For many years in Arizona, I paid absolutely nothing for hot water, even in winter(!), thanks to a four-by-seven foot plastic panel on my rooftop and a couple of thermostats and pumps.
Megawatts' worth of power from "el Sol" rain down upon our own collective rooftops every day.
Tons of grease, food scraps, and factory-farm offal are thrown away every day ... and it stinks to high heaven.
Good answer: SHORTEN THE LOOP. Get rid of the loop. If you need hot-water and can get it from your own roof, do it. A freely-patented, proven and actually-profitable technology for turning a farm's own waste into a farm's own fuel could fit comfortably either on a trailer-truck or in a space the size of a small roadside cement-plant... and it would turn a horrible environmental/disposal problem into a genuine energy-source for the farm's own operations.
Bush/McCain's Gas Price Scam is an Enron Re-Run
The Bush/McCain gas price escalation is an Enron Re-Run. It is Chapter 2 of the scam Bush crony "Kenny Boy" Lay used in 1999-2001 to steal $100 billion from California ratepayers.
Now this administration is replicating that crisis to funnel untold billions into the coffers of its oil baron backers...and to push the failed strategies of offshore drilling and nuke power.
There is no doubt that we are at the edge of the petro-abyss. Peak oil is upon us, as is the global-warmed finale of Earth's carrying capacity for burning more fossil fuels. It is the perfect storm that must end the age of fossil/nuke.
But the immediate situation is not so clear. Bush/McCain say soaring prices are due to a lack of supply, and there are those who agree.
The Saudis, and others with more credibility, argue the price rise is contrived by bankers and speculators. Their mega-theft comes not only at the gas pump, but in food prices and other essentials.
Whatever the case, remember that during the Enron con, there was no shortage of electric generating capacity. Enron's operatives laughed into their PCs as they selectively shut perfectly operable power stations and jacked up electric prices 700% and more. Enron, of course, later went bankrupt, wiping out countless thousands.
Contrived or otherwise, today's soaring gas prices are a tangible bonanza for Bush/McCain. Off-shore drilling would put billions in their cronies' pockets, but would not lower gas prices a single cent. Nuke power could mean billions more in radioactive lucre for reactor builders who may never deliver a single electron of electricity.
It's no accident that what Bush/McCain are not advocating is a massive shift to increased efficiency and renewable energy.
Prior to the Enron disaster, green power advocates proposed that some 600 megawatts of renewables and efficiency be installed in California. They said this "floor" was needed to protect the state from precisely the kind of gouging Enron then did.
But Southern California Edison's John Bryson helped kill the green power proposal. Bryson now likes to be photographed in front of photovoltaic arrays. But he used a deregulation package promising a "free market in energy" to help pay off failed reactors at San Onofre and Diablo Canyon. Then he stepped back while Enron cashed in.
Today, despite years of grassroots advocacy, Bush has done everything in his power to squelch the conversion to a green-powered economy. Even as gas prices soar there is no meaningful commitment to reviving mass transit, increasing fuel efficiency, or promoting renewable energy.
Indeed, Bush/McCain's two-step obsession with fossil fuels and nuke power is perfectly suited to guarantee that the public's money does not go to renewables and efficiency. Those technologies could actually solve both the climate and the energy supply crisis. But they would strip the fossil/nuke cartels of their death grip on the global economy.
Ironically, soaring fossil fuel prices make building reactors even more expensive. Using high gas prices to push nukes that only produce electricity (and radioactive waste) is a complete disconnect.
Today's wind and solar technologies are far cheaper than atomic energy, not to mention quicker to build, safer, more reliable and ecologically sound. The one thing certain about reactor construction is that it will stretch out years longer than planned. Capital costs are certain to at least double or triple before the first reactor could ever come on line, taking atomic energy totally out of the price range of renewables.
New drilling is also absurd. The off-shore and other protected areas Bush/McCain would destroy have limited, expensive oil beneath them. The GOP "energy plan" is that of a desperate junkie, tearing apart the planet for a few last grains of white powder to snort up its nose. That there will then be no more does not seem to matter.
The US once had the world's greatest mass transit system, which was consciously destroyed by the auto and oil industries to sell more cars and gas.
