South Carolina Endorses Green Socialism

Back in 2007, Gov. Mark Sanford created the South Carolina Climate, Energy & Commerce Advisory Committee (CECAC). Today, it was announced that CECAC had produced it’s final paper on the results. And they are scary…

First, what I didn’t notice until now is the composition of the group. Take a look through the list. Notice anything? There’s lots of academics, industry leaders and special interest groups represented. But not a single “common man”. Nobody is there representing the people of South Carolina. Which makes the recommendations not that surprising.

Here’s the final report in all of it’s glory. Covering 600+ pages, I doubt that anyone is going to take the time to read through all of it’s heft, including the myriad of policy suggestions that the group is making. Here, I’m going to focus on the “cross-cutting” issues, because those are the policy ideas that are the most disturbing to me, and to anyone who values freedom of ideas.

Mostly this is on the basis of “education”. This is the FIRST paragraph on their education section:

A well-articulated, meaningful, broadly implemented and sustained educational process is the means to achieve effective and durable actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Much of
the response to climate change requires a disciplined alteration in lifestyle that shares many things in common with a healthy lifestyle. Furthermore, people have to be motivated to attempt and succeed with basic changes in lifestyles. Individual responsibility, community action, conservation, and prevention are the principles upon which change of this magnitude is accomplished. It is no less than a shift in culture. The effort will benefit all aspects of society.

The educational process must define the basic aspects of climate change, including the evidence for cause-and-effect issues; it must specify the significance of climate change for the target audience and each individual; it must clarify and emphasize the role of the target audience and each of its members for a plan of action to mitigate and adapt to climate change; and it must relate the necessary changes in all aspects of people’s lives and their basic beliefs and values— e.g., health, environment, and economic viability.

Public education and outreach programs must build upon existing efforts and institutions, avoid unnecessary duplication, and promote best practices. The sustained success of policy actions recommended by the CECAC, as well as those that might evolve in the future, depends upon lifestyle changes resulting from education, experience, and practice. (All emphasis added)

This is a shocking amount of changing people that’s involved here. But that’s just the start of it. Here are some sections of the policy recommendations that should be, at the least worrisome for anyone who values academic freedom:

• Future generations—Integrate climate change and healthy lifestyle issues into educational
  curricula, post-secondary degree programs, and professional licensing. Emphasize the common basis and goals of response to climate change with protecting the environment and
  achieving optimum health for all people. Consider creating the South Carolina Health Corps, as outlined in Annex B of this document.

• What this means: Teachers will HAVE to follow the party line if they want to be certified as teacher. It will also mean that some climate change education may become required for graduation from HS or college, and this education will have an environmentalist bend to it. I’ll go into the Hitler Youth Health Corps further down.
• The coordinators for each of the target audiences should be credible with those audiences and have the ability to recruit and energize statewide networks of volunteers within each target audience. The state legislature should provide funding for the basic operations of the committee and the coordinators. Funding should be structured in such a way as to take maximum advantage of established mechanisms for education of each of the audiences.
• What this means: The idea is to get as many people “fired up” about climate change as possible. And it’s going to be paid for by your money, whether you like it or not.
• Level of Group Support: Unanimous
• What This Means: All of the people in the advisory panel approved of these measures. There was probably strong pressure to put out a united front (about 90% of these had unanimous approval). I don’t know how you get 20+ supposedly independent people together and get them to agree THIS MUCH on something as controversial as climate change/environmentalism. This goes to speak to the probability that the people put on the committee were selected more on ideological purity than representativeness.
• The state legislature should provide funding to support development and ongoing revision to the
  state Climate Change Adaptation Plan, including (but not limited to) funds to support the analyses needed to guide and inform the development and implementation of the plan and to cover expenses incurred by the Commission on Adaptation to Climate Change and its members.

