Harvey Wasserman : Why Stewart Brand is Wrong on Nukes

Image from Greenopolis.
Reinventing the Brand:
Whole Earth icon is
Dead wrong on nukes

By Harvey Wasserman / The Rag Blog / July 25, 2010

Stewart Brand has become a poster boy for a "nuclear renaissance" that has just suffered a quiet but stunning defeat. Despite $645 million spent in lobbying over the past decade, the reactor industry has thus far failed to gouge out major new taxpayer funding for new commercial reactors.

In an exceedingly complex series of twists and turns, no legislation now pending in Congress contains firm commitments to the tens of billions reactor builders have been demanding. They could still come by the end of the session. But the radioactive cake walk many expected the industry to take through the budget process has thus far failed to happen.

The full story is excruciatingly complicated. But the core reasons are simple: atomic power can't compete, and makes global warming worse

In support of this failed 20th Century technology, the industry has enlisted a 20th Century retro-hero, Stewart Brand. Back in the 1960s Brand published the Whole Earth Catalog. Four decades later, that cachet has brought him media access for his advocacy of corporate technologies like genetically modified foods and geo-engineering... and, of course, nuclear energy.

In response to a cover interview in Marin County's Pacific Sun, I wrote the following to explain why Stewart is wrong wrong wrong:

Stewart Brand now seems to equate "science" with a tragic and dangerous corporate agenda. The technologies for which he argues -- nuclear power, "clean" coal, genetically modified crops, etc. -- can be very profitable for big corporations, but carry huge risks for the rest of us. In too many instances, tangible damage has already been done, and more is clearly threatened.

If there is a warning light for what Stewart advocates, it is the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which much of the oil industry said (like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl) was "impossible." Then it happened. The $75 million liability limit protecting BP should be ample warning that any technology with a legal liability limit (like nuclear power) cannot be tolerated.

Thankfully, there is good news: We have true green alternatives to these failed 20th-century ideas. They're cheaper, safer, cleaner, more reliable, and more job-producing than the old ways Stewart advocates.

Stewart and I have never met. But we have debated on the radio and online. Thank you, Pacific Sun, for bringing us to print.

Stewart's advocacy does fit a pattern. He appears to have become a paladin for large-scale corporate technologies that may be highly profitable to CEOs and shareholders, but are beyond the control of the average citizen, and work to our detriment. Because he makes so many simple but costly errors, let's try a laundry list:

1. Like other reactor advocates, Stewart cavalierly dismisses the nuclear waste problem by advocating, among other things, the stuff be simply dumped down a deep hole. This is a terribly dangerous idea and will not happen. Suffice it to say that after a half-century of promises (the first commercial reactor opened in Pennsylvania in 1957) the solution now being offered by government and industry is... a committee!!!
   
   Meanwhile, more than 60,000 tons of uniquely lethal spent fuel rods sit at some 65 sites in 31 states with nowhere to go. Like the reactors themselves, they are vulnerable to cooling failure, terror attack, water shortages, overheating of lakes, rivers and oceans, flooding, earthquakes, tornadoes and hurricanes, and much more. This is no legacy to leave our children.


2. Equally disturbing is the industry's inability to get meaningful private liability insurance. The current federally imposed limit is $11 billion, which would disappear in a meltdown even faster than BP's $75 million in the Gulf. According to the latest compendium of studies, issued this spring by the New York Annals of Science, Chernobyl has killed some 985,000 people, and is by no means finished. It has done at least a half-trillion dollars in damage. The uninsured death toll and financial costs of a similar-scaled accident in the U.S. are incalculable, but would clearly kill millions and bankrupt our nation for the foreseeable future.


3. Stewart points out that there are also risks with wind and solar power. But clearly none that begin to compare with nukes, coal, or deep-water drilling. If reactor owners were forced to find reasonable liability insurance, all would shut. A similar demand for renewables and efficiency would leave them unaffected.


4. Renewable/efficiency technologies today are cheaper, faster to deploy, and more job-creating than nukes. It takes a minimum of five years to license and build a new reactor. The one being done by AREVA in Finland is hugely over budget and behind schedule. There is no reason to expect anything better here. Among other things, the long lead time ties up for too many years the critical social capital that could otherwise go to technology that can quickly let the planet heal.


