The weapon design and arms control communities agree that it is not the capability to design a nuclear device that determines the pace of a country’s acquisition of a first weapon, but, rather, the availability of nuclear weapons materials that can be turned to weapons purposes. For a nation-state, the material for weapons can come from uranium enrichment plants (highly enriched uranium), or reactors and nuclear fuel reprocessing plants (plutonium), or both.
Regardless of its isotopic composition, the minimum amount of plutonium required to make a pure fission nuclear explosive, with a yield equivalent to one to 25 kilotons of chemical high explosives, is quite small, on the order of 1 to 3 kilograms (kg), with the exact amount depending on the level of design expertise and the desired nuclear explosive yield. The minimum amount of highly enriched uranium required is a few times larger—5 to 10kg.
While far from ideal for military applications, the isotopic composition of the plutonium typically produced in civil power reactors does not pose a serious obstacle to fabricating efficient and powerful weapons, as well as crude terrorist devices.
http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/power/power.pdf
The proliferation of nuclear weapons is inextricably linked to nuclear power by a shared need for enriched uranium, and through the generation of plutonium as a by-product of spent nuclear fuel. The two industries have been linked since the very beginning and a nuclear weapons free world requires a non-nuclear energy policy. http://www.cnduk.org/index.php/information/info-sheets/briefings.html#nuclearpower
HOPE AND HYPE VS. REALITY IN NUCLEAR REACTOR COST
THE ECONOMICS OF NUCLEAR REACTORS:http://www.vermontlaw.edu/Documents/Cooper%20Report%20on%20Nuclear%20Economics%20FINAL%5B1%5D.pdf
The way for the U.S. to secure a leadership role in the 21st century is by leading on all the issues that confront the world, to exhibit thoughtful strength and realistic ideas. It will require more than military strength, diplomacy, reversing the current economic chaos, and strong alliances. Our place in the world, our rights, and our freedom depend on leading based on principles we don't just preach, but practice.
In the case of our reckless, decades-long descent into a position where we are addicted to fossil fuels mostly coming from abroad, the time for new ideas is past due. Clean new energy sources aren't just good for our children and the environment, they're a key to our national security. Now more than ever our leaders must partner with innovative businesses and entrepreneurs to make the United States more self-reliant again. The President and the Congress must resist the insidious temptation to do nothing about energy while dealing with the various other domestic and global challenges.
Of course, no matter if the business is banking or big oil, well-funded special interests don't want to give up the loopholes they've lobbied for over the years. They work to preserve their special deals with Congress, while lobbying the media into misleading Americans with catch phrases such as "Cap & tax" to keep us from thinking about what's at stake.
While most Americans support a cap on carbon pollution there's now a flood of "talking points" and sound-bites circulating about the supposed short-comings and dangers of any new plan. The real threat of cap-and-trade is that it doesn't favor the mega-corporations, and the ultra-rich energy barons. Changing to new and cleaner energy sources changes where the money goes - more of it stays in the U.S., in smaller, newer companies; it creates jobs that we desperately need to recover from the fiasco of letting the financial giants "self-regulate."
"It looks like green jobs are real. Recently, two solar energy companies — Hemlock Semiconductor Corp. and Wacker Chemie AG — announced billion-dollar investment plans to build plants near Clarksville and Chattanooga." U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN)
U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN)
In fact, a cap and trade system simply uses pure capitalism to reward efficient, innovative businesses while it effectively penalizes out-moded industries. Used world-wide it plays to American strengths, conveying tremendous economic advantage to industries and countries ready to innovate, and results in domestic job growth. Only somebody making lots of money off the existing rules could possibly deny the benefits of a global cap and trade system.
Many members of Congress benefit from huge campaign donations from energy companies. They'd be happy if we'd all stop paying such close attention to how energy policy intertwines with national security. They smile and want you to "trust" them to get it right, and the longer they've been there the more they want you to just trust, and not verify, that they're working for you. Uh huh.
Where were the tea parties when we attacked the wrong country?
When we wasted and killed thousands, of innocents? When we lost thousands more
of our finest and wounded ten of thousands? Where were the tea parties, when the
babies and their mothers heads rolled in Gaza? Where were the tea parties when
we discovered that Cheney was involved with Halliberton? When Billions disappered
right before 9/11? Where were the tea parties when Bush took away or rights and
plundred our constitution? Where were the tea parties when Billions went missing in
Iraq? Where did another $TRillion go as the crooks left office? Where are the tea
parties as they retired to the beaches of the world?
You people make me sick. Pee on your tea party.
The American people have been watching the US Auto industry closely for a number of months. America must have an Auto Industry. We are America for crying out loud. We buy more cars than anyone. But we must have industries that compete in every way from technology, safety, productivity to efficiency and cost.
