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it is from this headline: How Bodenweiser story is playing in the UK paper, DAILY MAIL
Here is the rescued comment…. to set the scene, the previous commenter had just mentioned the silliness of a 1987 divorce playing into determining who would be our next President….. (and now the comment.)
“I agree it is inconsequential, the Staples thing… But it brings up a fabulous point… And we all like fabulous points here.. lol…
Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath. But, if Romney also lied under oath…. what does a Republican do?
Does he admit publicly that his party was very wrong in the 1990’s? That his party was only playing politics? That his party only made it important because they thought it might embarrass the President and use that to get a Republican in the next term? Does a Republican admit that lying under oath about a personal matter, is really no big deal at all, they they, as a party were telling terrible lies as to how they felt?
Or do they stick to that story, and abandon Romney on principal? He lied under oath, and therefore, even though he is of “my party”,.. he is “unfit” to be president.
I mean one can’t morally have Donald Trump impute that Obama is lying about something that happened in college, and is therefore unfit to be a president, when you have documents paraded in front of all America, showing Romney to have actually lied, not just lied to the American people, but lied under oath….
My question for Earl Gray, Mike of Delaware, Mr. Pizza, and those who support high moral principals: what is a Romney supporter supposed to do when his morals are put into the spotlight and he has to answer which was right? To have impeached Bill Clinton and now fire Romney? Or continue ones support for Romney and have the National Party officially “apologize” publicly to William Jefferson Clinton? It truly is quite a dilemma for the Republican Party.”
In an effort to educate my children, quite often old National Geographics are left around the house in various places. Usually they are teasers, one only has a few minutes to spare, but in those few minutes, lot’s can be learned.
Today, the one on top was June 2007’s titled “The Big Thaw.” I finally got a chance to read the entire article and gaze at all the pictures. Later when I went online, somehow my first two clicks put me here, which covers exactly the same material, and interviews the same persons. The visuals are stunning; the implications are horrific.
We are losing ice at rates long past alarming. So alarming that perhaps in as short as 15 years, many of Delaware’s homes will have to be abandoned to the sea…….. That means the year 2022. To those entering kindergartens this this year, by the time they graduate (which goes very fast by the way), going to the beach will be more of a “mission trip”, than a romp in the sand………
It is against this back drop that Delmarva is playing games. As Nancy Willing show us, while we face the oblivion of a large part of our state, Delmarva has hired a “Fudge Factor” operation, to bother Delawareans with this question:
If private citizens were willing to pay X dollars for wind turbines, and the government was willing to pay the same amount for wind turbines, would you prefer that private citizens pay for the turbines or the government?
Two more questions that were exposed were these:
“Would you be willing to pay for wind energy if it cost: $3 extra/month, $6 extra/month, $9 extra/month, $12 extra/month, $15 extra/month, $18 extra/month, $21 extra/month, $24 extra/month, $27 extra/month,…all the way up to $30/month (stated as “$360/yr.), or more?”
And just to show how caring Delmarva really is about the environment, they pull this question:
“Do you prefer Delaware offshore wind or wind energy from Pennsylvania?”
Nancy nails it. They are fishing for any negative information they can find to scuttle the deal they do not want. As most of us, including Matt Denn, Blue Water Wind, and NRG, who have commented, know too well that even if the information culled from the Delaware public is directly opposite to what Delmarva wants to hear, there is no guarantee that this Fudge Factor company, otherwise know as “Issues and Answers,” has no qualms about manipulating whatever information they find out.
It will require independent collaboration and the subsequent dismissal of Delmarva’s statistics, to forge a deal forward in this truly planetary endeavor…….
It is often that a politician takes on a campaign issue, wraps it around himself, aka Mitt Romney, and then tries to ride the issue’s coattails into office.
It is rare to find a man or women, who seems not to give a damn about what people think of him, but trusts that his effectiveness in improving the lives of this constituents, will keep him/her continuously in their good esteem, aka Teddy Roosevelt.
I think Delaware has one. Two if you count Biden, although he is a national player now…..
Perhaps no one has marched on Delaware’s public scene and done so much good for Delawareans, since we pursued and passed the Coastal Act, as has been done this year in putting constraints on the Colonial Potters of the Insurance industry, under the strong leadership of Matt Denn.
The growing malaise of maddening rate increases, has finally reached the high tide mark, and has begun receding.
Recently a letter was received by the Public Service Commission. Here is an excerpt:
I have seen a copy of the letter you received yesterday from Bluewater Wind. I understand from that letter that an issue has arisen with respect to Delmarva Power’s willingness to disclose the formula that it will use to calculate the ultimate cost to Delmarva ratepayers of a wind park off the Delaware coast.
He continues with this:
Under any circumstances, I would encourage you to require Delmarva to disclose this information. The cost to ratepayers of this proposed wind park is a critical factor that you must consider in carrying out your statutory duties, and the public has a right to examine how that cost
is being calculated.