5. Like others who doubt the possibility of a green-powered Earth, Stewart posits the straw man of reliance on a deployment of solar panels that would blanket the desert and do ecological harm. In fact, the National Renewable Energy Lab estimates 100 percent of the nation's electricity could come from an area 90 miles on a side, or a relatively modest box of 8,100 square miles. But as we all know, that's not how it will be done. Solar panels belong on rooftops, where there is ample area throughout the nation, and an end to transmission costs.
   
   Likewise, wind farms do not "cover" endless acres of prairie, their tower bases take up tiny spots that remain surrounded by productive farmland. In this case, currently available wind turbines spinning between the Mississippi and the Rockies could generate 300 percent of the nation's electricity. There's sufficient potential in North Dakota, Kansas, and Texas alone to do 100 percent. Cost and installation times put nukes to shame.
   
   The liability is nil, as is the bird kill, which primarily affects obsolete, badly sited fast-spinning machines in places like Altamont Pass. Those must come down, and there will certainly be other surprises along the way. No technology is perfect, and we need to be careful even with those that are green-based. But as we have seen, further threats on the scale of Chernobyl and the Deepwater Horizon cannot be sustained.


6. As for GMO crops, Darwin was right. Plants evolve to avoid herbicides just as bugs work their way around pesticides (which Stewart correctly decries). Now we see that "super-weeds" are outsmarting the carefully engineered herbicides meant to justify the whole GMO scheme, bringing a disastrous reversion to horrific, lethal old sprays. Chemical farming may be good for corporate profits, but it can kill global sustainability. In the long run, only organics can sustain us.


7. Stewart mentions that he is paid only for speeches. But a single such fee can outstrip an entire year's pay for a grassroots organizer or volunteer. What's remarkable is that the nuclear power industry spent some $645 million lobbying for its "renaissance" over the past decade -- more than $64 million/year. It has bought an army of corporate lobbyists and legislators. Yet only a handful of folks with rear guard environmental credentials have stepped forward to fight for the old fossil/nuclear/GMO technologies.

The reinvented Stewart Brand. Photo by Marla Aufmuth / TED.
Stewart is certainly welcome to his own opinions. But not to his own facts. Pushing for a nuclear "renaissance" concedes that it's a Dark Age technology, defined by unsustainable costs, inefficiencies, danger, eco-destruction, radiation releases, lack of insurance, uncertain decommissioning costs, vulnerability to terrorism, and much more.

That the industry must desperately seek taxpayer help, and cannot find insurance for even this "newer, safer" generation, is the ultimate testimony to its failure. By contrast, renewables and efficiency are booming, and are a practical solution to our energy needs, which the corporate clunkers of the previous century simply cannot provide.

It's been a long time since the Whole Earth Catalog was published. Its hallowed founder should wake up to the booming holistic green technologies that are poised to save the Earth. They are ready to roll over the obsolete corporate boondoggles that are killing Her. Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, the disasters in the coal mines and the Gulf remind us we need to make that green-powered transition as fast as we possibly can.

[Harvey Wasserman, an early co-founder of the grassroots "No Nukes" movement, is senior adviser to Greenpeace USA, and author of Solartopia! Our Green-Powered Earth.]

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Austin and Texas : Economic Slump Finally Hitting Home

Texas unemployment up;
Austin's tech economy fading

Since Texas has borrowed all it can, and since a state can't print money like the federal government, the feds are now under enormous political pressure to function as the job creators of last resort.

By Roger Baker / The Rag Blog / February 7, 2010

The Texas Employment Commission, which closely monitors such things, recently announced an increase in Texas' unemployment from 8% to 8.3%. This jobless increase says that Texas, a traditionally poor state, is now strongly feeling the effects of the national economic slump.

Note that the Texas unemployment rate is mostly rising due to private jobs continuing to disappear. The numbers for the various Texas jobs sectors seem to indicate that average folks are trying to restructure their spending by cutting back as much as they can on discretionary spending; things like travel and utility costs.

Despite the gain of 50,000 jobs in the past three months to the Texas economy, unemployment levels are still on the rise.

The unemployment rate in Texas has risen from 8 percent to 8.3 percent between the November to December, even with employment gains. This is greatly due to the reduction of 23,900 jobs from various Texas employers.

"Texas continues to feel the effects of this serious national recession with unemployment in our state now at 8.3 percent," said Texas Workforce Commission chairman Tom Pauken. "Nonetheless, unemployment in Texas remains well below the national level of 10 percent."

