EconomicsUSA: Ecology Law: Greenery leads to Gashouse critique leads to Cap&Trade law with pro-nuke & -natural gas

In a Special Report for The Climate Agenda section of Washington Post (Wapo), entitled "A nuclear power boost for bill: WOOING LAWMAKERS -- Tax incentives offered with climate measure" (Oct28,2k9) by Stephen Munson.

I found this article to be especially informative in regard to the ecology program advocated by the Democrat regime in Washington DC. They just lost their Green-Marxist czar who advocated a racial thematics in ecological critique. All that aside, I'm particularly interested in reportage that contributes to outlining the present meme-chain: greenhouse-gas emissions > Cap & Trade Law proposal > nuke industry > tax incentives of perhaps major proportions that woud trigger (goverment-led) investment from the so-called "private sector." My slant, as m+t be expected, is the optimatics-economics aspect of the meme, as reflected in policy/industry. I think large nuke development for peaceful purposes (general energy needs in the USA), a path of development that woud be at once ecological and a display in the direction of energy diversity.

Also mentioned in Munson's article is the much cheaper incentivizing of the natural gas industry, which is underdeveloped but which woud compete favourably for the tax monies that m+te be, along with nuke power, written into the Cap & Trade Law proposed. NatGas woud be cheaper and come online sooner with Cap&Trade's stimulus to that industry. The blocker here, for me, woud be how woud emissions from buring NatGas (say in automobiles?) add to present emissions, prove less ecologically noxious than our present petrol-burning cars, trucks, airplanes, helicopters, snowmobiles, lawnmowers, etc.

I'm for both nuke development and NatGas development (at my present level of personal knowledge [Michael Polanyi]), but I'm really unsure about Cap&Trade itself (to return to another link in the meme-chain) the practice of C&T in numerous industries today woud seem to invite stockmarket and industries-specific fraud and abuse. On that score, however, we shoud checkout the recent proposal to legalize insider trading in the stock markets (but that's imaginally a whole other can of worms; as some kind of Calvinist, rather neo-Calvinist, I descend in those respects from a man who regularly referred to himself as "a worm" in Your s+t, O Lord).

Beyond my foregoing personal ironies, we shoud not incentivize fraud and abuse (inherent in C&T, I presently believe) in our public-legal contribution of tax monies to the development of cleaner air (anti-polluition of air), amelioration of greenhousing (anti-emmissions of particular gases that cluster in the stratosphere and effect negatively the biosphere that mantles the planet), diversification of energy sources perhaps to include Nukes, NatGas, etc. My foregiong "Etc." coud well include oil-based fuels and electricity. The problems in the deisel and petrol industrial sub-industries of oil-derivatives, are what "cars" call "gas" (Gimme, gimme!), and the ever-enlarging electricity grid and usage.

Car gas does give off fumes, but in the auto's motor car gas remains liquid until it's squirted by the distributor into various fire chambers of the engine, where car gas's oxygen ignites that car's driving power while the fuel burns in the motor also producing carbon dioxide as its waste (exhaust). The pollutants enter the air, the carbon dioxide then filters up into the stratosphere. Correct or not, under the new proposed Gap&Trade Law, companies and industries woud have an exchange where certificates of low-emission corporations coud be bawt from them by h+-emissions corporations, but new emissions over the cap woud be outlawed so that the total emissions is contained, does not enlarge, stabilizes thru the market of the exchange (the low-emission certificates become a new money, alongside the greenback) -- from this hopedfor stability the next task woud be to lower the level of the USA's carbon emissions, etc.

Optimatically speaking, the byproducts of Cap&Trade will be increase of use of electricity, which latter can be generated by water (hydroelectric power, as its known in Ontario where it's nicknamed "hydro," but not water, rather electricity), alternatively, by coal (problem of dirty vs. clean coal against which Pres. Obama has a bias, and noticeably it is not mentioned in Muson's artcle which then would embrace three alternatives among the candidates for Obama-Green stimulus money > nukery, natural-gas, clean-coal).

