In the Pipeline: 7/24/13

We don’t understand this. Who wouldn’t want to be rolling down the street, smoking indo, sipping on gin and juice, in a Leaf? The National Legal and Policy Center (7/23/13) reports: “Reports have trickled out lately that, all of a sudden, demand is so great for the all-electric Leaf that Nissan’s production just can’t keep up. ‘We’re going to be short on inventory all through the summer,’ said Erik Gottfried, director of electric vehicle sales for Nissan, to Automotive News. ‘It will be late fall before we can produce enough to satisfy everybody.’ Then the appropriate question from taxpayers should be, ‘What did we pay $1.4 billion for you to do in Smyrna, Tennessee then?!?’ That’s how much stimulus-backed money went to the Japan-based automaker to design a factory outside Nashville to crank out up to 150,000 Leafs and 200,000 Leaf batteries per year. The plant began production late in 2012, and according to the Department of Energy, was to create 1,300 permanent ‘green’ jobs, remove 11,000 gasoline-powered cars from the road annually, and lead to 51,000 tons of carbon dioxide ‘avoided’ per year.”

Storing spent nuclear fuel in a fractured well – it is going to be immense fun to watch the reaction from the enviro industry to this little number. The US Geological Survey (7/23/13) reports: “Shale and other clay-rich rock formations might offer permanent disposal solutions for spent nuclear fuel, according to a new paper by the U.S. Geological Survey. There is currently about 70,000 metric tons of this spent fuel in temporary storage across the United States.While no specific sites have been evaluated for storage potential in the United States, USGS scientists have looked at several research efforts, including projects that are underway in France, Belgium and Switzerland to confirm that shale formations in those countries are favorable for hosting nuclear waste repositories. Deciding how to safely dispose of spent nuclear fuel and other high-level nuclear waste is a very important issue that is not going to go away,’ said Chris Neuzil, the article’s author. ‘Although shales and similar rocks have not been considered for hosting nuclear waste in the United States, recent research points to them as a very promising option.’ Shale formations are attractive for nuclear waste storage for several reasons. First and foremost, they have extremely low permeability, meaning groundwater cannot easily flow through them. Most shale formations and similar rocks containing abundant clay are millions to tens of billions of times less permeable than aquifers that are used to supply water.”

After jacking up electricity bills for all those people, we’re not surprised he needs some PR help. E&E News (7/23/13) reports: “Clean energy advocates have hired a Washington, D.C.-based public relations firm to advocate for President Obama’s pick to head the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and thwart increasing attacks from Colorado’s coal industry and free market groups. Green Tech Action Fund, a San Francisco group that describes itself as a nonpartisan grant-making organization, has hired VennSquared Communications to advocate for Ron Binz as the next chairman of FERC. If confirmed by the Senate, Binz would have a five-year term and replace Jon Wellinghoff at the helm of the commission, which regulates the electric grid, gas pipelines, liquefied natural gas export terminals and hydroelectric projects. Sarah Elliott, senior vice president of VennSquared, said in a statement that the action fund believes Binz’s regulatory approach when he chaired the Colorado Public Utilities Commission from 2007 to 2011 was ‘sound’ and that the group supports his nomination. Binz was not aware that the group had hired the firm and was not involved in selecting VennSquared, she added. ‘Our support includes helping to make sure accurate information about Ron and his record are in the media as the Senate considers this important nomination,’ Elliott said.”

Fraud, extreme expense, job loss, higher food prices, engine damage, artificially propping up industry, and negligible if not negative environmental impacts? What more could you want from a government policy? The Daily Caller (7/23/13) reports: “Industries as wide-ranging as oil refiners, biofuel manufacturers, chain restaurants and chicken farmers sparred over the future of the federal ethanol mandate Tuesday. The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) mandates that 13.8 billion gallons of ethanol be blended into gasoline this year, and 14.4 billion gallons in 2014. Refiners, however, are reaching the limit of what they can safely blend into the fuel supply, which is putting pressure on the petroleum industry.’The RFS isn’t just a relic of America’s bygone era of energy scarcity, it is a grave economic threat,’ said Jack Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, in his congressional testimony.”

You just can’t hit on this enough. Forbes (7/23/13) reports: “In Gasland, Director Josh Fox ’s first fake documentary about hydraulic fracturing, or ‘Fracking’, the false claim was made that the oil and gas industry is somehow exempt from the Clean Air Act and other major federal environmental laws. Mr. Fox continues to make this false claim – often referring to it as the Halliburton Loophole – despite it having been completely and thoroughly debunked, even at liberal blog sites like The Daily Kos, which recently had this to say on the subject: ‘First, here is the actual truth of the matter … Dick Cheney didn’t do any harm to the Federal Clean Air Act because there is no ‘Halliburton Loophole’ statutory law amendment of the Clean Air Act contained in the Energy Policy Act of 2005,”