It once had a virtual monopoly on the renewable and efficiency technologies that can solve global warming and give us energy independence, with local communities taking control of their energy supply.
Enron's hucksters staged that fake electricity crisis to gouge California while pushing back the transition to a green-powered economy.
Now Enron II, the gas price crisis, is about gouging the whole nation. And about yet again postponing a community-owned, green-powered future.
The Solartopian conversion to renewables and efficiency could put the Bush/McCain barons of fossil nuke out of business. The sooner the better.
---
Harvey Wasserman's Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth, is at www.solartopia.org. His Last Energy War, from http://sevenstories.com tells the history of deregulation and the US utility industry. He is senior editor of http://freepress.org, where this article first appeared.
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Spot-on article, but I see a needed omission. We, the consumer, have made ourselves vulnerable to this robbery by our own lack of discipline. If a leading politician asked us to do what we should do to immediately - cut demand as a shot across the bow of energy speculators, he would be "Jimmy Cartered" into oblivion. Cutting our driving speed - even voluntarily, raising thermostats 2 degrees, shutting off rooms in our 2500 sq ft houses, and taking other inconvenient conservation measures would immediately impact demand, and remove one excuse for the gougers. It would, however take a little sacrifice of convenience and a sense of community. We are just not up that, and are grist for the Busk/Cheney family mill. The claim that anything we do would be immediately offset by India and China is bogus. We use half of the world's oil, and they are not insensitive to price. Any decent diplomat could get cooperation. Russia might object, because the excess money has rejuvenated and emboldened them as a world power. We are willing victims.
Oil production was on an undulating plateau for the US between 1969 and 1971. No matter what we did we could not get it any higher than 11 million bpd. Then it started to drop and has been ever since except after Prudhoe Bay. In 2004 the world began an undulating plateau that it is stil on now at about 85 million bpd. It will soon start to drop. If you were an investor and knew that would you have invested in oil knowing full well that demand is exploding. Don't blame the speculator. Blame your leaders for believing some guy dressed up like a a Roman going to a toga party in the desert, blame your leaders for staking their country's entire future on it, blame your leaders for lying thru their teeth just to keep the party going and not coming face to face with the energy crisis the sooner the better. And when Obama gets elected where do you think the blame will go even though he had nothing to do with it. I'll give you 3 guesses and the first 2 don't count.
"Hypothetically" speaking, if manipulation were indeed happening in the energy markets (as well as in other commodities), it would be the "perfect crime" because the beneficiaries among the conspirators would be hard to track down.
"Hypothetically" speaking, occuring now, would be the largest series of thefts (due to market manipulation) or graft (due to the billions being spent on the Iraq War) ever to occur in human history.
Hypothetically speaking, if such large scale graft and theft were to be planned, the conspirators would want to fire a whole bunch of impartial federal attorneys, and replace them with partisan shills, and also cut funding for market oversight, delay investigations, help create scenarios where manipulative trades can be done in the dark, as well as arrange huge no-bid contracts for military companies once headed by certain Vice Presidents who started the unnecessary war in the first place, etc...
And to encourage certain congress-persons to be fearless, provide "golden lobbies" where politicians fired by the public can bask in cushy, highly paid jobs once their shameless shilling for corporate agendas or other types of graft, comes to an end.
Hypothetically speaking, of course...
They have moved offshore!!!!!!!!
The Swiss Bankers have a computer program that allows the DARK POOLS to remain hidden.
They are swaping the Oil, Gas and Coal Furtures and CHURNING the prices with each swap before they are sold.
Second, it's silly not to use nuclear. Even France gets 70% of their electricity from nuclear. Third, govt moves to increase fuel efficiency standards have proved ineffective relative to the market. Congress just passed a law in 2005 increasing those standards but barely any progress, if any, was made. In contrast, fuel efficiency standards of the US fleet has increased noticably just in the last six months because people are buying a lot of smaller cars and hybrids and not SUVs and trucks. Let the market do its work. The same goes with wind and solar. The infamous hedge fund investor Jeffrey Gendell has been investing in wind power signficantly over the last few years and has accomplished more in that short time than the government could do over a decade. He's got companies like Trinity and Broadwind Energy churning out and transporting wind-towers across country. And billionaire gas and oilman Boone Pickens is already working on the world's biggest windfarm in Texas, and is far ahead and has much more knowledge and can accomplish the task much more efficiently than the US govt could ever do. If it's profitable, it will be done, and I think that oil and gas needs to stay expensive for these changes to happen. Last, any person that thinks the President in some way wanted to increase oil prices to enrich himself or others is simply a silly political partisan. Everybody knows that is ridiculous.
