Before I bid adieu...

What a surprise...

With Kevin Phillips arguing that peak oil passed years long ago, and the Association of Peak Oil and Gas saying it will occur in 2010, there should be a firm consensus that the United States must turn wholeheartedly to alternative energy sources. And yet, all we hear in the media and in the halls of Congress is zealous rhetoric endorsing an expansion of domestic oil drilling, their environmental and lack of economic impact be damned.

Luckily, a powerful new force is coming to rebut that absurd contention. The preponderance of prohibitively expensive gas will finally force Americans to reevaluate their energy priorities and needs. It will be the lasting legacy of the gas prices "crisis"; here's why...

Most Americans I hear from second-hand sources support drilling. I've heard numbers between 60 to 80%.

I'm guessing most Americans just want oil prices to come down. The problem with drilling right now to help oil prices is that it would take years for it to come on-line.

Therefore, I don't think they support drilling as much as they just want the prices to come down.

The Democratic Party needs to put forward a platform of how to bring oil prices down. I have some perspectives on the matter, which I believe would be worthwhile to explore.

Today’s impossible prices for oil have finally forced America to ask the essential question: "Where’s the Plan?"

We’re in a situation where every business, every homeowner, every retiree, every local and state government, and every U.S. citizen is being forced to live under ‘crisis planning’ – which is a recipe for failure.

On a national level, stumbling from crisis to crisis — from Iraq to Katrina to the current energy crisis - is not a plan to govern.

To become an energy independent nation, the first step we must take is to develop a plan.  We must develop this plan together, out in the open – not behind closed doors.

Yep.  You read it right.
Is this guy crazy – or what??
I mean – oil prices have been hitting records.

By this time next year, oil will have dropped well below $100 a barrel.  Possibly as low as $80.  In the following year it will likely sag even lower.  Why?    Because even though oil is a finite resource, the oil price escalation is a classic example of a speculative bubble – destined to burst.  What’s more, the oil and energy fields – perhaps more than any other fields – have been characterized by boom and bust cycles for more than a century.

The potential impacts for responsible energy use and the environment are calamitous.  Not only will people who predict $200-plus oil be viewed as kids who cry "Wolf!", a collapse in oil prices will also dramatically curtail research and development into alternatives much as happened in the 1980s.

If you haven't seen T. Boone Pickens' initial commercial about how we import nearly 70% of our oil and how he has a plan to get the US out of that level of dependency, click here to watch.

Known primarily for his career as an oil man, T. Boone Pickens has a current net worth of about $3Billion. He ranks as the 117th richest person in the US and 369th richest in the World. You can read more about him on many sites; just Google his name. The above tidbits were garnered from Wikipedia.

The reason I write this blog entry is NOT to push anything for Mr. Pickens. I do not have a position on him, whatsoever. I am writing this blog to clear up a few facts versus implications.

(facts over the fold)

Rand Knight, Sen-Ga primary candidate, has posted a substantial series of alternative energy messages loaded with redhot ideas such as Clean coal myth,Nuclear Myths,Tidal Power and many others. His PhD in ecology shines through as he puts complex struggles into an clear frame and drives the nail home with sound solutions using twentyfirst century industrial regeneration. I haven't seen so many ideas put forward by a political newcomer since, well, never. These are jewels that will be tested in our primary election July 15th  - help his campaign get on TV at www.knightforsenate.com!

Wow.

Just when you thought it was safe to go all gloom 'n doom about the planet, some MIT folks have come up with a coating that lets windows double as solar collectors.

Windows Double as Solar Collectors

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a system that turns windows into a solar collector, letting people see clearly while collecting energy.

A coating on the glass channels photons of light to a solar collector around the edge of the window, MIT electrical engineer Marc Baldo and colleagues report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

The  window coating absorbs the light and transmits it to the glass underneath. The glass then transmits the energy to solar cells at the window's edge. The coating comes in various colors or "almost transparent."

  O I met with Napper Tandy, and he took me by the hand
   And he asked 'How's poor old Ireland, and how does she stand?'
   She's the most distressful country this world has yet to see
   For they're hangin' men and women there for wearin' o' the green

   When law can stop the blades of grass from growin' as they grow,
   And when the leaves in summer time, their colours dare not show,
   Then I too will change the colour I wear in my caubeen,
   But 'till that day, praise God, I'll stick to wearin' o' the green.