• What This Means: A legislative blank check for the panel. Not surprising considering that this is coming from the group that would BENEFIT from the blank check.
• Add climate change to public education performance standards for science and social studies; identify gaps in climate change education and specific curricula to fill gaps. [From their notes] Someone has to be the initial teacher of the science of climate change. Integrate climate change and sustainability into core college curricula. (A more direct way of saying what I gleaned from above.)
• Introduce core competencies on climate change into professional licensing programs (energy efficiency in building design and construction, use of recycled materials, etc.).
• What This Means: Now even your plumber has to know the party line on climate change.
• Identify individual community leaders who are not yet acting on climate change, and make a special effort to educate and encourage them to act.
• What This Means: Target the politicians and those in the community who do not parrot the environmentalist/global alarmist policy. May include shaming or punishing those people.
• Develop and use a state-based “brand” on climate awareness and action.
• What This Means: You probably start seeing the Palmetto Tree/Crescent Moon tied into environmentalist agitprop. Possibly the same with “Carolina Girls: Greenest in the World”.

And that’s just ONE section. I’m going to go after the Hitler Green Youth in my next post, because it’s just that troublesome.

And these ideas are not just limited to South Carolina, as 30 other states have done something very similar. For example, compare the South Carolina website to the Montana website, or the Vermont website.

Look similar. I can only hope that South Carolina didn’t spend too much for the Center for Climate Strategy’s expertise. Because they’re pretty much copying the same exact template for every state. Which means that it’s pretty likely that Gov. Sanford got steamrolled on this one. Which is a shame, because Gov. Sanford is supposed to be a maverick Republican, who’s supposed to be a hawk on fiscal issues. I guess not here.

Liveblog of Pickens on Hannity Show II

4:08 PM: Sean announces T. Boone to be on in the next hour. Supposedly to talk oil prices and how oil is jeopardizing our national and economic security. $700 billion has to come up, even if the oil price isn’t anywhere NEAR what is needed for $700 billion.

6:20 PM: AARGH! Stupid WIS radio! I just realized that I’ve been listening to a looped version of the first hour! So that means no liveblog. But I’ll try to see if I can find a clip of the broadcast and analyze that. But because Hannity’s website sucks, I doubt I’ll be able to find this…

T. Boone to Appear on Hannity TODAY

I only got wind of this at the top of Hannity’s show, but T. Boone Pickens is to appear on the Sean Hannity Show. You can listen to your local station or go to the local Columbia webcast here:

http://www.wisradio.com/article.asp?id=507137

I will be liveblogging this, just like I did last time. We’ll see if anything changes.

Bush Approves Transfer: America Adds $8 Billion in Debt

From the AP (via Forbes):

The bill transfers $8 billion from the Treasury’s general fund to shore up the financially teetering highway trust fund, which supports road and bridge projects around the country. In July, the White House threatened a veto, saying taking money from the general fund was “both a gimmick and a dangerous precedent that shifts costs from users to taxpayers at large.”

Supporters of the transfer argued that the Treasury was merely returning $8 billion it took from the then-prospering trust fund in 1998 for deficit reduction.

So basically, to cover “paying off the deficit” back in the 1990’s, lawmakers took money out of the highway trust fund (the checking account where all the gas tax revenues go). Which is funny because I thought the budget surplus was from income tax revenues, but I guess everything gets included in this. So now that the Schumer hits the fan (I swiped that from www.survivalblog.com, which I think is a great euphemism for the actual phrase, if not accurate), the money gets “loaned” back. Of course, this just means that whatever “debt reduction” is done is actually just been eliminated. Awesome accounting guys.

But this also means that the states get their precious highway money, construction companies’ political contributions and lobbying did not go in vain, and whatever useless highway projects that this money is being spent on can continue. At least until next year.

What I also found interesting is that one proposal floated by the Bush administration was to reduce the MASS TRANSIT portion of the trust fund. Motorists, you’ll be happy to know that your gas taxes are going toward those empty regional transit buses you’re stuck behind on the road. Of course, the Democrats wanted nothing to do with that, being that they love mass transit, even if it is cross-subsidized by motorists.

And the same thing has already happened with Social Security. The government has been using the money in the SS trust fund to pay for the usual stuff. So in about 2020, when the trust fund starts to run out, the government will just “get the money back” from the Treasury, since it was already “loaned out”. So don’t worry, Social Security WILL BE SAVED. You’ll just end up paying 50-80% income taxes to do it.

Government: The largest legal Ponzi scheme ever created.

More on the Gas Run

Gas prices surge as Ike moves in | ajc.com.

