by Marcel F. WilliamsFossil fuels are predominantly responsible for putting excess carbon dioxide and methane intothe Earth's atmosphere, greenhouse gases that are melting our polar ice caps, raising global sea levels, and causing more extreme climate conditions around the world. The coal and natural gas power industry has looked looked towards future technologies for the on site capture of flu gas in order to recover and sequester carbon dioxide. However, there is no cost effective technology for capturing the CO2 from the mobile producers of carbon dioxide: automobiles, trucks, aircraft, and sea craft.But there are new technologies that are rapidly being developed that may eventually divorce carbon dioxide polluting sources of energy from the need for on site capture and sequestration of carbon dioxide. These devices are sometimes referred to as mechanical trees. But what they do is to simply extract and recover carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. And these future technologies appear to be far more efficient at extracting CO2 from the air than the plant life on our planet.Some argue that these carbon dioxide from air extracting technologies could be the saviors of the fossil fuel industry. Ironically, such future technologies could also eventually lead to the complete extinction of fossil use on this planet if the CO2 taken from the atmosphere is used in combination with hydrogen from water to produce hydrocarbon fuels such as: gasoline, methanol, diesel fuel, jet fuel, and dimethyl ether.HydrogenBecause the combustion of hydrogen produces only energy and water, hydrogen via the electrolysis of water through hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, and solar has often been proposed as a replacement for hydrocarbon transportation fuels. Liquid hydrogen fuel has been used in US space craft since the days of the Apollo Moon program. And liquid hydrogen has also been frequently proposed for future generation subsonic and hypersonic airliners and aircraft. Hydrogen fueled buses now transport commuters in many urban areas in the US. And hydrogen automobiles have been demonstrated by many automobile companies around the world .However, hydrogen automobiles have a substantially shorter range than hydrocarbon fueled vehicles and are a lot less efficient than electric vehicles. Refueling hydrogen vehicles also takes much longer than refueling with gasoline, ethanol, or methanol. Because of the hydrogen embrittlement of metals like steel, hydrogen pipelines are more expensive to maintain than natural gas and oil pipelines. Aircraft, seacraft and ground vehicles, and the infrastructure associated with these vehicles, would also have to be completely replaced if we completely replaced our fuel economy with hydrogen.Hydrocarbon fuels from CO2 and hydrogenAlternatively, there are several demonstrated methods for synthesizing hydrocarbon fuels by utilizing carbon dioxide in combination with hydrogen which could allow a country to avoid any major overhaul in its transportation energy infrastructure.Chemist have known how to produce methanol from hydrogen and carbon dioxide for more than 80 years:CO2 + 3H2 → CH3OH (methanol) + H2OMethanol is mostly used as a feedstock for making other chemicals. But methanol can be converted into dimethyl ether (DME), a fuel that can be effectively used in diesel engines equipped with new fuel injection systems. The fact that dimethyl ether produces no black smoke, soot, or sulfur dioxide is an clean advantage it has over diesel fuel.Methanol can also be converted into high octane gasoline via the Mobil Oil methanol to gasoline (MTG) process. Back in the 1980's, the New Zealand government produced 600,000 tonnes of gasoline a year from methanol derived from natural gas using the MTG process.Methane gas can also be synthesized from hydrogen and carbon dioxide:CO2 + 4H2 → CH4 (methane) + 2H2OAnd methane can also be converted into diesel and jet fuels via Fischer-Tropsch and hydrocracking processes.Mechanical extraction of atmospheric CO2Plants capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere while utilizing sunlight to convert the CO2 into starch. During photosynthesis, trees, for instance, convert carbon dioxide and water into starche molecules and oxygen through a series of oxidation and reduction reactions:6 CO2 + 6 H2O + sunlight ---> C6H12O6 + 6 O2Some farm crops and trees can produce up to 20 metric tons per acre (4047 square meters) of biomass a year. One tonne of dried tree consist of 0.45 tonnes of carbon which would translate into the extraction of 1.65 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually extracted from the atmosphere. That's 33 tonnes of CO2 per acre extracted on an annual basis.Even though the concentration of CO2 in the Earth's atmosphere is a meager 0.04 per cent, companies like GRT (Global Research Technologies) in Arizona and Canadian researchers at the University of Calgary have already built machines that can extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere far more efficiently than any tree or any other source of biomass. GRT claims that its carbon dioxide air extraction system is a thousand times more efficient than a tree of equal size.