It's Silly to USE Nuclear power.
25 years forth of the worlds energy then 1 million years deadly intractable waste.
Breeder reactors don't work and even the French have given up reprocessing. Uranium wars will start within decades.
Solar and wind are the way to go. 1T$ 10 years no nukes, coal or imported oil. really. Forever.
Wind: cheaper to build, plenty of rural and offshore areas, faster to build, 20 reactor worth of wind we installed just last year, going up 30% per year. 3 years to wind far faster then 50 nukes.
Rooftop solar: save the 60% distribution loss and charges your plug in 30 mile electric hybrid using a123 or equivalent batteries. A123 has raised 250M$ probably the inspiration for McStupids 300M$ battery bonus.
See my profile for details, calculations and links.
It's silly not to use nuclear power. Do you realize that it takes 1000-1500 large windmills to get the same amount of energy you can from one nuclear power plant? Nuclear is safe, efficient, and makes sense long term.
No one seems to realize that gasoline/oil prices went down significantly throughout the 1980s and 1990s because there were several new large oil fields put into production and there was a lot of spare capacity relative to demand. However now we have very little spare capacity because there had been few new oil finds over the past ten or so years while we've had a huge global increase of demand; there is simply little spare capacity. The solution to this has to multi-faceted. Recently there have been huge new oil discoveries off the coast of Brazil, in the center of the Gulf of Mexico, and of course in the oil and tar sands in the US and Canada. There has also been huge new drilling operations for natural gas in Pennsylvania. Prices should come down while expected the new Brazilian and Gulf of Mexico supplies. And we could add to these supplies significantly if we are able to drill throughout the outer-continental shelf. If we don't drill, we'll simply send more money overseas and have workers from other countries take those jobs instead of Americans. It's simply very poor policy not to drill. And new drilling techniques in Alaska or off-shore wouldn't damage the environment all. Only the most radical environmentalists would think that. Now days a lot of drilling is now done horizontally, so they can drill in one place and get oil from a long ways away.
It's McCain's Enron Loophole. caused it to go from 70 to 140$
The Iraq war crime uses massive amounts of oil and destabilized the Middle East causing oil to go from 20$ to 70.
Wind and solar can completely eliminate our imported oil needs. Cheaper then war crimes, faster then drilling.
and conversly....removing the loophole hole and flogging the responsible politicians would drop oil prices to 65 dollars per barrel....well the flogging is my idea... but senate testimony by experts last week exposed the problem. NOW lets not let the republicans change the TOPIC.
What are you talking about with the "enron loophole". Whatever that is has absolutely nothing to do with oil going from $70 to $140. And the Iraq war had only a little to do with oil going from $20 to $70. The reason oil has gone up so much since 2002 is the huge increase in worldwide demand and no growth in new worldwide capacity. Back in 2002 there were about 5 million barrels a day of spare oil capacity. Today there is about one or two million barrels. If new supply is not put on line within the next few years and worldwide demand growth continues to grow, or even remains flat, then we'll have shortages and much much higher prices. And by the way, last I checked cars and trucks don't run on wind or solar.
All commodities should be nationalized in the interest of efficiency and cost control for the American public. Predatory Capitalism is extremly inefficient and riddled with parasitic speculators who don't care how much damage they do to the public or the overall economy as long as they can get rich quickly.
In Venezuala Hugo Chavez nationalized its oil industries instead of allowing private Capitalist oil companies to gouge its own citizens of their treasure. Now Venezualan's pay 12 cents a gallon for gasoline. Socialism is proving much more efficient than Capitalism in getting a product to market at a reasonable price.
The proof is in the facts. Americans get needlessly gouged at $4 a gallon while profits are outsourced and the national wealth of the United States is simply drained away to 3rd world countries. According to NPR, worldwide comsumption of oil is up only 2% since last year (including China) and the domestic consumption of oil has dropped by 1-2% in the USA and the oil stocks are full. Nonetheless, Americans are paying at least twice as much as they did last year. Predatory Capitalism at work ruining our economy for the sake of naked greed.