This letter was received the same day that Delmarva’s term letter was to land on the Public Service Commission’s desk. In what adequately expresses the frustration and fear of all Delawareans, he sums up with this…..
Delmarva has made clear from the beginning of this process
that it is considering wind power only because it has been ordered to do so. The state should not blindly rely upon the company that is the chief opponent of the Bluewater Wind project to calculate that project’s cost.
In this regard he is on target. It proves once again that great minds are all alike.
Health care is my highest priority as Insurance Commissioner and I believe the proposal of a wind farm
offers substantial health benefits for current and future Delawareans…..The upfront and stated cost of any method of power generation that includes discharges into the
water and/or air does not include the monetary impact of that source on people’s health and our state’s environment. As I indicated to you in a letter last spring, it is common sense that a primary power generation source with virtually no emissions will be better for the health and
environment of Delawareans than ones that emit tons of pollutants, and it will no doubt be cheaper in those respects as well. I urge you to take these very real costs into account in your deliberations.
Sincerely,
Matthew Denn Insurance Commissioner
It is clear who stands up for the rights of Delawareans. A quick glance around the mega celebrities already in campaign mode, shows little concern for this wind farm deal, which is the third most important event affecting this state in 100 years…….
It is clear there is one person looking our for OUR interests.
Thanks for being who you are………
You may not like Hillary Clinton……perhaps her negatives are too high for you……but regardless of what you think of her personality and politics, she comes from New York. And that makes her something…………
You may think I came to praise her, but I am really going in the opposite direction and praising New York. What gives Hillary her credibility, is that some of the greatest people on earth chose her to be their Senator……
There is something different about New York. Not just the city, but the entire state has a distinctive unique characteristic. I guess it stems from the fact that no one, no one intimidates them. They don’t prance around Celia-like to politicians; they hold them accountable. Either the politician performs, or “he’s outta there.” ( The fact that a majority of them ‘dis Giuliani, speaks highly of them also. )
Today I got this snippet of news from the paper of a tiny little town near Minot…….It was an AP announcement that was deemed irrelevant every where but North Dakota……. It was an “A ha” moment, because it provides a solution that may have some bearing on Delmarva’s recalcitrance to “play ball by the rules.”
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is investigating five major energy companies to determine if plans to create coal-fired power plants present an undisclosed financial risk to investors.
There are so many parallels to our situation. First both of our Attorney Generals are sons of famous political fathers. Second, if creating coal fired power plants presents an undisclosed financial risk to investors, what does that say about Delmarva, who is spurning Blue Water Wind, a triple A+ investment, for continuing to receive power from coal fired power plants, a triple F- investment?…….
Obviously New York is staging an “strong offense” as their primary “defense” to open the Long Island Sound Wind Farm. Should they succeed and open their wind farm before Delmarva allows us to open ours, we might as well turn all positive financial growth opportunities for this state, over to them………..
What is ironical is that their AG is suing the “old school” of power generation for the same reason Delmarva is suing to stop the “new school” of power generation.
As I mentioned in a comment over on Tommywonk, one option we have is for our AG to sue Delmarva Power for presenting an undisclosed risk to the people of Delaware by their not allowing us a healthy, environmentally friendly, and far cheaper electricity than we pay already……But ideally, taking the investors side of the equation would be much cleaner, easier to prosecute, and based on evidence found in Delawares blogs, and all over the internet, ….”a slam dunk.”
As I pointed out before, Delmarva bases their cost on figures consumers were paying BEFORE THE 60% RATE HIKES TOOK EFFECT IN MAY 2006. (All their calculations use 2005 numbers). They use these outdated cheap numbers to make their case that Delaware consumers will pay more if they go with Blue Water Wind.
Therefore they are misleading their investors. I am not a legal expert, but I believe there are laws against that? Duh! That should put them squarely in the same boat as Enron. And we know what happened to those cronies……….
Delaware needs to pursue the same strategy as New York. Why should they get all the glory. After all, compare their two AG’s! Only one has a father who has run for the Presidency…….. twice.
Tommywonk, WGMD, and the News Journal all have stories regarding the Blue Waster Wind deal. There are positive notes.
Based on the term sheet
we can expect the following.
300 MW each hour, enough to power all the homes in Delaware.
No increase , for the next 25 years, over what we are now paying for electricity. By the way oil hit $ 80 a barrel today, pushing up coal and gas! But will it affect Delaware’s electricity rates? Not with wind power, it won’t!
Wind power guaranteed to be on line in either 6 3/4 or 7 years.
Construction costs of 1.5 billion directly infused into the local economy.
Increased aesthetics and fishing habitats to the Rehoboth/Dewey Beach area.
Transmission upgrades included in cost. No additional charges for Delaware consumers.
