You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Mercury’ category.
Video and Transcript
Coons: Yes I think climate change is real, I think human activity has contributed significantly to it, and I think that the short and long term consequences of failing to act both by United States and many of the other industrial nations of the world could be tragic. I would act to make sure we make appropriate progress in reducing our emissions and in moving our economy to one that has less of a long term negative environmental impact. But I also believe we have to balance that, that obligation to act in the long term interest of our community, our country and our children, with not, in the short term shackling American businesses and American industry, because if our major competitors around the world do not make comparable steps, we could simply deepen the recession and put American companies at a greater disadvantage, So I would move to end what I think is the impasse on cap and trade or on climate change and vote for us to move forward. but I’d be sensitive and move to try to amend the legislation that’s up in the Senate in a way that doesn’t disadvantage American businesses..
Carney: Climate change is real I think the science on that is pretty clear and well accepted, so the challenge for us is what are we going to do about it. Obviously the first step is to come up with global agreements, it’s one of those very difficult problems that is many years out in the future but we have to start doing things today:. with global agreements , national policy, and individual action. I agree with our senate candidate with respect to the framework for that. particularly keeping our eye on the ball with respect to businesses here and their impact on employment and that’s why I strongly support investments in tax credits and incentives for green energy technology, particularly for establishing manufacturing facilities here in the United states and in the state of Delaware. We have tremendous opportunity, but we are falling behind. We are falling behind the Chinese, we’re falling behind the Europeans, because we are not making that commitment that we need.
Urquhart: Climate has been changing; it has been changing for eons, getting colder, getting warmer. Right now, we’re in a period where science says we are getting colder. I don’t think there is any settled science according to David Legates, the Delaware State climatologist, there is no relationship that is documented between human activity and climate change, as is say right now it is getting colder. But the essential issue is what, what can we do something about. I mean, I support the reduction of pollutants like mercury and things like that, but carbon dioxide it not a pollutant…We have a Cap ant Trade bill that will cost Delawareans each about $2000 a year if it passes. It has massive penalties in it and it doesn’t affect the rest of the world. It simply is another bailout of billionaires; its a bailout for Goldman Sachs, for Al Gore, and for lots of people who are exploiting it. But those businesses will move to China; the jet stream brings carbon dioxide this direction just as well, and until we address this globally, there isn’t a solution, and we shouldn’t penalize American jobs…
Compare and Contrast:
Is their a current Global warming crises that is the result of human activity?
Coons: Yes…. Carney: Yes…. Urquhart: No….
Will you act to reduce Carbon Dioxide?
Coons: Yes…. Carney: Yes…. Urquhart: No….
Will you support incentives to move America to cleaner, greener energy?
Coons: Yes…. Carney: Yes…. Urquhart: No….
Will you support Cap and Trade as it is in the Senate?
Coons: No…. Carney: No…. Urquhart: No….
Do you support Global Agreements to control global pollution?
Coons: Yes…. Carney: Yes…. Urquhart: Yes….
Is carbon dioxide a pollutant?
Coons: Yes…. Carney: Yes…. Urquhart: No….
Fact Check…
Your choice on this issue will depend on whether believe what you see: that Global warming is real, or believe what someone wants you to believe so they can still keep receiving their paycheck… Here is reality…
Courtesy of NASA
If you believe in thermometers, global warming is real. If you don’t, only you can subscribe to the notion that Al Gore made it up and it has nothing, nothing to do with the constant removal of carbon from inside the earth and belching it back out into the atmosphere…
Urquhart emphatically says the world is getting colder…. And this was just day’s after the news that we have just experience the 2nd hottest summer ever!
Here is real data with accomplishing grafts.
