set on fire before we started pollutting the Hudson with industrial waste, and mercury levels in fish throughout all our major rivers and bays would not occur were it not for the burning of Coal. And by the way, there is no such thing as "Clean Coal." Pick up a charcoal brisket this Sunday if you don't believe me. We have a lot of work to do because as long as we keep burning fuels the way we do there is no doubt, no doubt, that we will literally kill the Earth. It is very obvious that the United States can change the direction of the World's use of energy such that it is sustainable, less polluting, and reduces the potential of conflict and war over diminishing reserves of fossil fuel. There are all sorts of technological innovations available; we have the money to invest; Americans want to develop these alternatives and have proven more than willing to alter their lifestyles and cut back on their use of energy when necessary.

In that connection I am reminded of 'Kenny (dead) Boy' Ley, Jeffrey Skilling, Andrew Fastow and Enron

Well, if you have the Commodity Futures Trading Commission protecting you against those nasty electric consumers, why worry about the consequences, eh? Until, that is, people get wise and the market crashes on you. And then you die of a heart attack waiting to go to jail for your crimes against customers, shareholders and the IRS and then don't you wish you would have spent your profits on improving transmission lines and research and development to insure the long-terms viability of your company? But it's too late and now you're dead and your buddies are in jail for a long time and nothing you did in your life matters, anymore. Perhaps, and ironically, stronger federal regulation might have saved your lives and reputations. But that wasn't how you saw the matter when you lobbied for deregulation of the energy industry, was it? And the only lasting thing remaining from that debacle was the growing knowledge of Californians that the old ways of doing business in Energy are as reliable as trusting Jack Sparrow with our merchant navy.

But guess what? Just when it seems as if all is lost it usually is. Except, of course, for the leftovers.

*Gaea being a derivitave of the Sanskrit, Maya, the mother of the Buddha, and the closely related Greek, Maia, the eldest of the Pleiades sisters, also referred to as 'mother' and, of course, Maria, the latinized version of Miriam, beloved, the mother of Christ; hence 'Mary,' in the English. Therefore, "Maryland, my Maryland": "Motherland, my Mother's Land"

[to be continued in the 2nd Movement: Prestissimo]

Maryland, my Maryland - Prestissimo

"Ideas are like jackrabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen."
- John Steinbeck

"They're conquering the world with arithmetic."
- Frances Flegenheimer, The Cotton Club


Prestissimo

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology a group of researchers has managed to transmit electricity without the need for wires. Many people may be reminded of the work of Nicolay Tesla depicted in the movie, "The Prestige." Tesla is often referred to as the 'inventor of the modern world' for his work in electricity and magnetism long before anyone else even understood half the things he was talking about. MIT has dubbed its work in this field of wireless electricity as "Witricity" and, of course, the military is very interested in its applications for soldiering and contributing to the creation of a "super warrior." On the other hand, it's very unlikely MIT would have gotten very far without the Pentagon's interest. After all, somebody has to fund these gizmos. Be that as it may, the implications of this technology are intriguing:

"WiTricity is based on using coupled resonant objects. Two resonant objects of the same resonant frequency tend to exchange energy efficiently, while interacting weakly with extraneous off-resonant objects. A child on a swing is a good example of this. A swing is a type of mechanical resonance, so only when the child pumps her legs at the natural frequency of the swing is she able to impart substantial energy. Another example involves acoustic resonances: imagine a room with 100 identical wine glasses, each filled with wine up to a different level, so they all have different resonant frequencies. If an opera singer sings a sufficiently loud single note inside the room, a glass of the corresponding frequency might accumulate sufficient energy to even explode, while not influencing the other glasses. In any system of coupled resonators there often exists a so-called "strongly coupled" regime of operation. If one ensures to operate in that regime in a given system, the energy transfer can be very efficient." (from the MIT site above).

Not only is this form of transmission non-polluting it also has the potential to be much more efficient and less likely to strain our aging electrical grid. Our toys get more powerful all the time. As they do, they put greater strains, not just on the grid itself, but also household wiring, causing a rise in power consumption to run the toys and keep the house cool because of the heat these toys generate. But we're a consumer society, after all, and capitalism has always served this country well.

Maybe, another business model would be a little more encouraging. Let's try the areas of business-to-business where there are far more protections for corporations doing business with each other than when you and I get involved at the retail level. One of the most promising fields of alternative energy that is available now is biofuels. Essentially, this is the idea of replacing or augmenting the use of gasoline and diesel fuels with organic fuels made from corn, sugar plants, grasses, and even manure. It's appealing on many levels, not the least of which there is money to be made in the agricultural industry. Recently, the US Congress passed its usual farm subsidy program - some people, like me, refer to them as "corporate welfare queens" - and in it, were subsidies to large agribusiness to grow more corn to be processed into ethanol, one of the popular fuel substitutes for petroleum. Ethanol is less polluting when it is burned than gasoline so this is its environmental appeal. The downside, of course, is when land is devoted to growing fuel it is not growing food and, therefore, food prices go up. Go to any Mexican restaurant these days and ask for some tortillas de maize - you'll pay more than you bargained for. But that's not a concern for large farms; more subsidies mean higher food prices and greater profits which translate to larger campaign donations to legislators willing to continue this self-sustaining hog trough of money-making. So, politics is politics. But the same thing happens in the Oil and Coal industries so it shouldn't surprise US that these corporate habits can spread.

Until something does surprise US. It turns out that the proposition that just because something can be done doesn't mean it should be done is quite true. As we've established, we are a consumer society. And one of the by-products of being a consumer society is, quite literally, by-products. In this case grease. Grease burns. And if you cook like I do it always does. There are a certain number of weirdos who have decided to run their autos on grease: Willie Nelson, Neil Young, and those crazy Wyoming mountaineers at NOLS. Now, I don't know how technologically advanced the students at NOLS are but I doubt if they can compare to those at MIT. And anybody who thinks Willie Nelson and Neil Young have the scientific and engineering skills of a Tesla smokes more weed than they do. So, who does know how to make these changes to an engine?