But my foregoing triadic conceptualization will probably prove itself to be far too industrially-evenhanded, emblematic of the principle of diversification of energy sources in USA's tax-supported greener-energy development. Then, as yet unmentioned, there's windmill energy, solar energy, volcanic-spouts (use your imagination) to be added to our list. Addition results -- a list:


clean-coal energy: in the USA, there's a political bias of Team Obama against coal-producing regions (a state like West Virginia has a large culture of coalminers' families, churches, nearness to sadness of accidents in the mines, miners in danger even blocked within a mine shaft, United Mineworkers Union (which built a string of hospitals in black-lung regions for miners suffering from this industrial disease in the Old Days), advances in mining safety and technology generally ...

electricity: -- electrical energy, electro-chemical energy (as in batteries in the wide range of new handheld technologies)

natural-gas energy: (some combustion, as in cars, trucks, airplanes, etc.; but can be converted to electricity)

nukery : (for conversion to electricity)

solar energy : (for photosynthesis and direct heating in nature; also for human uses, of course, rather direct heating in the home thru glass windows and/or electricty

volcanic spouts, volcanic-spouts energy : (the water-minerals-gases of which needs to be harnessed in some way to channel it for techno-natural purposes, as into a hot springs, or to techno-artefact for producing heat and mechanical energy, also, electricity

windmill energy: and air for conversion into electricity) energy



The tax-supported industrial incentivizing to deter carbon-dioxide emissions into the general environment, may be included in the Cap&Trade Bill on its way to law in the present Dem-dominated Congress.

To make the bill more palatable to all wings and factions of the Democrat majority, and a small cluster within the Republic minority, especially in the House of Representatives, provisions apparently coud include those for tax-supported development in the Nuclear Industry, and perhaps in the Natural Gas industry. These provisions are not guided by the principle of diversification of energy sources (this is a key domestic matter for the USA, but it fits with a healther foreign policy for the US regarding Saudiland and the Golf States). Nor are the provisions as heretofore booted about, committed and structured to represent the diversification of energy sources. And, second, electrical usage (largely Hydro in Ontario and under various corporate and state names in the USA) will be boosted by the development of both Nukes and NaturalGas (as I presently understand the matter).

-- EconoMix

Politics: Diplomacy: North Korea negotiates nuke-free Korean Penninsula, agrees to close down nuke-making

Whew!, Washington Post in a lengthy report by Edward Cody, filing from Beijing, "North Korea Agrees to Nuclear Disarmament" (Feb13,2k7) gives a postive hopeful construction of NorKor's latest diplomacy. Here's an introductory excerpt to this very important article:

In a landmark international accord, North Korea promised Tuesday to close down and seal its main nuclear reactor within 60 days in return for 50,000 tons of fuel oil as a first step in abandoning all nuclear weapons and research programs.

North Korea also reaffirmed a commitment to disable the reactor in an undefined next phase of denuclearization and to discuss with the United States and other nations its plutonium fuel reserves and other nuclear programs that "would be abandoned" as part of the process. In return for taking those further steps, the accord said, North Korea would receive additional "economic, energy and humanitarian assistance up to the equivalent of 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil."

The pledges -- in an agreement reached here by North and South Korea, China, Russia, Japan and the United States -- marked North Korea's first concrete commitment to carry out an agreement in principle, dating from September 2005, to relinquish its entire nuclear program. In the view of U.S. and allied diplomats, they also amounted to a down-payment on establishment of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula and a new set of relations among the countries of Northeast Asia.

"The parties reaffirmed that they will take positive steps to increase mutual trust and will make joint efforts for lasting peace and stability in Northeast Asia," the accord said. "The directly related parties will negotiate a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula at an appropriate separate forum."

In a statement issued by the White House, President Bush said he was pleased with the agreement. "These talks represent the best opportunity to use diplomacy to address North Korea's nuclear programs," he said. "They reflect the common commitment of the participants to a Korean Peninsula that is free of nuclear weapons."

Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill, the chief U.S. nuclear negotiator, qualified the first-step accord as "a very solid step forward."

"We're moving off the pages of the September '05 agreement onto the ground," he added. "We have an initial set of actions, and then we have a peek into the next phase, which would involve the dismantling of the facilities."

The actual first transaction may well take place, but it remains to be seen if Cody's optimism plays out in the longer term. One may have acquired, as have I, a general skepticism regarding anything NorKor agrees to. Despite any skepticism , without nuclear-energy even for peaceful purposes, it's obvious that NorKor needs what would be its "alternative energy" supply of oil for a myriad of non-military energy purposes (in a very cold winter climate, to say the least). Is this a concrete small step toward the peace of the world? I do hope so. But I'll be watching the more dobuting account that will appear [has now appeared!] in China e-Lobby.

--Politicarp