Finally. A business dedicated to full compliance with Federal, State, and Local environmental requirements.
But there are storm clouds of doubt and uncertainty surrounding both Delmarva’s and Connectiv’s commitment to this grand project, completion of which would elevate Delaware to be the “First State” in renewable energy.
They are focused on the lack of transparency of Delmarva’s calculations. Delmarva wishes to make up stuff, and not have to show how it came about with the figures it did. Can you imagine if Bush last night had said: ” No American has died in Iraq, and not one dollar of taxpayer money has been spent in Iraq. Therefore we will continue on plan.” That is exactly what Delmarva wants to be allowed to do……….
make stuff up……….
Furthermore, Delmarva wants to charge penalties to Blue Water Wind based solely on the stuff it makes up. Both Blue Water Wind and NRG have consulted among themselves and independently determined that penalties will not be necessary. They can perform well within the criteria. But Delmarva wants to charge them anyway should it ever arbitrarily decide it needs some extra cash………Likewise,
while Bluewater attempted to have similar dialog with Connectiv on this and other issues related to the proper coordination between the wind park and the back up facility, Connectiv declined to enter into a confidentiality agreement related to any such discussions and no dialog was possible.
As has often been my experience in business, when someone gets antsy about poking through their records, it usually means they are stealing. In government, when public officials get antsy about the opening of committees and hearings to public scrutiny, it usually means they are stealing. So why, might we ask, should Connectiv pattern the same behavior and not enter a confidentiality agreement Blue Water Wind, unless they have some dark secret they cannot afford to see the light or day? This should send up a red flag of outrage for all citizens. Is another Enron brewing at Connectiv?
Outstanding issues that may or may not block the forward momentum.
1) The first issue is the consequence of the delay caused by the impending lawsuits sponsored by Delmarva and Connectiv.
Delmarva has taken the position that it must retain its appeal rights ( and therefore it would not discontinue its appeal of the State Agencies prior order authorizing these negotiations), and that it does not control its affiliated company Connectiv and should therefore retain the right to terminate and/or collect delay damages.
In other word if Delmarva/Connectiv purposefully slows down the process, it is entitled to receive the delay penalties owed to it on behalf of the BlueWater Wind investors. As was dryly noted: “such a provision presents a serious concern to Blue Water investors..”
2) Delmarva seeks termination rights in the event of a consolidation triggered by accounting rules FASB Interpretation #46. Under these rules, if Delmarva is the primary beneficiary of Blue Water Wind, Delmarva may be required to consolidate Blue Water Wind. To prevent this, Blue Water has offered to modify the agreement so as to eliminate the consolidation, in lieu of termination rights. So far Delmarva has refused. Again, as is dryly noted, Delmarva’s termination could again cost Blue Water’s investors millions of dollars.
3) Finally Delmarva has adamantly insisted upon the right to veto any change of control (not to be unreasonably withheld) at Bluewater , for any time over the next 25 years, regardless of the level of ownership at which the change of control takes place. This of course gives Delmarva the option to block deals resulting in tens of Billions of dollars which may not have any relationship to the wind farm. (Delmarva has adamantly refused to accept the same restrictions upon itself). Obviously the Blue Water Investors are uneasy about this clause as well. Bluewater has proposed several compromise solutions, all of which have been rejected by Delmarva.
Obviously Delmarva is unhappy to find itself in the position of supplying Delaware with cheap energy. They would much rather see households paying $8oo a month for electricity, than say $80.
But with proper public pressure these deals could still go forward. It is reassuring that great strides have already been taken…………….
Should the unthinkable happen, and we find ourselves in another war, whether or not its commencement comes from a WWII or WWI scenario, we will still need energy to win it. And lots of it.
Most of our military data is satellite based with the servers here in the US at an undisclosed locations. Should our troops be fighting in a major engagement, those servers must stay running and on line. Imagine, being on the battlefield, facing incoming RPG’s and your information and communication systems do down and all screens go black………….fact was Aunt Mary Elizabeth, visiting relatives during the fair in Harrington, had just plugged her curling iron into the grid, and down the whole thing went……..
This is just one more reason why we need to get new energy sources on line, and wind is source with he fastest startup time.
We have covered the environmentally and cost effective benefits that wind provides. But now, with impending doom about to descend upon us, we need to create an energy source immediately.
Wind can start producing some electricity which can be added to the grid, the second the first offshore tower is completed. A coal gasification plant would have to wait until the entire structure was completed and inspected before beginning to create output.,…
Therefore even our National Security requires Delmarva power to stop dragging their feet and sign the contracts that get wind power started………Otherwise, there may not be an America to enjoy the clean cost of wind.
A deadline should be set soon: if Delmarva cannot come to an agreement within that time, the state through its PSC needs to step in and dictate the terms………
It could determine whether our troops live or die……..
