Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Question?

What environmental impact would there be if we had a hydrogen spill?

OK - its a trick question - It would be really expensive to clean up all that thick gooey hydrogen residue - right!

Hydrogen fuel, may be five years away: Dr. Swamy

Dr. Subramanian Swamy
Kuwait, 19 May (Asiantribune.com):
Prosperity in the Gulf and dependence on Gulf will no longer be tied to oil for long. Forecasts of developing hydrogen fuel are growing optimistic... five years away from being materialized. Dr Subramaniam Swamy, a visiting Harvard University professor made his remarks during a forum held at the American University of Kuwait (AUK) recently.
Addressing officers and members of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India-Kuwait Chapter (ICAI), Swamy pointed out that hydrogen fuel designed for transportation services have been discovered and can be used in five years' time.
The day is not far off when automobiles will no longer run on petrol; they will be run using hydrogen system. If it happens, it will be a great blow to most of West Asian countries and most of the oil producing countries like Venezuela," he said. With this issue, Dr Swamy said that India could offer intellectual services to west Asian neighbors, like sharing expertise in hardware and software technology.
A former Indian MP and a Union Cabinet Minister, Dr Swamy recognized the fact that at this point in time, West Asia is as important in terms of energy and that relationship should be maintained and strengthened. "There are tough issues and decisions to be made, like for example, how to deal with the issue of (nuclear) Iran.

He said, "The people of Iran are great; they are very open to friendship with others. Their people have enormous regard to Indians. Iran signed a Non-Proliferation Treaty but doesn't want to abide by it. India did not sign the treaty, we suffered for it, but we stood on our own feet," he said.
Dr Swamy reminisced India's great influence in Asia and also discussed ways and means to win back the position especially as it is strongly emerging as an economic power. Though their influence has minimized, Dr Swamy said that India's influence in South East Asia is evident. He provided an example of Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population, where India's influence can be witnessed in its currency.
"A Ganesha picture is embossed in the Indonesian Rupiah. I remember in 1997, when Indonesia experienced continuous decline of rupiah (value), somebody told the Finance minister there that if they place Ganesha's picture on the currency note, and the slide (in currency value) would stop. They did as proposed and the slide stopped," he said. In Thailand, according to Dr Swamy, one of the names of the king is Rama.
Their writings follow the Sanskrit technique, famously used in India.
Swamy also mentioned the famous speech by a Peking University professor at Harvard University on its 300 years of founding anniversary. "They invited speakers (it was in 1936) from all over the world. One of the speakers was a professor at Peking University where he spoke about a topic dear to China. The title of his speech was 'Indianization of China.' The speech described the influence of religion and how the Chinese had accepted many concepts from India," he said quoting the professor’s speech. Read more.

Monday, May 17, 2010

US Climate Bill on Life Support for 2010

You can beat it with a stick but it just won't die!
Prospects for passing a climate bill in 2010 have gone from slim to almost none, after the legislation's co-sponsor Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) withdrew his support on April 24. The remaining co-sponsors, Senators Kerry (D-MA) and Lieberman (I-CT), were forced to cancel an April 26th unveiling ceremony. Senator Graham is protesting a recent decision by Democrats to address immigration reform before the climate and energy which would effectively kill the climate bill's prospects for 2010. Democrats have quietly backed away from that position, but Senator Graham is still not supporting the climate bill. Polling data indicates that Democrats will perform better in the midterm elections if they address immigration.

