tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42433682740565360372024-02-08T09:03:51.842-05:00Cleveland Crunchy Cons<i>Helping to put the "Conservation" back in Conservative.</i>Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-56521217880705953142009-11-02T08:11:00.002-05:002009-11-02T08:14:38.997-05:00No on Issue 2Here's a <a href="http://blog.ruhlman.com/ruhlmancom/2009/11/ohio-vote-no-on-issue-2.html">repost from Michael Ruhlman's blog.</a> Please check his blog out at <a href="http://blog.ruhlman.com">http://blog.ruhlman.com</a><br /><br />November 1, 2009<br /><br />Issue 2 would create an amendment to the state constitution, instituting a board with the legal authority to set and enforce the care of livestock throughout the state. Vote no. It's apparently a move to preempt national animal-rights groups from demanding changes in farm facilities that would cost big ag money and put smaller farmers out of business. A constitutional amendment is not the way to do this, especially given the vague wording on who would be on this board and how they would get there. My thoughts are these:<br /><br />This is a really tricky issue with dangers on both sides. I'm truly skeptical of everything big agricultural interests do. If Issue 2 passes, this new board could basically say that the hundreds of CAFO's in Ohio are just dandy, carry on. They could also tell small farmers that it is illegal to pasture raise your animals due to safety concerns. Also, the ads urging voters to vote yes are downright creepy in their opacity. Without saying at all what the issue is about, they present bucolic images of small farm families with the message that a yes vote is a vote for safe wholesome food. As if anyone would vote for unsafe, nasty food. The deceptive, arguably dishonest, nature of the ad is, in itself, enough for me to distrust the interests pushing this issue.<br /><br />On the other hand if the board were truly representative of all the voices out there, both big and little ag, as well as farmers concerned about good animal husbandry and animal care experts, it could be a good thing. I spoke yesterday with a fierce small-farm advocate who's referred to at the capitol by big ag as "the raw milk lady" who is for Issue 2. Acknowledging that the issue presented two difficult extremes, she seems to want to fight for what's right within the system, and she's also concerned that outside interests such as animal-rights groups may make good food too expensive for low-income families, which is and should be a primary goal—making good, humanely raised food available to everyone.<br /><br />Such food must be founded on a good economic model if it is to succeed. While I don't want animal rights groups forcing any Ohio farmers out of business (business that will simply go elsewhere and do the same thing), I don't believe a constitutional amendment setting up some vaguely-worded board to create legal standards for animal husbandry in Ohio is a step forward; and it may well be a bad step backward. Read the Tom Suddes opinion piece below for a more black-and-white, Big-Ag-is-evil take on the subject. And keep paying attention to where your food comes from.<br /><br /> <a href="http://blog.ruhlman.com/files/issue-2.pdf">Download Issue 2 itself.</a><br /><br /> <a href="http://blog.ruhlman.com/files/issue2factsheet.pdf">Download Issue2factsheet</a> on the legal issues.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/11/ohio_issue_2_would_provide_meg.html">Here is a link to Thomas Suddes strongly worded opinion in The Plain Dealer.</a>Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-4171029964187595232009-05-21T21:54:00.001-05:002009-05-21T21:55:32.793-05:00Going green to heat greenhouses more cheaplyFrom article in Cleveland Plain Dealer, Thurs. May 21, 2009<br /><br /><a href="http://www.cleveland.com/business/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/business-12/1242894856124650.xml&coll=2">Eagle Creek Wholesale near Mantua is going green to heat greenhouses more cheaply<br /></a>Thursday, May 21, 2009<br />John Funk<br />Plain Dealer Reporter<br /><br />Mantua- Volatile energy prices over the last five years have persuaded many businesses to turn to green technologies in self defense.<br /><br />Wind turbines, solar panels and energy-efficient technologies are the new hedge for businesses trying to level their energy bills - by lessening their dependence on the utilities.<br /><br />But green is not always clean.<br /><br />John Bonner, general manager of Eagle Creek Wholesale LLC, a greenhouse operation in rural Portage County near Mantua, can tell you all about the dirty side of green. And he's proud of it.<br /><br />Bonner heats 3.5 acres of greenhouse space with manure, sawdust and wood chips.<br /><br />He plans to add 2 acres under glass that will be heated the same way.<br /><br />He also has begun lighting the operation with electricity generated by wind. Eagle Creek recently installed a sleek, 160-foot-tall, 50-kilowatt wind turbine manufactured by a Colorado company. A second one is on the way. The two, along with a new high-efficiency lighting system, are expected to cut the company's utility power needs by up to 80 percent per year, slashing monthly bills.<br /><br />The goal is to become 100 percent energy self-sufficient, Bonner said. And he may be able to do it because of the structure of his company.<br /><br />Bonner, who holds a degree in economics and finance from Capital University, operates one leg of a multicompany family business that sits on a 1,400-acre farm and includes a small trucking company, a sawdust and mulch service and a retail garden center in Bainbridge township. The farm part of the business raises up to 1,000 head of cattle a year and plants three-quarters of the acreage and 700 more acres elsewhere in corn, soybeans and winter wheat.<br /><br />The operations support one another. The cattle stalls produce fuel. The trucking division delivers sawdust from regional sawmills to the many nearby horse stables, bringing back more fuel. Trucks also deliver hundreds of thousands of flower and vegetable starts to retailers throughout the region.<br /><br />All of this is done with a focus on energy efficiency and being green.<br /><br />But Bonner is no ideologue. "I like the idea of being a steward and taking care of the planet," he said. "That's good. But the bottom line is the bottom line.<br /><br />"I can't make ideological decisions just because I want to. When ideology and good business decisions come together, then everybody benefits."<br /><br />The small commercial wind turbines the company is buying are the symbols of green technology - sleek white machines that many Americans still see as futuristic.<br /><br />Manure and waste wood burners are something else. Hulking steel and iron giants, they appear to be straight out of the 19th century, when coal was king. And they can burn coal. But they are actually recyclers, making energy out of waste. Bonner has an EPA permit to burn wood waste, corn and even tires.<br /><br />In more snooty terms, Bonner is burning "biomass," wood and animal waste that was, well, going to waste.<br /><br />That was before Eagle Creek's gas bills looked like they would total $200,000 in the winter of 2005-06, after hurricanes Rita and Katrina shut down gas rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.<br /><br />Bonner flew to Germany to check out renewable technologies and diesel fuel substitutes for the trucking company. He tried the biodiesel, but the costs were too high. The wind and biomass were financially feasible, and Bonner bought an American-made boiler and turbines.<br /><br />Eagle Creek's 5 million-BTU boiler is fired by a mixture of sawdust, wood chips, "cow pies" and "road apples," the latter material coming from cattle and horse stalls. These solid fuels are allowed to dry a bit in enormous open-ended Quonset huts that look a little like giant, half-buried pipes.<br /><br />BTU levels are a function of how much moisture is in the fuel, Bonner said. Wood has nearly twice the BTU value as manure, even dried manure, he said, and the boiler burns more wood than waste on the coldest winter days.<br /><br />The 30,000-gallon computerized boiler was "idling" on a recent sunny but chilly day, keeping more than 60,000 gallons of water at 200 degrees and pressurized to about 25 pounds per square inch. Another cold night was ahead.<br /><br />Smoke from the short stack was whitish - and odorless. That was not the case inside the large boiler building, where the air carried distinct barn smells and a certain aroma hard to describe - not horrible, but not exactly good.<br /><br />The combustion chamber read 660 degrees, tech employee Gary Janson said, as the automated system slowly fed it minuscule amounts of material.<br /><br />The only sound was the whoosh of fans and compressors ensuring complete combustion, punctuated occasionally by the mechanical banging and buzzing of a conveyor belt bringing up more fuel.<br /><br />The fuel was stored in an adjoining room consisting of one very large pile of manure mixture and one equally large pile of mulch-like wood waste. Both were neatly piled, chest-high, in side-by-side, rectangular-shaped concrete stalls.<br /><br />The stall floors were equipped with metal paddles that slowly moved the materials onto a conveyor system that sifted, sorted and mixed the bits and pieces before sending it into the fire box.<br /><br />The super-heated water is piped into the nearby greenhouses. That's when things get really high-tech and ultra-efficient.<br /><br />The greenhouses are automated: Everything - from the light levels, to the humidity, to the air and floor temperatures, to the watering and fertilizing - is computer-controlled. Even the water is collected, measured and recycled.<br /><br />Competitors who don't embrace technology like this probably won't be around in 30 years, Bonner said, defending the huge capital expense of the operation and green energy investments.<br /><br />The wind turbines cost $250,000 apiece - though $175,000 in federal and state grant money means the system may pay for itself in five or six years. Even more than the biomass boiler, the turbines are computerized robots, generating the maximum amount of power possible under varying wind speeds.<br /><br />The massive boiler cost even more than the two turbines - Bonner didn't disclose the exact amount - and current low natural gas prices make the payback time hard to calculate. But the cost of the biomass is free, or nearly so, he said.<br /><br />"When the price of natural gas is down, like now, we don't necessarily have a competitive advantage," he said. "But when gas goes up, people have to raise their prices and we don't - and hopefully we'll gain market share. We are making long-term strategic decisions."<br /><br />To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:<br /><br />jfunk@plaind.com, 216-999-4138Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-42142661218969710952009-03-11T16:16:00.001-05:002009-03-11T16:19:02.571-05:00We Surround Themfrom glennbeck.com<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.glennbeck.com/images/news/2009/02/021009unite1.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 312px;" src="http://www.glennbeck.com/images/news/2009/02/021009unite1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />We Surround Them-The Unveiling March 13th on FOX News 5pm ET<br /><br /><br />Do you watch the direction that America is being taken in and feel powerless to stop it?<br /><br />Do you believe that your voice isn’t loud enough to be heard above the noise anymore?<br /><br />Do you read the headlines everyday and feel an empty pit in your stomach…as if you’re completely alone?<br /><br />If so, then you’ve fallen for the Wizard of Oz lie. While the voices you hear in the distance may sound intimidating, as if they surround us from all sides—the reality is very different. Once you pull the curtain away you realize that there are only a few people pressing the buttons, and their voices are weak. The truth is that they don’t surround us at all.<br /><br />We surround them.<br /><br />So, how do we show America what’s really behind the curtain? Below are nine simple principles. If you believe in at least seven of them, then we have something in common. I urge you to read the instructions at the end for how to help make your voice heard.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Nine Principles</span><br /><br />1. America is good.<br /><br />2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.<br /><br />3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.<br /><br />4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.<br /><br />5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.<br /><br />6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.<br /><br />7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.<br /><br />8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.