Education and health services in the past 12 months have received around 60,400 jobs, specifically 4,800 just in December. Logging and mining even showed signs of growth with an addition of 300 jobs.

"December job losses offset some of the gains from the last couple of months," said TWC Commissioner Representing Labor Ronny Congleton.

Job markets hit with the the most losses include: Trade, transportation and utilities - accounting for a total loss of 7,400 jobs just in December. Other notable job losses for December include: Leisure/hospitality with 6,500 and professional/business services with 5,300.

Down at the micro-economic level, in Texas as elsewhere, the consumer economy seems to be restructuring in a sensible way, given the hard times. We don't really need as many malls and salesman as last year, now that more folks shop over the Internet for things they really need. Families, perhaps jobless and struggling to live on food stamps, cast what is arguably the most meaningful vote they still have, when they decide whether or not to buy some seductive item they see advertised on TV.

Clean energy and the Austin economy

How does this outside situation affect the Austin area economy? As economic background, Austin lost about 2600 jobs in 2009. Austin unemployment rate rose from about 5.2% to 6.9%. Austin-Round Rock's registered jobless worker numbers rose from 43,000 to 63,000.

There is always reason to be skeptical of perennial optimism. Take those who point to the Austin area as one of the nation's strongest metropolitan economies.

Nowadays, we see that computers, high tech, semiconductors, and construction have all mostly faded as lucrative sources of profitable investment for the Austin economy. It is now frequently less expensive to develop software abroad, except for fine tuning local user needs and service requirements. With energy prices less a concern than in 2008, the investment impetus for clean energy has considerably faded.

What is Austin's next big thing? In the past few years, the Austin business community, Sen. Kirk Watson, and a constellation of influential movers and shakers have been energetically promoting Austin as a clean energy research hub. The "Pecan Street Project" is being promoted by Austin ex-city council member, Brewster McCracken, with the goal of making the Austin area into "America’s clean energy laboratory."

Just in the last month, we have had access to another opinion that is widely accepted by the local business community. A local economic forecasting group, AngelouEconomics Inc., led by long time Austin economist Angelos Angelou, has just issued its Austin area 2010-2011 Economic forecast; a sort of a report card on Austin's economic future, concluding as follows:

For Austin to maintain its competitiveness, it must continually build upon these great assets. In today's struggling financial environment, this translates into increased local government support. Effective economic development policy must be bolstered by strategic incentives and inducements that are competitive with other cities' attraction packages.

In addition to government support that attracts companies and people, Austin's success will also be determined by its capacity to grow jobs from within. To do so, the Austin area must cultivate entrepreneurism and attract additional early-stage capital. If people migrating to the region cannot find work, they must find the tools in place to create their own. Austin area residents are very entrepreneurial, and the region needs to continually assess and improve its infrastructure to keep entrepreneurism flourishing.

AngelouEconomics expects the current economic conditions to extend through the second quarter of this year, as the embattled technology sector and real estate markets struggle to rediscover their footing. In the meantime, Austin's traditional economic base, the public sector, will continue to provide stability. While this
“recession-proof” sector is incapable of supplying the region with an abundance of new jobs, gradual employment gains will persist through the end of the year.

The region's economy will continue its path of improvement with the addition of 9,200 jobs in 2010 and another 17,100 jobs in 2011.

As a rule, it is probably a fact that presidential advisors, fortune tellers, and economists do not thrive on delivering bad news. This new report is not cheery, but it does deliver a whiff of guarded optimism by predicting a modest resumption of job growth for the Austin area. But this is not through the creation of many of the kinds of jobs envisioned by Austin's clean energy development promoters.

China is now aggressively using its mountain of accumulated U.S. treasury debt to acquire the means to surge ahead on green energy manufacturing, from electric cars, to PV, to wind turbines. Contrast this with the slow progress at Austin-subsidized PV startup Heliovolt. Venture capital, which has been the lifeblood of advanced technology development efforts, is down since even last year, both locally and nationally. The Angelou report regards Austin's clean energy research efforts as lagging in the face of international competition.

The new thinking is that the health, education, and government sectors will likely be the big job gainers in the Austin economy, to somewhat match the steady decline in Austin area manufacturing over the last decade. It is no coincidence that these are the same economic sectors that thrive on public spending by federal and state governments. For lack of an alternative, the solid job creation burden will increasingly fall on state and or federal government.

