Author Archives: L J Furman, MBA

About L J Furman, MBA

Analyst here and Director of Information Technology with an MBA in Managing for Sustainability.

Obama, McCain on Energy – Solar, and Wind, Oil and Nuclear

John McCain and Barack Obama both talk about energy independence. Both also talk about the need to drill for oil offshore. Obama says oil companies should use their leases, or lose them. McCain once put the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, ANWR, off-limits, “for now.” But that was before he picked Sarah “Drill Baby Drill” Palin for V. P., Now he calls her an “Energy Expert” and says “Sarah Palin knows more about energy than anyone else in America.”

Palin wants to drill in ANWR. She also doesn’t understand the science that has been used to study global warming, preferring to believe that it doesn’t exist.

Obama reminds us that drilling won’t help much and won’t help at all in the near future. Obama and McCain also talk about solar and wind – but Obama talks about about building a new energy economy.  And McCain has a history of voting against solar and wind because he’s against subsidies.  He’s for nuclear power, even tho the nuclear industry relies on subsidies.  Maybe I’m wrong, but I get the feeling that Obama knows what he’s talking about.

McCain says nuclear power is safe, nuclear submarines are safe. He wants to build 45 new nuclear power plants by 2035, and another 55 after that. He wants to plan and build a total of 100 new nuclear plants. Continue reading →

NJ BPU Approves Offshore Wind Farm

Great news from the Jersey Shore. Writing in the Asbury Park Press, David Willis reported Saturday, Oct. 4, 2008 that

New Jersey’s Board of Public Utilities

gave a green light to a Garden State Wind Offshore Energy

, a joint venture between PSEG Renewable Generation and Deepwater Wind, one of several competitors, including BlueWater Wind, Fishermen’s Energy of New Jersey LLC, Occidental Development & Equities LLC, and Environmental Technologies LLC. David Harper of The Press of Atlantic City covered the story Sunday.Street Insider published the Press Release.

Map showing approximate location of the offshore wind farm.

Map showing approximate location of the offshore wind farm.

“Offshore wind is probably the most cost-efficient and reliable form of energy we can have” said Jeff Tittle, director of the Sierra Club’sNew Jersey Office. “We will have offshore windmills or we will have offshore oil” until the oil runs out and the shore will move as the sea rises and as storms pummel the coasts.

The $1 Billion project will generate 350 megawatts of power, enough for 125,000 homes, and meet approximately 5% of New Jersey’s needs. The $1 Billion cost for the 350 mw facility is $2.86 per watt for construction, compared to $1.87 for the Atlantic City wind farm, and $6.00 per watt, according to Rebecca Smith in the Wall St. Journal for Florida Power & Light’s proposed Turkey Point 3 & 4 nuclear plants.

The wind farm will be generating energy within four years, and be completed by 2013. The first 1 gw wind farm that T. Boone Pickens’ Mesa Power, is building in Texas is forecast to cost $2.00 per watt and be operational by 2011.

New Jersey’s wind farm will be historic. It will be the first offshore wind farm in New Jersey, and with the Delmarva Wind Farm that BlueWater Wind is building off Delaware, and the plant that Deepwater Wind is building off of Rhode Island, one of the first three offshore wind farms, possibly the first in the United States.

While the US will still lag far behind Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Spain, other nations in Europe and the rest of the world, this is a start.  I hear the sound of a paradigm shifting.

Sanders Votes “NO!” on the Bailout

“The bailout package is far better than the absurd proposal originally presented to us by the Bush administration, but is still short of where we should be. If a bailout is needed, if taxpayer money must be placed at risk, if we are going to bail out Wall Street, it should be those people who have caused the problem, those people who have benefited from President Bush’s tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, those people who have taken advantage of deregulation who should pick up the tab, not ordinary working people.”

