Our World and Everything in It

Marvin Odum, the new president of Shell Oil, the second largest oil company, said that Shell would be investing big in alternative energy today on ABC news. How big is big? More than their reported net profits of $27 billion. Incredible. I did a blog that did the math for the percentages that have been offered up by the top 5 oil companies in the recent past. It didn’t amount to a hill-of-beans compared to net profits.

But Shell is stepping up to the plate with the largest investment in alternative energy so far by the oil industry. Odum said it was historic. I would say so. Shell will invest $35 to $36 billion dollars yet in 2008.

Yesssss!  With this mindset, and example, we may just clean up yet.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=5632698&page=1 

I can’t believe it, but for whatever reason, DTE is going green. They are poised to invest billions in alternative energy for Michigan and from what I gathered of the Detroit Free Press article in yesterday’s Sunday paper, it is to help jumpstart Michigan’s economy. Actually, it said it was: “boosting the state’s efforts to become a leader in this rapidly growing market.” It can’t be talking about our senate’s recent efforts. It looks more like this is another example of the market driving environmentalism. The company couldn’t have made a more timely decision.

The article went on to say that DTE would invest $3 billion dollars over the next 6-7 years. This hinges on the state passing the mandate to insure 10% of Michigan’s electricity comes from renewable sources. The article reiterated that there are major differences between the senate and house energy bills, and that unless these differences are resolved, Michigan will continue to lose out on environmental jobs. 

DTE recognizes the potential for job growth, reduction in global warming, and energy independence by going green. The company is taking up the slack on wind power in Michigan that the latest round of energy bills through the senate seemed to dismiss. The “bulk of DTE’s multibillion-dollar investments will be in wind power.” The wind farms will be in the thumb region, the western side of the state, as well as, the possibility of a wind farm in Huron County.

DTE said it has begun to make multimillion dollar investments into its venture capital fund for alternative energy sources like wind, solar, and biofuels, but also new technologies and solutions, power storage, and companies that produce equipment like meters that monitor electricity use. This venture fund, formed in 1995, has not been active for the past few years, and is one of the few corporate venture funds available in the state “focused on alternative energy.” 

Recently, I happened to find a 1997 congressional presentation by many companies, including DTE, and from many states relative to alternative energy innovation. DTE presented some pretty advanced technology way back then. I’ve followed one of their investments, a company that produces hydrogen fuel cell extractors. It’s really advanced technology.  

What I find interesting is that these absolutely wonderful alternative ideas for energy presented to our federal congress back in the mid to late 90’s that were either ready to be developed further, marketed, and/or sold, just got shelved for years during the Bush administration. It looks like a big “Green Thumb” kept wraps on new technology entering the general public milieu even though the Texas ranch uses geothermal energy, and I wouldn’t doubt Cheney’s digs are eco friendly too. DTE just admitted their alternative energy venture fund has been on hold. It was obviously waiting on politics and/or the market.

I wonder if this new push to go green by DTE has anything to do with a federal judge vacating the “Clean Air Mercury Rule” as just another way to move pollution around, while demanding that the EPA set new standards for mercury emissions in less than 2 years? That ruling has a direct impact on coal fired plants. That’s for sure. Or is DTE keen enough to see the writing on the wall that a new environmental economy will lure more money and investment into Michigan, a good thing for all business, and in which case DTE is doing what our congress should be doing. Or is another monopoly forming because the possibility exists that any home can get solar panels, or a wind turbine, or a bio-digester for methane gas production, or all three, and provide energy for itself in the future. That paints a pretty scary picture for big utility companies and great incentive to go green first. 

I was watching Good Morning America this morning and the news featured a billionaire, ex-oil man named T-Bone Pickens on the subject of high oil prices. He stated that parts of America are known as the Saudi Arabia of wind and had to agree.  His home state of Texas has the largest wind field and is looking to Denmark to explore more off shore wind power along the coast. http://www.windenergynews.com/content/view/945/43/.

He stated there is no sense drilling for more oil in the U.S. There is not enough to sustain us but there is plenty of natural gas and WIND.

Meanwhile, I wondered about the “Saudi Arabia of wind” moniker and found that long-term studies have quantified the amount of mega the U.S. can produce. We’re rich with it.  Back in 2004, the U.S. Energy Dept. reported that wind power in the plain state’s region alone can provide more power than the entire nation’s electricity needs. And wind power is competitive with natural gas prices from way back in 2001. http://www.energyjustice.net/solutions/wind/.

According to Energy Justice, North and South Dakota alone have enough wind energy from its highest wind speed sites to supply over half of the electricity needs of the lower 48 states. A group of 12 states in the midsection of the country have enough wind energy potential to produce nearly four times the amount of electricity consumed by the nation in 1990.