It is a very hard time for many in the industry that have done all they can do to build the best cars industry has allowed them to build, but these folks are survivors and will overcome. They will lead the new American auto industry with the experience and continuous process improvement cultures that they know are critical to quality.
Our nation is at a crossroads. An eight lane crossroads at rush hour with train tracks to-boot! Now is the time for our government & manufacturing industries to manhatanize the change over away from foreign oil. We cannot just keep kicking it down the road. It cost way to much with each kick. Look at us now, the big three in danger of survival. High efeciency & electric cars should have been the norm for at least five to ten years, but they are not. Had they of been we would be looking at a very different picture. We cannot unscramble that egg, but we must take heed, learn from it and start anew. We must not squander our last chance. Yes, I say last chance. Because the path we are on is not sustainable for another 20+ years.
At this point I believe that it is in the best interest of the nation and the auto industry for GM & Chrysler to go through a pre-packaged bankruptcy, a protected bankruptcy that will let us start fresh with a clean cost effective slate. And what I will add is for this to take the highest of national priority and to make sure it happens right and quickly, so that GM & Chrysler can get back on track and head for better days.
This is the perfect storm for breaking the back of foreign oil dependency and for re-tooling industry over to USA natural gas and electric cars and trucks. The government can play a role in determining a DVEI (dollar value to energy independence.) There are cost factors like national security on dependent energy vs potential independent energy, current greenhouse cost vs more efficient and renewable alternatives. There are other factors as well. Bottom line, there is a dollar value to energy independence and it can be used to assist the nation in a changeover. Even if we are only talking a 5 to 10% change over, that would be the start, and would grow exponentially from there as the cost would also become more affordable.
What I envision is the government working with private industry like trucking companies, UPS, FED-EX, etc.. and companies like BP & Philips to add natural gas to existing stations. Converting existing engine components for tractor trailers and other transport vehicles is where the Auto industry comes in. This and new natural gas engine conversion kits. Re-tooling and building fuel tanks and pumping stations also. Industry would do this as they continue to move forward on advanced electric vehicles. This would also feed a host of different new jobs/demands nationwide.
Tax breaks based on DVEI can be used to leverage and incentivise transport & energy related industry to be a part of the solution and make the switch. In addition the federal government can lead the way by converting government transport vehicles to natural gas and electric.
What we cannot do is to continue to do what we have been doing for the last 20+ years, expecting that we can do it for 20 more. The end of that era is NOW. If it is through the baptism of bankruptcy that will free the US Auto industry to rise again then so be it! Americans are great people and we are intelligent people. We will buy the cars again! They will be better, and we know it. We know when there is sustainable change and we will not allow some false stigmas of bankruptcy to influence us without cause.
If industry turns around and does so in an unprecedented way, as we know they can, then Americans will do their part and step to the plate. Trust me, Americans want to buy American made products. We want to take care of our own, We've had enough. So lets get on with the business of turning our auto industry around and let's seize the opportunity to use it as a vehicle :) to save our nation from the destructive addiction of foreign oil.
President Obama has done a lot in his first few terms. He has outlawed torture, pledged to close Gitmo and give a real trial to each persons there. He has announced sunshine laws for all gov't activity, and he is not ducking the committments to unions and to gay and lesbian people. He is struggling against a terrible legacy, and he has my sympathy for all the people trying to go backward instead of forward with green energy and green jobs, stop giving away money to groups that do not care about the country or the people who live in it. He is trying to stimulate the economy, and we all know that tax cuts for businesses are no stimulus. So many unemployed, so many homeless, we need to focus on basics like healthcare, housing, infrastructure, and hunger/poverty.
I support Obama and I wish him peace and love from his family as he goes through this terrible time. May we all have hope as we go into a future we did not make, but we now have to deal with.
So the die hard Obama supporters are at it again. We're trying to stimulate the populous to stimulate the economy. Is anybody listening is the real question.
American citizens wanted a change. We voted to continue to create a more perfect union and it is becoming difficult to articulate what exactly is standing in the way.
It has occurred to me that people don't read history. Maybe most American Republican Senators aren't aware of Herbert Hoover's ineffective, "too little too late" attempts at balancing the budget in the first years of the Great Depression. Does Hawley Smoot Tarriff ring any bells? Well, Hoover was certain that protective tariffs and "buy American" legislation, could stave off a decline in domestic production and sales. This can't be our wrong doing causing a world depression. It must be the Europeans, he seemed to believe. WRONG.
Hoover also didn't believe in government aid to relieve human suffering. If you don't have a job, call a volunteer organization. I guess it didn't occurr to him that many volunteers and do gooders had lost their jobs and couldn't keep working the evening soup kitchen when their own families didn't have dinner on the table. Maybe he wasn't aware that the super rich philanthropists stopped handing money out after their personal assets had been relatively crushed with the stock market crash. When he finally got around to realizing, "golly" the masses need a little help, he wanted to use trickle down economics. This was in the form of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in 1932. It was a loan authority for railroads, banks and municipalities to keep them from collapsing. He did adhere to the belief, to the bitter end that the richest would spend enough to get the economy moving enough to let the lowly middle class and the poor have enough to eat to keep them from revolting.
