Waxman-Markey’s gasoline price spikes

The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported today that the Waxman-Markey climate bill may reduce U.S. refinery throughput by as much as 25% by 2030.

Waxman-Markey would outsource to foreign countries both U.S. jobs and greenhouse gas emissions, make us more dependent on foreign gasoline and more susceptible to gasoline price spikes.

Once again, Waxman-Markey is all pain and no gain — why the API would even support a “lite” version of the bill remains beyond comprehension.

Florida feels green chokehold on energy

Florida Power & Light is seeking permission from the state Public Service Commission to raise electricity rates by 30% starting on Jan. 1, reports Greenwire. FPL says that the existing system is maxed out and demand is growing.

So why is the system maxed out? It may have something to do with green activist groups who are blocking electricity production in Florida.

The Everglades chapter of Earth First! issued a media release on February 19, 2008, that stated in part:

Early Monday morning dozens of concerned community members from Palm Beach County and all over the nation put their bodies on the line to halt construction of FPL’s West County Energy Center (WCEC), demanding energy efficiency, truly clean, renewable energy and a moratorium on development in south Florida. Everglades Earth First! blocked the main entrance to the WCEC site, a proposed massive 3800 MW gas-fired power plant that would emit 12 million tons of CO2, a leading greenhouse gas, every year. The plant is currently under construction despite ongoing legal challenges to the plant’s needed permits and certification, which have been spearheaded by the local Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition.

A dozen activists locked themselves together through metal pipes as 200 supporters rallied around them. The blockade stopped work on the construction site for six hours before a total of 27 people were arrested.

This confrontational action was taken to protect the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge which sits 1000 ft from the power plant site and to protect the larger Everglades system. Restoration would be undermined by new development that the power plant is expected to encourage in the area. The civil disobedience action also aims to protect the entire planet from the destructive effects of climate change caused by power plant emissions.

We just don’t need this plant,” said Lynne Purvis, an activist with Everglades Earth First! who was born and raised in the Loxahatchee area. “I’m not willing to threaten the integrity of the Loxahatchee, one of the last large, intact pieces of northern Everglades, so that people can fuel their greedy energy desires.”

Purvis says that the Everglades Earth First! group intends to continue a sustained campaign of direct action against this power plant and its adjacent gas pipeline.

The green/energy issue will take on heightened importance now that Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is launching a campaign to replace retiring Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL). Crist has supported climate change legislation in the past. But the greens are now concerned that Crist may move to the right in order to gain the Senate seat. Our guess is that if Crist is shifting positions, it is just an expediency to win Martinez’s seat.

Florida voters should demand that Crist explain himself on green issues. Otherwise they face even greater energy price hikes in the future.

Florida feels green chokehold on energy

Florida Power & Light is seeking permission from the state Public Service Commission to raise electricity rates by 30% starting on Jan. 1, reports Greenwire. FPL says that the existing system is maxed out and demand is growing.

So why is the system maxed out? It may have something to do with green activist groups who are blocking electricity production in Florida.

The Everglades chapter of Earth First! issued a media release on February 19, 2008, that stated in part:

Early Monday morning dozens of concerned community members from Palm Beach County and all over the nation put their bodies on the line to halt construction of FPL’s West County Energy Center (WCEC), demanding energy efficiency, truly clean, renewable energy and a moratorium on development in south Florida. Everglades Earth First! blocked the main entrance to the WCEC site, a proposed massive 3800 MW gas-fired power plant that would emit 12 million tons of CO2, a leading greenhouse gas, every year. The plant is currently under construction despite ongoing legal challenges to the plant’s needed permits and certification, which have been spearheaded by the local Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition.

A dozen activists locked themselves together through metal pipes as 200 supporters rallied around them. The blockade stopped work on the construction site for six hours before a total of 27 people were arrested.

This confrontational action was taken to protect the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge which sits 1000 ft from the power plant site and to protect the larger Everglades system. Restoration would be undermined by new development that the power plant is expected to encourage in the area. The civil disobedience action also aims to protect the entire planet from the destructive effects of climate change caused by power plant emissions.