<br /><br />9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.<br /><br /><br />12 Values<br /><br /> * Honesty<br /> * Reverence<br /> * Hope<br /> * Thrift<br /> * Humility<br /> * Charity<br /> * Sincerity<br /> * Moderation<br /> * Hard Work<br /> * Courage<br /> * Personal Responsibility<br /> * Gratitude<br /><br />You Are Not Alone<br /><br />If you agree with at least seven of those principles, then you are not alone. Please send a digital version of your picture to: wesurroundthem@foxnews.com and then stay tuned to the radio and television shows over the coming weeks to see how we intend to pull back the curtain.Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-26821320573519433732009-03-11T16:06:00.000-05:002009-03-11T16:08:47.326-05:00Time to Fast-track New Nuclear Reactors<span style="font-style:italic;">Reprinted from Heritage.org</span><br /><br />Time to Fast-track New Nuclear Reactors<br />by Jack Spencer<br />WebMemo #2062<br /><br />Nuclear technology can help to meet America's growing demand for reliable, clean, affordable electricity. This has led many politicians, including presidential candidate John McCain, to conclude that the nation needs to start building new nuclear plants now.<br /><br />The electric power industry has already begun plans to start building new reactors. While approximately 20 applications have been filed or are in preparation to build over 30 new reactors, no permits have been issued and no new plants have begun construction. A primary reason is that the regulatory process remains arduous and unknown. To overcome this, Congress should authorize a fast-track permitting process for a limited number of reactor projects.<br /><br />A Slow, Arduous Process<br /><br />The Department of Energy instituted the Nuclear Power 2010 program in 2002 as an effort to address the regulatory and institutional barriers to new reactors' near-term deployment. As its name implies, the original time frame called for new reactor deployment by 2010. Unfortunately, the program has not succeeded in this regard. Most believe that the earliest that a new plant will come on line is the latter half of the next decade.<br /><br />The problem is not technical or economic—new reactors are being built around the globe, and plans for more are being announced every month. The problem is political. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), after so many years with no applications for new reactors, does not have a proven process for efficiently licensing new reactors. The NRC estimates that it needs a minimum of 42 months to issue the design, site, and construction/operation licenses required for reactor construction to begin. This includes—in addition to the safety assessments that are NRC's primary responsibility—about two years for environmental reviews, a year for design reviews, and a year for public hearings. And even this time frame is contingent on complete applications and minimal opposition from outside interests. This has led for calls to streamline the process.<br /><br />Streamlining is necessary because the process cannot just be sped up. Specific procedures are in place that the NRC must follow, and that process takes time. Simply adding manpower, as some have suggested, would only provide marginal benefit. Because training regulators can take two years, it would be years before the NRC could hire and train enough people to shorten time schedules.<br /><br />To speed up the current permitting process, Congress should authorize a fast-track program that is open to new reactor applicants that meet certain conditions. The goal would be to cut by at least 50 percent the amount of time it takes to permit a new plant. This must be done without sacrificing safety standards or security.<br /><br />The lessons learned from the fast-track program could be applied to necessary regulatory overhauls in the future.<br /><br />The program's objective would be to reduce the permitting schedule from four years down to two or less and should be available for up to two construction permits per reactor design.<br /><br />The fast-track program would consist of:<br /><br /> 1. Focusing NRC Resources. Per congressional direction, the NRC should focus its resources on permitting designated fast-track applications as quickly as possible without sacrificing safety or quality assurance.<br /><br /> 2. Mobilizing National Laboratory Capabilities. Although the NRC already uses the national labs to support their activities, the national labs should be compelled by Congress to organize themselves to support the fast-track applications.<br /><br /> 3. Focus University Funding Around Supporting the Effort. The Department of Energy funds programs that support nuclear education in the university system. These programs should be focused on supporting the NRC's fast-track program. This would not only provide additional resources to fast-tracking permits but would also develop a workforce with the technical expertise to design and operate America's reactors.<br /><br /> 4. Ensuring a Science- and Technical-Based Assessment. The NRC must have the freedom to pursue a transparent, fact-based process in a non-adversarial environment. While inputs from local stakeholders must be accommodated, the NRC must be allowed to make decisions based on good science and engineering in a timely manner. This requires an efficient process that allows legitimate concerns to be heard and resolved without being hijacked by outside, agenda-driven interests.<br /><br />Fast-track program applicants would have to meet certain criteria. These would include:<br /><br /> 1. NRC Certified or Proven Design. The NRC has already certified four designs (although one is currently being amended) and reviewing three others. While only reactors with certified designs are licensable, applicants with designs that are nearing completion, especially if those designs are proven elsewhere, should be eligible for a slightly modified fast-track program that would include design certification.<br /><br /> 2. Proven Site with Broad Public Support. The reactor site must already be licensed for operating reactors, and the applicant must demonstrate that the new reactor is welcome by the local community. Furthermore, the applicant must establish that an additional reactor will be safe and environmentally compatible. Under such conditions, the NRC should be permitted to provide an expedited environmental review, which takes roughly two years under current policy.<br /><br /> 3. Proven Reactor Owner/Operator. The application must be submitted by an operator with extensive experience with nuclear operations and be in good standing with the NRC. This is not to suggest that some current COL applicants are not capable, but fast-track applicants must have extensive nuclear operations experience and credibility with the state and local community. Each applicant would have to demonstrate its competence to the NRC before entering the program.<br /><br /> 4. Proven Demand. The applicant must demonstrate that there is a market for the power to be produced by the reactor.<br /><br /> 5. Complete COL (Combined Operations and Construction License) Application. The applicant must have a full and complete COL application per NRC guidance. One of the current problems slowing the NRC is the lack of completeness of some of the applications. Complete applications are critical to ensuring that the NRC is able to conduct a comprehensive design and safety review without having to go back to the applicant for additional information.<br /><br /> 6. Long-Lead Components Commitment. The applicant must demonstrate both a financial commitment and a preparedness to earnestly move forward by securing a source for timely delivery of long-lead components. Many of the components used to build a nuclear power plant must be ordered years in advance. Applicants seeking fast-track permits should be required to place early orders or deposits as soon as they are granted a fast-track permitting status.<br /><br /> 7. Applicant Fees. Like most other NRC activities, industry should fund most of the activities associated with the fast-track program through the assessment of a program participation fee.<br /><br />To execute the program, Congress must:<br /><br /> 1. Provide Specific Direction to the NRC, National Labs, and Department of Energy. Congress must explicitly state its intentions for the fast-track program and make funding contingent on the NRC, national labs, and DOE to organizing themselves to achieve the objective of early completion of new reactor construction.<br /><br /> 2. Adequately Fund. If Congress is serious about reducing the time it takes to permit and build new reactors, it must give NRC, the national labs, and the DOE the resources and regulatory flexibility they need to get the job done. Rebuilding America's energy infrastructure is exactly the kind of direction that each of these institutions should be working toward.<br /><br />Many Benefits, Few Drawbacks<br /><br />Many in Congress have begun to realize that the nation's energy, economic, security, and environmental objectives cannot be met without nuclear power. This has led to multiple initiatives to restart the industry in the U.S. Unfortunately, many of these plans rely heavily on subsidies and are not sustainable. However, instituting a program to fast-track the notoriously arduous process of permitting new plants would demonstrate Congress' commitment to nuclear power and provide the regulatory stability that investors need to grow the industry. Furthermore, it would provide a common purpose around which America's energy-related institutions could organize. And finally, it would provide the information necessary to bring about comprehensive regulatory reform that the nation needs for a nuclear renaissance to take hold.<br /><br />Jack Spencer is Research Fellow in Nuclear Energy in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-36433659320842466712009-03-11T15:57:00.000-05:002009-03-11T16:05:26.996-05:00Omnibus Public Lands Package Fails HouseFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<br />March 11, 2009<br />2:00 PM<br /> <br /><br />CONTACT: American Rivers<br />David Moryc, American Rivers, 503-307-1137 ext. 3069<br />Caitlin Jennings, American Rivers, 202-347-7550 ext. 3100<br />Omnibus Public Lands Package Meets Opposition in the House<br />The House stops legislation that would protect over 350,000 acres along 86 rivers<br /><br />WASHINGTON - March 11 - The House of Representatives rejected legislation today that would have included the second largest Wild and Scenic package in history. The House voted on S. 22, the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, under a suspension of the rules. Unfortunately, the bill was defeated 282-144, just two votes shy of the necessary two-thirds of the Representatives present.<br /><br />The bipartisan S.22, which passed the Senate with 73 votes to 21, seeks to safeguard over 1,100 miles of rivers in Oregon, Idaho, Arizona, Wyoming, Utah, Vermont, and Massachusetts. The legislation also includes important protections for 350,000 acres of land along 86 new Wild and Scenic Rivers and it also contains new Wilderness designations for over two million acres of public land.<br /><br />"While we are very disappointed that the House chose not to protect these national treasures today, we hope Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Rahall will bring the bill up for another vote in the near future," said David Moryc, Senior Director of River Protection at American Rivers. "We are very grateful to the Members who supported this bill today and to the sponsors of the Wild and Scenic provisions on both sides of the aisle for their continued efforts to pass S. 22."<br /><br />A Wild and Scenic designation creates a protected buffer along both sides of a river, blocks dams and other harmful water projects, and preserves a river's free-flowing nature. It also helps protect and improve water quality, as well as the river's unique historic, cultural, scenic, ecological, and recreational values.<br /><br />"From the Snake River headwaters in Wyoming to the desert Southwest's Fossil Creek, to the trout streams of the Rockies, and the popular fishing and paddling streams of the Pacific Northwest, our nation's heritage is knit together by these rivers," said Moryc. "They are the lifeblood of the land and our communities. I hope the House soon realizes that these Wild and Scenic designations would be a tremendous gift to future generations."<br /><br />###<br /><br />American Rivers is the only national organization standing up for healthy rivers so our communities can thrive. Through national advocacy, innovative solutions and our growing network of strategic partners, we protect and promote our rivers as valuable assets that are vital to our health, safety and quality of life.