Statewide, as we can see from the Texas Workforce report, it is primarily government-subsidized jobs sectors like health and education and government that are increasing. Presumably, Austin should be able to fit into this kind of picture. But now we see spending cutbacks and hiring freezes at the Texas state level, and also at the University of Texas, requiring shutting down the iconic Cactus Cafe, and more.

The state of Texas is broke, at least in the sense that it has slashed state expenses about as far as it can. Since Texas has borrowed all it can, and since a state can't print money like the federal government, the feds are now under enormous political pressure to function as the job creators of last resort.

The mortgage and credit-card-debt burdened U.S. consumers spend about 70% of all the money spent in the U.S. Such debt-ridden consumers are not currently regarded as a good source of profit; the consumer sector seems to be in a deflationary spiral of uncertain duration. Yet it is only the expectation of profit that can encourage banks to lend money, leading to the creation of jobs which depend on these same consumers as customers.

The big picture

With the decline of Austin's past economic drivers, Austin's future is now more closely linked to conditions in both the Texas and national economies. Looking at the big picture as it affects most states, they have to depend on the feds.

Meanwhile, federal deficits are now pretty much out of control, meaning that the dollar is almost certainly going to have to be devalued in terms of its buying power. Either devalued through a messy collapse or more gradually, which is much preferable.

This means we are likely to see the U.S. consumer's spending ability continue to deteriorate over the next few years. Here is quite a good quantitative analysis explaining the background to this uncomfortable conclusion.

Wrapping up, what does this all imply for the regional Austin economy? In general, the feds appear to be attaching more strings, in ways that often seem to be sensibly restrained compared to the past, assuming they are still spending. They are tightening up on the ozone limits affecting transportation planning, tightening up federal loan requirements, targeting energy conservation, etc.

As a trend, it looks like the feds will increasingly have to be the source of public funds needed to relieve Austin's growing unemployment problem. The Austin area will continue to rely on state government and higher education for its traditional and reliable economic base of support, but if so, it will have to be through increasing federal participation.

Accordingly, Austin should figure out how best to play ball with the federal administrators who will be funding Austin's future jobs programs. Let us hope that this message reaches the Texas Legislature -- the fact that we are probably entering a new leaner and more practical and populist era, a time when the luxurious inefficiency of the traditional Texas good-old-boy politics probably isn't going to work. Need proof? Just ask Gov. Rick Perry whatever happened to his Trans-Texas Corridor plan.

Conclusion: For lack of a better alternative, it probably makes good sense to let the feds guide the way toward Austin's new industrial future. This necessarily implies political competition with the other needy areas of the USA, already impatiently waiting in line for federal help.

[Roger Baker is a long time transportation-oriented environmental activist, an amateur energy-oriented economist, an amateur scientist and science writer, and a founding member of and an advisor to the Association for the Study of Peak Oil-USA. He is active in the Green Party and the ACLU, and is a director of the Save Our Springs Association and the Save Barton Creek Association. Mostly he enjoys being an irreverent policy wonk and writing irreverent wonkish articles for The Rag Blog.]

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Avatar : Contradictions of Cameron's Animation Masterpiece

The contradictions of capital-intensive history:
James Cameron's animation masterpiece

The stunning experience of nature, culture, and politics does achieve an important spiritual reversal of the Cowboys and Indians plot.

By Greg Moses / The Rag Blog / December 28, 2009

"I'll sell it to you for $12 what I paid," she says to a man holding a pale sign that says "Needed, 1 ticket." Cheery thankyous move the long line forward, one step closer to Avatar on the last day of this box-office- busting Christmas weekend.

Inside the IMAX theater, just before the house lights come down there will be two more tickets to exchange. Mother and son pay cash at the door to strangers and locate a small, impromptu space where they can sit together against the wall, giving the rest of us the chance to see what we look like with our 3-D glasses on.

The one and only preview belongs to the Disney-branded Tim Burton edition of Alice in Wonderland starring Johnny Depp. Everything about it looks brilliant in IMAX 3-D. The Mad Hatter does not fail to chuckle. Imagine seeing all of us from his point of view, looking like a wall of human flies on flypaper, all bug-eyed.