Courtesy of NOAA
Imagine pulling up to your private home and seeing thick black smoke pouring out of the roof of your house… Chris Coons is standing outside, and tells you “your house is on fire and you should call 911.” John Carney rushes over and tells you “your house is on fire, and hands you his phone.” Urquhart strolls up and tells you to “wait, there is no conclusive proof yet that your house is on fire. In fact, what you are seeing is condensation… because your house is actually getting cooler… He tells you David Legates said so.” You then get a call from your old Realtor that says someone with a hard to pronounce name, just put a super low bid roughly 10% of its worth, on your property…
Would you trust a broker who didn’t pay attention to the stock market? No?
Would you trust your child’s education to a teacher who couldn’t read? No?
Would you trust your life to a doctor who practiced witchcraft? No?
Would you trust a scientist who made up results out of nothing? No?
Then how can we trust someone to do what is right, when they won’t look at facts?
How can we trust to be represented by our leadership when they lie to our face?
How can we put someone into office who refuses to accept the truth?
Bottom line: you can’t.
Kilroy Nails it Good This is exactly what it is all about….
Courtesy of DelawareLiberal.net
photo by SUCHAT PEDERSON, News Journal
Yesterday, Halliburton was called before Sen. Dorgan’s committee to testify in it’s dealings with Iran. Sherry Williams, vice president and corporate secretary gave testimony for Halliburton. At her table, also invited by the committee was the N Y comptroller and one of our investigators who tracks terrorist money trails wherever they may lead around the world.
With so much news happening, this hearing will get no press. That would be a shame. For the give and take not only gave insight into the motives and operations of Halliburton, but they also through implication, gave ominous insight into the Machiavellian machinations of the Vice President.
Recently Halliburton announced its headquarters were to move to Dubai. But in the hearing today, it slipped out that the Dubai office was originally opened so that Halliburton could engage the country of Iran in business. At that time there were US sanctions against dealing with Iran. But Halliburton did not break the law; instead they called the company Halliburton Parts and Services, established a Delaware type charter in Dubai, and as a foreign subsidiary, it was legally allowed to make multi million deals with the very country that was engaged in supplying Iraq’s insurgents, or so we were told…….
Under questioning, Ms Williams admitted that the profits from Iran were the majority of the profits earned by the Dubai subsidiary, which incidentally was a subsidiary of the Cayman island branch of Halliburton. The profits were transferred to the Texas office effectively, if not legally, thereby allowing Halliburton to profit from selling to Iran, without “selling to Iran.” Currently Halliburton is under investigation by US Attorney’s office in Texas for dealings like these. Incidentally, to clarify this trail of deceit, 100 per cent of the profits of the Grand Cayman branch of Halliburton, came from Iran. Those of us trained to read between the lines know that this means that these shell companies were, despite appearances otherwise, set up to do business with Iran. It was not a case of… “we are so big, we can’t help what our subsidiaries are doing……”
What does this have to do with Cheney? He retired years ago. Yes, on paper but mentioned in this hearing, I believe by Senator Lautenberg, Cheney’s stock options do not expire until 2009, well after his term in office has expired.
This means that he benefits whenever Halliburton benefits. Example: let us give Halliburton a no bid contract………” ka ching, ka ching.” Let’s increase profits by taking government money and then, not providing the troops the service for which we were paid……”ka ching: ka-ching. Let’s keep the war going in Iraq so we can continue to secretly drill in southwest Iraq and sell the oil through Saudi pipelines……”ka ching, ka ching.” Let’s do business with Iran, despite the fact that it is supplying the very IED’s that killed a couple of Delawareans……”ka-ching, ka-ching.” Let’s send two carrier groups, instead of one into the Persian Gulf, to shake up the price of oil….”ka-ching, ka-ching………”
When asked what they were thinking as they did business with Iran, their response? If we didn’t move in, the French would do it….
Just curious, does anyone else see the irony of the very cabal (the vice president’s office) who demonized the French people with “Freedom Fries” and Franco-bashing 24 hours a day on Fox News, is now, through a subsidiary under fire, using the French to justify their own nefarious actions?