<br /><br />Founded in 1973, American Rivers has more than 65,000 members and supporters nationwide, with offices in Washington, DC and the Mid-Atlantic, Northeast, Midwest, Southeast, California and Northwest regions.Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-63610364757741635832009-03-02T16:25:00.000-05:002009-03-02T16:25:38.046-05:00Sarah Susanka's 'Not So Big Remodeling'<a href="http://www.housingzone.com/blog/1350000335/post/1460041346.html">Sarah Susanka's 'Not So Big Remodeling'</a>: "<blockquote>Sarah Susanka, author of "The Not So Big House," jumps into the remodeling market with "Not So Big Remodeling," due next ...</blockquote>"Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-73749766996108598242009-02-27T16:23:00.001-05:002009-02-27T16:23:24.681-05:00The Dwindling Red Spots on the Map - thedailygreen.com<a href=http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/blogs/republican/rush-limbaugh-47020101>The Dwindling Red Spots on the Map - thedailygreen.com</a><br /><br />Posted using <a href="http://sharethis.com">ShareThis</a>Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-88944371406308719952009-02-27T16:18:00.000-05:002009-02-27T16:19:17.666-05:00GOP must be the change it wants to see<span style="font-weight:bold;">GOP must be the change it wants to see</span><br /><br />By Sam Reed, a REP member who is the Secretary of State of Washington State and former president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, published November 19 in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.<br /><br />In the aftermath of the Obama Tsunami, Republicans at the state and national level are digging out and correctly spending some quality time analyzing what happened and how to move forward with rethinking, rebranding and repositioning for the days to come.<br /><br />As one of two statewide Republican elected officials left standing (the estimable Attorney General Rob McKenna is the other), my hope for our Grand Old Party is that party elders, activists and donors resist the ultimately self-defeating instinct to move toward narrow ideological dogma, negativism and unhelpful government-is-bad rhetoric.<br /><br />I hope the party that I have loved all these decades increasingly will be the idea-rich home of pragmatism and reform, the welcoming party of inclusion and the creative party of can-do problem-solvers. We are, after all, the party of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Dan Evans. We have succeeded for 148 years by championing individual freedom and responsibility, equal rights and opportunities for all, fiscal conservatism, strong local and state governments, a vibrant free-enterprise system, conservation of our natural resources and a strong national defense. To cant away from such mainstream American thought and away from the practical, common-sense middle is precisely the wrong approach.<br /><br />I am quite certain Washingtonians and most Americans are ready for a new generation of post-partisan problem solving. Olympia has had some stellar examples of across-the-aisle cooperation and when Republicans have been at the table on such issues as water rights, construction projects and streamlining government regulations, everyone has benefitted. With the state facing a budget crisis and pressing needs in education, transportation, the environment, jobs and social justice, Olympia needs bipartisan cooperation more than ever.<br /><br />Yes, Democrats have won the White House, the governor's mansion and legislative majorities. But the election is over and America and Washington need to put politics and division aside and get on with the collaborative and creative act of governing.<br /><br />Voters expect and deserve results, not sharp elbows and rank partisanship. People want solutions, government that works. A number of Republican governors, including the chief executives of Louisiana, Hawaii and Minnesota, admirably demonstrate this approach. If you look at the common thread of McKenna and myself -- how we approach our duties and how we campaign -- it is that we stress excellence in delivering services and solutions to people, all the people, and not pursuing rigid ideological agendas, bashing government or excluding entire constituencies.<br /><br />In many ways, our state party is strong and well organized and managed to re-elect our three members of Congress and to increase legislative majorities during the Obama surge. But to grow stronger and to broaden its appeal, the party must provide real solutions and offer a voice for opportunity for all, including women, people of color, gay people and any who have been excluded from full participation in public life and economic success.<br /><br />Republicans must have something to offer the broad middle class, as well as speak to the aspirations of the less fortunate. We must be "green." We must offer positive ideas for jobs and the economy, health care, energy independence, better schools and transportation, environmental protection and social justice. As Gandhi wisely observed, "We must be the change we wish to see in the world."<br /><br />If history is any guide, Republicans are not consigned to permanent minority status and will rebound. Republicans' fortunes will be assisted by positive attitudes and helpful contributions to this state and nation.Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-70469854335706192342008-09-23T13:01:00.001-05:002008-09-23T13:02:22.544-05:00The Case for Terrestrial (a.k.a. Nuclear) Energy<span style="font-weight:bold;">The Case for Terrestrial (a.k.a. Nuclear) Energy</span><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">William Tucker, Journalist</span><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />William Tucker is a veteran journalist. Educated at Amherst College, his work has appeared in Harper’s, the Atlantic Monthly, the American Spectator, the Weekly Standard, National Review, Reason, the New Republic, Reader’s Digest, the Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. His articles have won the John Hancock Award, the Gerald Loeb Award, the Amos Tuck Award, and he was a finalist for the National Magazine Award. His books include Progress and Privilege: America in the Age of Environmentalism; Vigilante: The Backlash Against Crime in America; and The Excluded American: Homelessness and Housing Policies, which won the Mencken Award. His forthcoming book is entitled Terrestrial Energy: How a Nuclear-Solar Alliance Can Rescue the Planet.</span><br /><br />The following is adapted from a lecture delivered at Hillsdale College on January 29, 2008, during a conference on “Free Markets and Politics Today,” co-sponsored by the Center for Constructive Alternatives and the Ludwig von Mises Lecture Series.<br /><br />There have been a host of debates this year between the Democratic and Republican candidates for president. Many of these candidates believe that among our top priorities is to address global warming by reducing carbon emissions. All or most seem to agree that decreasing America’s energy dependence is another. Yet few if any of the candidates have mentioned that nuclear energy—or, as I prefer, terrestrial energy—could serve both these ends.<br /><br />Right now there are 103 operating nuclear reactors in America, but most are owned by utilities (which also own coal plants). The few spin-offs that concentrate mainly on nuclear—Entergy, of Jackson, Mississippi, and Exelon, of Chicago—are relatively small players. As for a nuclear infrastructure, it hardly exists. There is only one steel company in the world today that can cast the reactor vessels (the 42-foot, egg-shaped containers at the core of a reactor): Japan Steel Works. As countries around the world begin to build new reactors, the company is now back-ordered for four years. Unless some enterprising American steel company takes an interest, any new reactor built in America will be cast in Japan.<br /><br />This is an extraordinary fate for what was once regarded as an American technology. France, China, Russia, Finland, and Japan all perceive the enormous opportunity that nuclear energy promises for reducing carbon emissions and relieving the world’s energy problems as reflected in recent soaring oil prices. Yet in America, we remain trapped in a Three Mile Island mentality, without even a public discussion of the issue. As folk singer Ani Di-Franco puts it, the structure of the atom is so perfect that it is “blasphemy / To use it to make bombs / Or electricity.”<br /><br />It is time to step back and question whether this prejudice makes sense.<br />Fossil Fuels<br /><br />All living things exist by drawing energy from their environment and discarding part of it as “waste,” so there is nothing inherently shameful about energy consumption. Almost all our energy derives ultimately from the sun. Plants store solar energy by transforming it into large carbon-chain molecules (the process we call photosynthesis). The entire animal kingdom draws its energy from this process by “eating” this stored solar energy. About 750,000 years ago, early humans discovered that they could also draw solar energy from a chain reaction we call “fire.” When heated, the stored energy in carbon chains is released. This heat energy can break down other carbon chains, which causes combustion. Fire has been the principle source of energy throughout most of human history. When historian William Manchester wrote a book about the Middle Ages called A World Lit Only By Fire, he was describing the world of only 700 years ago.<br /><br />All this began to change about 400 years ago when human beings discovered an older source of stored solar energy—coal. Our most common fossil fuel, coal is the compressed remains of vegetable matter that covered the earth 300-400 million years ago. Coal is superabundant and we will probably never run out of it. It was the fuel of the Industrial Revolution, and it is still the world’s largest source of energy. It is also the most environmentally destructive substance ever utilized. The EPA estimates that it kills 30,000 Americans each year through lung diseases (and in China it is doing far worse). It is also the world’s principal source of carbon dioxide emissions.<br /><br />Oil, another fossil fuel, is rarer and is believed to be the remains of organisms that lived in shallow seas during the age of the dinosaurs. It was first drilled in 1859, but was used only for lighting and lubrication until the invention of the automobile. Now it constitutes 40 percent of our energy consumption and is perhaps the most difficult fuel to replace. American oil production peaked in 1970 and is now declining rapidly—a fact that explains much of our subsequent foreign policy. The Arab oil embargo occurred three years following the peak, when the producing states realized we were vulnerable. The question now is whether world production will reach a similar peak and decline. As Matthew Simmons has written: “We won’t know until we see it in the rearview mirror.” If it does come, it may not look much different from the quadrupling of oil prices we have witnessed in the last three years.<br /><br />Natural gas is generally considered the most environmentally benign of the fossil fuels. It gives off little pollution and only about half the greenhouse gas of coal. Natural gas was put under federal regulation in the 1950s, so that by the 1970s we were experiencing a supply shortage. Deregulation in the ,80s led to almost unlimited supplies in the ,90s. Then we began the fateful practice of using gas to produce electricity, resulting in a price crunch and the loss of many gas-dependent industries, such as fertilizer and plastics factories, which have since moved to Mexico and Saudi Arabia to be near supplies. Now American gas production seems to have peaked and we are importing 15 percent of our consumption from Canada. Huge gas supplies have been discovered in Russia and the Middle East, but will not do us much good since gas cannot be easily transported over water. Thus China, India and Europe will be able to buy pipeline gas much more cheaply and are already out-competing us on the world market.<br />Alternative Fuels<br /><br />Given the precarious state of these fossil fuels, people have begun talking of “alternative” and “renewable” fuels—water, sun and wind. The term “renewable” is somewhat misleading: no energy is “renewable” insofar as energy cannot be recycled (this is the Second Law of Thermodynamics). The term “renewable” usually describes tapping flows of solar energy that are supposedly “free.” But coal and oil in the ground are also free. It just takes work—and energy—to recover them. So, too, solar “renewables” can only be gathered at a cost. They are often limited and may require extravagant use of other resources—mainly land.<br /><br />What about water? Hydroelectricity is a form of solar energy. The sun evaporates water, which falls as rain and then flows back to the sea, creating kinetic energy. Rivers have been tapped since Roman times and, beginning in the 19th century, dams were built to store this solar energy. Hydroelectric dams provided 30 percent of our electricity in the 1930s, but the figure has declined to ten percent. And all the good dam sites are now taken.