States warn gas stations against price gouging

These stories is just full of juicy quotes about indignant consumers (read: voters) about this gas run.  I’ll present some quotes:

Larry Ruiz of Duluth said it cost him $45 Tuesday to fill up his small pickup. Friday, it cost him $60. “It really is just too expensive,” he said. “The government has lost control of the gas.”

Larry, the government doesn’t have control over gas prices.  At all.  It controls one thing, the location and siting of oil refineries.  You know who has control over gas prices?  You.  But I bet you’re not willing to take responsiblity for your actions.  It’s alot easier to set blame on the government than yourself.

The wholesale price for a gallon of gasoline rose about $1, to $4.25, Thursday morning, topping the high price five years ago when hurricanes Katrina and Rita raked the Gulf Coast, said Tom Kloza, publisher of the Oil Price Information Service in Wall, N.J. It was uncertain whether that price spike will filter down to the retail level.

“It’s pure panic,” Kloza said. “It’s related to the fact that there are worries about whether there’s going to be enough (gasoline) in the distribution system to satisfy some of the September pumping needs on the Gulf Coast.”

More proof that this is a run.  People don’t know if there’s going to be supplies, so they hoard.  This will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Every time there’s a hurricane this happens. They’re just doing this to rip people off,” said 19-year-old Megan Cohen, a South Carolina college student who settled for paying $4.11 a gallon after going to three stations.

Uh, this wasn’t the case in any other hurricane season except following Katrina, Megan.  It hadn’t happened with any of the hurricanes this year, including Gustav, which hit another large section of the oil and gas producing area of the country.  But Megan, you’re not helping by going to three gas stations and “settling” for $4.11 a gallon.  This means that you didn’t need gasoline (then why go to three stations unless they were out, and there’s an easy way to figure out if the station is empty: noone’s getting gas).  But Megan probably has never taken an economics class at her South Carolina college, otherwise she would know about SUPPLY AND DEMAND.  It’s not that hard people.  Less supply means prices go up.  Demand going up sharply because of panic buying means prices go up even futher.  Or, if they don’t go up quickly enough, there’s a shortage.

S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford asked residents to avoid filling up unless necessary. “Instead, this is a time to think of ways in which each of us can make a difference on what may come our way if refineries in Texas are significantly damaged,” Sanford said in statement. “It might mean riding to the football games with a neighbor or on Sunday riding to church with a friend. It might mean watching a video at home rather than going to the movies or riding to work with a co-worker.”

I know there’s not alot that can be done legally, but as the leader of a state, can’t Mark do something with a little more leadership?  Making a difference?  Throwing out silly suggestions?  This is wimpy politico talk here.  Man up, Mark!  Tell people to stop being so stupid and panicking, if this isn’t a problem.  If it is… be more forceful in telling them that this might be the case for a while.  But if this is his idea of leadership, then this state’s got problems.  This was also true of the Hanna situation, which was equally feeble in the public response.

In South Carolina – where gas prices increased about 20 cents a gallon on average Friday – Attorney General Henry McMaster said gas stations that price gouge would face criminal prosecution. He did not set a threshold, saying each case must be investigated separately to see whether prices were raised to an “unconscionable” level.

But putting the gouging laws into effect?  Now THAT’S going to make things better!  Making the suppliers walk on egg shells in pricing so that if some 19-year old tart with no clue of how things work gets pissed off and files a complaint, then you’ll have to deal with investigations for the next year.  Or you could price it so low that you’ll be out in 5 minutes, but you don’t have to deal with the state lawyers.  Or you could just go on vacation for the next 15 days until this expires.  Then you’re fine and it’s only the customers who get screwed.  But we already knew that about these types of laws.

North Carolina Republican Congressman Robin Hayes called for a federal investigation into some prices rising more than $1 per gallon in a day.

“I understand there is a substantial hurricane in a sensitive area of the country, but this dramatic spike in gas prices is breathtaking,” he said.

I just wanted to point out the party of the pandering politician here.  What’s a federal investigation going to do that the myriad of state investigations won’t?  Oh, that’s right.  Make it seem like you’re doing something about it.