The climate bill will not pass without the support of Senator Graham. There are 20 undecided Senators from Central and Mid-Atlantic States who opposed the climate legislation passed by the House of Representatives, and 17 of them are needed to pass a Senate version. These Senators represent states with an abundance of coal and natural gas, but limited wind and solar resources. Senator Graham was able to craft a Senate bill with incentives for offshore drilling and nuclear energy, which puts many of the undecided votes in play. We believe the climate bill is dead without an advocate from Senator Graham’s geographic region and political party.
Even if Senator Graham comes back to the table, the bill is still likely to fail because the time left in 2010 is inadequate. In the three months before the August recess, the highest priorities are Jobs legislation, Wall Street reform, the FY2011 budget and a Supreme Court Justice confirmation. Though the odds of passing a climate bill have been slim all year, the Senate was still poised to take a shot because the prospects are likely to be even weaker after the midterm elections. Even if immigration reform is put back on the shelf, it will still be very difficult to get a climate bill to President Obama’s desk by this August. It will require fast action on Wall Street reform, an uncontroversial Supreme Court justice nominee, and House members willing to abandon many provisions in their version of the climate bill.
If the Senate bill were to become law, it would be a positive for cleantech, but less so than the Waxman-Markey bill passed by the House. Waxman-Markey includes an economy-wide cap and trade system, a federal Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), and various provisions to advance smart grid and transmission infrastructure. The Senate’s version of cap and trade only applies to utilities beginning in 2012, with the manufacturing sector integrated by 2016. The federal RPS and other clean energy incentives exist in a Senate Energy committee bill and it is still up for discussion whether to add them to the climate bill.
Failure to pass a climate bill in 2010 will have consequences for various government entities. In the U.S., the Administration will increase efforts to unilaterally regulate greenhouse gas emissions, give renewable energy project developers access to public lands, and spend the stimulus bill funding which remains largely untapped. Congress will have to access its options after the midterm elections; an “energy only” bill is one possibility, but it is not favored by the Administration. State governments may look to increase or create new RPSs, but the challenge there will be enforcing the targets with electricity price increases. On the international scene, a failure to pass a U.S. climate bill may also lead to a failure in Mexico this December when the UN attempts to negotiate a binding global climate change agreement, just as it did in Copenhagen last December.
Robert Lahey is the Senior Legislative Analyst at Ardour Capital Investments, LLC, and can be reached at rlahey@ardourcapital.com. Founded in 2002, Ardour Capital is the leading research and investment-banking firm exclusively focused on energy technology, alternative energy and power, and clean & renewable technologies. Ardour Capital publishes in-depth company coverage and industry specific research. Ardour Capital offers private and public companies a full range of corporate finance, investment banking and capital market services. Ardour Global Indexes is a family of pure play alternative energy indexes that is the primary measure of cleantech equity performance. Read more.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

GM sues over totaled hydrogen fuel pump

Robert Snell / The Detroit News

A not-so-funny thing happened to General Motors Co. two years ago when it tried transporting a pricey hydrogen fuel pump from Pennsylvania to California.
The semi crashed, destroying the $850,000 fuel station, which is essential to support hydrogen vehicles that produce no greenhouse gas emissions and require no petroleum.
Now, GM is suing the company hired to haul the pump, Romulus-based hauler CHAT of Michigan Inc., in U.S. District Court and wants $850,000 plus damages, costs and fees.
The crash happened when automakers, including GM, are trying to put more fuel cell vehicles on the road -- an endeavor hamstrung by high costs and a lack of refueling stations nationwide. There are only 68 fueling stations in the country, mostly in California, according to the National Hydrogen Association.
GM sued last week because the company has refused to accept responsibility for the crash and pay for the destroyed fuel pump, according to the lawsuit.
"GM has been trying for two years to recover the cost of the hydrogen refueler that was destroyed in this crash," GM spokesman Alan Adler said. "The incident delayed the rollout of Project Driveway -- the largest demonstration of fuel cell vehicles in the world -- by three to four months."  Read more.

Hockey Sticks and “Climategate”: a Death of Scientific Integrity

by Dr. Martin Hertzberg
Dr. Martin Hertzberg of Copper Mountain, a retired research scientist and consultant in the causes and prevention of accidental fires and explosions, will present the above titled talk at this month’s meeting of the Café Scientifique. ...Global warmings result in an increase in atmospheric CO2 as warmed oceans emit their dissolved CO2. Global coolings result in a decrease in atmospheric CO2 as cooling oceans absorb atmospheric CO2. Temperature variations precede those CO2 variations by several hundred to a thousand years, thus indicating that it is the temperature variations that cause atmospheric CO2 changes and not the reverse. The human contribution to the cycle is trivial and furthermore the so-called “greenhouse effect”, touted as the mechanism by which atmospheric CO2 controls weather, has long been known to be devoid of physical reality. Accordingly, proposed measures of “carbon control” will have no effect on the weather but instead will seriously damage the Nation’s economy and the reliability of its electric generating capacity: a system that is currently working quite satisfactorily and is entirely independent of foreign sources of energy. Clearly, that system for supplying the Nation with its essential need for reliable electricity “ain’t broke”…and “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” Read more.