<br /><br />What about wind? Wind energy has captured the imagination of the public and is touted by many as the fastest growing energy source in the world. All of this is driven by government mandates—tax credits and “renewable portfolio” laws that require utilities to buy non-fossil sources of power. The problem with wind is that it is completely unpredictable. Our electrical grid is one giant machine interconnected across the country, in which voltage balances must be carefully maintained in order to avoid damaging electrical equipment or losing data on computer circuits. Wind irregularities can be masked up to around 20 percent, but after that they become too disruptive. At best, therefore, wind will only be able to provide the 20 percent “spinning reserve” carried by all utilities. In addition, windmills are large and require lots of land. The biggest now stand 65 stories tall—roughly the height of New York’s Trump Tower—and produce only six megawatts, or about 1/200th the output of a conventional power plant. In the East, most are sited on mountaintops, since that is where the wind blows strongest.<br /><br />What about the sun? Solar energy is very diffuse. A square-meter card table receives enough sunlight to run only four 100-watt electric bulbs. At best, solar could provide our indoor lighting, which consumes about ten percent of our electricity. But keep in mind: gathering and storing solar energy requires vast land areas.<br /><br />Sunshine can be harnessed directly in two ways—as thermal heat or through photovoltaics, the direct production of electricity. In the 1980s, California built a Power Tower that focused hundreds of mirrors on a single point to boil water to drive a turbine. The facility covered one-fifth of a square mile and produced ten megawatts. It was eventually closed down as uneconomical. Last year, when Spain opened an identical Power Tower in Seville, U.S. News & World Report ran a cover story hailing it as a “Power Revolution.” That facility, of course, is completely subsidized by the government.<br /><br />Photovoltaic cells have more promise. They are thin wafers where solar radiation knocks the electrons off silicon atoms, producing an electric current. At present, an installation about half the size of a football field could power one suburban home—when the sun shines, of course. The problem is that photovoltaics are enormously expensive; using them to provide one-quarter of an average home’s electricity requires investing around $35,000. Their greatest benefit is that they are able to provide electricity precisely when it is most needed—on hot summer afternoons when air conditioning produces peak loads.<br />Nuclear or Terrestrial Energy<br /><br />There is one other form of alternative energy often mistakenly grouped with solar: geothermal energy. Geothermal is produced when the natural heat of the earth comes in contact with groundwater. This can produce geysers and “fumaroles”—steam leaks that are now being harnessed to produce electricity.<br /><br />Where does this heat come from? Temperatures at the earth’s core reach 7,000 degrees Centigrade, hotter than the surface of the sun. Some of this heat comes from gravitational pressures and the leftover heat from the collisions of astral particles that led to the formation of the earth. But at least half of it (we don’t know the precise percentage) comes from the radioactive breakdown of thorium and uranium within the earth’s mantle. This is “terrestrial energy,” and a nuclear reactor is simply the same process carried out in a controlled environment. In order to harness terrestrial energy in the form of uranium isotopes, we mine it, bring it to the surface, concentrate it, and initiate a chain reaction that releases stored energy in the form of heat—the very same process as that used to harness solar energy from coal.<br /><br />When Albert Einstein signed the letter to President Roosevelt informing him of the discovery of nuclear energy, he turned to some fellow scientists and said: “For the first time mankind will be using energy not derived from the sun.” This possibility emerged in 1905, when Einstein posited that energy and matter are different forms of the same thing and that energy could be converted to matter and matter to energy (as reflected in the famous equation E = mc2). The co-efficient, c2, is the speed of light squared, which is a very, very large number. What it signifies is that a very, very small amount of matter can be converted into a very, very large amount of energy. This is good news in terms of our energy needs and the environment. It means that the amount of fuel required to produce an equivalent amount of energy is now approximately two million times smaller.<br /><br />Consider: At an average 1,000 megawatt coal plant, a train with 110 railroad cars, each loaded with 20 tons of coal, arrives every five days. Each carload will provide 20 minutes of electricity. When burned, one ton of coal will throw three tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We now burn 1 billion tons of coal a year—up from 500 million tons in 1976. This coal produces 40 percent of our greenhouse gases and 20 percent of the world’s carbon emissions.<br /><br />By contrast, consider a 1000 megawatt nuclear reactor. Every two years a fleet of flatbed trucks pulls up to the reactor to deliver a load of fuel rods. These rods are only mildly radio-active and can be handled with gloves. They will be loaded into the reactor, where they will remain for six years (only one-third of the rods are replaced at each refueling). The replaced rods will be removed and transferred to a storage pool inside the containment structure, where they can remain indefinitely (three feet of water blocks the radiation). There is no exhaust, no carbon emissions, no sulfur sludge to be carted away hourly and heaped into vast dumps. There is no release into the environment. The fuel rods come out looking exactly as they did going in, except that they are now more highly radioactive. There is no air pollution, no water pollution, and no ground pollution.<br />Objections to Nuclear Energy<br /><br />What are the potential problems with nuclear power?<br /><br />First, some fear that a nuclear reactor might explode. But this is impossible. Natural uranium is made of two isotopes—U-235 and U-238 (the latter having three more neutrons). Both are radioactive—meaning they are constantly breaking down into slightly smaller atoms—but only U-235 is fissile, meaning it will split almost in half with a much larger release of energy. Because U-235 is more highly radioactive, it has almost all broken down already, so that it now makes up only seven-tenths of a percent of the world’s natural uranium. In order to set off a chain reaction, natural uranium must be “enriched” so that U-235 makes up a larger percentage. Reactor grade uranium—which will simmer enough to produce a little heat—is three percent U-235. In order to get to bomb grade uranium—the kind that will explode—uranium must be enriched to 90 percent U-235. Given this fact, there is simply no way that a reactor can explode.<br /><br />On the other hand, a reactor can “melt down.” This is what happened at Three Mile Island. A valve stuck open and a series of mistakes led the operators to think the core was overflowing when it was actually short of cooling water. They further drained the core and about a third of the core melted from the excess heat. But did this result in a nuclear catastrophe? Hardly. The public was disconcerted because no one was sure what was happening. But in the end the melted fuel stayed within the reactor vessel. Critics had predicted a “China syndrome” where the molten core would melt through the steel vessel, then through the concrete containment structure, then down into the earth where it would hit groundwater, causing a steam explosion that would spray radioactive material across a huge area. In fact, the only radioactive debris was a puff of steam that emitted the same radiation as a single chest x-ray. Three Mile Island was an industrial accident. It bankrupted the utility, but no one was injured.<br /><br />This of course was not the case in Chernobyl, where the Soviet designers didn’t even bother building a concrete containment structure around the reactor vessel. Then in 1986, two teams of operators became involved in a tussle over use of the reactor and ended up overheating the core, which set fire to the carbon moderator that facilitates the chain reaction. (American reactors don’t use carbon moderators.) The result was a four-day fire that spewed radioactive debris around the world. More fallout fell on Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, from Chernobyl than from Three Mile Island. With proper construction such a thing could never happen.<br /><br />Another objection to nuclear power is the supposed waste it produces. But this is a mischaracterization. A spent fuel rod is 95 percent U-238. This is the same material we can find in a shovel full of dirt from our back yards. Of the remaining five percent, most is useful, but small amounts should probably be placed in a repository such as Yucca Mountain. The useful parts—uranium-235 and plutonium (a manmade element produced from U-238)—can be recycled as fuel. In fact, we are currently recycling plutonium from Russian nuclear missiles. Of the 20 percent of our power that comes from nuclear sources, half is produced from recycled Russian bombs. Many of the remaining isotopes are useful in industry or radiological medicine—now used in 40 percent of all medical procedures. It is only cesium-137 and strontium-90, which have half-lives of 28 and 30 years, respectively, that need to be stored in protective areas.<br /><br />Unfortunately, federal regulations require all radioactive byproducts of nuclear power plants to be disposed of in a nuclear waste repository. As a result, more than 98 percent of what will go into Yucca Mountain is either natural uranium or useful material. Why are we wasting so much effort on such a needless task? Because in 1977, President Carter decided to outlaw nuclear recycling. The fear then was that other countries would steal our plutonium to make nuclear bombs. (India had just purloined plutonium from a Canadian-built reactor to make its bomb.) This has turned out to be a false alarm. Countries that have built bombs have either drawn plutonium from their own reactors or—as Iran is trying to do now—enriched their own uranium. Canada, Britain, France and Russia are all recycling their nuclear fuel. France has produced 80 percent of its electricity with nuclear power for the last 25 years. It stores all its high-level “nuclear waste” in a single room at Le Havre.<br />Conclusion<br /><br />The U.S. currently gets 50 percent of its electricity from coal and 20 percent from nuclear reactors. Reversing these percentages should become a goal of both global warming advocates and anyone who wants to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil (the latter since a clean, expanded electrical grid could anchor a fleet of hydrogen or electric cars). Contrary to what some critics charge, this would not require massive subsidies or direct intervention by the government. Indeed, the nuclear industry has gone through an astounding revival over the past decade. The entire fleet of 103 reactors is up and running 90 percent of the time. Reactors are making money hand-over-fist—so much so that the attorney general of Connecticut recently proposed a windfall profits tax on them! The industry is poised for new construction, with proposals for four new reactors submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and almost 30 waiting in the wings.<br /><br />The rest of the world is rapidly moving toward nuclear power. France, Russia and Japan are not only going ahead with their own nuclear programs, but selling their technology in the developing world. America, which once dominated this technology, is being left behind. The main culprit is public fear. Nuclear technology is regarded as an illegitimate child of the atomic bomb, a Faustian bargain, a blasphemous tinkering with nature. It is none of these. It is simply a natural outgrowth of our evolving understanding of the universe. The sun has been our prime source of energy throughout human history, but energy is also generated in the earth itself. It is time to avail ourselves of this clean, safe terrestrial energy. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2008&month=02"><span style="font-style:italic;">Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.</span></a>Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-53047914135499857102008-09-23T12:51:00.000-05:002008-09-23T12:53:03.661-05:00REP Policy Paper on Energy and Climate ChangeEnergy is the pre-eminent strategic issue facing America today. The choices that our nation makes in the production and use of energy create deep and lasting influences on our economy, our position in the world, and on the natural capital that underpins modern civilization.