We just don’t need this plant,” said Lynne Purvis, an activist with Everglades Earth First! who was born and raised in the Loxahatchee area. “I’m not willing to threaten the integrity of the Loxahatchee, one of the last large, intact pieces of northern Everglades, so that people can fuel their greedy energy desires.”

Purvis says that the Everglades Earth First! group intends to continue a sustained campaign of direct action against this power plant and its adjacent gas pipeline.

The green/energy issue will take on heightened importance now that Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is launching a campaign to replace retiring Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL). Crist has supported climate change legislation in the past. But the greens are now concerned that Crist may move to the right in order to gain the Senate seat. Our guess is that if Crist is shifting positions, it is just an expediency to win Martinez’s seat.

Florida voters should demand that Crist explain himself on green issues. Otherwise they face even greater energy price hikes in the future.

FERC: Wind means renewable blackouts

From Bloomberg:

President Barack Obama’s push for wind and solar energy to wean the U.S. from foreign oil carries a hidden cost: overburdening the nation’s electrical grid and increasing the threat of blackouts… “As we add more and more wind power, the grid will get more stressed, and there’s going to be a point where the grid can’t handle any more,” [said Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman Jon Wellinghoff].

There’s nothing quite like central planning.

Gasoline refiners crippled by Waxman-Markey

From Reuters:

Ailing U.S. oil refiners could face a crippling period of contraction under a House-approved climate change bill, making the country more dependent on imported refined products…

The bill is “going to put them out of business,” said Phil Flynn, analyst at PFGBest Research in Chicago. “I think you’re going to see refiners close down, especially in this environment we’re in right now.”

Schwarzenegger surrenders on Cal. drilling

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s legislative proposal to revive offshore oil drilling went down to ignominious defeat as the California Assembly stripped the provision from a budget bill drafted to close the state’s $26 billion budget, reports Greenwire.

And to think that last year at this time, some were crowing about how an agreement with the greens had been reached to revive California drilling.

More windmills-as-eyesores…

North Carolina legislators are split over a bill banning wind turbines that ruin the beauty of the mountains, reports the Winston-Salem Journal.

Maryland’s bright green Gov. Martin O’Malley banned wind turbines from state park lands for aesthetic reasons in 2008.

Does this mean that the planetary emergency is over?

Tar sands emissions on par with U.S. crude oil

“Two independent studies have found direct emissions from producing, transporting and refining oil sands crude are in the same range as those of the other crudes refined in the United States,” reports the Alberta Energy Research Institute.

These are important studies as the greens are moving to block the import of oil produced from Canadian tar sands. The 2007 energy bill, for example, prohibited the U.S. government from purchasing oil from sources (read “Canadian tar sands”) where the greenhouse gas emissions are greater on a lifecycle basis.

The real energy crisis…

This excerpt from a ClimateWire story (“Carbon Capture: Consultants help companies tap into stimulus dollars,” July 17) describes the real energy crisis:

Take the case of Joe Tondu, president of Tondu Corp., an independent power generator looking to construct new plants.

Tondu said his firm couldn’t build coal plants because no one would approve its permits, and it couldn’t build carbon-capturing coal plants because their costs remain too high.

When the company struck out to invest in renewables, it met another roadblock: To get stimulus funds from the Department of Energy, Tondu would have to get an environmental impact review for each project. That would have offered local interests “a huge opportunity to stall your project for years and years and years,” he argued, and it ultimately derailed the company’s plan.

“It’s almost unbelievably easy to slow down … it created another hurdle we just couldn’t get through,” he said

We’re not running out of energy. The crisis is being caused by the government and greens who have choke-holds on the ability of businesses to produce energy.

Greens move to block new TVA reactor

The Sierra Club and other green groups petitioned the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to stop the construction of a second reactor at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar Plant in Tennessee.

WBIR TV (Knoxville) reported,

“TVA keeps pushing for more nuclear reactors in spite of massive cost overruns they always have when they build them,” said Bill Reynolds, a member of the Tennessee chapter of the Sierra Club, in a written statement.

The group also raises concerns about the safety of the reactor design.