Run on Gas in South Carolina

The State | Gas reaching $5 in Columbia

Everyone knows what a bank run is.  Someone gets word that the bank is close to failure, or doesn’t have enough deposits to carry through to the next business day.  So people want to get their money out before the well dries up.  One person sees this and thinks the same thing, and it continues until the bank actually runs out of money.  This could even be the case when the bank IS solvent and would have had enough money to stay open during normal operations, but the stampede action and groupthink mentality forces the bank to close because they couldn’t satisfy the demands of it’s depositors.

The same thing is starting to happen in South Carolina.

I first heard about the run this morning (shows how much I’m in the loop around here), but at that point, I was probably asleep when it started yesterday afternoon and into the evening.  When I got into work, two things caught my attention.  The first was that the Pitt Stop gas station had run out of gas, as evidenced by the bags on the nozzles.  The second was that I looked down the street to the Gator (independent) gas station and thought I saw a 4 in the dollar place.  I thought I was seeing things though at the time.  Then while at work, the supervisor notified all of us that we were to fill our tanks completely when we finished our routes, because there would be shortages of gas this weekend and going into next week.

The run was on.

By the time I left the city, gas was already at $3.73 to $3.92 and there were reports on the radio that there had been long lines in Sumter and Lexington.  Driving to Myrtle Beach was a mixed bag.  The truck stops (Pilot) along I-20 and I-95 were showing normal prices, at least the same as yesterday, $3.62 or so.  Then when turning on the local sports radio show, I was somewhat surprised when the announcer started off the show by going on a rant about gas prices.  Basically, he was saying that anyone charging over $4 a gallon was “gouging you” and that you should talk to the manager.  As he was saying this, he announced that the Markette convenience store he was broadcasting from dropped their price from $4.20 to $3.93.

Continuing on to Myrtle Beach, I saw a trend appearing.  Most stores had raised their price to $4, but the ones that had left them at $3.80 or so had nothing left.  At the Costco in Myrtle Beach, I saw about 15 cars getting gas (this was at approx 10:15 AM), not surprising for Costco on some mornings.  When I left about 10 minutes later, the amount of cars waiting had doubled, with cars beginning to block the entrance to the store.  The price was a relatively miniscule $3.52.  The cheapest in the state at the time, most likely.

For the rest of the drive, I could see that prices were in the $3.60 to $3.80 range but nothing out of the ordinary.  One store, the Petro United in Surside Beach, was at $3.58 and there wasn’t a line of cars there.  The remainder of the drive to Georgetown was uneventful in terms of long lines or high prices.

The trip back to Columbia was an entirely different story.  While local news didn’t have anything to say about the gas prices, the Fox News national report had an excerpt about how “one regional gas store that operated in 11 southeast states” was asking customers to limit this information, but nothing else was new here, as this was already reported locally.

When I arrived in Lake City, that all changed.  The first store I saw (a little mom-and-pop), had taped over their $3 with $4 sheets of paper.  It was $4.57.  I thought that this was just a little store taking advantage of the situation.  Not even close.  Getting into the downtown area of the town, I saw how relatively ;inexpensive; this all was.  One store was at $4.70 and a group of three at the main intersection of US-52 and Business 378 were all at $4.80 a gallon.  It was also the first time that I saw any price (including premium) at $5 as well.

Going from there to Sumter I saw a pattern emerge.  Anyone who was actually selling gas had their price set at $4.  Anyone not selling gas had a price below that (probably because they ran out at that price).  This continued all the way into Columbia.  There, prices were generally at $4 with the cheapest being $3.90 at a Murphy USA (read Walmart).  I was able to fill up at $4 at a Sunoco, although some of their pumps said that they only had diesel remaining.  I pumped regular, paid the regular price (vs. the cheaper diesel price), so I should have regular in my tank.  If I don’t, then I suppose Monday will be an interesting trip to the coast.

Getting back to my workplace, I saw that the two places that tipped me off this morning had changed their prices.  The Pitt Stop had raised their price to $4.30, but they had gas.  The Gators…$5.  The highest I’ve seen in the state.

And people are still flocking to get gas as far as I can see.

So while nobody is talking about it, there is a full-fleged run on gas in South Carolina, and perhaps in the Southeast.  And there’s no FDIC to backstop this run.

Review of Pickens on Leno

You can see the video here:

http://www.nbc.com/The_Tonight_Show_with_Jay_Leno/video/episodes/#vid=648021

Skip to the 35:00 mark, that’s when he stops doing his old man impression and gets to the Pickens Plan.