<br /><br />Making the right energy choices has become crucial. As a result of a convergence of extraordinary geopolitical and environmental circumstances, we are at a moment of both great danger and great opportunity. The conservative ethic of prudence requires us to acknowledge the challenge, and our obligation to be good stewards must impel us to act.<br /><br />Energy Security<br /><br />Oil is embedded in modern human society. Oil has a dark side, however. The U.S. sits atop only 3 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves. Yet we consume 25 percent of current global production, about 21 million barrels daily. Much of the world’s production, along with the largest remaining conventional oil reserves, is located in world regions racked by poor governance, chronic instability, and violence.<br /><br />Climate Change<br /><br />The evidence is clear that fossil fuel combustion is increasing the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide load. Prudence demands that we acknowledge the facts and act. Despite the daunting nature of the challenge, taking it on will create large opportunities in America to reduce energy costs, build new industries, revitalize rural economies, and carry out a constructive foreign policy free from the corrosive influence of petroleum politics.<br /><br />Here is what the federal government must do:<br /><br />Establish a Market for Carbon Reductions<br /><br />The most important step that Congress and the administration must take to reduce oil dependence and lower greenhouse gas emissions is to put a price on those emissions, by establishing a market-friendly "cap-and-trade" system. A carbon tax, the leading alternative to cap-and-trade, would not be as effective in sending a market price signal, and therefore, should not be adopted.<br /><br />Increase Funding for Energy Research and Development<br /><br />Reducing oil dependence and stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations will require scaling up numerous advanced energy technologies. A strong research and development program is necessary for moving promising technologies out of the lab and into the marketplace.<br /><br />Strengthen Energy Efficiency Standards and Incentives<br /><br />Energy efficiency is consistent with conservative values of frugality and stewardship. As the cheapest, cleanest, and most secure energy resource available, efficiency has a strong track record. It’s time to build on that record of success, through measures to increase efficiency in buildings, industry, and transportation.<br /><br />Expand Transportation Fuels from Renewable Resources<br /><br />Ethanol is a promising resource for displacing significant quantities of gasoline when combined with plug-in hybrid-electric drive trains. Research, standards, and incentives should be adopted to accelerate broader use of cellulosic ethanol.<br /><br />Expand Electric Power from Renewable Resources<br /><br />Diversifying our electric power system with renewable resources will result in numerous economic benefits, including reduced vulnerability to fuel price and supply risks, economic development opportunities for rural communities, and greater freedom of choice for energy consumers. A renewable portfolio standard, extension of production tax credits, and other incentives should be adopted.<br /><br />Keep a Place for Nuclear Energy at the Table<br /><br />Nuclear energy can deliver large amounts of carbon-free baseload electricity. It is in the nation’s interest to develop promising technologies for improving plant security and economics, managing high-level nuclear wastes, and minimizing risks of theft and diversion of fissile materials.<br /><br />Ensure Responsible Use of Natural Gas<br /><br />Natural gas is a relatively clean fuel for power generation and transportation. Gas can serve as a bridge to a cleaner, more diverse, less carbon-intensive energy economy. Steps should be taken to ensure the most efficient use of this fuel and minimize the impacts of gas production in the Intermountain West.<br /><br />Clean Up Coal<br /><br />The United States has large coal reserves. Coal, however, is the most problematic of the fossil fuels, because of climate, air quality, and land impacts. Through research and standards, the federal government should speed the transition to cleaner coal technologies, including large-scale carbon sequestration.<br /><br />Conclusion<br /><br />America stands at the threshold of both immense risk and opportunity. Beyond the practical economic and security benefits of moving to a cleaner, more secure energy economy, good stewardship is a moral imperative that is central to traditional conservatism. What is needed now is the will to marshal our nation's considerable assets, develop a conservative energy strategy for the future, and put it to work today.<br /><br />This paper was written by in 2007 by REP Policy Director Jim DIPeso and Government Affairs Director David Jenkins. It combines and replaces two previous policy papers on energy and climate change that were written in 2001 and 2002. <a href="http://www.rep.org/policy/energy_climate.html">Click here to view the paper on the REP site.</a>Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-8013557798095710062008-09-23T12:46:00.000-05:002008-09-23T12:47:16.184-05:00Energy Rhetoric Defies Reality<span style="font-weight:bold;">Energy rhetoric defies reality</span><br />By Colorado REP member David Lien, published by the Colorado Springs Independent on August 7, 2008<br /><br />As a big-game hunter and former Air Force officer who cares deeply about our country and its rapidly dwindling wildlands and wildlife, I've about had it with the fairytale demagoguery spewing from oil and gas industry executives and their front groups, not to mention the politicians beholden to them for campaign contributions, who've been doing their damnedest to hoodwink us into believing their "drill-everywhere" rhetoric.<br /><br />Listen up, folks, because the facts here speak for themselves: Sixty-five percent of the world's known oil reserves are in the Persian Gulf; the United States has only 3 percent, but we account for 26 percent of world demand. Drilling in western Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, Alaska, New Mexico or anywhere else in this country will not do us any good long-term. It's simple fifth-grade math and common sense.<br /><br />Foreign oil imports will continue to go up because U.S. oil production peaked 35 years ago and has been declining ever since. Even big finds like Prudhoe Bay did little to slow the decline. Ever since domestic oil production peaked, the need for energy efficiency, conservation and renewable energy has been obvious. But instead, like an addict on a binge, we continue to pursue a policy of "strength through exhaustion."<br /><br />As the Salt Lake Tribune editorial board recently wrote, "A junkie gets desperate when his junk runs out. He's got to have more, and he'll do just about anything in order to keep feeding his habit. America is like that about oil. As our supply from foreign sources gets more expensive and rumors float around that those dealers are running out, we're panicking, ready to trade our natural resources, even the future of the planet, for one more hit."<br /><br />Our nation simply does not have enough oil to affect world or domestic oil prices. The only way out is to improve fuel efficiency of our vehicles, which consume 40 percent of the oil we use, and by relying on smarter, cleaner and renewable ways to power our economy. Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, for example, would not have any impact on gas prices until 2025, and even then it would only reduce prices at the pump by a trivial 1.5 cents per gallon.<br /><br />Despite the fact our current policy of near-total dependence on fossil fuels has led to repeated supply shortages and price spikes, three economic crises, two oil field wars and global warming, some remain mired in the same old stupidity that brought us here. Tapping what little oil there is in the Rocky Mountains, according to our own government's best estimates, will not reduce our dependence on foreign oil in any significant way.<br /><br />Besides, worldwide we're using oil five times as fast as we're discovering new reserves. The numbers are irrefutable: The current drilling boom in the West will not move us any closer to energy independence, and it isn't even a possibility if we continue to rely primarily on oil and gas to power our economy. In a recent Quinnipiac University poll, Colorado voters were asked about the best way to solve the energy crisis. They chose renewable energy over drilling by 54 percent to 21 percent.<br /><br />As a concerned citizen, Clinton Greene says, "To be anti-fuel-efficient is to give aid and comfort to terrorists and groups fighting American soldiers. Patriotic Americans should welcome being required to conserve; even soccer moms should be embarrassed by their sport-utility vehicles powered at the price of U.S. soldiers facing death far from their own families. The best way to honor the dead of 9/11 is to take conservation seriously."<br /><br />Unfortunately, some of Colorado's congressional lawmakers don't agree. U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn recently said, "This "drill-nothing' Congress must cut the rhetoric and get to work."<br /><br />Yeah, get to work exposing the "drill-everywhere" members of Congress facilitating the liquidation of our rapidly dwindling wild and roadless public lands for the equivalent of "drops in the bucket."<br /><br />Some of our local and national politicians need to take a grade-school math (and common sense) refresher course. Let's hope they do it soon.<br /><br />Reprinted from <a href="http://www.rep.org/opinions/op-eds/120.html">Republicans for Environmental Protection</a>Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-22639318125963548392008-04-17T07:07:00.001-05:002008-04-17T07:10:56.277-05:00Treat yourself: Taste something local and organic for Earth DayBe a localvore and celebrate Earth Day!<br /><br />From the <a href="http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/stories/index.ssf?/base/living-1/1208248393292160.xml&coll=2&thispage=1">Cleveland Plain Dealer</a><br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">Treat yourself: Taste something local and organic for Earth Day</span><br />Wednesday, April 16, 2008<br />Debbi Snook<br />Plain Dealer Reporter<br /><br />I once looked up from gardening to find an asparagus growing when I had planted none. It stuck out of the ground between shrubs in a dark corner of my landscape border, tempting me to guess its origin. A gift of the wind? A seed-carrying bird? Or pure garden magic?<br /><br />I liked the last idea.<br /><br />A few seasons later, when there was enough to share, I made my first meal of it. It was worth waiting for, as good as any asparagus I'd had, only different - sweet with familiarity, satisfying as a blessing of good fortune, and fresh as it could get.<br /><br />What a delicious metaphor for eating locally.<br /><br />Earth Day arrives Tuesday, and in this world of industrial food, so has our runaway appetite for the kind of work, heart and little miracles that produce local food. They can't be commanded into existence, but they can be nurtured.<br /><br />Here are some ways we can help make them grow:<br /><br />Eat organic:<br /><br />Easy to say, when it often costs more. But if you have the money, do it. We all pay a higher price from the pollution caused by nonorganic farming. The taste will convince you to stay. Put organic carrots or celery side by side with conventional veggies and try each of them. You'll be amazed at the difference. Get bushels of information from the Ohio Ecological Food & Farm Association in Columbus at 614-421-2022 or on their helpful Web site, www.oeffa.org.<br /><br />Shop at community-based farmers markets:<br /><br />You can look farmers in the eye at these markets and ask them what they put in their soil, how they treat their animals and how to cook their products.<br /><br />The season goes into full swing in late May, although early sprouts are up:<br /><br />Coit Road Market in East Cleveland (at Woodward Road, 216-249-5455; www.coitmarket.org) has gone back to warmer weather hours, 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Wednesday and Saturday, and will host a Spring Fling at the market on May 17.<br /><br />North Union Farmers Market at Shaker Square (216-751-7656; www.northunionfarmersmarket.org) is already back outdoors, 8 a.m.-noon on Saturdays. Its annual spring benefit happens Monday, April 28, at Eton Chagrin Boulevard with another sparkling crop of great chefs.