Well, I think that mindset is revolting. I just can't figure out why it's happening all over again and the only people that seem to be angry we are not passing the stimulus plan before all hell breaks lose are the workers. Everybody loses if we have a depression.
It seems to me, not that it matters, that President Obama doesn't realize how many millions he could mobilize if we had a clear direction. We can get him elected but now we need to overturn the Washington media establishment that makes light of the idealists that elected him. We should all be deeply offended. John McCain should not be trying to block him. Arizona needs this bill as much as Connecticut. We need a campain of bright articulate people that can converge on Washington and have a rally that the media will not discredit.
Middle class people will become poor. The poor willl be desperate. But the rich, the rich will be just fine.
There are many things that are on the possible.
Plans change, weather change, people change. This is a steady course North.
I hope the crowds to witness the new era will be good to one another.
I hope that the cold of January won't wilt or freeze us.
The dream-like cherry blossoms still waiting to burst in exuberance.
Deep breaths in this climate will turn to shallow ones there. Steam breath like dragons.
Deep dream sleep here will be no sleep, light sleep, if any there.
Giddy to mingel the steam breath and the cold with the charged air of future history sweet.
Past sour. Slavery. Inculturation. Displacement. Relocation. White-washed Ellis Immigrants. Bankrupt. Evaporation of tangible dreams. Growing pains.
Such a huge burden left to sort, to repair. Make amends. Fix.
I watch it to witness for my America, for the people who did dream it close to me.
I watch it to witness their America, who did want to see it but did not live. Who survived the sour.
I go there to witness our America that had hope it would be worth it.
To make that connection for my own history, for our America.
All of Americanizing.
All of us. American.
There are many more things now that are on the possible.
Up we go North, no more palm trees now, just Hope and Change.
Excited! Caffinated! Ready to burst! Four flags! Freezing!
Delighted to be here!
VB
As many of you know already, there was a coal ash spill in the TVA area of Tennessee...the New York Times featured the story on 12/25/08. Read more here...http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/25/us/25sludge.html?th&emc=th.
Hope can change the world but action will set us free..Anon.
At church this morning (Meet the Press). Yes I call it church, because it is where I go on Sunday morning to get informed. David Gregory did an outstanding job, Russert is smiling down on you :) So what did I get out of it?
I think that what was impressive was the level of consensus on much of what America is dealing with and what we must do to take advantage of this opportunity. In the second segment I find it refreshing to see people around a table with fundamentally different core beliefs wrangle politely and ad value to the conversation. I certainly hope that President elect Obama and Vice President elect Biden were at church/meet the Press this morning.
Who am I? I am middle class America. I went to buy my groceries at Walmart this morning, keeping an eye on my time so that I would not be late for church/Meet the Press. I got home and put the groceries away and made coffee, a Jimmie Dean breakfast bowl, toast and an orange juice with less than a minute for the beginning of church!
The first part of the show on Chicago politics is something that we Americans are sick and tired of being sick and tired of. Over and over all you hear is how someone is trying to screw or shakedown someone else about something or another. It is a cultural flaw that we need to eradicate, we are the United States of America not Mogadishu. But that will take lots of work and time.
So what did I get out of Meet the Press this morning with David Gregory? He was on message and in control. Great facilitating, he helped America today! His guest in the second round brought much to the American Sunday morning table.
Gov. Granholm was right in the fact that we need to keep an auto industry in America and she also pointed to the ties of cost to our failed health care policy. What I think is important here is that when we are comparing data and statistics in the US Auto industry to the Foreign Auto industry, we are comparing apples with apples and not apples with pineapples. She also thanked Bush for looking forward to helping the auto industry, but then when asked about Obama she praised Obama and slammed Bush for not being there for the last eight years. While that might have been true, I found it to be not in the spirit of "fixing it" and tainting the very praise to the president elect. Bridling the tongue is an art, one that I too have yet to master!
Gov Romney Also agreed and echoed America in saying that we do not want to be without an American Auto industry, but his approach is closer to what most of us believe. We have to KNOW, not believe, (there is a difference), that the money we provide as tax payers are solving the problems. That being said we need guarantees that the needed change WILL happen. He also pointed out that the President, BUSH you are still the president! And the current congress need to DO, not talk but DO. As they say on SNL "FITS IT" "JUST FITS IT" DO RIGHT NOW!!! What part of that phrase do they not under stand??? Is it the DO or the RIGHT NOW?