As for the main feature, which opened Dec. 18, 2009 worldwide, it is true what the fan said who chased in vain after James Cameron's grumpy autograph at LAX: "The plot is so simple a three-year-old could follow it." Yes, okay, the formula of colonial imperialism is a cosmology that every preschooler can comprehend. It used to go by the name Cowboys and Indians.

Something about Cameron's capital-intensive mythology is laudable for a Hollywood Blockbuster. The stunning experience of nature, culture, and politics does achieve an important spiritual reversal of the Cowboys and Indians plot. The audience is skillfully maneuvered into anti-imperialist sympathies so that we can tearfully commit to an improbable reversal of the kind of history that any three-year-old knows.

I came away thinking that I might like to try the Xbox version of the Avatar adventure, with opportunities to win battles of liberation using fantastic weapons upon exotic landscapes. Of course, I realized as I was pulling out my car key that a more effective spiritual reversal would have me renouncing all my capital-intensive desires and the battles they advance.

A truly improbable Avatar reversal would produce a global back-to-nature movement liberated from plastic 3-D glasses because something like "real nature" was being returned to its sacred center of attention. "I see you," we would say to all living things. Cameron's deeper vision suggests that all living things would be able to sigh a biologically verifiable response of collective awareness: "And I see you."

At the high point of the plot's arc, a masculine body of "skin" touches the feminine surface of a producer's fantasy. In that very moment, the saturated hues of Avatar’s animation affirm what the plot renounces. Experience moves relentlessly toward the desire to be more immersed in the jungle of technology than we already are.

At any rate, the contradictions of the Hollywood Blockbuster are not proprietary to Cameron. They are the contradictions of capital-intensive history itself. With few exceptions here and there, audiences have not failed to purchase their Avatar tickets in advance.

[Greg Moses is editor of the Texas Civil Rights Review and author of Revolution of Conscience: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Philosophy of Nonviolence. He can be reached at gmosesx@gmail.com.]

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SCIENCE / Next Generation Lighting on the Horizon

OLED light sources. The devices are flat - another reason they are desirable as light sources.
Flat-screen light bulbs switch on
By Jason Palmer / May 15, 2009

Researchers have demonstrated white, organic light-emitting diode (OLED) sources with the same efficiency as fluorescent light bulbs.

The result brings closer the prospect that OLEDs will be the flat-screen light sources of choice in the future.

The limited lifetime of the blue-emitting part of the devices means they survive for just hours, but new blue-emitting materials are on the horizon.

The results are published in the journal Nature.

There has been significant work in OLEDs in recent years, so that small displays and even televisions based on the technology are beginning to come to market.

Though much of the technology would be the same for lighting, the key word for light bulbs is efficiency - and OLEDs had not, until now, passed the efficiency benchmark set by fluorescent bulbs.

Two different types of organic polymers can be used in the devices: phosphorescent and fluorescent.

While fluorescent materials - the kind used in OLED displays and televisions - are significantly longer-lived, they are only one-fourth as efficient.

Recent research has therefore focused on optimising the efficiency and lifetime of devices based on phosphorescent materials.

"I think if you went back five or 10 years and said this is where we're going to end up, there would've been all-round scepticism." John de Mello, Imperial College London

Profit and loss

Now, Karl Leo of the Institute for Applied Photophysics in Dresden and his colleagues have made the first devices to outperform fluorescent bulbs in the efficiency stakes.

To do that they had to reduce the sources of loss - stages in which electrical energy goes in but does not exit in the form of usable light.

They did this first by optimising the design in the emitter layer, where losses happen because charge carriers recombine rather than dumping their energy into the polymers that give rise to coloured light.

Another significant source of loss happens at the edge of the diode structure where the light is actually produced; if it is not extracted efficiently, photons can bounce around inside it or be re-absorbed.

The team solved that problem by designing a particularly efficient, nano-structured interface to suck out more light than previous efforts.

"The combined result is that we achieve an efficiency which is for the first time higher than a fluorescent tube," Professor Leo told BBC News.

Also, unlike previous white OLEDs, that efficiency does not decrease as the devices are turned up to produce higher-intensity light.

Very much like prior white OLEDs, however, the significant problem is that the devices degrade within an hour or two, because the polymers that produce the blue part of the light are unstable.

However, Professor Leo said that promising first results on stable, phosphorescent blue polymers are starting to emerge.

