Category Archives: Cape Wind

The World Will Not End & Other Predictions for 2012

Here are my top 10 predictions for 2012. These are less readings of the tea leaves or the entrails of goats and chickens and more simple extrapolations of patterns in progress. Altho that may be the way effective oracles. They just masked their observations with hocus pocus, mumbo-jumbo, and guts.

This list runs a gamut from business and technology to energy, instability in the Middle East, micro-economics in the United States, politics, and not-yet-pop culture.

Apple and IBM will continue to thrive. Microsoft will grow, slightly. Dell and HP will thrash. A share of Apple, which sold for $11 in December, 2001, and $380 in Dec. 2011, will sell for $480 in Dec. 2012.
The Price of oil will be at $150 to $170 per barrel in Dec., 2012. The price of gasoline will hit $6.00 per gallon in NYC and California.
There will be another two or three tragic accidents in China. 20,000 people will die.
There will be a disaster at a nuclear power plant in India, Pakistan, Russia, China, or North Korea.
Wal-Mart will stop growing. Credit Unions, insurance co-ops and Food co-ops, however, will grow 10% to 25%.
The amount of wind and solar energy deployed in the United States will continue to dramatically increase.
The government of Bashar Al Assad will fall.
Foreclosures will continue in the United States.
Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio will resign. Calls for Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from matters involving his wife’s clients will become louder, but Justice Thomas will ignore them. A prominent politician who says “Marriage is between a man and a woman,” or her husband, will be “outed” as gay. President Obama will be re-elected.
The authors of Vapor Trails will not win a Nobel Prize for literature. They will not win a “MacArthur Genius Award.” Nor will I despite my work on this blog or “Sunbathing in Siberia” and the XBColdFingers project.

Here are the details … Continue reading →

Worldly Philosophers for Hire

| | Tweet | In “Wanted: Worldly Philosophers,” Roger Backhouse and Bradley Bateman say:|”IT’S become commonplace to criticize the “Occupy” movement for failing to offer an alternative vision. But the thousands of activists in the streets of New York and London aren’t the only ones lacking perspective: economists, to whom we might expect to turn for such vision, have long since given up thinking in terms of economic systems — and we are all the worse for it. ”

As these pictures, from here, and here, show, the “Occupy” movement supports labor rights and environmental protection. The “Occupiers” do not, therefore, lack perspective.

They – we – see my work here at Popular Logistics, here at XBColdFingers, or meet me at Zuccotti – lack influence.

Paul Krugman and Joe Stiglitz are the most famous economists whom Backhouse and Bateman might describe as “Worldly Philosophers with perspective.” Tom Friedman may not have have studied economics; but he too fits the bill of “Worldly Philosopher with Perspective.” There are others.

The late Donella Meadows, of MIT and Dartmouth, who wrote Thinking In Systems, ISBN: 978-1603580557, and founded the Sustainability Institute,
Wendell Berry, philosopher, and farmer, author most recently, of

The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture, ISBN: 978-0871568779,
Robert Costanza, founder of the Gund Institute of Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont,
Herman Daly, who teaches ecological economics at University of Maryland, and co-wrote, with Joshua Farley, the book on Ecological Economics, ISBN: 978-1559633123
John Ehrenfeld, author of Sustainability by Design, ISBN: 978-0300158434
Jim Gordon, and the people working to build Cape Wind,
Al Gore, and the people who wrote Earth in the Balance back in 1992, current edition, ISBN: 1594866376, and the people who worked with him on An Inconvenient Truth.
Van Jones, author of the Green Collar Economy, ISBN: 0061650765, and for a short time an adviser to President Obama,
Amory Lovins and the people at the Rocky Mountain Institute,
Hunter Lovins and the people at Natural Capitalism,
Bill McKibben, scholar in Residence at Middlebury College, who wrote Eaarth, ISBN: 978-0312541194, Deep Economy, ISBN: 978-0805087222, The End of Nature, ISBN: 978-0812976083, and other books, his colleagues at 350.org and the people who joined him outside the White House protesting the Keystone XL Pipeline,
Roger Saillant at the Weatherhead School at Case Western, and Bob Siegel, who co-wrote Vapor Trails, ISBN: 978-0615297477, an eco-thriller,
Elizabeth Warren, whos work on consumer credit and bankruptcy led to the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and should have led her to appointment as head of that agency, but may lead to an election to the United States Senate,
the students and faculty who think about business and sustainability at places Marlboro College, where I earned my MBA in “Managing for Sustainability,” the Fowler Center for Sustainable Value at Case Western, the Earth Institute at Columbia University, the Presidio, Bainbridge, etc.

