Friday, September 26, 2014

make history, or be vilified by it

skip the add in 3 seconds.

Colorado water to be given to Kansas, are you really that stoned?

Tri-state (a utility) plans to dodge the environmental plans of Colorado by buying dirty electricity from Kansas.  Together with coal interest, and Kansas anti-environmental politicians they plan on making it with smokey coal.  The partner in this plan to pollute is Sunflower Electric's Holcomb plant.  Sunflower got a $534 million loan from taxpayers in the 1980's to build the plant, never paid it back, the unpaid debt ran to over $900 million when in 2009 the agricultural department stepped in and forgave the loan.  Ha, don't bitch about Solyndra, a smaller loan v 1980's $'s, and we did recover some of it, no body told you that did they?  You my dear citizen paid for the plant dusting Kansas with lead and mercury while all these years Sunflower raised rates and paid share holders handsome dividends.  Sunflower reportedly flirted with bankruptcy a number of times over the years, and this my friends is the poorly managed corporation that both Tri-State, along with the Kansas and Colorado legislature in the state houses and in DC are pushing pushing pushing to be given a 2 to 3 BILLION $ loan for a hugh new coal fired plant.  So, lined up the money, political muscle, fuel, oh how about water?  Coal needs rivers, but Holcomb has very little water, years of boiling it off for the current plant  and local irrigation has plunged the water table nearly dry.   No fear, Tri-state has found a few farmers in Colorado stupid enough to sell the water to Tri-state, who will flush it to Kansas.  As that water is sent to Kansas to be boiled off, eastern Colorado farms, towns and industry are doomed as the acquifer is mined out.

In the last 35 years businesses have seen (by region) 300 to 600% increase in their energy costs. Natural gas, gasoline, diesel, electricity, all of these sources are subsidized by tax payers.  While we pay these guys to overcharge us and yank the market prices around, they use their hired legislators to block wind and solar, block battery research, community sourcing, net metering.  We're paying for this?

Colorado should be making these welfare corporations build a wind or solar farm in your own state, you get the jobs, the royalties, and Kansas won't be boiling off the water needed for Rocky Ford watermelons.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Colorado to make history illegal to know.

OK, not illegal, but....... the state this week voted a new cirriculum for high school history that will block any "uncomfortable or wish it wasn't so" history to be taught.  Only the happy stuff, free market triumphs, patriotic stuff.
Earlier this week Denver teachers had a sick call in day, yesterday students walked out of a number of high schools and protested what they call "censored education" and creating a "secret history to be determined by conservatives".
I wonder if they will expel students for asking about Watergate, or Tea Pot Dome, the New Deal, or the  whore house George Washington and his officers frequented?  Maybe the gun screening at the door will also look for old history books, with their stories of race riots and slave ships?

Monday, September 22, 2014

immaculate sunshine runuth over

Foggy-cloudy-rainy Germany gets lots of it's energy from solar panels, far more than we currently do.  Germany is north of almost everything we have except snowbilly Alaska.  Yet you see every state can produce just from this one source as much energy as they currently consume . At the start of WWII we jumped within a year or so from hundreds to producing 50,000 airplanes a year.  The climate deniers wind up their "it's a hoax" speech by telling you even if it you want to you can't suddenly build enough solar panels and wind turbines, hybrid cars, low energy appliances and home insulation to impact the climate in the way scientist suggest.  Hitler and the Japanese military underestimated American industry too.  It is totally possible.  Lobby your city and county to increase the insulation requirements on new construction and renovations.  All this is possible with your participation, none of it without it.

Friday, September 19, 2014

Take a dump, look out the window, drink orange juice, but don't hit.

This picture in it's full size said NFL then under that, Get your game face on!
I never once saw any of my family even extended family hit one another, or any of our women look like they had ever been hit.  So, I don't get it, why do big ones want to beat the little ones?  WE argue, get all bent out of shape, but no one ever had a bloody nose from it, go outside, go to bed, get busy on something, listen to some calm music.  Things clear up.   You don't need a game face.

In the mean time Fox and Rush Limpball are telling the other side, that somehow it's not so bad, it's the liberals way of telling that makes it seem that way.


Wednesday, September 17, 2014

A GOP group worth recommending, and joining.

75% of the wind energy capacity• is in congressional districts held by the GOP.  67% of the manufacturers supplying wind energy are in GOP held congressional districts.  Wind energy means lots of jobs and millions in payments to counties and landowners (royalties just like oil).

So why do Republican politicians vote against the better interest of their own districts businesses and ratepayers?  While Republican voters favor renewable energy sources at 60% to 70% depending on the area, elected state and federal GOP office holders favor it at only 15% to 20%.  Answer is pressure and money from the Koch's, coal companies, railroads, oil, natural gas, all want to stall the inevitable success of all renewables.  The cost to the public is higher utility bills by sticking with old technology, and more pollution.  You must tell your representatives at every level, even townships, how you feel, and what you expect from them, be polite, passionate, and firm.

I work with regional group Climate and Energy Project and a national group Operation Free, both work to educate the public and increase interest in moving the economy towards clean safe lower cost energy sources**  Friday I met the mid states coordinator for a Republican group doing the same, RedStateRenewables.org.  Encourage the Repubs in your circle to look, learn, join and support this group.  Operation Free is a military veterans group, linked at the upper left corner of this blog, click the shield.

*"wind energy capacity" means areas where winds blow strong enough and often enough to produce power at a profit over the years.
** wind and solar are now at parity with fossil fuel in most areas, lower in some.