One firm, Agrifuels, does know how. Typical of many innovative companies that are dealing with the new issues and business opportunities of alternative energy production and distribution, Agrifuels is flexible, creative, and willing to take risks. Just the sort of entrepreneur that many politicians love to extol while handing out giant subsidies to overblown behemoths who wouldn't change their business practices to real capitalism if Jesus Christ, himself, had told them to. According to their website, the way to use biodiesel is just to........use it. What do you know? All you have to do is gather up whatever grease you want to use - or fill up at Willie's stations - and you use it in any diesel engine just like petroleum diesel. So, I guess the auto industry, particularly in Europe (those Germans, again!), have made whatever changes necessary to run their vehicles on biofuels. Which means, of course, that there isn't any need for federal subsidies to agribusiness to raise crops specifically to make fuel since the fuel is grease - waste really - of cooked food, guaranteed to be consumed by a consumer society. Can you imagine the roads full of vegetable burning autos and trucks? Not only are they far less polluting, less expensive, and less dependent upon distribution chains from the Middle East, everyone's cars would smell like a Sunday barbecue.

But cars aren't the only things that could run on grease. If a car can burn it so can a power plant. Specifically, power plants could burn the methane gas produced by agricultural and landfill waste. And if that electricty generated can be transmitted by Witricity rather than powerlines or, at least, in addition to powerlines? Now, we're talking the Future.

[to be concluded in the 3rd Movement: Allegro]

Maryland, my Maryland - Allegro

"As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."
- (Abraham Lincoln)

"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."
- (Archimedes)


ALLEGRO

Politics and Ethos. Probably the most political animals in Washington work at the Pentagon. Nobody else in the government has had such success in getting the things they want like the military has. After all, the argument goes, to shortchange the military is to put our national security at risk, and the cost of failure is unacceptable. Unfortunately, it is now beginning to dawn on certain factions in the Pentagon that the cost of success is also unacceptable. Recently, the Pentagon issued two reports:

1. The first, Climate Change and National Security, published in June of 2004, warns of the dire consequences of increased regional conflicts over diminishing resources, particularly water, and displaced populations due to rapid climate change. In the report, the Pentagon actually recommends the building of a 40ft high wall around the entire land boundaries of the United States to deter mass migrations.

2. In the second report, " Transforming the Way the DoD Looks at Energy," the Pentagon has discovered that they are the single largest organization contributing to global warming through their heavy reliance upon oil to power trucks, tanks, planes, ships, missiles, etc., and to implement the Bush Administration's policy of security readiness by ensuring access to Oil (hence, the invasion of Iraq). Fully 80% of the cargo the military moves around the planet is fuel. And it takes fuel to move that fuel around, doesn't it? The report concludes, that in order to fulfill the Bush Doctrine, the Pentagon will have to continually fight wars in order to protect the Oil reserves necessary to power the machinery to fight those same wars. This, as they say, is circular logic. Fortunately, there are a growing number of people in the Pentagon and Congress who recognize this global absurdity for what it is: Accelerated Mass Suicide. The Pentagon has begun to propose changes in armaments to reflect the growing scarcity of Oil and make them more energy efficient. For that, of course, requires that technological innovation be speeded up. Hence, the Pentagon's interest in Witricity, as one example. And their interest in biofuels as an alternative to petroleum for flying their planes around the world might give a boost to the dictum, "waste not."

The good news surrounding these absurdities is that the Pentagon, that bastion of hard-headed realism and heroism, is running scared on the notion that the true enemy to America's National Security may be America's National Security. Consequently, the best way to protect America, they may conclude, is to quit trying so hard to protect it and get back to the more practical business of maintaining the Peace by foregoing more War.

"You must unlearn what you have learned."
- Yoda

The shift in the Pentagon's collective consciousness has provided nice political cover to Congress to finally do something about Global Warming. Recently, they did just that. New energy bills have passed both House and Senate and are in conference now. Any reasonalbe compromise will likely be signed by Mr. Bush. Although, it doesn't go far enough in developing clean and safe alternative energy sources and is too heavy in reliance upon nuclear power, it lays down the foundation for pivoting this nation away from burning fossil fuels.

I suggest, people, it is now time to pile on. When urging your representatives to do something about global warming remind them of these Pentagon reports and the implications for National Security. It's patriotic and it will give them convenient political cover. This works especially well with Republicans.

But politicians are only half the audience. What about their sponsors, their benefactors, their masters of the universe - corporate capitalism? There are three options for US:

1. Write to corporations that have interests in the energy and defense industries: Exxon-Mobile, Chevron, BP and Defense Contractors like GE, Boeing, Honeywell, etc., as consumers and demand a change in their business practices before we ALL go out of business. Urge them to consider the creation and issuance of Climate Stability Bonds as a way to increase their investment in sequestering carbon emmissions from their business and production practices.

2. If you are a shareholder in any sort of company that deals in energy ,infrastructure, and defense make sure you read the Prospectus you get every year and write personal letters to the Board members demanding action and accountability for the corporate mission they are supposed to oversee. And it doesn't hurt to mention how many shares you own, if you own a lot, or what mutual fund you invest in that holds securities in their companies.

3. Finally, there are several investment funds that invest in socially responsible companies If you're fortunate enough to be able to invest in the markets take a look around to see which companies are trying to do something positive about energy and the environment.

And one more thing: War is not the extension of Politics by other means; Politics is the extension of War by any means.