Eric Schmidt's comments work well with the others, He brings us back home to remind us that "YES WE CAN" and he tells us how and what. We need to do in Washington, what I did in Walmart this morning. Look for the two-fer. We need to start creating solutions that solve multiple problems at one time. Energy independence, Auto industry, Infrastructure, technology, healthcare, etc He is right the sky is the limits, but we have to DO IT.
Carly Fiorina's comments today also ad value as I am employed by one of those small businesses she speaks of. But what she really cracked the whip on was the banks that are not lending our money that we gave them to lend. Why aren't they lending to the auto industry? It is amazing, I guess we really are in this together, not surprising to our astronaut friends as they pear down at the blue an brown molten mud ball we call Earth.
Lee Scott (Walmart CEO) had some interesting thoughts. He reminds us that now is not a time to do what was discussed in the first segment of the show (self Interest ahead of National interest) but to come to the barn raising with your work boots on and ready to break a sweat! He knows where he came from and refuses to forget. That alone serves America. It is when we are self indulgent and forget the struggles that gave us health & wealth that we drive off into the ditch. America we have driven off into the ditch, and while you may not have been driving this bus you are on this bus and it will take everyone getting off of this bus to help and get it out of the ditch. We can change the driver, and we have! But this is the only bus we have! BUS, Hmmmmm, B.U.S. Beautiful United States!
So, that is what I got out of church/Meet the Press today!
As we all know...now that Barack Obama has been elected...we must remain involved. Here is a link to another commentary by Jim Hightower http://jimhightower.com//node/6662.
Also, Hightower included two websites to book mark and read...
http://www.change.gov - Obama's Transition Website
http://www.techpresident.com - "What's Next for My.BarackObama.com?"
Answer to Bail out request: NO
Why: Do not trust and believe they can fix it, (history.) They will not change ENOUGH.
Alternative Solution: Pre-Packaged Bankruptcy with Government help (guarantee) after and during the Bankruptcy restructuring.
Argument: People will not buy a car from a company that goes into bankruptcy.
Rebuttal: People are not buying the cars right now and People will still not trust them after a bail-out/crack fix. On the contrary, People will trust more that the big 3 will still be around after the prescribed bankruptcy that has government guarantees for a a few years, sorta like the banks with FDIC but not permanantly. And people will also know that the change is real and to the core and not just another fix on crack.
DO NOT GIVE MY TAX DOLLARS IN A BAIL OUT PRE BANKRUPTCY To BIG 3.
Energy Efficiency is a Growth Industry in a Slow Economy
This story/link above is way cool, there are so many opportunities to reduce energy use and it's cost! I know that companies all over the US have been going "LEAN" and reducing unnecessary steps in their processes with initiatives like Six Sigma & Lean manufacturing (process improvement cultures.) In turn reducing manufacturing cost and Inventory cost and even finding markets for manufacturing by-products/waste.
I wonder how many of them even have a clue as to what they are loosing dollar wise in unnecessary energy consumption and a lack of a coherent energy management strategy? This is the sort of thing that can and should be done NOW by Americans everywhere, and does not need our President Elect or Congress to pass anything. It's about the American people taking charge and doing what is smart and saves/makes money!
What is fun to do with actual savings from something like this is to figure out how much your business has to do in sales dollars to produce the equivalent in net profit! So let's say you save $1,000.00 a year by implementing energy efficiency and let's say you sell widgets for $10.00 each and at the end of all your bills your company net profit is 10%. Your energy savings dollars are like selling an extra 1000 of your widgets minus the entire process & time, although you will have some process and time in the initial implementation. But then the next year/s you don't! Unless you improve even greater!
Jim Hightower writes a column for Creators Syndicate once a week. Here is a link to the latest column. http://www.creators.com/opinion/jim-hightower/giving-thanks-to-america-s-good-food-movement.html
Also, check out Creators Syndicate at http://www.creators.com.
-Lee
Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little better than the one we inhabit today.-President-elect Barack Obama
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
I don't completely buy the notion that if GM goes into Bank-O that they will not be able to sell cars. First off what are they comparing this notion/scare tactic to. Are people going to be likely to buy their cars if we throw bail out money to them? I would not. If you have a friend on crack and he wants help do you give him more money and ask him to promise not to buy crack or do you drive him down to the rehab/Bank-O? After which scenario would you be more likely to trust him with your life, after he completes rehab or while he is trying to fight an addiction that is bigger than him by his own means and your money.
At this point I like most Americans believe that the answer is a "Pre-Packaged Bankruptcy Plan" that will kick out those that are not part of the solution but rather the problem and really protect the auto workers with a sustained conversion in US manufacturing.
At the same time I think that the American people need to remember the opinions and stances of our elected officials concerning this matter, because it will be our responsibility to determine if they are competent enough to retain their status as their terms end and new elections come about in the years to come.