And of course, he started with the $700 billion lie, just like I thought he would. He said that he did the analysis ($700 billion and 70% of consumed oil is foreign) then went with his plan. If the analysis is wrong, which it is, what does that say about his plan?

Then he asserts that we (The US) is paying for both sides of the war, but doesn’t specify which war (Iraq? Afghanistan? On Terror?).

Then he states that the OPEC countries had revenues of $250 billion and now that’s $1.25 trillion. I’ll have to check that out in a bit to see if that’s correct or not.

Then he says “If you want to see where your money is going, go over to the middle east and look at those buildings.” Which contradicts his assertion that oil money is funding terrorism. If oil money is funding terrorism, then it’s not going to building Dubai. I’m pretty sure that terrorists, at least of the fundamentalist Islamic type, do not like Dubai, but they don’t bomb it because they’re Arabs and that would put a pretty big negative on their public opinion. It’s easy to stay popular if you’re attacking a foreigner, it’s less so if you’re attacking someone who looks and speaks like you. But that’s a different story that T. Boone isn’t going try and catch up.

But then he says that he “doesn’t criticize them, but that we’re to blame for the fix we’re in.” Which is a pretty big paradox he sets up. Does he think we’re funding terrorists through the middle east countries we import oil from? Or does he think that there’s nothing wrong with what the Middle East is spending their money on? But you can’t get both ways there.

He then goes into the plan where he says that we have an abundance of natural gas and his usual “it’s cheaper, cleaner and ours” routine he’s done many times before. They get into a little banter about how the US is the Saudi Arabia of natural gas, which is true. He doesn’t mention that there are other countries that have alot more natural gas than we do. What happens when the US runs out of our reserves?

The discussion then turns to municipal bus fleets, and T. Boone uses the opportunity to go after Dallas for considering to run their buses on diesel, about which he says that “clean diesel” is an oxymoron. Jay then compares using diesel like a drug dealer, where they give you the price low and then raise the price later. T. Boone agrees with that analogy.

And again, Pickens is wrong. It’s natural gas that’s historically “cheap”, though rising in cost along with gas. Here’s why. Oil is already been priced high, because we’re already using it as the main transportation fuel. If Dallas is struggling with the decision, already knowing that diesel has already hit the $5 a gallon mark, then what is it going to go from here? However, natural gas is increasing in usage and the price is where it is right now. But what happens in the future (which is what this discussion is all about) is when the Pickens Plan is implemented and everyone switches to natural gas? The price increases much more than diesel, which people switch away from. So it’s actually natural gas that’s like the drug. Which makes Pickens the drug dealer, in this analogy.

He then tops it off with a threat to move to Fort Worth because their fleet runs on natural gas. I’ll believe that when I see it.

Jay then mentions that it’s easy to convert cars to natural gas, though I don’t see anything in a cursory search of the internet that suggests easy (and this isn’t “change the oil” easy, we’re talking “replace the transmission”). 98% of car owners aren’t going to be able to do this themselves, which is more of a sign of the complexity of the situation than anything else.

But then T. Boone has the revealing moment of the interview. He states that “he’s focused on trucks” and gives some statistics on that. What he doesn’t mention that is that the reason he’s interested is because he has a giant financial stake in getting trucks to run on natural gas. He’s on the board of directors of Clean Energy Fuels Corp, a supplier of natural gas to fleet vehicles (trucks). If he can get his plan to focus on trucks, then his company can see a large increase in demand for his services.

And lo and behold, he’s mentioned countless times that he wants the federal government to FORCE fleet vehicles to run on natural gas. In fact, at the 38:41 mark, he almost lets this cat out of the bag. He says:

I want those trucks. And I want the government, and I want the administration coming in to—you know, I started this on July the 8th.

See, he almost said what he wanted to do was force companies to use natural gas. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that servicing fleet vehicles is EXACTLY what his company does. No politicking there at all, no financial benefit to him personally. Nope, not at all.

They wrap up by Jay mentioning that it’s about a $1.50 a gallon to fill up natural gas. This might be true… if you live in Utah or Oklahoma. (It’s no coincidence that these are two major producing areas in the US). Otherwise, you’re seeing above $2 per unit.

