Rush just reported that Tim Johnson is "on the fence" on the Cap and Trade bill before the House today.
This bill would have terrible effects on the US economy, including moving plenty of manufacturing to countries with much looser pollution standards than ours.
I was able to send his office an email, but currently his website won't load.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu today announced an agreement with the FutureGen Alliance that advances the construction of the first commercial scale, fully integrated, carbon capture and sequestration project in the country in Mattoon, Illinois.
"This important step forward for FutureGen reflects this Administration’s commitment to rapidly developing carbon capture and sequestration technology as part of a comprehensive plan to create jobs, develop clean energy and reduce climate change pollution.” said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. “The FutureGen project holds great promise as a flagship facility to demonstrate carbon capture and storage at commercial scale. Developing this technology is critically important for reducing reenhouse gas emissions in the US, and around the world.”
"The agreement that was reached by the Department of Energy and the FutureGen Alliance is an historic moment for both our state and our country," said Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL). "In my time in Congress, I can't recall a project that has greater scientific and practical significance than FutureGen, not to mention the enormous economic benefit it will have in Illinois. I want to thank Secretary Chu for his leadership along with my colleagues in the Senate, members of the Illinois Congressional Delegation and the State of Illinois for working with me to keep this project alive for the Obama Administration."
Under the terms of the provisional agreement between the Department of Energy and the FutureGen Alliance, the Department will issue a Record of Decision on the project by the middle of July, with the following activities to be pursued from the end of July 2009 through early 2010:
* Rapid restart of preliminary design activities.
* Completion of a site-specific preliminary design and updated cost estimate.
* Expansion of the Alliance sponsorship group.
* Development of a complete funding plan.
* Potential additional subsurface characterization.Following the completion of the detailed cost estimate and fundraising activities, the Department of Energy and the FutureGen Alliance will make a decision either to move forward or to discontinue the project early in 2010
Yesterday's News-Gazette:
The city council will discuss a "sustainability inventory report" Tuesday that is meant to show where the city stands in terms of energy usage and conservation.
The council meets in regular session at 7 p.m. at the Champaign City Building, 102 N. Neil St. The sustainability report will be discussed at a post-council study session.
Sustainability is a popular issue these days with cities across the nation. It is defined as meeting current needs without sacrificing the ability of future generations to meet their needs, and involves balancing environmental, economic and social concerns.
Assistant City Manager Dorothy David said the city needed an update of where it stands before moving on to new initiatives.
"We want to know where we started from," said David. "This report is a baseline. We felt as we move forward to really be proactive in sustainability and environmental concerns, we needed to know what we're doing right now."
Discuss.
Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is fighting against the ethanol mandates. You can argue about his motives, and about the policy itself. But I'd like to focus on this line from a NY Times article:
LHT Inc., an infrastructure company, said it never would have spent tens of millions of dollars developing delivery pipes for ethanol without the mandated increases. “How do we get our money back?” an executive asked.
I personally hate the ethanol subsidies and usage mandates, but do feel for this exec. He made a business decision based on the mandates, and invested huge dollars. Should Congress reduce the mandate, LHT gets screwed.
I know, I know, "live by the (gov't) sword, die by the (gov't) sword". Still, gov't needs to remember that their actions don't exist in a vacuum. People and businesses make decisions based on new laws and regs. And once these mandates and subsidies and programs and tax credits get started, people will wail if they are taken away. I think better not to start these things at all.
From the AP wire: McCain calls for building 45 new nuclear reactors. One of the more pertinent passages:
McCain said the 104 nuclear reactors currently operating around the country produce about 20 percent of the nation's annual electricity needs.
"Every year, these reactors alone spare the atmosphere from the equivalent of nearly all auto emissions in America. Yet for all these benefits, we have not broken ground on a single nuclear plant in over thirty years," he said. "And our manufacturing base to even construct these plants is almost gone."
I've long thought that nuclear power offers the best chance to generate energy for the US while minimizing the enviromental costs. I'm not a head-in-the-sand idiot; I know the costs, dangers, and problems with storing used (spent?) nuclear fuel. I just think nuclear power, versus coal ("clean" or otherwise), oil, or natural gas, offers the most upside with the least downside.