GRT CO2 absorbent material The University of Calgary team has shown that they could capture CO2 directly from the atmosphere with less than 100 kilowatt-hours of electricity per tonne of carbon dioxide. Their carbon dioxide from air extraction tower was able to capture the equivalent of about 20 tonnes per year of CO2 on just one single square meter of air scrubbing material. Astonishingly, this suggest that even the most conservative estimates would allow these CO2 extracting machines to produce more than 80 thousand tonnes of carbon dioxide per acre annually.
University of Calgary carbon dioxide extraction machine Because of the need for cheap electricity for hydrogen production, only nuclear and hydroelectric facilities would be currently viable for hydrocarbon fuel production utilizing carbon dioxide from air extraction technologies. Hydroelectric facilities currently produce electricity at 0 .85 cents per kwh while electricity from nuclear facilities currently cost 1.68 cents per kwh. Wind and solar thermal electricity, however, is much more expensive and ranges from over 4 cents per kwh to over 6 cents per kwh.At the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, F. Jeffrey Martin and Williams L. Kubic, Jr. have developed the Green Freedom concept for using the cooling towers of nuclear reactors to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for the production of gasoline and methanol.
They argue that a 1 GWe power plant using their Green Freedom method could produce 18,000-bbl/day of gasoline or 5000 tonnes a day of methanol.Carbon neutral hydrocarbon synfuel production at nuclear and hydroelectric facilities would not only allow such power facilities to produce transportation fuels and industrial chemicals, they would also allow them to pump methanol and oxygen up to 80 kilometers away to high efficiency power plants for the production of peak-load and back-up-load electricity and commercial waste heat. Nuclear power plants could therefore not only produce base-load electricity but could also supply methanol fuel to replace greenhouse polluting natural gas power plants which are used for daytime peak-load energy and back-up energy for wind and solar power plants.In 2006, the US consumed nearly 21 million bbl/day of petroleum for transportation fuel and industrial chemical use. If we assumed that nuclear power plants replaced all of the petroleum used in the US in 2006, that would roughly require more than a thousand new 1Gwe nuclear reactors, over 1000 GWe of electrical capacity. Existing nuclear sites that already have nuclear reactors could probably on add an additional 200 to 300 Gwe of capacity. However, if one large centralized nuplex (nuclear park) with about 30GWe of average electrical capacity were set up in every state in the union, then that could add an additional 1500 GWe of electrical capacity, more than enough to replace all of our petroleum needs today and probably our needs 30 years from now.If the new Obama administration is going to invest substantial R&D money into new energy technologies, I would strongly suggest investing in the fast tracking of these carbon dioxide extraction from air technologies that could revolution synfuel production by helping to achieve US independence from the petroleum fuel economy while protecting the global environment from the dangers of global warming and climate change.Links and References1. Green Freedom: A concept for producing carbon-neutral synthetic fuels and chemicals, Los Alamos Labs, November 2007 F.J. Martin and WL Kubic, 2. GRT (Global Research Technologies, LLC)3. Giant Carbon dioxide Vacuums4. Snatching Carbon dioxide from the Atmosphere5. CO2 capture from air6. First Successful Demonstration of Carbon Dioxide Air Capture Technology Achieved:7. First Successful Demonstration of Carbon Dioxide Air Capture Technology Achieved by Columbia University Scientist and Private Company, (2007) Earth Institute News Archive, 04/24/078. Carbon capture and storage:9. Researchers Scramble to Create CO2-Busting Technologies:10. CO2 capture from ambient air: a feasibility assessment:11. Carbon Capture and Storage A False Solution12. The Case for Carbon Dioxide Extraction from Air13. Klaus S. Lackner, Patrick Grimes, Hans-J. Ziock, Capturing Carbon Dioxide From Air14. K. Schultz, L. Bogart, G. Besenbruch, L. Brown, R. Buckingham, M. Campbell, B. Russ, and B. Wong HYDROGEN AND SYNTHETIC HYDROCARBON FUELS – A NATURAL SYNERGY General Atomics Poster15. G. Olah, A. Goeppert, and G. Prakash, (2006) Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy, Wiley-VCH Verlang, Weinheim, Germany
NEW PAPYRUS