Sadly, Obama, Biden, Sommers, Geithner, and Chu, like Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rove and Rumsfeld, like Bachmann, Cain, Gingrich, Huntsman, Paul, Perry, Romney, and Santorum, don’t know the answers – and what is worse, they don’t even seem to know which questions to ask.

As noted above, “the ‘Occupiers’ do not lack perspective. They – we – lack influence.” To correct that I would like to personally extend an invitation to President Obama, Vice President Biden, any members of the cabinet, or the White House or campaign staff and any of the current candidates for the Republican nomination to meet me at Zuccotti Park, or at the time and place of their choosing, for a discussion on the issues.

"Beyond Fuel" at the Space Coast Green Living Festival

Green Living Festival

Tweet I am presenting “Beyond Fuel: From Consuming Natural Resources to Harnessing Natural Processes,” a discussion of the hidden costs, or “economic externalities,” of nuclear power, coal, and oil, and the non-obvious benefits of wind, solar, marine hydro and efficiency at the Sp ace Coast Green Living Festival, Cocoa Beach, Florida, Sept 17, 2011.

The festival is sponsored by the Cocoa Beach Surfrider Foundation and the Sierra Club Turtle Coast Group. It will be at the Cocoa Beach Courtyard by Marriott.

Continue reading →

Why Cape Wind Still Matters

Tweet On May 25, 1961 President John Kennedy said, “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.” (Kennedy library and NASA)

Ten years ago, before Sept. 11, Jim Gordon and his team set out to build a small wind farm on the waters on which the young President, his wife, brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews sailed. Size is relative. It’s small compared to a large coal or nuclear power complex. The wind farm will be composed of 130 turbines and produce up to 430 megawatts of power (here).

In 2010 Jim Gordon and Cape Wind, LLC, finally, got their permits to build the wind farm. For a variety of reasons it took longer for Cape Wind, LLC to get the permits to build the wind farm than it took this nation to land a man on the moon and bring him home safely. Had the wind farm been built by the winter of 2004, Cape Wind would have provided power during the bitter January of ’04, the heat wave of ’05, and every day, especially the coldest days of winter and the hottest days of summer – when the winds are strongest and New Englander’s electricity needs are highest.

It’s also clear, from reading Cape Wind, by Wendy Williams and Robert Whitcomb, that the alliance to “Save Our Sound,” created an anti-wind rogue’s gallery, a bipartisan coalition of moneyed special interests which led Senator Edward M. Kennedy, D-MA, Governor Willard Mitt Romney, R-MA, Senator Ted Stevens, R-AK, Representative Dan Young, R-AK, Sen. Trent Lott, R-MS, Sen. John Warner, R-VA, and very wealthy residents of Cape Cod, including Bill Koch, the late Richard Egan, Rachel “Bunny” Lambert Mellon (Sen. Warner’s ex-mother-in-law), professional environmentalist Robert F Kennedy, Jr. to obstruct the regulatory and the legislative processes and which slowed the development of Cape Wind and offshore wind farms off of the mid-Atlantic and elsewhere.

For them to oppose this project or say “I favor wind power, as long as it’s somewhere else,” was and remains cynical. Given that we have combat troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, that Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006 described the mission in Iraq as a war for oil, was unpatriotic, perhaps traitorous.

Yet another bipartisan coalition rose up to challenge them and support Cape Wind: Ted Roosevelt, IV, who lives on the Cape, Rep. Jim Bass, R-NH, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-ME, Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-NM, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-NM, Matt Patrick, Massachusetts, Gov. Deval Patrick, Greenpeace, unions, Fox News’ Sean Hannity. What these politicians have in common is an understanding of the values of energy independence and renewable energy.

Popular Logistics is a policy blog, not a politics blog. However, it’s worth noting that several political campaigns were won in Massachusetts by Democrats who supported Cape Wind, including Matt Patrick, the 5-term Democratic Representative of the 3rd District of Barnstable, Cape Cod, and Deval Patrick who started his 2006 Gubenatorial campaign in front of the Hull, MA, wind turbine.

Mitt Romney, who signed Ted Kennedy’s health care plan into law in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, (also known as Obamacare 1.0) appears to be running for President in 2012. He lost in the 2008 Primary to John McCain. Mr. Romney signed on to the Kennedy-Koch-Egan-Mellon anti-Cape Wind jihad. Americans favor wind power. Will they support Romney in 2012?

