Sounds like someone has been suckling at the sweet teat of Van Jones’ vision for the next wave of environmentalism, one which embraces and transformes the economy rather than raging against it. The quote here isn’t anything new, but I hope it proves emblematic of an approach that is becoming more and more mainstream, more and more well-recognized as basic economic good sense rather than a wingnut effort.
(P.S. The link above takes you to a really solid source for international news related to renewable energy and the economy. They’re based in England and keep their fingers on the pulses of both the innovator and the investor communities.)
A few words, Mr. President?
“Now, the choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy. The choice we face is between prosperity and decline. We can remain the world’s leading importer of oil, or we can become the world’s leading exporter of clean energy. We can allow climate change to wreak unnatural havoc across the landscape, or we can create jobs working to prevent its worst effects. We can hand over the jobs of the 21st century to our competitors, or we can confront what countries in Europe and Asia have already recognized as both a challenge and an opportunity: The nation that leads the world in creating new energy sources will be the nation that leads the 21st-century global economy.”
Sarah Palin: a Truth within a (fairly important) lie
During the campaign in 2008, a lot of people said a lot of things. I remember the night that we were all introduced to Sarah Palin, at the same event that brought us Micheal Steele and Drill Baby Drill, and I remember being very impressed with the way Palin delivered. She was strong, aggressive, and completely willing to roll up here sleeves and attack. And she sounded like she was an expert in the one issue that the democrats have dominated in for years: Energy Efficiency. She talked (at least vaguely knowledgeably) about energy independence, about oil and natural gas, and about the need (once the Drill Baby Drill chants had subsided) of looking at alternative forms of energy to go along with destroying some more Alaskan Wildlife. Then, she said this, about her own roll in Alaska Energy markets:
“… and we began a nearly $40 billion natural-gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence.”
Well, according to Conde Nast, she has since been found to be lying. Or, if not lying outright, taking some big liberties with the word “Began”.
In fact, she got together a lot of money to start looking to see if a Natural Gas line was feasible. So get this: apparently, Alaska is cold and unforgiving. Wild, right? As a result, it is hard and expensive to build a major pipeline from the Natural Gas to the Civilization, and everyone needs to be on board for a long, arduous and expensive building process to get to the promised land. Also, everyone needs to hope real hard that Natural Gas is still worth the investment… oh, 20 years down the line when this pipeline thing starts to turn a real profit. (not my numbers, BTW. Cribbed, loosely, from the Conde Nast article).
Generally, this has always been my concern with the whole Drill here and Drill now mentality. Because of the time it takes to get infrastructure set up, oil or gas out of the ground, and then oil and gas into the market, not only are you wringing the last little bits out of obsolete fossil fuels, but your also taking a huuuge risk that the entire process will still be cost effective way down the line.
Specifically, Sarah Palin totally exaggerated how far along the project was, and what her role in it had been. She didn’t get a pipeline started… in fact her platform made the project much less likely to ever get off the ground. (more…)
Normally the telemarketing calls I receive are automated services that try to scam you into taking a cash advance loan that gets paid back through credit card transactions at like 33% interest or something ridiculous, but a few months ago I actually got a USEFUL telemarketing call. It was a real person who informed me that as a Delaware business owner, who had been buying power from the public utility Delmarva for over two years, that I qualified to search for my own supplier of energy out there in the big wide world of the free market. I felt like a fish that had been living in captivity and was now free to swim in the oceans of competitive bidding…ok so it was nothing so exciting as that, but I was interested to get a bid.
In Delaware we can choose from over 20 suppliers. Each gets their energy through a slightly different mix of energy sources. Delmarva provides their customers with a breakdown of their energy mix that is as follows:
Coal 55.9%
Gas 7.3%
Nuclear 34.2%
Oil 0.5%
Captured Methane* 0.2%
Hydroelectric 0.9%
Solid Waste 0.6%
Wind 0.2%
Wood or other biomass 0.2%
I haven’t yet called all of the other providers to see what their energy mix is, but I have received quotes from two of them. One called Integrys Energy quoted 10.1 cents per KWH and another, which claimed to be a “green” energy provider said they could lock our company in for 8.5 cents a KWH (although when I faxed them a copy of our usage history I never heard back from them). Currently Delmarva charges somewhere around 10.5 cents per KWH I believe, but it varies from month to month. Our monthly electricity bill is around 800 dollars. This isn’t really the kind of usage that will get you a significant discount, but maybe if I shop around I will get a good deal. I am also interested to see if the companies that have a high renewable energy percentage to their mix are more expensive. Keep an eye here for posts as I get more quotes!!
*Chickens outnumber people in Delaware by about 3:1…that’s a lot of chicken shit!!
-Also, I used to telemarket for Bank of America in college and let me tell you, it sucks…