The online magazine of science, technology, socioeconomics, and politics
http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/
Monday, October 20, 2008
Natural Radiation
by Marcel F. WilliamsHumans exist on a planet and within a universe that is naturally radioactive. In fact, humans and all other plant and animal species that live and breed on Earth are also inherently radioactive.Since the birth of the cosmos, the earth has been subjected to an endless hailstorm of cosmic radiation. These potentially deleterious ionizing particles consist of highly accelerated protons, electrons, and neutrons originating mostly from other stars in our galaxy.Our planet of evolutionary origin is also radioactive due to naturally occurring radioactive elements in the earth's crust such as: potassium-40, uranium-238, thorium-232, and rubidinum-87, and radium-226. In fact, the radioactive decay from uranium, thorium, and potassium may be responsible for 45 to 90% of the earth's internal heat source which is the source of earthquakes, volcanoes, mountain building, hot springs, and continental drift.On average, humans receive 0.4 mSv (40 millirems) of cosmic radiation. People also receive about 0.5 mSv (50 millirems) of terrestrial radiation. We also inhale about 1.2 mSV (120 millirems) of radiation from radon gas annually.The human species is also internally radioactive due to the potassium in our bones which exposes our tissues to 0.4 mSv (40 millirems) of ionizing radiation. So being in constant proximity to other human beings increases one's exposure to ionizing radiation.So if you lived with at least one other person in your house, you would receive 0.4 (40 millirems). That's more than ten times as much radiation as you would receive by living near a nuclear facility. If you lived in California and moved to Colorado, you would receive 45 times as much ionizing radiation as you would living next to a nuclear power facility.Ionizing Radiation Levels (annual):0.39 (mSv) Annual human internal radiation due to radioactive potassium0.35 mSv Annual exposure to cosmic radiation in the state of Louisiana1.20 mSv Annual exposure to cosmic radiation in the state of Colorado0.30 mSv Annual exposure to terrestrial radiation in the state of Texas1.15 mSV Annual exposure to terrestrial radiation in the state of South Dakota0.07 mSv Annual radiation exposure to while living in a stone, brick, or concrete building0.03 mSv Annual radiation exposure while living near the gate of a nuclear power plant0.01 Annual USA dose from nuclear fuel and nuclear power plants1.15 mSv Annual radiation exposure while working at a nuclear power plant2.0 mSv Annual human internal radiation due to radon1.0 mSv Annual Limit of dose from all DOE facilities to a member of the public who is not a radiation worker5.0 mSv Annual USA NRC limit for visitorsIonizing Radiation Levels (acute):0.o5 mSV One round-trip to Paris-New York0.46 mSv off-site exposure to the Three Mile Island core meltdown accident2.2 mSv Average dose from upper gastrointestinal diagnostic X-ray series50 mSv Lowest dose at which there is any evidence of cancer being caused in adults100 mSv USA EPA acute dose level estimated to increase cancer risk 0.8%500-1000 mSv Low-level radiation sickness due to short-term exposurePersons working at a nuclear facility are normally exposed to 1.15 mSv (115 millirems) annually. This would be the equivalent of living in the state of Ohio where Americans there are exposed to an equivalent amount of cosmic and terrestrial radiation and below that of states like Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah where one receives a lot more background radiation.If you lived near the gate of a nuclear reactor and never left the house, you would be exposed to 0.03 mSv (3 millirems) of radiation annually from that nuclear facility. However, you would receive 0.07 mSv (7 millirems) of radiation if you were living in a stone, brick, or concrete building. So you would receive more radiation from your house than from living near the gate of a nuclear facility.But what about a nuclear meltdown?Thanks to the fact that US reactors are housed in huge protective containment structures, the nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island exposed nearby residents to only 0.46 mSv of acute radiation. That's nearly five times lower than receiving a gastrointestinal medical X-Ray and more than 100 times below the level of cancer causing radiation. But the new generation of nuclear reactors such as the AP1000 and GE's ESBWR have core damage frequencies at least 100 to 1000 times lower than current reactors such as the LWR at Three Mile Island. But, again, even