Sanders proposed a five-year, 10 percent surtax on families with incomes of more than $1 million a year and individuals earning over $500,00 to raise $300 billion to help bankroll the bailout. Senators, however, set aside the amendment on a voice vote. Continue reading →

Making Lemonade out of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

The government recently took over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two huge mortgage lenders. I thought the government owned them all along. After all, Freddie Mac” is the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. and Fannie Mae is the FederalNational Mortgage Assoc. But they were privately owned, essentially bankrupt, and in need of a bailout. For more background, see Web of Debt, by Ellen Hodgson Brown, The source of the bailout funds will be my tax dollars, and yours. This gives us the right to a voice on how to execute the bailout. I had a long conversation with Mitchell Kitroser, Esq. , an attorney based in Florida. Kitroseris focused on Real Estate, Probate, Elder Law, Medicaid Planning, Guardianship and Estate Planning.His plan willstimulate the economy,put more money in the U. S. Treasury, and helphomeowners and taxpayers.

As the old saying goes, “If you have lemons, make lemonade.” Here’s my recipe for lemonade. Let’s use the banks we just bought to get us out of the real estate mess those and other banks created, and at the same time, to help American homeowners – to help ourselves. We will stimulate the economy and provide the government – our government – the government “of the people, for the people and by the people” – with a revenue stream. We will even help homeowners stay in their homes.

Since our government just went into the mortgage business, it should start doing refinances. Every American who wants to refinance their primary residence should be permitted to do so, through our new government owned banks, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These mortgages should be at very low rates – 2% or 3% per year. The savings on the traditional 30 year fixed mortgage, using a $200,000.00 at 6% interest refinanced to $200,000 at 2%, would be almost $450.00 per month. The savings would be about $225 per month on every $100,000 of debt.

Continue reading →

California Reforestation – Johnny Appleseed Redoux

On a recent trip to San Francisco, along with tours of the Muir Woods, the Legion of Honor and the de Young Museums, I took a side trip off the beaten path into a redwood forest in Oakland. The redwoods and Sequoias are truly majestic, even the ones in Golden Gate Park, yet most of the hillsides are deforested, most of the trees are gone.

And U. C. Berkeley wants to chop down more trees to build an athletic field. I understand the sentiments of the “treehuggers” who are opposed to the idea, who question the relative importance of athletic fields and old growth forest. But like Treehugger.Com, I think a compromise is in order. About 10 years ago, my wife and I planted a willow and a white pine in our backyard. They grew from whips five or six feet in height and less than an inch in diameter to about 30 feet in height and 12 to 18 inches in diameter. I have a two suggestions. First, we all plant one or two trees each year. Second, for each of the trees they cut down, U. C. Berkeley plants ten trees this year and two trees per year in perpetuity. These should be Redwoods, Sequoia, Oaks and other native species, and they should be planted all over the Bay Area and northern California until the deforested areas are reforested. John Chapman – aka “Johnny Appleseed” – would be proud.

The positive environmental impact, in terms of sequestered carbon, restored animal habitat, and what in Bhutan they call Gross Domestic Happiness – GDH – would be terrific.

ELECTRICITY: 100% CLEAN AND GREEN BY 2018

The Gore Energy Challenge– 100% clean, renewable, sustainable electricity in 10 years, can be described in 3 words. Reasonable, Achievable, Visionary. Here’s how:

40% Land Based Wind = 150 GW: $300 Billion.
40% Offshore Wind = 150 GW: $450 Billion.
20% Solar = 75 GW: $375 Billion.

100% Clean Energy = 375 GW: $1.125 Trillion.
Save the Earth – Priceless.

The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. And the age of fossil fuels is ending not because we are running out of fossil fuel, (altho we are) but because we are figuring out how better technologies. Biofuels, Geothermal, Marine Kinetic, Solar, Wind, and of course, Conservation.

Obama and McCain on Energy Policy

With gasoline prices between $3.38 and $4.06 per gallon, and electricity increasing 15% per year and therefore doubling every 5 years, energy is a major issue in the 2008 presidential election.