MORE CLIMATEGATE!? US Govt. agencies involved in Data Manipulation FRAUD!


reporting by John Coleman, KUSI News San Diego Meteorologist and founder of the Weather Channel BREAKING NEWS! CLIMATEGATE COMES TO THE UNITED STATES! MEET THE TWO MEN WHO HAVE DUG THROUGH SEVERAL LAYERS OF COMPUTER CODES TO UNCOVER MANIPULATION OF THE WORLD TEMPERATURE DATA TO SUPPORT THE CLAIMS OF GLOBAL WARMING. THIS IS A MAJOR CLIMATE SCANDAL INVOLVING UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT AGENCIES. A computer programmer named E. Michael Smith and a Certified Consulting Meteorologist named Joseph D’Aleo join the program to tell us about their breakthrough investigation into the manipulations of data at the NASA Goddard Science and Space Institute at Columbia University in New York and the NOAA National Climate Data Center in Ashville, North Carolina. From John Coleman’s KUSI presentation called Global Warming The Other Side this is a portion of segment #4 here are links to them all Segment 1: CO2 does not cause significant warming of the earth www.kusi.com Segment 2: How AL GOre and the UN became involved in Global Warming www.kusi.com Segment 3: Debunking dire predictions www.kusi.com Segment 4: Breaking news Climategate comes to the USA www.kusi.com Segment 5: John Coleman’s Summation www.kusi.com If you’re new to the whole climate fraud scene I highly recommend you watch them. Read more.

Melting sea ice would cause sea levels to rise by 'hair's breadth'

Melting icebergs are causing sea levels to rise, scientists have discovered, but only by a hair's breadth every year.
By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent - The Telegraph
Researchers at the University of Leeds calculate that around 1.5 million Titanic-sized icebergs each year are melting into the sea every year in the Arctic and Antarctic. This is causing sea level to rise by just 49 micrometers per year - around a hair's breadth.
At that rate it would take 200 years for the oceans to rise by 1cm as a result of melting sea ice. If all the floating ice in the world melted it would cause sea levels to rise by just 4cm. In comparison if all the ice on land melted it would cause a rise of 70m. Sea levels will also rise as the oceans get warmer because of thermal expansion. Read more.

Climategate Update

by sakerfa
(Investors) – IPCC’s River Of Lies
Global Warming: Another shoe has dropped from the IPCC centipede as scientists in Bangladesh say their country will not disappear below the waves. As usual, the U.N.’s climate charlatans forgot one tiny detail.
It keeps getting worse for the much-discredited Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which seems to have built its collapsing house of climate cards on sand or, more specifically, river sediment. Read More Here
(Bloomberg) – Deutsche Bank, RWE Raided in German Probe of CO2 Tax (Update2)
German prosecutors searched Deutsche Bank AG and RWE AG in a raid on 230 offices and homes nationwide to investigate 180 million euros ($238 million) of tax evasion linked to emissions trading. Read More Here
(Climate-Skeptic) – This is Science?
This looks like something a bunch of grad students might have dreamed up in a 10-minute brainstorming session over a few beers. Read More Here
(C3Headlines) – EU Research Finds No Increase In Severe Storms – Contradicts AGW Model Predictions
Global warming alarmists and the climate models have long predicted that the frequency of severe storms would increase. Data worldwide indicates otherwise and a new study by an EU researcher confirms this. Read More Here
(ClimateBasics) – The Science of Global Warming in Perspective
History of AGW Fraud. For most of the twentieth century, scientists were unconcerned about global warming, because carbon dioxide saturates (saturation explained ) and cannot do more heating. Whatever CO2 did in the past, adding more CO2 cannot change anything. But then global warming was dug up by environmentalists, and rationalizers took another look at the science and said, maybe saturation does not occur at the top of the atmosphere. As time went on, every element of the science was contrived to promote global warming alarmism. History of AGW Fraud, by Marc Sheppard.  Read more