History will no doubt forever glorify Halliburton. That is what usually happens to outlaws who have balls. Many profiteers have gotten rich off suppling their country’s armies. But Halliburton breaks new ground, by being the first corporation to profit by supplying BOTH sides of a conflict that their country is engaged in, allowing them to be used by each other, against each other. And it was all done out of the Vice President’s office…………..
Hmmm. Could he turn out to be the “other rumored” Sith Lord?
State Democrats are behind the push for NRG’s clean coal gasification plant currently under review by the PSC. Their backbone, the deep pockets of labor organizations, is firmly behind the NRG proposal. Currently the Delaware Democratic party is the party of dominance of the moment, having most of the statewide offices firmly in their grasp, and possessing a majority of the state senate as well.
That may change if the NRG proposal goes through. Republicans, quiet now, are salivating over the real possibility they have of seizing the high ground on a issue supported by over 90% of Delaware voters. Their hope is that Democrats will remain too myopic to sense the greater picture, and in attempting to pay back Labor, their long time supporters, they will antagonize an electorate electrified by the idea of going green.
Those of you who think this cannot happen, do not understand Delaware nor its politics.
If one could imagine a dear friend or next door neighbor, always supporting you in times of need, bringing food while you were too depressed to cook, offering to watch your children so you could sneak a few hours rest, or shoveling your snow and then refusing payment, actually coming to you and asking for a favor,…….. you begin to understand Delaware politics. The favor is not a big one, really, it is just a small favor. At least it was a small favor when they initially asked it……..
This scenario describes the emotional bond between organized labor and Delawarean Democrats. These are the folks who carried Biden over Boggs……These are also those guys who drove those pickups plaquered with bumper stickers calling for the “Impeachment of Carper.” (yeah, it was sort of a joke, but it sent the message: don’t mess with labor.) These are the reasons Castle continues his sole Republican reign as the single Congressman of this great state. ( See it does cross both ways.) They are responsible for Coons, and most of New Castle County Council. Those males handing out campaign literature at the polls every election, are often piped in from Jersey and Pennsylvania, and if you ask them about their candidate, they’ll tell you, they don’t know……….Yes, the Dem’s definitely owe Labor…..
Labor sees the coal plant as the means to employ many in the building trades who are slowly being laid off as the housing building boom wanes. They have a valid point. People need jobs.
But a more important issue to those of us still working is our family’s future health. As energy requirements take larger and larger bites out of business’ and family’s incomes, one of the areas from which these dollar amounts can be recouped, is medical expenses. But Delaware leads the nation in cancer. Breathing NRG power plant fumes certainly does not increase our healthiness.
This is the dilemma facing long term Democrats. Which is the stronger force: the economic well being of their strongest supporters within the building trades, or the health and well being of every voter in the state…………………………………….?
Bluewater Wind which has support from ninety percent of the electorate, still faces strong internal political opposition to their wind proposal.
Katherine Ellison in a piece titled Gone with the Wind, writes:
Last June, six months before power-plant bids were officially due, Gov. Ruth Ann Minner and NRG Energy, based in New Jersey, released a joint statement announcing NRG would “move forward” with a “state of the art” 630-megawatt coal plant for approximately $1.5 billion. The plant would use “clean coal” technology, also known as IGCC, or integrated gasification combined cycle, which converts coal to gas before burning it. ”
In fairness, wind generation was not an available option to be considered at that time. Clean coal still had favorable buzz at the time.
Minner, a Democrat, is on record as being convinced that human-caused carbon emissions are contributing to climate change. Under her leadership, Delaware in 2005 joined a multistate effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. What makes her embrace of “clean coal” rather odd is that her own administration calculates that the IGCC plant would emit 475 tons an hour of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas.
Two other factors make it less odd. First, NRG already owns a coal plant on southern Delaware’s Indian River — a facility, dating back to the 1950s, that is one of the state’s leading sources of pollution, belching acid-rain-causing sulfur dioxide and mercury emissions. NRG has been fighting state regulators’ recent orders to clean it up, but as part of the deal with Minner, it has promised to patch things up and close the oldest part of the plant. Nor, most likely, did it hurt that NRG’s lobbyist, Mike Houghton, has been a major fundraiser for Minner and other state Democrats — so major that he was given a special award at the party’s annual dinner last year.