"I'm personally convinced that it may take a few years, but chemists will solve this problem and find materials which are stable enough," he said.

Energy saving bulbs (AP). Fluorescent bulbs have long held the title of most efficient lighting.
Roll call

John de Mello, an optoelectronics expert at Imperial College London, described the work as "impressive".

"I think if you went back five or 10 years and said this is where we're going to end up, there would've been all-round scepticism," he said.

"But they've shown that by taking existing materials and known methods, tweaking them a little bit, and addressing several issues in parallel you really can bring efficiencies up to parity with fluorescent tube lighting."

Professor Leo suggested that by further improving the design of the part of the OLEDs that whisks the light out, efficiencies up to twice that of fluorescent bulbs could be reached.

For the moment, the devices are comparatively expensive because of the manufacturing methods the group employs.

But OLEDs, when the materials and designs are right, can be produced in so-called "roll-to-roll" manufacturing in which vast sheets are made, making them economical on a commercial scale.

"Commercially this is really an opportunity," said Professor Leo.

"I'm pretty convinced that in a few years OLEDs will be a standard in buildings."

Source / BBC News

Thanks to Deva Wood / The Rag Blog

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Battle for Stimulus Bucks : Green Jobs Vs. 'Shovel Ready'

The debate has centered on two competing principles: the desire to spend money on what President-elect Barack Obama calls "shovel-ready projects," such as highway and bridge construction, vs. spending on more environmentally conscious projects, such as grids for wind and solar power.

By Paul Kane and Michael D. Shear / December 24, 2008

In one of the first internal struggles of the incoming Obama administration, environmentalists and smart-growth advocates are trying to shift the priorities of the economic stimulus plan that will be introduced in Congress next month away from allocating tens of billions of dollars to highways, bridges and other traditional infrastructure spending to more projects that create "green-collar" jobs.

The debate has centered on two competing principles in the evolving plan: the desire to spend money on what President-elect Barack Obama calls "shovel-ready projects," such as highway and bridge construction, vs. spending on more environmentally conscious projects, such as grids for wind and solar power.

Lawmakers opposed to the emerging-technology projects accuse their colleagues of using the financial crisis to push through pricey policy proposals that they say would do little to boost the economy in the immediate future.

"If we're going to call it a stimulus package, it has to be stimulating and has to be stimulating now. I think there are members of our caucus who are trying to create a Christmas tree out of this," said Rep. Baron P. Hill (Ind.), incoming co-chairman of the Blue Dog Coalition, a caucus of 51 fiscally conservative House Democrats.

The largest beneficiary of the shovel-ready construction projects would be labor unions. There are fewer of the green-collar jobs, a key focus of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). These projects often have the long-term potential to revolutionize the economy but tend to lack the short-term bounce of old-fashioned infrastructure work. Not as many of them involve union labor.

Labor leaders have refrained from criticizing other stakeholders in the infrastructure debate, saying that the stimulus legislation will provide plenty of money to fund quick-starting pavement projects and environmentally friendly efforts. "It shouldn't be one or the other," said Anna Burger, chairman of Change to Win, a union group. "In fact, we do have crumbling roads and bridges that need to be repaired. It's not about pitting one against the other. It's about how we find a sustainable economy."

They also see opportunities for their membership in long-term "green" projects. "We're committed to green jobs and rapid transit and all the rest of it," said Terence M. O'Sullivan, head of the Laborers' International Union of North America.

Senior aides in the new administration and the congressional leadership privately predict that they will be able to please both camps but suggest that there have been delays in identifying enough of the environmentally friendly projects to reach a dollar level that will truly jump-start the economy.

Talks over the stimulus plan, which could cost $675 billion to $850 billion, heated up over the past week as an unofficial outline emerged of what the bill would fund. About $200 billion would probably go toward middle-class tax cuts and tax credits for tuition and small businesses, while another $200 billion is under consideration to help mitigate the soaring costs of Medicaid and education. Up to $350 billion, or more, could go toward investments covering infrastructure, tax credits for renewable energy, increased funding for food stamps and the creation of an extensive technological health database.

Democratic negotiators plan to reconvene around New Year's Day to try to hash out the final details of the plan before the 111th Congress starts Jan. 6, with a goal of passing a bill out of the House and Senate shortly after Obama is sworn in Jan. 20. At a meeting of Obama's transition team yesterday, Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. vowed that the proposal would not become a "Christmas tree" for lawmakers' policy earmarks. He defended it against the criticism on the left that too much of its focus would be on old-fashioned projects.