<br /><br />Blue Pike Market's spring open house runs 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, May 17, at the farm, 900 East 72nd St. in Cleveland (216-373-9461).<br /><br />Sign a contract with a farmer: Consider joining a Community Supported Agriculture program, a kind of subscription deal where you pay up front and get the latest crops on a regular basis during the growing season. This is the time to start joining, since slots are limited. Check out the CSA lists on the Cuyahoga Valley Countryside Conservancy's Web site, www.cvcountryside.org, click the Countryside Harvest Guide and scroll down to the CSA list.<br /><br />Consider joining City Fresh, a partnership between the New Agrarian Center in Oberlin and the Ohio State University Extension. The urban gardening program has its own CSA, which you can join for yourself and, if you like, for someone who can't afford to join. Find out more and attend their monthly meeting 6 p.m. Monday at Great Lakes Brewing Co. or find City Fresh at www.cityfresh.org and 440-774-2906.<br /><br />Grow your own: No place to grow? Learn about container gardening from Ohio State University Extension of Cuyahoga County (www.extension.osu.e du/lawn_and_garden). Join a community garden (www.cuyahoga.osu.edu, search for "community gardening"). Get info on asphalt gardening programs by contacting City Fresh director Maurice Small at 216-849-8224.<br /><br />Teach your kids: One of the easiest ways is a trip to Lake Metroparks Farmpark (8800 Chardon Road, 1-800-366-3276, www.lakemetroparks.com), a county park set on a working farm with worthwhile admission fees ($6 for adults, $5 for seniors, $4 for kids 2-11). They will have their own Earth Day festivities noon-4 p.m. on Sunday.<br /><br />Or sign up your 6- to 10-year-olds for a week of "The Summer Farm and Science School at Crown Point." Contact the working farm and environmental education center in Bath at 330-668-8992, Ext. 101, or go to www.crownpt.org.<br /><br />Imagine the surprises children can bring to your garden. And to your table.<br /><br />To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:<br /><br />dsnook@plaind.com, 216-999-4357 </blockquote>Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-74142655642384112722008-04-17T07:05:00.001-05:002008-04-17T07:07:47.816-05:00Negotiations to resume on energy legislationFrom the <a href="http://blog.cleveland.com/business/2008/04/columbus_ohio_house_speaker.html">Cleveland Plain Dealer</a><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Negotiations to resume on energy legislation</span><br />Posted by rroguski April 17, 2008 01:00AM<br /><br />Columbus -- Ohio House Speaker Jon Husted will continue today to negotiate changes to his energy and utility regulation bill, after nearly a week of stormy negotiations that dominated Statehouse politics.<br /><br />The Kettering Republican says he hopes by Tuesday to have ironed out issues that mushroomed into major problems the longer talks went on this week.<br /><br />Among the most thorny issues still on the table Wednesday night:<br /><br />• A rule allowing FirstEnergy Corp. to keep charging a residual generation rate to consumers who buy from outside suppliers next year.<br /><br />The Akron-based utility has argued that it would still be obligated to supply power if independent marketers failed to provide enough power.<br /><br />Leigh Herington, executive director of the Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council, testified this week before the House Utilities Committee that NOPEC will not be able to attract new suppliers unless the language is stripped out of the bill allowing FirstEnergy to collect the residual generation charges.<br /><br />In other words, consumers who buy power from outside suppliers should have to pay only FristEnergy's distribution rate, not any part of its generation rate, he said.<br /><br />• A Senate requirement that wind and solar development be halted if the construction costs of the green energy drove up a utility's generation rates by more than 3 percent. Advocates of green energy say they can live with the limit because the power from renewable projects will represent only a fraction of the total power generated and its cost will be blended with power from traditional power plants.<br /><br />Still, the last House version did not include explicit language but instead authorized the Public Utilities Committee of Ohio to decide the issue on a case-by-case baisis.<br /><br />• A demand by American Electric Power that it be allowed to begin basing its rates on wholesale market prices at a faster rate than allowed in the bill.<br /><br />As last written, the legislaiton would allow AEP to begin basing just 10 percent of its total sales on market rates next year and 10 percent additionally every year for five years. At that point the state could stop the progression and force the company back under traditional regulation.<br /><br />The underlying issue behind the struggles is how quickly the state's utilities can begin basing their rates on wholesale market prices.<br /><br />Strickland may have lost the battle with FirstEnergy even before he unveiled his original bill last September.<br /><br />The company argues that since it moved ownership of its power plants to unregulated -- though wholly owned-- subsidiaries, the state cannot regulate the generation portion of its rates.<br /><br />Despite the assertions of FirstEnergy executives, however, most of the players in this week's Statehouse drama do not think the company would actually want to sell all of its power outside the state.<br /><br />Husted's problems holding his version of the bill together began a week ago when he unveiled the House rewrite of the bill<br /><br />Within a day, Gov. Ted Strickland threatened a veto if it ever reached his desk.<br /><br />What followed were five days of around-the-clock negotiations with the administration as well as the Senate, plus volley after volley of complaints and proposed amendments from utilities, consumer groups and industrial power users.<br /><br />In short, the process overwhelmed the bill.<br /><br />After midnight Monday, the House Utilities Committee approved the measure as Husted had drafted it -- but not before Democratic members walked out and Husted had a face-to-face stalemate with Strickland.<br /><br />Husted on Tuesday night said the legislation has become unrecognizable even to him, but he nevertheless scheduled a House session for 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, which was delayed until 9 p.m.<br /><br />Husted cancelled that session in the late afternoon and issued a statement saying he intended to keep working on the legislation before Tuesday's regularly scheduled session of the House.<br /><br />Earlier in the day, Senate President Bill Harris, an Ashland Republican, said he did not intend to convene the Senate again this week just to consider Husted's legislation.<br /><br />In an interview, Harris also said he thought rather than have the Senate debate the measure he would send it directly to a conference committee of the two chambers.<br /><br />By law, the Senate president and House speaker each choose three members to meet and iron out the differences in a bill.Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-22643290441960072702008-04-17T07:01:00.001-05:002008-04-17T07:05:08.194-05:00Selling an environmentally friendly lifestyle in Rocky River<a href="http://blog.cleveland.com/business/2008/03/_chris_stephens_the_plain.html">From the Cleveland Plain Dealer</a><br /><blockquote><span style="font-weight:bold;">Selling an environmentally friendly lifestyle in Rocky River</span><br />Posted by rmezger March 10, 2008 16:07PM<br /><br />Chris Stephens/The Plain Dealer<br /><br />Rebecca Reynolds sells environmentally friendly products for the home and body at her new store, Planet Green, in Rocky River.<br />Rebecca Reynolds doesn't know how she contracted a blood-clotting disorder that brought life to a temporary halt in her late teens.<br /><br />All she knows is that doctors called it a virus and treated her with steroids -- high levels of steroids. And that before her ordeal was over she lost her spleen, her gall bladder and almost her life.<br /><br />That's behind her now, and she's vowed never to get sick again. For her, that means eating healthy, living smart and avoiding environmental toxins. It's a holistic philosophy that she's passed on to three daughters and as many other people who have cared to listen.<br /><br />In January, Reynolds, 43, opened Planet Green, a small retail store in the Old River Shopping Area on Detroit Road in Rocky River. It's as much a shrine to area artisans as it is to sustainable living. The products in her store are not only green but usually local.<br />Planet Green<br /><br />Location: 19056 Detroit Road, Rocky River<br /><br />Owner: Rebecca Reynolds<br /><br />Contact: 440-333-9333<br /><br />Related business: Green Clean Inc.<br /> <br />There's furniture made from discarded oak barrels. And from wood reclaimed from demolished homes.<br /><br />There are vegan cookies. And organic bedding woven from cotton never treated with pesticides or herbicides.<br /><br />There are organic, fair-trade herbal supplements courtesy of Earth Healers of Lakewood.<br /><br />There's health food for the dog.<br /><br />Reynolds even has a refilling station in the store for her own Green Clean line of cleaning products. She developed them after many years of scrubbing other people's homes. She recalled how it dawned on her, while spraying chemicals in a shower with a cloth over her face, that she didn't even know what she was protecting herself from.<br /><br />Her concoctions include all-natural ingredients, no chlorine bleach or ammonia. And for $2 less than the original purchase price, they can be refilled in one of the sturdy plastic bottles they come in.<br />Chris Stephens/The Plain DealerA bout with a blod-clotting disorder in her late teens made Rebecca Reynolds vow never to get sick again. It's one reason she has opened her store, Planet Green, whose offerings include natural and organic products.<br />"First of all, this whole store started after years of [my] being an educator on environmental toxins," Reynolds said. "And people would ask me all the time, 'Rebecca, where do I get organic clothing, organic bedding and items for my home?' And, so, this is how this concept came about for Planet Green."<br /><br />Re-use is a common theme among products in the store, including Nicole McGee's Second Time Design jewelry. She scours the Ohio City sidewalks near her home for pieces of junk that might make for links in a necklace or a bracelet. Her favorite source for discarded items is the Shaker Cycle shop in Tremont where she gets bits of bike chains, washers and broken pieces of metal.<br /><br />It's kind of an extension of her world view, she said, "that there's potential in everything, especially things that we cast aside and may not see value in."<br /><br />Her stuff sells for less than $25.<br /><br />"I'm pretty economical," she said. "I don't have the cost of materials."<br /><br />Chris Deffenbaugh, 42, has found a way to reclaim oak barrels, turning them into beds, bars and stools. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not allow wooden barrels for aging wine and spirits to be used more than once, he said, which means there are a lot of perfectly good barrels out there.<br /><br />Deffenbaugh gets his through brokers with some coming from California's wine country and others from the bourbon belt in Kentucky. He crafts them into furniture in a studio behind his house in Wooster with the help of his father and his best friend.<br /><br />While his wares can be found at two locations in Wooster, Planet Green is the only place that carries them in the Cleveland area, he said.<br /><br />Reynolds' view of a holistic lifestyle extends beyond humans and includes their pets, which explains the $7 bags of Deez Bonz for sale at Planet Green.<br /><br />Danielle and Dennis Piotrowski created the all-nautral dog biscuits. They came up with the recipe after their pug Gabby was diagnosed with cancer. They figured a better diet would keep her healthier, Danielle said, so "we decided to get her off the bag food."<br /><br />The biscuits come 20 to a bag. They are made of organic flaxseed meal, organic olive oil, organic cheese (mild cheddar) and free-range chicken and eggs.<br /><br />"We've had people actually eat them," Danielle said, "and they're like, 'Hey, these are great.' "<br /><br />For Reynolds, Planet Green is another way to promote a healthy, sustainable lifestyle. A mission shaped by the emotions of her own ordeal, and those of others she encountered along the way.<br /><br />"You sit with a mother who has a toddler on their lap who has just been diagnosed with some rare leukemia and you're changed," she said. "You're changed. You want to pass the message around. You want to help people."