As President, McCain would focus on coal, oil, and nuclear power. Obama would focus on wind and solar, requiring U. S. utilities to get 25% of their electricity from solar and wind by 2025. McCain would require 20% by 2030. He would also reduce the “red tape” to speed construction of power plants and would build 45 nuclear plants by 2030, at which time he would be 94. Obama, who will be 69 in 2030, is concerned about the radioactive waste problem and other challenges of nuclear power. It does not seem likely that he will call for the construction of 45 new nuclear plants in the next 22 years.

McCain would give the oil companies $34 to $55 Billion over the next five years in subsidies and tax breaks (click here). He also spoke about giving drivers a $30 tax break this past summer. However, the money “given” to the drivers would have been made up in other taxes. Obama would give tax payers a $1,000 tax rebate based on a taxing “windfall” profits of the oil companies over the next 5 years.

McCain proposed a $300 million prize to the auto company that develops a next-generation car battery and would commit $2 billion annually to “clean-coal.” Obama would invest $150 billion over 10 years on low-carbon energy sources, double R&D spending on biomass, solar and wind resources; accelerate commercialization of plug-in hybrids, invest in low-emissions coal plants.

The U S Supreme Court ruled, in 2007, that the under the terms of the Clean Air Act, the EPA must regulate Carbon Dioxide. McCain favors a cap-and-trade CO2 approach. He sponsored a bill in 2007 to cut emissions by 30 percent by 2050. Obama would cut carbon dioxide emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.

Popular Logistics prefers that we accept Al Gore’s challenge

: 100% Clean and Green by 2018. The details of the McCain and Obama positions, compiled by Ayesha Rascoe and Chris Baltimore, from their web-sites Reuters and the International Herald Tribune and Friends of the Earth, are below.

Continue reading →

The Popular Logistics Plan for Clean, Renewable, Sustainable Energy for the United States

The Gore Energy Challenge: Clean and Green by 2018.  Visionary, Reasonable, Achievable. Ask T. Boone Pickens at The Pickens Plan, and Peter Mandelstam at Blue Water Wind.

We could meet the electric power requirements of the United States, estimated at 250 Gigawatts, GW, of generating capacity with wind turbines and photovoltaic solar arrays, for about $811 Billion in 10 years.

  • Land Based Wind: 100 GW, or 40%, at $2.0 Billion per GW: $200 Billion.
  • Offshore Wind: 100 GW, or 40%, at $2.86 Billion per GW: $286 Billion.
  • PV Solar: 50 GW, or 20% at $6.5 Billion per GW: $325 Billion.
  • Total Cost: $811 Billion. (less than has been squandered on the war in Iraq.)
  • Saving the earth: Priceless.

Key Benefits:

  • Good Jobs.
  • Healthy Economy.
  • Enhanced Emergency Response Capability.
  • Stronger National Security.
  • Clean Environment.
  • No Toxic Wastes.
  • No Mercury.
  • No Radioactive Wastes.
  • No Coal Mining Disasters.
  • Less Government Regulation.

This plan doesn’t exploit solar thermal, marine kinetic, geothermal, deep geothermal, cogen, biofuels, or conservation, which will be integrated into this plan in the near future. The plan also focuses on current electricity demand. It does not yet forecast increased electricity demand from population growth, transition from fossil fuels for heating or cooking, or increased reliance on plug-in hybrid cars.

Clean and Green By 2018!

"Swift Boat Veterans" For Wind Power

T. Boone Pickens, Oil billionaire turned wind power developer, says “oil is too expensive. The answer my friends,” to quote Bob Dylan, “is Blowin’ in the wind.” The Pickens Plan talks more about how harnessing the winds can the meet our power needs and eliminate the need to import oil – and export hard currency and wealth. Pickens talks more about money and geopolitics and less about the environmental hazards of burning fossil fuels.  While he wants to burn natural gas (which I use to heat my house) he’s not building coal or nuclear power plants.