if a meltdown did occur, the public would be protected by the containment structures which are also designed to withstand an impact from a jet plane.Americans are exposed to natural radiation from cosmic and terrestrial radiation ranging from as low as 0.75 mSv (75 millirems) to as high as 2.25 mSv (225 millirems). And Americans are exposed to an additional 2.0 mSv (200 millirems) of radon gas on average. Yet living near the gate of nuclear power facility would only expose them to 0.03 mSv (3 millirems) of radiation. And even consistent contact with a family member would expose you to another 0.4 mSv (40 millirems) of radiation annually. So the idea that a dramatic increase in nuclear power would expose humans to a dramatic increase in ionizing radiation is clearly not supported by the scientific evidence.References and Links1. G. Olah, A. Goeppert, and G. Prakash, (2006) Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy, Wiley-VCH Verlang, Weinheim, Germany2. Ionizing radiation (Wikipedia)3. Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor4. Martin D. Ecker, and Norton J. Bramesco (1981) Radiation: All you need t know about to stop worrying...or to start, Vintage Books, New York5. Radiation and Life Posted by Marcel F. Williams at 12:53 AM 0 comments:
by Marcel F. WilliamsOne frequent argument against the expansion of commercial nuclear power is the the claim that our planet is simply running out of the nuclear material to power the world's nuclear reactors. So any future expansion of the commercial nuclear power industry would simply be out of the question.Uranium oreNuclear power produces approximately 20% of the electricity in the US and represents approximately 6% of the world's energy consumption. Uranium currently sells at below $35 per kilogram on the world market. But it is estimated that there are approximately 5.5 million tonnes of proven uranium reserves at a cost below $130 per kilogram. With the resurgence of nuclear power, however, it is estimated that the exploration for new uranium sources would increase total reserves to more than 16 million tonnes. The current world demand for uranium is 65,000 tonnes per year. So there should be enough uranium to supply current global nuclear power facilities for 246 years.Countries with the most abundant uranium suppliesBut if nuclear power were required to supply the world's total energy needs, 1.1 million tonnes of uranium would be required annually. So these terrestrial uranium reserves could only power our planet for less than 15 years. And even reprocessing spent fuel would only extend the nuclear fuel supplies to no more than 20 years.However, there are alternatives to terrestrial uranium.The world's oceans contain more than 4 billion tonnes of uranium in seawater. That's enough to power our entire planet for more than 3600 years or over 5000 years if spent fuel is also utilized. Japanese uranium from seawater demonstration projects estimate that marine uranium could be extracted at a cost of $135 to $250 per kilogram. Current world uranium prices are less than $35 per kilogram but expected to rise as uranium demand rises as new power plants are built around the world. But since uranium fuel only represents about 5% of the total cost of the energy produce by a fission power plant, that would only increase the total cost of energy via nuclear power by 14 to 31 percent which would still make the cost of nuclear electricity significantly lower than coal and natural gas. New laser uranium enrichment techniques, however, could dramatically lower total fuel cost which could, in theory, wipe out the increase in cost of using seawater uranium since enrichment represents 30% of the cost of nuclear fuel.Yellow cake extracted from seawater
So even if our future global society used three times as much energy as we use today, marine uranium and spent fuel could provide more than 1600 years of energy. Of course the contribution of renewable energy systems (hydroelectric, wind, solar, and biomass) could stretch uranium supplies even longer.But even without marine uranium, breeder technologies could power our global society at three times the current level for 700 years using terrestrial uranium. Nuclear breeding technologies such as fast neutron reactors or ADS accelerator reactors could increase fuel supplies by a factor of 140 since fissile uranium 235 only represents about 0.7% of natural uranium. In light water reactors (LWR), approximately 70% of the uranium 235 is converted into energy while another third comes from the conversion of plutonium into energy which is created as a by product of the neutron irradiation of uranium 