The person known as PublicAdvocate apparently doesn't realize that oil production in Venezuela has decrease significantly since the oil industry was nationalized (something like 30-40%). Production also decreased dramatically in Iran when that industry was nationalize. People must realize that if there is no profit, there is no incentive to produce or invest. PublicAdvocate must also realize that price controls in China and the US in the past has resulted in shortages, again because there is no incentive to produce. He must also be aware that the high price of oil has resulted in huge inflation in Venezuela, as well as in Iran where gas is subsidized, which has probably more than compensated for the cheaper gas. I also don't understand how PublicAdvocate doesn't realize that the oil price is determined on a worldwide futures market and not by oil companies; and also that many oil companies have been losing money due to the high price of oil because their refining operations make little to no money when the price of oil is high (because they buy oil and sell gas).
Dugan. The facts are not on your side. Your assertion that oil companies are losing money is laughable when mega companies like Exxon/Mobil report record profits every quarter and paid arrogant Lee Raymond a $397 million dollar bonus. All salaries should be capped at $1 million per annum.
Worldwide demand is up only 2% over the last 12 months, yet the price of gas has doubled over the same period in the USA thanks to predatory speculators. Even a hedge fund manager for Exxon/Mobil has said that speculation accounts for $65 per barrel.
The big oil companies have bought up and shut down independent refineries over the last several years in order to gouge the public with an artificial bottleneck on gas.Over 25 refineries in the last 20 years.
http://Nader.org
What has the USA done since Capitalist Carter in the 70's urged us to develop alternative energy and get off of foreign oil addiction? Create wars, subsidize oil companies, lower fuel economy standards and raise speed limits.
Nationalization is far better than privitization because a nation retains profit control of its natural resources, manages sustainability, protects national security, provides local jobs, and can promote conservation. Many nations including Russia have long grown tired of Capitalist mosquitos stealing them blind.
What has the USA done since Carter in the 70's urged us to develop alternative energy and get off of foreign oil addiction? Create wars, subsidize oil companies, lower fuel economy standards and raise speed limits.
Your post is dead wrong, Venezuala is going backwards economically, just like every other socialist/fasciast/ communist government has done.
China is doing good economically because they have opened up to some market incentives for its people.
Sorry Photofarm but the facts are not on your side. You obviously don't understand the difference beween socialist/fascist/communist governments otherwise you would never include Communist China in your description. By the way has China opened up its markets to OUR goods to import or only its own to export to the USA?
Has the USA successfully destroyed Cuba with its embargos? Castro managed Cuba far better under Communism than the USA is being managed under predatorory Capitalism. Cuba ranks ahead of the USA in universal healthcare, literacy and job security. Sorry but its true. Capitalism is ruining America. Healthcare in the USA is the most expensive int he world yet has fallen to 47th best place according the the WHO. Cuba is 38th doing a better job with less money.
Venezuala is doing so well (and thanks to the generosity of Hugo Chavez in partnership with Citgo) that it provides low cost home heating oil to poor US citizens even as it keeps the price of gasoline very reasonable (12 cents a gallon according to the WSJ) for its own people. The Venezualans subsidize the Americans because our own government is too callous and stingy as it lavishes billions in subsidies on the oil industry.
Bush even renigged on his promise to supplement the program for low cost heating oil for poor Americans. I guess that's the compassionate side coming through.
Yes, Socialism is doing so badly that its subsidizing America's poor. Very good analysis.
http://Citgo.com
Another article that says the sun comes up in the west.
Nothing accurate, nothing. Ignore the largest problem, which is China subsidizing oil prices to their people, which means China's demand for fuel is not going down because of higher prices. In other words, demand is being manipulated by China.
Demand is being created by speculaters trading paper contracts....you want to fix this...seriously! make the purchasers of oil take delivery of their purchased commodity...if they don't, then it is NOT SUPPLY problem...it is a paper problem with criminals and a few republicans awash in this mess at the whole worlds expense.