Pickens’ Mesa Power is building an $8 Billion 4 Gigawatt (GW) power plant in W. Texas – at $2 per watt. This compares favorably to the plan by Florida Power & Light (FPL) to spend $18 Billion to build a 3.0 GW facility at the Turkey Point plant near Miami. Cost – $6 per watt. The wind farm is 1/3 the cost of a nuclear power plant.

Pickens’ Mesa Power will complete phase 1 of the wind farm, a 1.0 GW facility, by 2010. At that rate the 4 MW will be complete by 2015, the first 3.0 GW by 2013. Mesa Power will also add transmission lines to connect the system to the electrical grid, at a cost of another $2 billion, or $0.50 per GW. According to the Wall St. Journal, FPL estimates their new nuclear facility may be completed in 2018 or 2020. The wind farm – which can be built in stages – can be built for 1/3 the cost and in about 40% of the time.

Solar is more expensive – the Atlantic County Municipal Authority’s 500 KW solar energy system cost about $3.25 Million – about $6.5 per watt. Slightly more than a comparable nuclear plant today , according to estimates based on the cost of the FPL plant. However, when you factor in the costs of fuel (which must be imported), security, regulation, waste management, and the external costs to the environment, solar, which has $0 fuel, $0 waste, and close to $0 maintenance, when you factor in that solar works where it’s needed – and therefore provides a level of security and emergency preparedness – you can only conclude that Pickens is right – wind is a key technology for the future. I would add solar, geothermal, marine current, and conservation.

Single Payer Health Care: Medicare for All

Popular Logistics thinks that a health care delivery system in which one out of six people can’t get health care, except by going to the Emergency Room is poorly run, mismanaged, and in a word, broken. We disagree with President Bush , who said “People have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.” We also recognize the public health concerns when one out of six people can’t get access to prescription medications, especially in densely populated areas. Thus, we think that a single payer health care system based on the Medicare model, also known as “Medicare for all,” is the best way to approach health care, from a policy perspective.

Popular Logistics is a non-partisan “blog.” We write about policy; we don’t often endorse candidates. However, we recognize that policy is made by candidates who win. This letter to the Editor, by Phil Steck, published in the Capital District Business Review, shows why we like Phil and why we wish him success in his race to represent New York’s 21st Congressional District.

To the editor:

I read with great interest James Barba’s opinion piece entitled “Health care reform is a business issue.” I applaud him for taking a visible leadership role on this critical issue. I recently had the opportunity to meet with him individually to discuss the benefits of a national single-payer heath care system and other challenges faced by health care providers.

Even before I declared my candidacy for Congress, I have supported single-payer health care, known as “Medicare for All,” because it is a system that is proven and tested. Medicare, the health system for the elderly, has a long history of success despite recent efforts to undermine it. It is statistically the most efficient health insurance care system available in the United States. Single-payer would benefit our economy, by lowering costs for patients, doctors, employers, and government. Single-payer would make us far more competitive internationally because many foreign businesses do not have to absorb the health care costs like their American counterparts.

In addition to hospital industry leaders like Jim Barba, a majority of doctors support single-payer because of the burdens that the current system places on them, primarily additional administrative costs.

As a partner in an Albany law firm, I understand the ever-escalating costs that businesses face in order to provide employees with health insurance. As an Albany County Legislator, I am all too familiar with the problems associated with the patchwork expansion of Medicaid. In Albany County we have worked to keep property taxes the 4th lowest in the state, but 90% of the county property tax goes toward Medicaid expenses. In a single-payer system, that local unfunded mandate is eliminated.

Sincerely,
Phil Steck
Candidate for Congress, NY-21

Coal – Nuclear Power – Energy Dodos?

Is coal going the way of nuclear power, the way of the dodo?

What killed nuclear power was not Three Mile Island or Chernobyl, or the demonstrations of public opposition such as at Seabrook, NH in the late 1970’s or the Musicians United for Safe Energy concerts in New York, Sept. 19-23, 1979.

What killed nuclear power was the realization by the bankers on Wall St. that after an event like Three Mile Island their multi-billion investment very quickly became a multi-billion pile of junk with virtually zero salvage value and a tremendously negative return on investment.