238. Breeder technologies could give the world a 500,000 year supply of nuclear power or a 166,000 year supply at three times current energy use levels. However, the oceans are constantly being replenished with uranium from the worlds oceans, depositing over 32,000 tonnes of uranium annually. Since breeder technologies would only require less than 24,000 tonnes of uranium annually, marine uranium could power our entire society at three times the current level essentially-- forever!Thorium is another alternative to terrestrial uranium. There is at least 3 times as much terrestrial thorium 232 as there is terrestrial uranium 238. Neutron bombardment within a reactor can convert fertile thorium 332 into fissile uranium 233. And there is at least 3 times as much terrestrial thorium 232 as there is uranium 238. So terrestrial nuclear fuel sources could power our global society at three times the current level for approximately 2800 years.A CANDU heavy water reactor could have an 80% conversion rate if it utilized fissile uranium or plutonium inside of a thorium blanket. A modified CANDU heavy water reactor that uses thorium fuel enriched with fissile uranium 235, plutonium 239, or uranium 233 can produce as much fissile fuel as it utilizes. An ADS accelerator reactor could also breed uranium 233 from thorium. For every kilogram of plutonium burned in a thorium breeder, approximately 2.73 kilograms of uranium 233 could be produced, more than 8o% of a reactors total fissile fuel requirements. Combined with the 30% of reprocessed uranium 235 from spent fuel, an ADS could supply all of a reactors fuel needs through uranium 238 and thorium 232. However, it might by easier and cheaper just to gradually replace third generation reactors with thorium and uranium burning ADS reactors.Japanese companies currently lead the world in uranium extraction from sea water technology. But, in my opinion, the next US administration should set the goal for the commercial extraction of uranium from sea water within 10 years time. The US should also set the goal of having a functioning full scale ADS accelerator thorium breeder online within a decade with the goal of having commercial ADS reactors online within 20 years time. The same goal should be set by the Canadian government for the CANDU thorium breeder reactor.Such policies should insure a smooth transition from our current terrestrial uranium, third generation, nuclear economy to a more diverse nuclear economy that includes current reactor technology, fast neutron reactors and ADS breeder reactors along with a more diverse fuel supply that includes terrestrial uranium, uranium from seawater, and thorium.
http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/2008/10/fueling-our-nuclear-future.html
http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Federal support for non-carbon dioxide polluting energy technologies
by Marcel F. Williams
Management Information Services, Inc. of Washington D.C. has recently come out with a report that indicates that most of the US tax subsidies and R&D for the energy industry from 1950 to 2006 has gone to the fossil fuel industry. The oil industry led the way with 335 billion dollars in Federal Energy incentives. The natural gas industry was second with over 100 billion dollars in federal energy incentives. Coal was third with 94 billion dollars. So the greenhouse gas polluting fossil fuel industries have received over 529 billion dollars in Federal energy incentives from 1950 to 2006.
Amongst renewable energy technologies, hydroelectric power has received 80 billion in federal energy incentives, wind and solar has received 45 billion in federal energy incentives, and geothermal has received 7 billion in federal energy incentives. So the amount of federal energy incentives for renewable energy was 132 billion between 1950 and 2006.
Nuclear energy has received 65 billion in federal energy incentives. However, less than 6 billion dollars of federal energy incentives have been provided for light water reactors in the US which are the only nuclear power facilities that produce commercial electricity in the US. The rest has been for R&D for breeder reactors and other reactor types that have never gone on line commercially in the US.
While nuclear energy has received less than half the federal energy incentives of renewable energy systems, it currently produces nearly 20 % of electricity in the US while renewable energy systems produce less than 9% of US electricity. Solar, Wind, and Geothermal energy has been provided with 52 billion in federal energy incentives, yet , combined, they provide only 1.1% of US electricity.