<br /></blockquote>Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-63754242337648644242008-03-27T13:22:00.001-05:002008-03-27T13:24:42.038-05:00The Story of Stuff"The Story of Stuff," a new short film released online this winter, takes viewers on a provocative tour of our consumer-driven culture and exposes the real costs of this use-it and lose-it approach to stuff. Throughout the 20-minute film, activist Annie Leonard, the film’s narrator and an expert on the materials economy, examines the social, environmental and global costs of extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal.<br /><br />“We’re running out of resources. We are using too much stuff. Now I know this can be hard to hear, but it’s the truth and we’ve gotta deal with it. In the past three decades alone, one-third of the planet’s natural resources base have been consumed. Gone.”<br /><br />Leonard’s illustration of a culture driven by stuff allows her to isolate the moment in history where she says the trend of consumption mania began. “The Story of Stuff” examines how economic policies of the post-World War II era ushered in notions of consumerism—and how those notions are still driving much of the U.S. and global economies today.<br /><br />According to the film, consumer mania may have been born from the post World War II era, but economic manipulation has driven consumerism to where it is today. From the limited life cycle of personal computers to changes in footwear fashion, Leonard demonstrates that products are either designed to be regularly replaced or to convince consumers that their stuff needs to be upgraded. This notion of planned and perceived obsolescence drives the machine of American consumerism year round.<br /><br />The film features Leonard delivering a rapid-fire, often humorous and always engaging story about “all our stuff—where it comes from and where it goes when we throw it away.” Written by Leonard, the film was produced by Free Range Studios, the makers of other socially-minded, web-based films such as “The Meatrix” and “Grocery Store Wars.” Funding for the project came from The Sustainability Funders and Tides Foundation.<br />The story of stuff—Facts & Figures<br /><br /> * The U.S. has 5 percent of the world’s population but we’re consuming 30 percent of the world’s resources and creating 30 percent of the world’s waste.<br /> * Eighty percent of the planet’s original forests are gone. In the Amazon alone, we’re losing 2,000 trees a minute.<br /> * There are over 100,000 synthetic chemicals in commerce today.<br /> * Thirty percent of the kids in parts of the Congo now have had to drop out of school to mine coltan, a metal we need for our cheap and disposable electronics.<br /> * Each of us in the U.S. makes 4.5 pounds of garbage a day. That is twice what we each made 30 years ago. <br /><br />The film’s website, www.storyofstuff.com, serves as an interactive launch pad for information and activism. The site features hundreds of organizations working to change the cycle of the materials economy and offers viewers “another way.” The site includes resources and information, a footnoted script, a suggested reading list and ideas for educational activities and discussion topics for local screenings of the film.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.storyofstuff.com/">Click Here for The Story of Stuff.</a><br /><br />(Reprinted from <a href="http://www.earthwatchohio.org/">EarthWatchOhio.org's Web site</a>.)Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-72475004792613213802007-06-27T13:03:00.000-05:002007-06-27T13:05:46.552-05:00National SOLAR 2007 Conference, Cleveland OH<blockquote>National SOLAR 2007 Conference<br />Saturday - Thursday, July 7-12, 2007<br />Cleveland Convention Center<br />Hosted by American Solar Energy Society and Green Energy Ohio<br /> <br />Overview: <br />SOLAR 2007 is the 36th Annual National Solar Energy Conference - the largest and most inclusive renewable energy conference held in the U.S. each year. Cleveland is the perfect home for SOLAR 2007 with the city's ongoing commitment to sustainable growth and a global vision for the future. <br /><br />The conference theme is "Sustainable Energy Puts America to Work!" and we're proud to feature Rosie the Riveter on the conference logo. Targeting this theme for the first time, we are exploring Ohio's enormous potential for job creation in manufacturing, distirbuting and installing clean energy technologies.<br /><br />As the local host, Green Energy Ohio is organizing seven tours, more than 20 hands-on workshops and a social event at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. GEO has also set the goal to draw the largest public crowd ever at the conference's "Public Day," scheduled for July 8.<br /><br />There will be plenty to see and do: tour the Ohio Amish Country, which boasts an estimated 100 kW of installed solar PV systems; visit the laboratories for energy production and space propulsion at the NASA Glenn Research Center; participate in the first-ever small wind and solar thermal installation workshops; take a trip to the PV labs at the University of Toledo and the First Solar manufacturing plant in nearby Perrysburg; or enjoy a boat cruise on Lake Erie. <br /><br />Find out more information by clicking on the tabs to the right, or contact <br />Christina Panoska, SOLAR 2007 Local Chair and GEO Program Manager.</blockquote><br /><br /><a href="http://www.greenenergyohio.org/page.cfm?pageId=1167">Click here to register for the SOLAR 2007 Conference.</a>Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-32121331862527267192007-06-22T21:25:00.000-05:002007-06-22T21:28:20.984-05:00June/July 2007 issue of EarthWatch Ohio<a href="http://www.earthwatchohio.org/junejuly2007.pdf">Click here </a>to access the June/July 2007 issue of EarthWatch Ohio online. <br /><br />And please consider making a <a href="http://www.earthwatchohio.org/">donation</a> to help defray their publishing costs.Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-7341154695539527502007-06-22T21:15:00.000-05:002007-06-22T21:21:28.926-05:00Cleveland Gives Solar Energy a Go<a href="http://www.cleveland.com/plaindealer/stories/index.ssf?/base/business-2/1182328468246720.xml&coll=2">Cleveland gives solar energy a go </a><br /><blockquote>Wednesday, June 20, 2007<br />John Funk<br />Plain Dealer Reporter <br />The city of Cleveland is headed into hot water - literally. <br /><br />The plan is to harness civilization's oldest energy source - the sun - to heat water at fire stations, indoor city swimming pools and recreation centers. <br /><br />If that proves economical - weighing the equipment costs against lowered gas bills - the city hopes eventually to encourage others to install the same kind of equipment by adjusting its water rates, said Andrew Watterson, Cleveland's sustainability programs manager. <br /><br />The first step happens today as city pipefitters, plumbers and electricians install a solar thermal system on the roof of the Fire Station 20 on Pearl Road. <br /><br />The $15,000 system includes six solar panels, each about 25 square feet, and two super-insulated 105-gallon water tanks that will feed hot water into the station's existing gas-fired tanks. <br /><br />The fire station will be featured in the American Solar Energy Society's 36th annual convention that will be held here July 7 to 12. <br /><br />GreenEnergy Ohio, a renewable-energy advocacy organization, is paying for the project with a $10,000 state grant and fees from two solar training classes it is sponsoring, said Christina Panoska, a program manager with the group. <br /><br />The solar heat should provide between 50 percent and 70 percent of the station's hot-water needs, said Mark Thornbloom, an engineer and solar project manager with Schuco-USA, a division of its German parent, Schuco International KG, which manufactured the system. <br /><br />But will it work in the winter? <br /><br />"In pure principle, yes," Thornbloom said. "I visited a system in Austria that has 10,000 square feet of solar collectors, to heat the grass to play soccer in winter. Austria has the fourth-highest solar per capita in the world, yet Austria has less [sun] than southern Alaska." <br /><br />The payback time on such system in Ohio is six to seven years, said Roswell "Roz" Ellis, president of Solar Resource Corp. of Westerville, Ohio, which is providing the Schuco products for the fire station project. <br /><br />The solar water tanks are so well insulated, they can "hold a temperature for up to two weeks," he said. <br /><br />"Will it work in Cleveland in the winter? Yes, though not as well as in Cincinnati," he said. "But from May through October, it will take care of all of your hot water needs, in Cleveland." <br /><br />Watterson explains winter use this way: <br /><br />"We draw water from Lake Erie. It's 33 degrees to 34 degrees. Heating from that temperature to 120 degrees takes a lot of energy. The solar thermal system can bring that temperature up to 80 or 90 degrees, meaning the solar system acts as a pre-heater." <br /><br />The fire station is a pilot project, he said. The city will keep careful records on how much hot water the system will provide over the next year and how much it saves on gas. <br /><br />If the industry's claims pan out, the city wants to install the heaters at fire stations and recreation centers as replacements are needed. Mayor Frank Jackson's administration plans to include solar thermal water heaters in future capital budgets, said Watterson, as a first step to incorporate "green building" in city projects. <br /><br />The city also wants, eventually, to help with the installation of the systems in schools, libraries and other nonprofit organizations, he said. <br /><br />Solar thermal installations were extremely popular in the 1970s during the natural gas shortages and after Congress enacted federal tax credits. But those lapsed in the 1980s and installations slowed drastically. <br /><br />Since 2005, when Congress restored tax credits, solar thermal projects have seen a resurgence, said Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, a national trade association. <br /><br />There were 3,000 new thermal systems installed in 2001, 6,000 in 2005 and 9,000 last year, he said. "We see installations growing by another 50 percent this year," he said. <br /><br />To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: <br /><br />jfunk@plaind.com, 216-999-4138</blockquote>Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-56966418633690623582007-06-02T14:06:00.000-05:002007-06-02T14:10:19.756-05:00Immigration and ConservativesClick for a link to Peggy Noonan's column from the Wall Street Journal OpEd page, June 1, 2007<br /><br /><a href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110010148"><strong>Too Bad </strong><br /><em>President Bush has torn the conservative coalition asunder.</></em></a><br /><br /><blockquote>What political conservatives and on-the-ground Republicans must understand at this point is that they are not breaking with the White House on immigration. They are not resisting, fighting and thereby setting down a historical marker--"At this point the break became final." That's not what's happening. What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future. <br /><br />The White House doesn't need its traditional supporters anymore, because its problems are way beyond being solved by the base. And the people in the administration don't even much like the base. Desperate straits have left them liberated, and they are acting out their disdain. Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place. <br /><br />For almost three years, arguably longer, conservative Bush supporters have felt like sufferers of battered wife syndrome. You don't like endless gushing spending, the kind that assumes a high and unstoppable affluence will always exist, and the tax receipts will always flow in? Too bad! You don't like expanding governmental authority and power? Too bad. You think the war was wrong or is wrong? Too bad. <br /><br />But on immigration it has changed from "Too bad" to "You're bad." <br /><br />The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are unpatriotic--they "don't want to do what's right for America." His ally Sen. Lindsey Graham has said, "We're gonna tell the bigots to shut up." On Fox last weekend he vowed to "push back." Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested opponents would prefer illegal immigrants be killed; Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said those who oppose the bill want "mass deportation." Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said those who oppose the bill are "anti-immigrant" and suggested they suffer from "rage" and "national chauvinism."