Michigan just restored the monopoly by DTE Energy in Michigan, which allows DTE to limit use of alternative energy to only 10%. Does this  put a damper on overall use of more wind or solar power in Michigan? Does this limit individuals who want to go with solar and/or wind power for residential use?

The news suggested yesterday that skyrocketing gas prices may not be a bad thing. I’ve always believed higher pump prices could be the proverbial kick in the shorts for people to pay attention to what’s going on. It’s working. Demands for greater gas mileage and energy saving alternatives has been just the catalyst needed for a whole barage of ideas to burst forth to a tune of $448 billion dollars so far this year, DOUBLE that of last year already.

Venture capitalists are having a field day. There are even some pension plans racing to invest in a green market.  Some of the inventions are remarkable. There are already plastic bottles created from corn by-products so they are totally biodegradeable. And every thing and any thing is being sought after to accomplish either energy production or energy storage, right down to bacteria.

So it is true, out of something bad can come something very good.  

Check out this news from the Sierra Club: “Cars That Never Need Gas. Wish you never had to fill up again? Darrell Dickey doesn’t. He drives an electric car that’s charged by photovoltaic panels on the roof of his house. He’s one of three drivers who told us how they got into owning cars that are charged by wind or solar power.  As Dickey puts it, ‘For $45,000 we got a car and fuel for the rest of our lives.’” It covers the electricity on his house too.

Heck I paid more for my premium gas guzzling Cadillac 9 years ago. For anyone who pays a lot of money for their cars, this is a possibility. Throw in the house electric and what a deal! 

Read about other people who are taking the initiative to help themselves while they help the environment.  http://www.sierraclub.org/wecandoit/home/electric_cars.asp.

Get a load of our democratic process with this latest veto out of Washington. The Bush EPA nixed California’s proposed emission standards for the state that targeted the trucking, shipping, cement, semiconductor and consumer product industries. Instead Bush signed into law a new energy bill that requires automakers to cut emissions by 25 percent by 2009 and by 40 percent by 2020. The EPA said this covers the issue of emissions, end of story. Was that apples to apples?

Sixteen other states have already approved emissions laws and were waiting for this waiver by the EPA too. The EPA is supposed to have sole authority to make pollution rules, but our Federal Clean Air Act allows states to create their own rules with an EPA-approved waiver. The waiver was nixed today. The Supreme Court just ruled in favor of 12 states that sued the same EPA for dragging their feet about CO2 emissions. The Supreme Court had to tell the EPA that greenhouse gases can be considered “air pollutants” under the Clean Air Act and they were in violation for not regulating them. And today the EPA blocked California and the other states from doing what should have been the EPA’s job and substituted with Bush’s flimsy energy bill. 

So the states go through a lot of effort for nothing. The emission laws were part of California’s “Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.” The NRDC and many public interest groups co-sponsored it. California committed to reducing overall global warming pollution by 30% by 2020. They figured on new technologies as well as pollution cutting strategies to meet these goals. They sought the help of E2, “a national network of business people who work with the NRDC to champion the economic benefits of good environmental policy” and “who built a solid case for the ways in which curbing global warming could actually benefit California’s economy” (Nature’s Voice Newsletter by the NRDC Jan/Feb 2008). Just what I thought. Green is good for the economy.

I was intrigued by E2 and read on that they argue, “that clean technologies would create jobs and attract new companies to the state…supported by the fact that clean tech now ranks third in venture capital investment in North America.” Told ya so Michigan. Clean technology isn’t likely to coexist alongside coalburners and refineries. They showed that California would save “barrels” of money by reducing dependence on fossil fuel. It also stated that it took 124 meetings at the state capital by E2 volunteer members to “present their business-based argument.” They worked hard to come up with legislation that protects the environment and creates economic opportunity. They believe global warming controls will spur economic prosperity. This was a great program, until the automobile lobby got involved. Yeah, another lobby.

According to our own Detroit News:

Using a one-page script and a list of auto facilities obtained from the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group that represents automakers, staffers at the Department of Transportation called nearly every congressional member from Michigan and Ohio, urging them to oppose California’s request, according to records released this week by the House Oversight Committee. They also targeted other auto-heavy districts and governors in at least seven other states.
While federal law bars government officials from lobbying lawmakers on issues before Congress, there are no such restrictions on regulatory questions, such as the California waiver.

California filed a lawsuite challenging the EPA’s denial of the waiver. And there is a House Committee investigating the agency’s decision to deny it also. This is getting good.

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Read more about the veto at: http://lawyersusadcdicta.wordpress.com/2007/12/20/epa-nixes-states-plan-to-limit-greenhouse-gases/#comment-285.

Read more about E2: http://www.e2.org/jsp/main.jsp.

About the Supreme Courts decision: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june07/emissions_5-29.html.