And he ends up with a prediction of $200-300 a barrel of oil if we continue with our current consumption. Considering that we haven’t even reached his prediction of $150 a barrel that he said we’d reach this summer, I’d take this with a bit of a grain of salt.

He also never got around to covering the wind part of his plan, but that part also has as many holes in it as his natural gas plan. So it’s probably best not to take up more time, but he did run long on the natural gas part.

So overall, he used his folksy style to cover up a bunch of lies and self-interest for the show. And the worse part is that he probably wasn’t very entertaining to boot. But we’ll see if his book promotion tour brings up any interest in his plan or not.

Pickens On Leno Tonight

T. Boone Pickens will be appearing on Jay Leno tonight.

I can guarantee that he will trot out the $700 billion lie. And nobody will care, as usual.

Leno is a car guy, so it’ll be interesting to see what his response to all this will be. But I’m pretty sure that Pickens’ populist shtick won’t be questioned at all. No surprise there. But I’ll review the show tomorrow once I see it. Because since I actually work for a living, I need to get sleep and I’m not interested in staying up till midnight or later to see this appearance.

Plus, he’s appearing with Matthew McConaughey, so there’s an oddball pairing if I’ve ever heard one.

The Energy Deficit and the Pickens Plan

This graphic is from the EIA in their energy brief on energy subsidies:

From this graph, we consume more energy (blue line) than we produce domestically (red line). The difference between the two is how much we have to import to balance the books, so to speak. This deficit amounts to about 30% of all energy consumed on a yearly basis.

The question now goes to those who want the US to become “energy independent”. How do you get those two lines to converge. You have to either bring down consumption, increase production or end up with a combination of the two. But if you don’t, then you’re still going to be importing energy. That’s the bottom line.

This is the elephant in the room for the Pickens Plan. Right now, the plan is to shift consumption sources around, from oil to natural gas in road transportation and from natural gas to wind in electricity. But shifting the production resources doesn’t address the fundamental imbalance between demand and supply. The difference will still need to be made up, and the Pickens Plan doesn’t do that at all. He’s just playing Three Card Monte with energy.

But one argument would be: yeah, but we’re reducing our imports of oil, so that’s something. But something will have to replace it if you don’t increase energy production by 30%. That is not the goal of the Pickens Plan, so there will still be energy imports even if the Pickens Plan is implemented.

But we have to make sure those dirty Arabs and other terrorist nations don’t get any American oil money, even if we end up buying their natural gas, uranium and other energy sources, which then means that the Pickens Plan will accomplish nothing. Well, except put money in Pickens’ pocket.

How much land would be needed for the Pickens Plan to work?

But let’s give the benefit of the doubt to Pickens and say that wind could make up the difference. How many windmills and land would be needed for it to work?

From the graph in my previous post, we have a power deficit of 300,000,000,000,000,000 British Thermal Units. This converted to kilowatt hours is 87 921 325 000 000 kWh. You need to get capacity to figure out how much space is needed, which is in units of kilowatts so you divide by the number of hours in a year, specifically 8420. That means you need to have 10441962589 kW of capacity to get this much power in a year.

But wind turbines don’t run 24 hours a day, in fact, they only run about 33 to 50% of the time, so you actually need double the capacity, AT BEST, to get the capacity needed. So you really need 20883925178 kW to supply the power importation needs for the US.

How much land would this require? For that I went here and used their calculator. The end results:

To get the US off foreign energy, we would need 41,767,850 turbines, which would cover 10,441,962.5 acres. This is also 16316 square miles. Or nearly the size of Vermont and New Hampshire COMBINED. And this is just for the physical items of turbines themselves.

Using a different method, a rule of thumb is that one square kilometer can support 10 to 15 MW of capacity. So using the figure above, we’d get 20883925 MW. So dividing by the best case scenario of 15 MW per square km, we get 1392262 sq. km or 537555 square miles. This is approximately the size of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and half of South Dakota, including urban areas, highways, mountains, and water.

So when T. Boone says that the Great Plains is the Saudi Arabia of wind, you better believe it because if we’re going to use wind to get the US energy independent, the Great Plains will become one giant wind farm.

And this is under a BEST case scenario. Just for fun, lets use the lower end of the power estimates (under the cut):