"We've let our infrastructure crumble for a long, long time from water to roads to bridges. It makes sense to invest in them now," Biden said.

But environmentalists and their allies view old-fashioned highway construction as encouraging longer commutes and increasing the energy-consumption crisis of the past year. "They're going to put a bunch of money through a broken system to stimulate the economy. That doesn't make sense to me," said Colin Peppard, a transportation expert for Friends of the Earth.

Peppard's group recently began a "Road to Nowhere" campaign, saying that new roads would lead to "new pollution -- keep the economic stimulus clean."

Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has circulated a 41-page memo seeking $85 billion worth of projects over the next two years. The largest chunk of that money, more than $30.2 billion, would go toward highway funds, while $12 billion would go to local public transportation funds. An additional $14.3 billion would go toward "environmental infrastructure," with most going to a clean-water fund.

The emerging proposal has become such a magnet for lawmakers that more than 50 staffers crammed into a standing-room-only meeting last Friday night in the basement of the Capitol to hear senior aides lay out the parameters of the infrastructure package. Aides described it as a meeting to both pitch the proposal and to solicit ideas for inclusion in the package, particularly for the harder-to-find environmentally friendly projects.

Smart-growth advocates are happy that the percentage of funds in Oberstar's proposal devoted to roads is not the 80-20 split in the current highway funding formula, but they still see a system tilting toward old-fashioned projects. "It's been a lot of business as usual," said David Goldberg, spokesman for Transportation for America.

Goldberg's group has studied infrastructure proposals from 15 states and found that 75 percent of their requests are for roadway construction, and of that, the overwhelming majority of money would fund new projects in outer suburbs that have been hard hit by the mortgage crisis. "We're building all this stuff for where the economy isn't anymore," he said.

But the green-collar proposals have also come under fire. Hill, the incoming Blue Dog co-chairman, said he opposes including these proposals and the medical technology project in the stimulus plan, suggesting that "somewhere down the road" they be considered under the normal legislative process.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who supports both medical technology and wind farm projects, said it may take longer to pump the money into those projects, but said that is why Obama set out a two-year plan. In that time span, Nelson said, a "smart grid" could be funded that would connect wind farms and solar-power hot spots around the country, delivering power in a cleaner fashion.

Bill Samuel, the chief lobbyist for the AFL-CIO, said that many of his members could be put to work building or repairing schools or expanding rail systems. "We support all of that," he said. "There has to be some balance. I think it's not fair to say we're all about roads."

The battle has Democratic negotiators on Capitol Hill trying to decide how to spend the money -- and whom to please. Said Peppard: "One minute they want to spend it quickly, the next minute they want to spend it well."

[Washington Post staff writers Lori Montgomery and Shailagh Murray contributed to this report.]

Source / Washington Post

Thanks to Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog

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Neil Young : How to Save a Major Automobile Company

'We need visionary people now with business sense to create automobiles that do not contribute to global warming.'
By Neil Young

See 'Neil Young's car heads west' by Chris Frank and Video, Below.

Find a new ownership group. The culture must change. It is time to turn the page. In the high technology sector there are several candidates for ownership of a major car and truck manufacturer. We need forward looking people who are not restricted by the existing culture in Detroit. We need visionary people now with business sense to create automobiles that do not contribute to global warming.

It is time to change and our problems can facilitate our solutions. We can no longer afford to continue down Detroit's old road. The people have spoken. They do not want gas guzzlers (although they still like big cars and trucks). It is possible to build large long-range vehicles that are very efficient. People will buy those vehicles because they represent real change and a solution that we can live with.

The government must take advantage of the powerful position that exists today. The Big 3 are looking for a bailout. They should only get it if they agree to stop building autos that contribute to global warming now. The stress on the auto manufacturers today is gigantic. In order to keep people working in their jobs and keep factories open, this plan is suggested:

The big three must reduce models to basics. a truck, an SUV, a large family sedan, an economy sedan, and a sports car. Use existing tooling.

Keep building these models to keep the workforce employed but build them without engines and transmissions. These new vehicles, called Transition Rollers, are ready for a re-power. No new tooling is required at this stage. The adapters are part of the kits described next.