Scott “Mitt-Lite” Brown, said (here) “While I support the concept of wind power as an alternative source of energy, Nantucket Sound is a national treasure.” Massachusetts voters favor Cape Wind 70 to 30. Will they support Brown in his re-election campaign in 2012? The Statue of Liberty is a “National Treasure,” as is the Constitution. I last visited Cape Cod when I was 7. Nantucket Sound is not a “National Treasure.” Getting America off coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear power, moving to clean, renewable, sustainable energy means our children and grandchildren will enjoy our national treasures.

In their book Williams and Whitcomb suggest that Senator Kennedy may have realized that he had made a bad decision in opposing Cape Wind, but that for a variety of reasons he refused to back down. They may be right. While I think Kennedy was wrong, I can’t speak to whether he came to that understanding. As I noted on this blog, back in August, 2009, (here) President Obama said of Ted Kennedy,”His ideas and ideals are stamped on scores of laws and reflected in millions of lives: in seniors who know new dignity; in families who know new opportunity; in children who know education’s promise; and in all who can pursue their dream in an America that is more equal and more just, including myself.”

Obama said “More equal and more just,” but he didn’t say “perfect.” America is not perfect. It is nation of men and women governed by the rule of law. The laws are not perfect, and neither are the men and women who make, enforce and interpret the laws.

Our energy policy is electricity flows when people flip a switch. Most of that electricity comes from burning fossil fuels and harnessing nuclear fission. We can pretend that the carbon we are pumping into the oceans and the atmosphere will have no effect, that we have unlimited supplies of fossil fuels, and uranium, that all the waste from coal mining, processing, transporting, and burning, and all the radiation leaks from nuclear plants (and radioactive waste from coal) are trivial or routine. Or we can get real. The choice is between coal, oil, methane, and nuclear, or wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal. I choose wind, solar, tidal and geothermal; for myself, for my backyard, not just for people who are my equal in the eyes of the law, whether they have more or less money than me.

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Index to the series that explores Offshore Wind and Politics:

Cape Wind, Leadership and Vision, here.
Why Cape Wind Still Matters, here.
Ted Roosevelt, IV, on Cape Wind (coming soon).

Cape Wind, Leadership and Vision

Tweet

On Friday, March 25,2011, Cape Wind LLC‘s CEO Jim Gordon spoke at Columbia University about the long delayed project. When he started the project, back in 2001, the Europeans were 10 years ahead of us. Today the Europeans are 20 years ahead of us, and the Chinese too are years ahead of us.

Mr. Gordon quoted Theodore Roosevelt, IV, as saying, “I live on the Cape. If we don’t do this, in 50 years the Cape will be under water.” Cape Cod’s highest point is about 300 feet above sea level so Mr. Roosevelt was exaggerating. His home may wind up under water, but at least some of the Cape will be one or more islands. Speaking of islands, Nantucket, which in 2006 had the highest median property values in Massachusetts, rises some 30 feet above sea level. If sea level rises 30 feet, Nantucket will get washed away.

Mr. Gordon said, “Cape Cod has the most polluted air in New England. When you harness the wind you get clean electricity: No arsenic, lead, mercury, thorium, uranium, or zinc or carbon dioxide like you get from burning coal. No barges of oil that can spill. No radioactive waste like you get from nuclear power. Last year we read about the coal mine disaster in West Virginia. Then the Deepwater Horizon. Now we’re reading about the disaster in Japan. With wind there is no possibility of a disaster, Zero.”

And, he added, “Fossil fuels are a finite resource. New England has neither coal, oil, or natural gas – but there is a tremendous amount of wind. When you factor in the costs of storms and sea level rise – you would think it’s a no-brainer.” The question is not “Can wind power provide base line capacity?” But “How can wind power provide base line capacity.”

Mr. Gordon told how during a trade mission to China, one of his engineers was grilled about wind power, offshore wind, engineering, costs, and siting. After the end of the grilling his hosts said “we read Cape Wind, by Wendy Williams and Robert Whitcomb. We would never allow that here.” In 2009 China built a 100 mw wind farm off the coast of Shanghai – completed the project quickly. By the end of 2010 they had 41.8 gigawatts of nameplate capacity wind power – enough for about 45 million Americans (wikipedia). Continue reading →