ClimateGate Who’s Who

Climategate fallout: poll finds voters increasingly doubtful on AGW

From MND
Voters continue to show less worry about global warming.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 54% of voters still believe global warming is a serious problem, but that’s down eight points from a year ago. The new numbers includes 29% who consider it very serious, a number, too, that has been inching down in recent months.
But 43% now say global warming is not serious, including 21% who say it is not at all serious. The number who say global warming is not serious at all is at its highest level measured in regular tracking in over a year. The overall number of voters who question the seriousness of global warming crossed into the 40s for the first time in January.
Forty-eight percent (48%) of voters say global warming is caused by long-term planetary trends, while only 33% blame human activity. These results are identical to those found last month.
Belief that human activity is the primary cause of global warming has declined significantly. In April 2008, the numbers were nearly the mirror image of the current findings. At that time, 47% blamed human activity, while only 34% named long-term planetary trends as the reason for climate change.
Many voters also continue to believe their president has different views on the topic than they do. Most (55%) say President Obama believes global warming is caused by human activity, while only 15% think the president blames long-term planetary trends.
(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it’s in the news, it’s in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.
The decline in voter concern comes despite the failed UN effort in December to produce an international treaty aimed at limiting the human activity that Obama and others consider the primary cause of global warming. At that time, most Americans (52%) said there continues to be significant disagreement within the scientific community over global warming.
Fifty-nine percent (59%) also said it’s at least somewhat likely that some scientists have falsified research data to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming. Read more.

Going after the Mann

From Don Surber
Virginia’s Republican attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, made his move toward a Climategate lawsuit by demanding that the University of Virginia turn over documents related to when Michael “Hide the Decline” Mann worked for that state institution.

From Courteney Stuart: “If Cuccinelli succeeds in finding a smoking gun like the purloined emails that led to the international scandal dubbed Climategate, Cuccinelli could seek the return of all the research money, legal fees, and trebled damages.”
Yikes.
Cuccinelli is just in the first stages of whatever legal action — if any — he takes.
From Courtenay Stuart: “Among the documents Cuccinelli demands are any and all emailed or written correspondence between or relating to Mann and more than 40 climate scientists, documents supporting any of five applications for the $484,875 in grants, and evidence of any documents that no longer exist along with proof of why, when, and how they were destroyed or disappeared.
“The Attorney General has the right to make such demands for documents under the Fraud Against Taxpayers Act, a 2002 law designed to keep government workers honest.”
If he does file a lawsuit, this would be the first case brought against Chicken Little Inc. following the disclosure that the predictions of doom forecast by the Nobel-winning IPCC were a pack of lies. Cuccinelli, 41, took office in January and has, as Courtenay Stuart pointed out, “directed public universities to remove sexual orientation from their anti-discrimination policies, attacked the Environmental Protection Agency, and filed a lawsuit challenging federal health care reform.”
His health care lawsuit differs from the one 14 states signed up for.
If he succeeds on these counts, Cuccinelli may be the most important attorney general since William Wirt.
By the way, Democrats asked him how much his legal challenge of Obamacare would cost Virginia. Cuccinelli replied in a press release: $350 — and then added “If the suit is successful, the savings to the Commonwealth of Virginia alone is estimated by the governor’s office to be about $1.1 billion from 2015-2022. This is because if the health care reform act remains law, Virginia would realize an additional $1.1 billion in costs for the new Medicaid requirements called for in the act. This savings figure does not take in to account the tax and fee savings to individuals and businesses if the federal law is struck down as unconstitutional.”
He gets it.
Meanwhile, from Fox News: Michael Mann, “The Penn State climate professor who has silently endured investigations, hostile questioning, legislative probes and attacks by colleagues has finally spoken out. He says he’ll sue the makers of a satirical video that’s a hit on You Tube.”
That settles it. Of course I must post the video — with an earworm warning: Read more.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

My Declaration in the Wall Street Journal Today

I submit that we need our philosophers more than ever in these times of uncertainty. Individuals require beacons of conviction that will put their actions into a moral context. The realm of principle is the greatest advantage that libertarians have over the emotional and pragmatic left. Acting in a practical manner is the default position for people that wish to survive and prosper in a free society, but by its nature it can lead to ambiguity and experimentation – in short pragmatism. We require principles that can be defended by the Western concept of reason in order to know why we must fight those who would impose the concept of the “common good” upon us. Read more.

Climate-Gate. Michael Coren with Lord Christopher Monckton