At the same time as the new Transition Rollers are being built, keeping the work force working, utilize existing technology now, create re-power kits to retrofit the Transition Rollers to SCEVs (self charging electric vehicles) for long range capability up to and over 100mpg. If you don't think this technology is realistic or available, check out the Progressive Insurance Automotive X prize. Alternatively, check out Lincvolt.com or other examples.

A bailed out Auto manufacturer must open or re-purpose one or more factories and dedicate them to do the re-power/retrofit assembly. These factories would focus on re-powering the Transition Rollers into SCEVs but could also retrofit and re-power many existing vehicles to SCEVs. These existing vehicles are currently sitting unsold at dealerships across America.

Auto manufacturers taking advantage of a government bailout must only sell clean and green vehicles that do not contribute to global warming. No more internal combustion engines that run exclusively on fossil fuels can be sold period.

No Big Three excuses like "new tooling takes time". New tooling is not a requirement for SCEV transition rollers.

Build only new vehicles that attain the goal of reversing global warming and enhancing National Security.

Government legislation going with the bailout should include tax breaks for purchasers of these cars with the new green SCEV technology. The legislation accompanying the bailout of major auto manufacturers must include directives to build only vehicles that attain the goal of reversing global warming while enhancing National security, and provide the financial assistance to make manufacturing these cars affordable in the short term while the industry re-stabilizes.

Eventually the SCEV technology could be built into every new car and truck as it is being assembled and the stop gap plan described above would have completed its job of keeping America building and working through this turbulent time.

Detroit has had a long time to adapt to the new world and now the failure of Detroit's actions is costing us all. We pay the bailout. Let's make a good deal for the future of America and the Planet. Companies like UQM (Colorado) and others build great electric motors right here in the USA. Use these domestic electric motors. Put these people to work now. This plan reverses the flow from negative to positive because people need and will buy clean and green cars to be part of World Change. Unique wheel covers will identify these cars on the road so that others can see the great example a new car owner is making. People want America to win!

This plan addresses the issue of Global warming from our automobiles while enhancing our National Security and keeping Detroit working.

Neil Young, activist (Bridge School, Farm Aid) rock legend, has assembled a team that is in the process of transforming his gargantuan 1959 Lincoln Continental from a gas guzzler into a showcase for green technology and sustainability. The car will be entered into the Automotive X Prize that offers a $10 million prize to develop a vehicle that can get 100 miles per gallon or better. The almost 50 year old Lincoln, one of the biggest, heaviest production cars of all time, has been re-named "Linc Volt" and is the subject of a feature documentary called "Repowering The American Dream" that is now in production under the aegis of Young's Shakey Pictures.

Source / The Huffington Post / Posted Nov. 13, 2008

Neil Young's car heads west
By Chris Frank / November 19, 2008

The '59 Lincoln is from the days of when cars came with lots of chrome, lots of weight and guzzled more 30-cent-a-gallon fuel than a camel in the dessert.

Over the past 14 months, Neil Young has come to Wichita to oversee some of the conversion work and take it for a spin around town.

Now, the car is headed west.

"This is it. This is the very last day in Wichita for probably at least six months," said Jonathan Goodwin, H-Line Conversions

Goodwin and his crew have turned Young's Lincoln from a nine mile per gallon car to a car that gets more than 75 miles to the gallon.

They had to completely replace the original engine.

"What we've done is installed an electric motor. And this motor generates 500 foot pounds of torque. That's more than a diesel pickup truck," Goodwin said.

The car makes a popping sound as the hydrogen bubbles from water are being used to enhance fuel efficiency.

"We're not at the point of being able to use water as a fuel source yet," Goodwin said.

They are, however, at the point of using the Lincoln to demonstrate how a car can generate more electricity than it needs to run.

"But you'll probably want to plug this into your house. Not to power the car, but to actually take your house off the grid," Goodwin said.

That means instead of taking electricity to recharge the car the way hybrids are now, this car will have electricity left over to power your house.

The Lincvolt is now on its way to California, then later to Las Vegas to demonstrate its capabilities to the world.

Source / KAKE.com

Also see Long May You Run: Neil Young’s Eco-Lincoln by Dan Fost / New York Times / Oct. 29, 2008

Neil Young 1959 Lincoln Electric Car Conversion Project



Thanks to Carl Davidson / The Rag Blog

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