So it is clear that amongst the federal energy incentives for non-carbon dioxide polluting technologies, nuclear power has produced substantially more electrical energy than renewable systems for far less money. And this is especially true when it comes to wind, solar, and geothermal technologies which currently produce nearly 20 times less electricity than nuclear power.
References and Links
1. Analysis of Federal Expenditures for Energy Development September 2008By Management Information Services, Inc. Washington, D.C.
http://www.nei.org/filefolder/Bezdek_Report.pdf
2. Which Energy Industry Gets the Biggest Subsidies?
http://www.businessweek.com/investing/green_business/archives/2008/09/which_energy_in.html
3. Support for nuclear dwarfed by that for fossil fuels A New Papyrus Publication
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-US_government_spending_on_nuclear_dwarfed_by_fossil_fuels-2509085.html
That should be the Democratic logo for Obama and the Democratic campaign the rest of the way. America can't afford another 4 more years of a Republican administration. McCain has admitted that he doesn't know much about the economy and one of his top economic advisers is partially responsible for deregulating the financial markets.
And his VP nominee, Palin, as mayor left her tiny town of Wasilla 20 million dollars in debt after inheriting a surplus. AMERICA CAN'T AFFORD ANOTHER 4 MORE YEARS OF A REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATION!
Marcel F. Williams
The most effective pro Obama advocate right now is Joe Biden. Yet the media is hardly giving this Truman-like warrior any air time.
I think its time for the Obama campaign to give Biden a lot more air time by putting Biden in more short commericials where he's talking to the American people about specific issues: the Obama economic plan, the Obama energy plan, the Obama foreign policy plan, and Biden telling the American people that frankly McCain and Palin are just the continuation of the George Bush Republicanism that has ruined our economy and alienated America in the rest of the world. This campaign needs a fresh face and a lot more exposure for the 'Happy Warrior', Joe Biped.
McCain and Palin are running as George Bush Republicans. Yet they have called their support for the George Bush agenda as CHANGE! Palin is practically a clone of George Bush in all of her policies and beliefs. And McCain has admitted supporting George Bush policies at least 90% of the time.
Why most Democrates, including Obama, are letting them get away with this deception is beyond me!
Its time to go on the attack by labeling McCain and Palin what they truly are: George Bush Republicans. McCain and Plalin are 'George Bush Republicans' who want to continue the policies of George W. Bush for another four years. Obama needs to tell Americans who McCain and Palin really are and turn this race around!
I'm astonished that the Democrats have been so sheepish in response to Sarah Palin. The woman is a George Bush clone. There is practically no light between Palin's political and economic philosophy and that of George Bush. Yet all the Democrats have to say about her is that she's a nice lady?
There won't be any change in Washington if McCain and Palin get in because they'd have to change themselves first since they both agree with George Bush over 90% of the time. And Palin is practically a clone of one of the most unpopular presidents in the history of America. Yet the Democrat leadership appears to have nothing to say about this George Bush clone. Astonishing!
From The Sunday Times September 14, 2008Sarah Palin: the most underqualified vice-president ever?
Andrew Sullivan
For the past two weeks serious commentators and columnists have been asked to take the candidacy of Sarah Palin for the vice-presidency of the United States seriously.
Formerly sane people have written of the McCain campaign’s selection of this running mate as if it represents a new face for Republicanism, an emblem of can-do western spirit, a brilliant ploy to win over Clinton voters, a new feminism, a reformist revolution, and a genius appeal to the religious right.
I’m afraid I cannot join in. In fact I cannot say anything about this candidacy that takes it in any way seriously. It is a farce. It is absurd. It is an insult to all intelligent people. It is a sign of a candidate who has lost his mind. There is no way to take the nomination of Palin to be vice-president of the world’s sole superpower - except to treat it as a massive, unforgivable, inexplicable decision by someone who has either gone insane or is managerially unfit to be president of the United States. When, at some point, the hysteria dies down, even her supporters will realise that, by this decision, McCain has rendered himself unfit to run a branch of Starbucks, let alone the White House.
