Attention Real-Estate Buyers

I think that land within a 15 mile radius of a nuclear power plant is going to be a steal! Snatch it up! Have one in your own backyard!

ANWR Factoid

I would have normally reserved this for a snide comment in a right wing blog, but none of the ones I read have brought up Bush's speech this morning. In it, Bush entreats Congress to relax restrictions of offshore drilling, because oil prices are too darn high.

You will recall a few days ago I blogged about ANWR, and I just saw another factoid about it. If we approve drilling off the coast of Alaska (which can't possibly hurt the environment because they're really, really careful with this stuff nowadays) the price of oil will drop 75 cents. That is, per barrel of crude oil. Today a barrel of light sweet crude runs $132.50. So you can look forward to a corresponding drop at the pump. In about five years, once they put all the equipment in.

The source of this statistic is a Department of Energy study commissioned by Rep Ted Stevens, of Alaska. I bet if we also drill off the coast of Florida and California, we can conservatively put enough extra supply in the pipeline to drop the price of a barrel by $5.00. So presumably that's, what, almost 4 cents a gallon? That oughtta help! Five years from now, of course.

And of course, thats assuming that OPEC doesn't compensate by raising the price of their oil. And that the Governers of California and Florida (both Republican) don't fight the plan tooth and nail because, you know, they get a lot of income out of those unspoiled beaches.

But hey, I got plans for that four cents - there are stamps to buy.

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PS - the communists at the Wall Street Journal say it would take 20 years to go fully online and the price of a barrel of oil might drop 75 cents by 2025. Of course, since the Supreme Court says we have to give enemy combabtants rights and everything, we'll all be dead long before then. We might as well leave the wildlife alone.

Conan The Contrarian

Kudos to Arnold S*****************r *, the governer of California, for being a Republican and yet recognizing the value in easing off the fossil fuel use. He appeared on FoxNews over the weekend (HT to Crooks and Liars for the video) to explain that Republicans who deny global warming and fight green technology are missing the boat.

I think they’re just trying to protect business. And in the end, they’re hurting business. Because we’ve proven in California that you can do both, that you can protect the environment and protect business... I think people realize now, ‘wait, this does not hurt our economy, this is actually a big plus’ because we’re creating jobs through green, clean technology.

True dat, Arn. Additionally, a lot of global warming denyers somehow seem to think that only people would be troubled by climate change -- "oooooh, it's too hot here!" -- without considering that the economic effects are the real problem. It's not such a trivial thing to move a soybean farm three hundred miles north, pal. And if Allstate has to pay to replace expensive beachfront property because the ocean levels have caused seepage into that 4-car garage, then you're paying more insurance. Global warming causes inflation! Get it? That's your free-market solution.

Meanwhile businesses are the biggest user of fossil fuels, to heat their buildings and refrigerate their food and transport their goods. If we don't develop alternate energy solutions, and the price of gas keeps rising, businesses fold. Instead of being choked by regulations, they are bled by Exxon. Either way there's less competition, and prices go up. The sun has a few million years of life in it, why not tap some of that?

S*****************r * recognizes that there are incidental benefits to using energy more efficiently. He is the anti-Cheney. I'm betting the rest of the party won't pick up the message and run with it any time soon, but it's kinda like the denial of evolution and the insistance the Al-Queada was running Iraq -- it's a talking point that mainly helps Democrats because it makes the Right look a little dim-witted. So keep it up, boys, at least until November!

* I'm saving energy by not spelling it out.

NRG - Norquist Regales GOP

I was at a dinner party last night, and a friend of mine said she was taken with this story about right-leaning politicians fighting for our right to choose - light bulbs. How odd that this would become an issue to tear our congress people away from the war on terror, or the struggle to prevent gay marriage, abortion, and Arabs! 

Indeed, energy issues are a fascinating extremist litmus test for the Republicans. Their argument against CFC bulbs, for example, is that they contain mercury and therefore are bad for the environment. When have you ever heard a Republican passionately defending the environment against a manufacturer such as General Electric?  By the way, a typical thermometer has ten times the mercury, so where's the horror at their use?

Almost all scientists agree that there is a global warming problem caused by man's use of fossil fuels, but the wingnuts (term of endearment, boys) believe the handful of contrarians who happen to work for the fossil fuel companies. Dick Cheney takes office, has a mysterious summit with, oh, no one that you'd be interested in, and emerges with our nations energy policy: quit wasting so much money on R&D and use more coal and oil. 

The right wing's position, as I read it, is "We must waste as much energy as possible to stay competitive." Which is arguably a valid position. 

IF YOU WORK FOR AN OIL COMPANY.

For the rest of us, it means taking money we'd be saving by using wind power and solar power, and giving it to Big Energy instead. They'll remain competitive, we'll all suffer. Already one of the chief causes of inflation is the price of transporting everything, because the cost of gas keeps crawling up. Sometimes it leaps.

And once in a while when I'm venturing onto right wing blogs, I'll complain about how these tax cuts are hurting the country, and they'll respond "we need to cut social programs." When I suggest that maybe we could also stand to eliminate some tax breaks to Exxon and company because they're achieving record profits, my right wing friends turn strangely silent. Perhaps they don't have the energy to speak.

So here's my theory. Grover Norquist, the creepy old guy in that smoke filled room in New York where the X-Files old men used to hang out, is getting his money from the Oil Companies. In turn, he's encouraging pro-big-energy opinion around the offices of Fox and NewsMax, which filters down to my favorite right wing blogs. They write their pro-coal-industry editorials, then set down a piece about how the unions and the trial lawyers control the left. What do you think?