Perhaps you are more politically savvy than moi but I have no idea where Mike Houghton could have possibly found that money. But the bottom line is this: the more one learns of local politics, the worse it looks for wind.
For not only does NRG seem to have an inside track with the Governor of the second smallest state, but of the four commissions that will be making the energy decision, three of the four heads are appointed by Minner.
Again according to Katherine Ellison, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author:
Her press department and chief of staff declined or ignored repeated requests for an interview. Houghton also declined comment, other than to say he saw no conflict in his dual role.
Minner isn’t alone in paving the way for coal. Also in June, Delaware’s two U.S. Senators Joe Biden and Tom Carper — both Democrats, and Rep. Mike Castle, a Republican, wrote to the U.S. Department of Energy to support federal tax breaks for the proposed new coal plant.
Is Delaware getting sold out from underneath 90% of its citizens. Republicans certainly hope so………….
But again in fairness one needs to respect the time line. Notice all the events happened in June of last year.
Things changed.
Like Minner, all three pols are on record as concerned about climate change. But it took Willett Kempton, (an associate professor of marine policy at the University of Delaware) — who bristles with impatience over what he calls “a lack of policy response wildly out of sync with what scientists are saying” — to do something to make climate change an issue in the state’s choice of power. Last summer, he and his university colleague, Jeremy Firestone, took the unusual step of personally calling offshore wind developers to invite them to compete.
Among a half dozen entrepreneurs they called, Mandelstam of BlueWater Wind took up the challenge, rushing to prepare his bid in time for the December deadline. He’s been “educating” ever since.
Due to the excitement surrounding the proposed wind farm. the electorate has become “pro Wind”. This caught incumbent Democrats by surprise. Only one, the far sighted Jack Markell, has jumped on the bandwagon for clean energy. This has put him, at least among Progressives, far ahead in the polls over Carney for the next potential governor.
It is interesting that bloggers and forums have contributed much of the research that now supports both the economical and environmental benefits of BlueWater Wind’s turbines. This has caused serious concern within the backwaters of Legislative Hall and the Governors office, and although not one of the staffers has yet opposed their boss by recommending the obvious, that the NRG proposal is dead in the water, they are all thinking it.
There are few issues that “electrify an electorate.” like energy. Perhaps we are all jumpy because of the recent political energy decision that cost us dearly last May. But ANYONE, who continues to support a policy that is 1) dangerously more expensive to its citizens, and 2) extremely damaging to the environment, will be wearing the political equivalent of a cross hairs on their chest, with ninety percent of the electorate’s fingers slowly squeezing upon the trigger……………………….
Karen, you at the PSC have heard so much.
What is one more?.
In Horton Hears A Who, a childhood book by Dr. Suess, the elephant’s big ears overhear conversations on a speck of dust, and only one Who, has the squawk that makes the difference in being heard or not, to those about to destroy the dust speck..
In the book, that squawk saves their planet.
If only I could be so presumptuous……………………………
However, they say our childhood memories make up our core. And perhaps that is true.
For when the time comes to stand up and be counted, those memories of sitting next to mother, and being read to, are the ones that now block out all the research, facts, figures, I have done on this issue, and in a gentle human way now seem so clear, and so purposeful.
My children, your children, all children need this Wind Farm to go through. For you, it is about money and who will get it………For us, it is whether our life here, in this state, is worth forbearing. For us, it is the difference in the amount of CO2 that the Wind Farm will save, For us it is the difference in Sulfur, Nitrous chemicals,and Mercury embedded in our children’s lungs. For us, it is the difference between paying 6 cents per future kilowatt, and paying 13 cents per future kilowatt.
Wind, despite its problems, is the choice that this little Who believes we need to make.
kavips 
.svg){kind=link}