Isn’t she doing well in the polls? Hasn’t she rattled the Obama campaign? Yes, she is. And yes, she has, a little. But review the extraordinary facts on the table about this woman and you will see how ephemeral this will soon turn out to be.
The announcement of Palin was made more than two weeks ago. It took a fortnight for her to agree to sit down for an intimate interview of the kind usually reserved for Hollywood stars instead of the press conference typical of a new vice-presidential candidate. This has never happened in American political history. Even Dan Quayle, the least qualified vice-presidential nominee before Palin, and a man who did not know how to spell “potato”, gave a press conference a day after the convention in 1988.
There have been two explanations for this astonishing Putin-style decision to keep a vice-presidential candidate from the press. The first was that the press would be too mean to her and needed to show, in campaign manager Rick Davis’s word, sufficient “deference” before they would be allowed to ask her a question. Deference? Is 21st-century America an 18th-century monarchy? The press owes such a total unknown who could be president next January deference?
The second explanation is that she needed time to cram for the exam. The McCain camp knew she had never expressed any views about foreign policy. And the only time she had on record was to oppose the surge that is the centrepiece of McCain’s campaign. They knew she knew nothing and was utterly unqualified to be president at a moment’s notice. And so she spent the last week furiously prepping. As Maureen Dowd noticed, she is Eliza Doolittle to John McCain’s Henry Higgins.
But at the end of last week we were granted an audience with the Princess of Alaska. It was painful. She had no idea what the Bush Doctrine was – the central and most controversial foreign policy innovation of the past eight years: the doctrine of preemption against states with WMDs. Moreover, in her speech the same day, she described the war in Iraq. She said her eldest son, who has just enlisted, would “defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans”.
Does Palin believe that the men who planned and carried out the 9/11 attack are in Iraq? The hijackers are all dead, but Bin Laden and Zawahiri and the rest of the gang are, as far as we know, in Pakistan. Nobody believes they are in Iraq.
Then we have the now mountain of lies that follow Palin everywhere she goes, lies she keeps repeating as if they are not subject to factual scrutiny. In her first interview she said it was common for vice-presidential candidates never to have met a single foreign leader. Untrue. Every living vice-presidential candidate has met some foreign leaders before being picked.
She said she did not deny that climate change was man-made. But she has clearly stated that on the record. A year ago she said: “I’m not an Al Gore, doom-and-gloom environmentalist, blaming the changes in our climate on human activity.”
She keeps repeating as a defining political motif that she said: “Thanks, but no thanks for the Bridge to Nowhere.” But we now know that she originally lobbied for the bridge in Alaska paid for by federal funds. And she never returned the money. And she even wore a “Nowhere, Alaska” sweatshirt to push back against the McCains of this world who derided the bridge as a pointless boondoggle.
She says she’s against pork-barrel spending, and this was partly why McCain picked her. McCain’s signature issue, after all, is his disdain of pork. Here’s one of McCain’s oldest jokes: “We’re not going to spend $3m of your tax dollars to study the DNA of bears in Montana,” he said earlier this year, citing Montana’s request for federal money to study the endangered grizzly bear. “I don’t know if it was a paternity issue or criminal, but it was a waste of money.”
Here’s what Politico.com revealed about Palin’s time as Alaska governor: “According to a ‘summary of requests for federal appropriations’ posted to her budget office’s website earlier this year, Palin requested millions of federal dollars for everything from improving recreational halibut fishing to studying the mating habits of crabs and the DNA of harbour seals.”
She boasts that she secured a new oil pipeline for Alaska, but closer inspection finds that nothing has even begun to be built, and that the state may end up owing billions if the pipeline is never constructed.
She says she’s a fiscal conservative, but as mayor she increased her tiny town’s debt service by 69%. When she took office, the town of Wasilla had no long-term debt. By the time her term was over, the debt amounted to $3,000 per citizen.
She is the biggest joke to be put on a ticket in national politics. The most accurate thing said about her in the past two weeks was said on the day she was picked. It was said by Alaska’s Republican state senate president, Lyda Green: “She’s not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice-president or president? Look at what she’s done to this state. What would she do to the nation?”