The recalcitrance of Delmarva Power brings up an interesting conclusion. We need a counterbalancing force to maintain balance when one entity leans too far in the wrong direction.
What is a State Power Authority? (No, it’s not a Sen. Adams) New York state has had an active and successful power authority for many years. Proposals are being actively debated in state legislatures in Connecticut, Indiana, Illinois, and Rhode Island.
New York State provides a great example. That state’s Power Authority, was created to build the massive Niagara Falls (Mike, got pictures?) Power station which, would provide cheap, efficient, hydroelectric power for the entire western half of the state.
Like Delaware, it was the initial investment in the infrastructure that provide the major portion of the cost. Like wind, water going over the falls, is free. The state took over its portion of the risk for the right to control prices for its constituents.
With cheap power, came great jobs, as anyone who has driven across Western New York can attest, just from reading the logos of major company headquarters along the route. From Albany to Buffalo, all along the old Erie Canal route, good jobs are available because many companies decided to take advantage of reliable, cheap power.
Other famous power authorities include the Tennessee Valley Authority, and the Bonneville Power Authority. Again many jobs followed cheap power into these previously economic barren areas….
Delaware could benefit from its own Power Authority. Here is how it could work.
A. Delaware’s General Assembly responds to the fact that Delmarva will not comply, and establishes the Delaware Power Authority.
B. The Delaware Power Authority, or DPA, could issue bonds backed by the “full faith and credit of the state.” Currently it would have little difficulty raising the funds necessary to assist in the building of a 600 MW wind-farm off the coast of Sussex County.
C. The State Power Authority could then sell directly to customers, along the lines of the municipal power authorities today, or it could sell at cost to Delmarva Power (or a corporate rival for those who like “market economics”), thereby driving DOWN the price of electrical energy for the benefit of all who choose to reside within this state’s boundaries. The lowest bid would be chosen.
D. The DPA (Delaware Power Authority) could step in and fill reliability needs that could not met by reasonable proposals being dictated by marketing conditions. The New York Power Authority in 2001 built 10 power generators around New York City, which are credited with staving off a major blackout in 2001. The NYPA was able to act quickly because of its emergency siting powers, far faster than a corporate entity could.
E. Using its state authority status, the DPA could empower the state Attorney General to arrest and charge any future Stockbridge-ian type of delay caused by petty intransigence.
Conclusion: A state base power authority can offer its citizens, a cost-based alternative to a single service utility which absence of strong regulation, has strong internal incentives to raise its prices.
Real life American examples:
The federal Tennessee Valley Authority was founded to fund the initial creation and testing of nuclear power
The federal Bonneville Power Administration was founded to fund the series of giant dams up and down the Columbia River.
The state run New York Power Authority was founded to fund the development of the massive Niagra Falls power station.
The Delaware Power Authority should soon be founded to fund the building of America’s first offshore wind farm just east off our southern coast.
Doing so would provide us all with cheap power and a solid economic future.
The Delaware Power Authority: It is a great idea that just needs to happen.
I would like you to try this experiment
Some of you have kids; the rest have nieces and nephews. Try this out.
Click on this website, make sure the mute is off, turn up the volume, and watch what happens.
I have tried it out on kids under 5, and the results were consistent. With out coloring the test results, I would like to know if your experiments left the same results.
I think it says a lot about our human nature…………………….
Lady Bird Johnson passed away yesterday.
I heard the news on my way to the beach. The “Please don’t be a Litterbug” song erupted spontaneously. My kids thought once again, that I had lost it………………….
In trying to explain to them what it meant, I realized just how much Lady Bird had influence my entire perspective on my place in this universe and my duty to this planet. It was subtle and by today’s standards, most jaded youngsters would say WTF. But when this came out, it was probably the first time that television was used as a tool to change or modify behavior.
As I reflect today, that very commercial is probably why I was templated to become the responsible environmentalist that I am today. Those who littered, were portrayed as being callous, selfish, and unpatriotic. As kids, we sang the song to each other, and when provoked, we summoned from the darkest, deepest reaches of our suppressed unconsciousness, the worst and most horrible epitaph we could think of: a litterbug.
Having always thought that I was responsible for my decisions and was the one who made all conscious choices in my lifetime, it was somewhat devastating for me to realize that I was but a product of early experiment of an early Manchurian Candidate type of programming.
Here is how it worked. It started with litter, moved on to DDT and Silent Spring, from there to clean air and clean water, then on to endangered species, then the eradication of rain forests, and from there to global warming, and now to the support of electricity from Wind, (I am also cheap)…………And all this from a television commercial.……….
I remember a teacher commenting that Lady Bird was not as pretty as Jackie had been. And that she lacked Jackie’s grace. But Lady Byrd’s legacy, at least to this young man and those with which he hung around, was far more lasting.
God bless you, Lady Bird Johnson. Rest in peace…….