Odd... I kinda remember wanting to build new generation in California and the state telling me to piund sand... then the summer before I kinda remember the CALISO fixing price at 10.5 times generation cost no matter how heavy the load was and me telling California to go pound sand when they wanted more generation. Thats not to say that the lines in and out of the state were not manipulated. Nor to say Bush isn't the biggest moron on the face of the earth. Hmm.. levees breaking in the midwest but we are building stuff in Iraq lovely country we have here.
colony....you mean colony
The Commodities and Futures Modernization Act is a disaster and even if we repeal it here the same effect of this Bill has international aspects as well such as ICE the international market out of England and also trading in Dubai but we have to start somewhere..this Act contains the Enron loophole and was in fact written by Enron and submitted by Phil Gramm..as their lackey..
There are tremendous opportunities and alternatives but this issue is being manipulated just as the Oil market by the Republicans with their drill here fetish which will have no real effect for decades if any even when it's finally in the pipeline..
There is Hemp which we are really foolishly ignoring as it is the #1 bio-mass plant of earth..and renews itself every 4 months no less..go to Hemphasis.net to the fuel and energy section...
Also if we lined our interstate highway system with solar panels we could create 1 Megawatt per mile this would accumulate to 23 Hoover Dams in energy production..
Also Harvey everyone should see your Video Nuclear Nonsense, because they the Republicans especially are manipulating this crisis they created, to push Nuclear power what Nuclear powered Cars..?
Even T. Boone Pickens as you may know is now big into Wind Power and Windmills and wants us to put them in the American Wind belt in the center of the country from Texas to Canada..
Commodities and Futures Modernization Act came too late they moved the GAINT HEDGE FUND investment operation the "DARK POOLS" off shore and now the SEC can't toudh them if they wanted too.,
Plus BUSH CUT THE SEC FUNDS by 25 % in the last budget so they are starved for funds to regulate anything at all.
No we can still cut off all Americans from investing in these Dark Markets and also have ways of cutting off foreigners from access to American finances as well...
This was under discussion at the Congressional Hearings Yesterday the repeal to the Enron Loophole would have great effect and bring relief and then there are similar measures which ICE the European Market or London can take..
And did you see Hardball last night with Barnacle filling in for Matthews. He had on that screaming stocks guy from CNBC stating categorically that the Enron loophole has only affected price of oil by say $1 out of $135 dollars. That it has had no effect and did not mention what happened to California. I'm hoping HuffPost will launch a strike against this crap and keep it up.
Great post. Thank you.
Boy you people have it all wrong. Oil is an international commodity, just like gold, pork bellies, wheat and corn. Did you all fail to notice that all commodity prices went up? An ounce of gold will buy the same amount of any commodity that it did 100 years ago. The only change we had here in the USA is the change in value of the dollar. When Bush was elected the first time, the Euro traded at 88 cents, now it is $1.60 which is about double (same as gold). Gee, that's the same doubling that the price of oil did, with milk, bread, and nearly every other commodity catching up fast. The problem is the US Government and the private Federal Reserve. When these bozos spend more than they take in, they just borrow from the Fed, who has the treasury print up the money to loan to us taxpayers, which devalues our currency, and this is exactly what happened with the commodity prices. Stop blaming Enron, Exxon, BP, and the Saudis. Blame the guys who control the purse strings in this country. It is the fault of Congress and the fault of the private bankers organization, the Fed, for our woes.
Who is YOU PEOPLE? Oh, yes, WE failed to notice commodity prices went up. Thank you for being the sole watchdog.
"When Bush was elected the first time, the Euro traded at 88 cents, now it is $1.60 which is about double (same as gold). Gee, that's the same doubling that the price of oil did..."
Reality check. Gold went from about $200 to $900, not doubling. Oil was $35 per barrel, and it's $100 MORE per barrel today.
I will agrewe with you about the Fed and Congress, but Big Biz does NOT get a pass--they are just as much a part of the problem.
Steve... oil from mid 20's to 140 is not double. Otherwise your reasoning is sound. And notice how Not 1 person here says THIS IS ALL MY FAULT, I DRIVE A MASSIVE TRUCK. I pulled into a gas station 5 years ago with my wife when all anybody bought was SUV's and said one day this will get ugly. Disclaimer:I DRIVE AN SUV and THIS IS MY FAULT!!! does anyone accept blame for anything anymore??
Posted June 23, 2008 | 05:37 PM (EST)