The Detroit News article about the auto lobby: http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070705/AUTO01/707050350/1148.

I caught the end of a program on the Science Channel tonight that featured Stirling Energy Technologies. Stirling has been around since the 80’s relative to alternative energy sources. Stirling is not selling retail to the public on an individual basis yet, but considering I have a large satellite dish out here in the boonies I would have no problem owning a solar dish in the future.

The FAQ page for Stirling describes: 

Our Solar Dish Stirling system is shaped much like large satellite dishes (approximately 37’ in diameter) and covered with curved mirrors. These solar dishes are programmed to always face the sun and focus that energy on a collector in much the same way that a satellite dish focuses radio waves on a tuner. This collector is connected to a Stirling engine, which uses the thermal power generated by the focused solar energy to heat liquid hydrogen in a closed-loop system. The expanding hydrogen gas creates a pressure wave on the pistons of the Stirling engine, which spins an electric motor creating electricity with no fuel cost or pollution. This technology is referred to as solar thermal or concentrating solar power.

The company also says that at a “power plant producing 1,000 MW, the cost per kWh would be less than ten cents,” and “[o]ne dish on an annual basis can produce 55,000-60,000 kWh of electricity. This is equivalent to the total energy required for 8-10 homes in the U.S.” ChaChing!

Stirling may save the Western part of our country in the future. Right now Stirling is planning a solar field 5 miles square in the desert that will supply the entire city of San Diego with electricity. Of course as more of this type of technology is utilized, the more the engineers can improve and modify, modify, modify. Remember computers back in the 70’s? I used to do keypunch and then worked on a desktop computer in U of M hospital’s personnel dept. The mainframe to those computers back then took up a whole room. We had to type the info on forms with 7 carbon copies first, then input the data too because we couldn’t trust that the system wouldn’t go down and dump everything. The miracle of innovation, and modification is apparent as I type this on my little laptop that I can take anywhere and doesn’t even require a mouse. See what I mean?

The sooner we unleash all the technology that is out there to see what we actually can come up with, the sooner it gets modified down to convenient personal size. Right now it would take 20,000 dishes to equal a coalburner or nuke plant. But with future innovation and modification in no time we could see that number down to hundreds as the size of the equipment is reduced. Better yet our own personal dish, and mini power station no bigger than a small boiler that produces everything we need with absolutely no fuel used or pollution produced to keep us nice and cool as the sun sears on.  Am I taking it too far? I don’t think so.

Read more about Stirling: http://www.stirlingenergy.com/faq.asp?Type=all

I’ve looked into green investments before and one of the fastest growing sectors is recycling electronics. One of the latest editions to this trend is called ecoNEW a service program from NEW, a customer service based company that provides extended service and buyer protection programs for products. They’ve jumped on the environmental bandwagon and got into recycling electronics of all sorts.  

Who doesn’t have some of that junk hanging around? I gave my old cumbersome, slow, needed more memory pc to a family who couldn’t afford new. I almost felt sorry for them. They upgraded everything and I can imagine what it ended up costing. Then again I know what it cost me new for this little gizmo spitting out this blog. And yes I have an extended warranty that fixes, replaces, and debugs it, no matter whose fault the problem is. I have a curious, wants-to-be-human, African Grey that I’ve found ripping off my toggle keys while standing in the middle of the keyboard of my laptop that did have a 1500 word class assignment on it. At least I saved the primitive version of it. And I found out those toggles snap back on. If only that would work on those little rubber topped buttons on remote control paddles. Every one of mine is chewed up by you know who, that won’t stay put unless he’s locked up.

Anyway, this looks kind of promising, but there is a draw back with size and weight. You will be afforded this recycling service through the retailer where you buy your electronics. When your electronic gadget gets shabby, or you want to trade it in for the latest electronics, you will simply go to a website, and fill out the online form regarding your item. EcoNEW will render a trade-in price and provide a shipping label. When your electronic item is received by ecoNEW, and verified, they will remit a gift card to the retailer where you originally bought your product. You buy what you want and what you’ve just recycled gets reconditioned, parted out, or recycled properly.

See what I mean about size and weight restrictions. Sorry but that old puter of mine was heavy! I think ecoNEW will work mighty fine with recycled cell phones though, as well as laptops, MP3 players, game devices, and any smaller items. We simply can’t keep throwing this old stuff in landfills. You never know when the Twilight Zone will hit and all those electronics and old batteries in landfills unite and become transformers and march on us. I’m taking Art of Fiction in class right now. Can you tell?

For more about ecoNEW read: http://world-wire.com/news/0801070001.html. EcoNEW is showcased at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Expo through tomorrow. After watching this on TV, I really want to go to this expo sometime. Besides, any reason to go to Vegas is a good one.