<br /><br />Why would they speak so insultingly, with such hostility, of opponents who are concerned citizens? And often, though not exclusively, concerned conservatives? It is odd, but it is of a piece with, or a variation on, the "Too bad" governing style. And it is one that has, day by day for at least the past three years, been tearing apart the conservative movement. <br />I suspect the White House and its allies have turned to name calling because they're defensive, and they're defensive because they know they have produced a big and indecipherable mess of a bill--one that is literally bigger than the Bible, though as someone noted last week, at least we actually had a few years to read the Bible. The White House and its supporters seem to be marshalling not facts but only sentiments, and self-aggrandizing ones at that. They make a call to emotions--this is, always and on every issue, the administration's default position--but not, I think, to seriously influence the debate. <br /><br />They are trying to lay down markers for history. Having lost the support of most of the country, they are looking to another horizon. The story they would like written in the future is this: Faced with the gathering forces of ethnocentric darkness, a hardy and heroic crew stood firm and held high a candle in the wind. It will make a good chapter. Would that it were true! <br /><br />If they'd really wanted to help, as opposed to braying about their own wonderfulness, they would have created not one big bill but a series of smaller bills, each of which would do one big clear thing, the first being to close the border. Once that was done--actually and believably done--the country could relax in the knowledge that the situation was finally not day by day getting worse. They could feel some confidence. And in that confidence real progress could begin. <br /><br />The beginning of my own sense of separation from the Bush administration came in January 2005, when the president declared that it is now the policy of the United States to eradicate tyranny in the world, and that the survival of American liberty is dependent on the liberty of every other nation. This was at once so utopian and so aggressive that it shocked me. For others the beginning of distance might have been Katrina and the incompetence it revealed, or the depth of the mishandling and misjudgments of Iraq.<br /><br />What I came in time to believe is that the great shortcoming of this White House, the great thing it is missing, is simple wisdom. Just wisdom--a sense that they did not invent history, that this moment is not all there is, that man has lived a long time and there are things that are true of him, that maturity is not the same thing as cowardice, that personal loyalty is not a good enough reason to put anyone in charge of anything, that the way it works in politics is a friend becomes a loyalist becomes a hack, and actually at this point in history we don't need hacks. <br /><br />One of the things I have come to think the past few years is that the Bushes, father and son, though different in many ways, are great wasters of political inheritance. They throw it away as if they'd earned it and could do with it what they liked. Bush senior inherited a vibrant country and a party at peace with itself. He won the leadership of a party that had finally, at great cost, by 1980, fought itself through to unity and come together on shared principles. Mr. Bush won in 1988 by saying he would govern as Reagan had. Yet he did not understand he'd been elected to Reagan's third term. He thought he'd been elected because they liked him. And so he raised taxes, sundered a hard-won coalition, and found himself shocked to lose his party the presidency, and for eight long and consequential years. He had many virtues, but he wasted his inheritance. <br /><br />Bush the younger came forward, presented himself as a conservative, garnered all the frustrated hopes of his party, turned them into victory, and not nine months later was handed a historical trauma that left his country rallied around him, lifting him, and his party bonded to him. He was disciplined and often daring, but in time he sundered the party that rallied to him, and broke his coalition into pieces. He threw away his inheritance. I do not understand such squandering. <br /><br />Now conservatives and Republicans are going to have to win back their party. They are going to have to break from those who have already broken from them. This will require courage, serious thinking and an ability to do what psychologists used to call letting go. This will be painful, but it's time. It's more than time.<br /><br /><em>Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father" (Penguin, 2005), which you can order from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Fridays on OpinionJournal.com.</em></blockquote>Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-58648600430912966082007-05-31T19:39:00.000-05:002007-06-12T15:51:48.203-05:00Farmer's Markets, Cleveland Plain DealerFor those of you who may have missed it, the Wednesday May 30, 2007 edition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer carried several pages highlighting the importance of purchasing locally-grown food. Articles by <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=debbi+snook+site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.cleveland.com&btnG=Search">Debbi Snook</a>, Plain Dealer Reporter.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.cleveland.com/cooking/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/other/1180514738194891.xml&coll=2">Fresh Farmers already offering up this season's bounty </a><br /><a href="http://www.cleveland.com/cooking/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/living-0/118042771429140.xml&coll=2">Why buying at local farm markets matters</a><br /><br />Here's a link to the listing compiled by reporter Debbi Snook:<br /><a href="http://www.cleveland.com/taste/wide/index.ssf?2007farmersmarkets.html">Farmer's Markets by County</a>Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-62591384802912330042007-04-06T10:23:00.000-05:002007-04-06T10:44:25.159-05:00Putting our Money where our Mouths AreSo many Crunchy Cons are concerned about making certain we feed our families balanced, healthy meals. Often, we don't stop to think how much buying from out of state (or country) truly costs. <br /><br />Following is an excellent article from the April-May 2007 issue of <a href="http://www.earthwatchohio.org/">EarthWatch Ohio</a>, reprinted and linked with their permission.<br /><br /><blockquote><strong>How Local Can You Go?</strong><br />Take the “Eat Local Challenge” this Summer & find out!<br /><em>by Kari Moore, <a href="http://www.cvcountryside.org/">Countryside Conservancy</a></em><br /><br />In Ohio, demand for local food is growing. Buyers are seeking out fresh, healthy, delicious foods that are grown and prepared near their home. The efforts of the Countryside Conservancy, a local non-profit organization that is working to re-envision and rebuild local-regional farming and food systems in northeast Ohio, is helping provide resources for consumers to learn ways to achieve their “eat local” goal. <br /><br />From the “100 Mile Diet” to the “Locavores,” it is obvious that the reasons to buy food locally is catching on. The benefits of purchasing food grown in your region are huge. Not only does the food taste better, but it is healthier for you and your community, and can help reverse global warming and many other environmental issues.<br /><br />Here are a few of the benefits of eating locally:<br /><br /><strong>LOW MILEAGE FROM FARM TO PLATE:</strong> Locally grown food typically travels 50 miles or less, reducing pollution and our dependence on fossil fuels.<br /><br /><strong>FRESH TASTE:</strong> Local food usually arrives in markets within 24 hours of being plucked from the vine or dug from the earth.<br /><br /><strong>DELICIOUS AND NUTRITIOUS FOOD:</strong> Because locally grown foods are so fresh, they are also more nutritious, containing higher levels of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that healthy bodies need.<br /><br /><strong>PROSPEROUS FARMERS:</strong> 91¢ of each dollar spent in conventional food markets goes to suppliers, processors, middlemen and marketers; while only 9¢ goes to the farmer. Farmers who sell direct at local farmers’ markets keep 80¢ - 90¢ of each dollar. Selling locally, farmers can reduce distribution, packaging and advertising costs and offer us fresher, more affordable food.<br /><br /><strong>VARIETY:</strong> Local farmers cultivate mouth-watering varieties of delicious foods like Green Zebra tomatoes, Northern Spy apples, Purple Dragon carrots, Buckeye Chickens, and many other fruits, vegetables, and livestock bred for flavor, nutrients and suitability to our local climate and soils rather than uniformity and endurance to withstand a cross-country road trip.<br /><br /><strong>THRIVING COMMUNITIES:</strong> Buying local, a greater portion of our food dollar stays home supporting farms and businesses that make up our local communities and our regional economy. Northeast Ohioans spend over $7 billion on food annually. But less than 1 percent comes from local farms and producers. Localizing just 10 percent of our food spending would generate over $700 million for our local economy and communities.<br /><br />So, how do you define local? For some, local means homegrown —fresh from their own garden. For others, local means foods from Ohio or the Great Lakes region. And others define local as food that is grown or produced within a reasonable driving distance from their home or workplace.<br /><br />For starters, we suggest drawing a circle around where you live or work—a circle with a radius of say 100 miles—and use that as your guide. Bear in mind that “local borders” are flexible and fuzzy. Use your own good judgment when determining what is local to you. <br /><br />So are you ready to take the local challenge? Remember, the Countryside Conservancy is here to help. VISIT www.cvcountryside.org TO READ ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW TO BEGIN YOUR JOURNEY. The Countryside Harvest Guide will provide you with the information you need: a comprehensive list of all the local farmers markets; farm directory; harvest guide; community supported agriculture programs; restaurants, cafés and caterers that support local farms; grocers and retailers that offer local produce and meats; and specialty food producers whose delicious products add to the local flavor of northeast Ohio. The Countryside Harvest Guide is available on-line at <a href="http://www.cvcountryside.org/">www.cvcountryside.org</a> and printed copies are available for $5.<br /><br />For more information contact the Countryside Conservancy at 2179 Everett Road, Peninsula, Ohio 44264; (330) 657-2542; <a href="http://www.cvcountryside.org/">www.cvcountryside.org</a>.</blockquote>Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-29571412475625507572007-01-12T17:16:00.000-05:002007-01-12T17:29:10.456-05:00Cleveland-area Crunchy Cons Unite!Are you the only Republican at your La Leche League meeting? Are you a sling-wearing, extended-breastfeeding, cloth diapering, non-vaccinating mama who finds she votes more Right than Left? Do you believe that being a Conservative means conservation doesn’t stop at your own front door? Do you have subscriptions to both the National Review and Mother Earth News? Do you enjoy listening to Dennis Prager and NPR? Do you support the NRA and the Sierra Club?<br /><br />If you've read the book "Crunchy Cons" by Rod Dreher, and feel like you finally have a label for yourself, you've come to the right place.<br /><br />I've started this blog to post information on things that are important to those of us that live in the Cleveland area and consider ourselves to have similar "crunchy con" ideals. We have a Yahoo! mailing list that you can join, it's a very low-volume list that won't spam your in-box.<br /><br />Hopefully this will enable Crunchy Cons in the Cleveland area to exchange ideas and information.Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4243368274056536037.post-32291167786459367512006-03-15T13:48:00.000-05:002007-06-02T13:57:37.798-05:00What is a Crunchy Conservative?Straight from the horse's mouth, Rod Dreher's commentary on NPR's <em>All Things Considered,</em> March 10, 2006.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5256754">Click here to read.</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/dmg/popup.php?id=5257174&type=1&date=10-Mar-2006&au=1&pid=35321507&random=5224154346&guid=0006020ABB59066174095EA861626364&uaType=WM&aaType=RM,WM&upf=Win32&topicName=Opinion&subtopicName=Commentary&prgCode=ATC&hubId=-1&thingId=5256754&mtype=WM">Click here to listen.</a><br /><br />Excerpt:<br /><blockquote>"Crunchy cons prefer old houses and mom-and-pop shops to McMansions and strip malls.... Many of us homeschool our kids, and cheerfully embrace nonconformity. I read Edmund Burke and wear Birkenstock sandals. Go figure."</blockquote>Deannahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05236688462633834544noreply@blogger.com0