The law may not stop the blades of grass from growing, but sun-worhiping environmentalists and their corporate allies might.

I've always had mixed feelings about T. Boone Pickens. In the minus column, he's a Texas Republican and Swiftboat backer. And I think anyone who helped George Bush into his second term, especially by undermining the reputation of a real American war hero, should have a special place in Hell.

This morning, an ad during the morning news came on.  It began with some figures about our dependence on foreign oil, and how it has increased over the years.  Then it segued into a picture of wind mills, and how we need to go to renewable energy.  

Just another ad from one or another of the alternative energy or environmental groups, right?  That's what I was thinking as I was drinking my morning coffee, trying to wake up. What woke me up was who was making the ad:  T. Boone Pickens.  It was one of those shocking "WTF?" moments.  Not only that, he was going against what is the current Republican mantra of "drill, drill, drill."

Follow me over the fold for more...

Sapphire’s goal is to be the world’s leading producer of renewable petrochemical products.

"Renewable petrochemical products?"  What new language do you speak, friend?

Mayfield is widely regarded as the world’s leader in the creation of transgenic algae. Briggs, who oversaw the sequencing of the rice genome, is a pioneer in the development of genetically modified crops.

Uh oh!  Dr. Frankenstein raises his loathsome specter on an innocent world.  If that doesn't make organic farmers quake, nothing will.

In the May issue of Vanity Fair, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has written an article that is must reading. He entitles it "The Next President’s First Task." And he is absolutely on target and explains very concisely how this country could quickly supply all its own energy needs with wind, solar and geothermal.

I urge you to read the entire short article at: http://www.vanityfair.com/...

The key to the success of such an ambitious national project is, according to RFK, presidential leadership on behalf of a national power grid built on High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) power lines.

Below the fold are quotes from RFK plus my own simple primer on what HVDC is and why it is the key to moving beyond fossil fuels.

Call me an optimist.  Coal is king, tar sands oil is booming, the arctic is melting, tropical cyclones keep setting new records, and my own city is still flooded.  Yet, in these times, a revolution in both energy and electrified transportation is taking place right beneath our noses, and perhaps nowhere are we seeing the seeds of this being planted more than on the island of Oahu.

Read on to learn more about the world you may be leaving to your grandchildren and the role Hawaii's third largest island may play in bringing it about.

Well ask and you shall receive I guess...

On monday, my colleague and I called on the federal Bureau of Land Management to stop being an Energy Delayer and lift a moratorium that locked up the vast reserves of solar energy located on federal lands. Today, the BLM announced that they would lift the planned twenty-two month moratorium on land it stewards in six southwest states rich in solar energy.

By Helen Aki and Jesse Jenkins, cross-posted from the Breakthrough Blog

Just as the time becomes ripe for a major push towards clean, cheap sources of electricity, the Bureau of Land Management threwa two-year stumbling block in the path of solar power development last Friday.  As solar power ramps up--the Bureau has received 130 proposals solar plants since 2005--the Bureau decided to put a hold on further development, claiming that that an exhaustive environmental impact report must be completed before solar plants can be installed on federally owned lands. Meanwhile, the push continues for oil drilling in protected offshore areas and the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge (an endeavor that really merits an environmental impact assessment!).

The other night on Air America and also on Countdown with Keith Olberman Rachel Maddow said this:

Have you ever wondered what Bush and McCain mean when they say we are winning in Iraq? It doesn't make any sense because the reasons we went to war turned out to be not real. So saying we are winning is like saying the Yankees are winning because they have the most touchdowns. However, if you think we went to war for oil, then YES! Then we are winning.

She went on to talk about oakum's razor ("it's spelled Occam - thanks folks for showing me up as an idiot!" she said humbly as she cried into her dictionary.)

(One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything.)
Or keep it simple stupid.

For those of you who have fought to make sure the US Government would take aggressive action on the environment, fear not the Bureau of Land Management has heard your cries!