And coal today?

According to the National Energy Technology Laboratory

“Historically, actual capacity has been seen to be significantly less than proposed capacity. For example, the 2002 report /of the National Energy Technology Lab, NETL, of the Department of Energy, DOE/ listed 36,161 MW of proposed /coal/ capacity by the year 2007 when actually only 4,478 MW (12%) were constructed.” Tracking New Coal-Fired Power Plants, NETL, Office of Systems Analyses and Planning, by Erik Shuster, Feb. 18, 2008, pg, 4, 5. Continue reading →

Nuclear v Wind: The Answer is Blowin’ In The Wind.

Back in May, Rebecca Smith reported in the Wall St. Journal (click here for Popular Logistics posting) that Florida Power & Light wants to spend $12 to $18 Billion to build a 2.2 GW or 3.0 GW nuclear plant at the aptly named “Turkey Point” facility. At about the same time, Reuters reported that T. Boone Pickens ( click here for Popular Logistics posting ) – who made his money in oil – is building a 4 GW wind farm for $10 Billion. FPL says the nuclear plants may be finished by 2020. Pickens says Phase 1 of the wind farm – a 1 GW installation – will be complete by 2011. CNN has also picked up the story .

Nuclear power requires fuel. The fuel cycle produces greenhouse gases. Nuclear power operations produce tons of radioactive waste. Wind power requires no fuel and produces no waste.

On the one hand – $6 per watt, 10 to 12 years to build, tremendous amounts of extremely hazardous wastes. On the other hand $2 per watt, 3 years to build, no waste.

Fiscal Impropriety, Abuse of Power, Incompetence

The New York Times published three articles in one day about fiscal impropriety, abuse of power, or incompetence of the Bush Administration.

On the front page, James Risen writes “Army Overseer Tells of Ouster Over KBR Stir.” Charles Smith says he was fired from his job with the Army for refusing to approve paying more than $1 Billion to KBR after “Army auditors had determined that KBR lacked credible data or records for more than $1 billion.” Smith, an employee of the Army for 31 years, was quoted in The Times saying “the money going to KBR was money being taken away from the troops, and I wasn’t going to do that.” This is another case of firing the whistle-blower. As a patriot, it makes my blood boil.

According to Risen, the Pentagon has recently awarded KBR a 10 year, $150 Billion contract in Iraq, which indicates that we will be in Iraq for another 10 years.

Eric Lichtblau wrote “Grand Jury Said to Look at Attorneys’ Dismissals” that Justice Deptartment Prosecutors are using a grand jury to investigate criminal accusations that grew from the dismissals of nine United States attorneys. Some employees in the civil rights division of the Justice Department have said that they were given a “political litmus test.” The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that Bradley Schlozman, acting head of the civil rights division may be the subject of a “grand jury referral” focusing on perjury charges. Schlozman admitted to Congress that he had bragged about his success in politicizing the Justice Department. Alberto Gonzales, the former Attorney General, may also have committed perjury in his testimony about wireless eavesdropping by the National Security Agency.

As a patriot, this too makes my blood boil. The Government of the United States has always been subordinate to The Law, not The Party. This is the United States, not Communist China, Soviet Russia, Baathist Syria, or Saddam’s Iraq.

The Times also carried Judge Backs “White House in Dispute over E-Mail” a story by the Associated Press reporting the decision, by Judge Coleen Kollar-Kotelly, that the White House Office of Administration is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. Since its creation, in 1978, the Office of Administration has responded to Freedom of Information requests. The White House has acknowledged problems with it’s e-mail system, while saying that any missing e-mail messages can be found on backup tapes. In a related matter, a judge is considering whether to instruct the Executive Office of the President on steps it must take to safeguard electronic messages. I am not a lawyer, however, I think that Judge Kollar-Kotelly is wrong. If she is making law, as a judicial activist, at least she is doing so legally.

These articles are reproduced below.

Continue reading →