John McCain picked a clone of George Bush as his VP. Just listen to Palin's political philosophy. And look at record. So how is picking a clone of George Bush change??????
Obama needs to call John McCain out on this!
McCain and Palin claim that they are 'Mavericks' when they're actually 'George Bush Republicans!
McCain freely admits that he 's agreed with George Bush 90% of the time. And Palin is practically a clone of George W. with her extremely conservative evangelical views So its time for Obama, Biden, and the rest of the Democratic leaders of our party to start calling McCain and Palin exactly what they are-- both during interviews on on the television networks and in political commercials. McCain and Palin are 'George Bush Republicans' and its about time Obama let political Independents, disaffected Republicans, and Hillary Democrats start calling them that!
John McCain claims he wants to fight climate change yet he wants to drill for more off-shore oil which will increase global warming from both carbon dioxide and the methane released from drilling. An now he's chosen a VP nominee in Palin who doesn't even believe in global warming.
McCain and Palin need to be severely attacked in television adds on the issue of global warming and Obama needs to argue that technologies already exist that will allow us to produce carbon-neutral gasoline, diesel fuel, and aviation fuel from the urban refuse from our cities, farms, and forest.
Its time for the Obama campaign to start raising the negatives on Sarah Palin by pointing out to women that she is a Rush Limbaugh Republican!
Put her picture and Mr. Limbaugh's face together on TV. Rush is Palin's most enthusiastic supporter and Palin is a Rush Limbaugh Republican who is against fighting climate change, was for the war in Iraq, and is against a woman's right to choose. It's also time for the Democrats to focus solely on Palin's flip flops as a reformer and her lack of interest in international affairs (the woman just got her first passport in 2006). Don't even mention John McCain in these commercials. Just focus the legitimate negative attacks on Sarah Palin and how she would hurt women and this country if she was just a heartbeat from the presidency.
Don't play nice with this woman or we'll end up with a 3rd term of the George Bush policies!
TEES researchers and Byogy Renewables, Inc., are working to turn everyday waste into gasoline.
Obviously, Barack Obama won't say any of this on Thursday night in Denver. But I really wish that he would make a bolder statement on energy independence at the convention in order to-- capture the imagination-- of Democrats and Independents in this country. But this is what I'd like him to say:"While my opponent, John McCain, continues to advocate the Bush administration policies of drilling for more oil in order to enrich the multi-national oil companies while threatening our coastlines and putting more greenhouse gases into the Earth's atmosphere, I believe that it is time to move America in a much different direction. I believe that it is time for this nation to commit itself towards achieving the goal of generating all of the electricity in this country though non greenhouse gas producing technologies within the next 25 years. Such an effort will not only require our continued use of clean hydroelectricity but will also require a major expansion in the use of non carbon-dioxide polluting technologies such as wind, solar, and nuclear energy if this goal is to be achieved. But if our nation is to help mitigate the potential catastrophe of global climate change and global sea rise then we're simply going to have to stop putting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Furthermore, I also believe that it is time to commit this nation towards achieving the goal, also within 25 years time, of producing all of our nation's liquid transportation fuel needs through the production of carbon-neutral gasoline, diesel fuel, aviation fuel, methanol, and dimethyl ether through the utilization of urban and rural biomass and, or the extraction of carbon dioxide from air combined with clean hydrogen produced through wind, solar, hydroelectric and nuclear energy. This will not only help America and the rest of the world deal with climate change but will also finally put an end to America's importation of carbon-dioxide polluting petroleum fuels from the multi-national oil companies. These efforts towards energy independence from petroleum and other fossil fuels will require huge private and public investments in America's clean energy infrastructure over the next 25 years. But I believe that these goals can be achieved if we aggressively set up and properly fund the clean energy infrastructure necessary to make America's gradual transition from a greenhouse gas polluting petroleum and fossil fuel economy towards a clean, carbon-neutral, electric and synthetic fuel economy."
I seriously wish Obama would say this because I believe that this transition can occur in less than 25 years-- if we're truly serious about energy independence and putting an end to our contribution towards global warming.