For green investment in recycling of this sort goto: www.investingforthesoul.com. Ron Robins posted his website when I blogged about green business investments back in December. He’s been green investing for 40 years! He surely knows more than green me on green investing.

I wrote a blog called “Pig Poo Who Knew” about the meatpacking business and CAFO’s when I read Rolling Stone’s incredible expose by Jeff Tietz called “Boss Hog.” It was such an eye opener about the cruelty of industrialized farming that I took a look at the horrid conditions in which chickens are raised too. http://www.blogsmonroe.com/world/?p=100.  We seldom see any documentaries about the plight of farm animals on network television in the U.S. I presume it’s because of the food industry lobby. But in Great Britain it’s another story.

I ran across an article on Reuter’s online that states: “McDonalds sees animal welfare gaining ground in the UK.” McDonalds is anticipating that a British documentary airing on TV over there will really make a difference to farm animals particularly poultry. Admittedly, 91% of all the British know nothing about their food farms. In that case, insight into how the hens are raised should arouse quite a lot of concern. We don’t know all that much over here either and probably don’t know that chicken outsold beef at US McDonalds last year. So much for the Big Mac, and Quarter Pounder. The Reuter’s article stated that: “McDonald’s in Britain has served only free range eggs during the last 10 years,” and that “the company was currently looking at providing canopy cover for chickens to encourage hens to range more.” UK McDonalds is also looking into pig-rearing practices. It seems the poor pigs are confined, and distressed in such close proximity all the time they chew each other’s tails. The tails end up getting docked. There are infection issues I imagine, and all would be unnecessary if the pigs were raised humanely in the first place. Concern for their tails is a start. This is an intelligent animal also remember?  McDonalds UK said they don’t mind the added costs of humane farming if it served the public well. Everything comes back to the consumer. It’s our responsibility no matter how hard we try to shrug it off because if we don’t buy, things change. It’s that simple.

The actual UK documentary about the horrific way chickens are raised was highlighted in “The Independent” UK news and showcased on a website called “Chicken Out, Campaign for a Free Range Future.” “Chicken Out” is kind of catchy isn’t it? The covert filming for the documentary was done by an animal welfare group called “Compassion in World Farming” or CIWF. The article said it was about the grim life inside a chicken coop for 25 to 50 THOUSAND chickens. Imagine the ammonia stench? That would knock you down. It also stated: “Britain’s RSPCA called on supermarkets to quit selling the mass produced chickens.” Go RSPCA!

The British documentary will air on mainstream British television and be given a boost by chefs Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver. They want to highlight what food animals go through in order to keep prices down and mass production up, and that free range chickens and organic birds are the way to go if the industry is ever going to change. Imagine some of our stellar chefs hosting a show on NBC or Fox that would air the extremely bad conditions of farm animals perpetuated by one of our big, national food suppliers? Yeah, that’ll happen. 

So what’s wrong with our media? Sure I’ve caught many articles in magazines and documentaries on PBS, and subscription TV channels about the horrid conditions for our farm animals, but 20 million Americans don’t have subscription TV. The rest that do aren’t getting-in-your-face documentaries. Let’s face it, our news media is not going to upset a major lobby like big meatpacker, Smithfield Foods, unless it’s Rolling Stone magazine of course. So I have to say kudos to the UK and the spirit of revealing the unnecessary cruelty of the food business to the mainstream public in an effort to change, whether their food industry takes a hit or not.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKL0447565920080104
http://www.chickenout.tv/news.html?newsid=67.

I know I have a tendency to print only the dire accounts of global warming, and I still don’t think it bodes well for our future, but there are some good points about it while it still hasn’t gotten out of hand. Some mighty fine wine is being produced in places that were not conducive to vineyards before!

U.S. New and World Report reported in an article that Canada is producing pinot noir, Belgium, a chardonnay, and England has a sparkling white wine. In the U.S. The Puget Sound in the Pacific Northwest ‘has a great future ahead.’

The article went on to say that climate change has affected areas farther away from the equator with greater warmth. Changing climate makes more areas ideal for vineyards. It takes at least 4 years for a small patch of vines to produce decent grapes. Hopefully we’ll conserve, and the weather won’t become too hot or dry before the grapes make it to bottle.  What a waste.

It’s a good little article that gives some ideas for a few, new and different wines but references the book The World Atlas of Wine by Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson to really get a current worldwide view of the grape! I looked around on the Internet and found the website below that has world wine maps, probably not as current although it does include the latest Canadian vineyards. There should be enough here to give you an excuse to drink a few bottles—just testing of course, and to make for one very, very happy New Year.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/50-ways-to-improve-your-life/2007/12/20/the-wine-warm-up.html

http://www.kobrandwine.com/maps/index.php
Peace