The remainder of the article goes on to McCain's idea for "clean" coal, an idea I'm much less in favor of.
As IP says, discuss...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Catalina, patientia nostra?
The Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act (S. 3038) is going into discussion. Doubly arrogant, they think that not only can they legislate against physics and geology, but also they believe they can hoodwink the public with this pretext for more devastating and stifling control and crippling taxation. And they call it security? How dare they!? Are the people really so stupid as this to suck up this drivel? This is the same Joe Lieberman who we saw on TV with his hand up Senator McCain working McCain's mouth.
"Global warming has little to do with the improving the environment or reducing pollution. The real agenda is taxation and further consolidation of authority into a powerful centralized and increasingly global government."
From today's News-Gazette:
Kennedy & Madonna is currently representing about 20 property owners in the Oakwood area who live near a fly-ash landfill.
Madonna said he had been speaking with Claudia Lennhoff, executive director of Champaign County Health Care Consumers. Lennhoff is active in the Fifth and Hill Neighborhood Rights Campaign that has formed to represent residents who live near the former coal-gas site near Fifth and Hill streets.
"We've been speaking with Claudia and looking over documents the past few weeks to see if there's anything we can do to assist the community," he said. "I will be in town April 10."
It's too early to say what type of legal challenge the firm might make if it does become involved, he said.
He said there are thousands of former coal-gas manufacturing sites across the country that are in need of environmental cleanup.
"The potential for off-site contamination is a definite possibility and is something the residents should be concerned about," Madonna said. "The question is how far off site it's gone and to what extent are residents are being exposed and have been exposed to contaminants."
The 3.5-acre site – between Fifth and Sixth streets and Washington and Church streets – is owned by AmerenIP. The utility is expected this week to begin extensive testing, including soil borings and drilling monitoring wells, of the neighborhood surrounding the site to determine how far off site contamination has traveled.
AmerenIP officials have said they hope to begin a multimillion dollar cleanup of the site by next year.
Discuss.
There have been rumors about the UI's utility deficit for almost a year, and the News-Gazette had two pieces on Sunday about it. The first:
The deficit – slightly more than a year's worth of utility expenses – built up over five years as energy prices jumped by double digits and state appropriations failed to provide extra money for the UI to heat, light and cool its ever-expanding campuses, officials say.
"We had a budget for utility costs based on projections and recent history, and those utility costs soared well beyond what the expectations and projections were," Hardy said. "So we had to tap into various university reserves or savings to be able to pay our utility bills."
Cyclical spikes in energy costs are common, and prices tend to average out over time, he said. The UI used internal borrowing in the past, repaying other funds as the prices of natural gas, coal or oil dropped.
But natural gas prices spiked in 2004 and never came down. Coal prices rose as worldwide demand increased, particularly from China and India. And oil eventually topped $100 a barrel.
The second:
When Walter Knorr was hired as the UI's chief financial officer in early 2007, one of his first assignments was to prepare a report on the magnitude of the problem. The UI audit was not made public, but White said the findings were "very, very similar" to those in the state audit released Feb. 26.
Among them:
– The UI hadn't assigned anyone the task of reporting budget deficits for activities that cross campuses, such as utilities.
– University policy called for trustees to be briefed quarterly on budgeted versus actual spending, but utility costs weren't highlighted in those reports.
– UI policy was unclear about when trustee approval is required for money transfers between state accounts and unrestricted reserve funds.
– The accounting involved with utilities was "excessively complex," spread across all campuses and the central administration.
Discuss.
"The Department of Energy has turned its back on us," U.S. Rep. Tim Johnson, R-Urbana, told The News-Gazette. "This is like changing the rules after the final score has been posted on the scoreboard. To me, Secretary Bodman's response this morning was a slap in the face.
"This is the worst form of bureaucratic arrogance and insensitivity that I have seen in my 40 years in politics."
Sen. Dick Durbin,D-Ill., echoed Johnson's anger and frustration, saying the Illinois delegation will take the fight directly to the president.
"In 25 years on Capitol Hill, I have never witnessed such a cruel deception," Durbin said in a written release. "For five years, the Department of Energy has urged our state and others to pursue, at great expense and sacrifice, this critically important energy project.
"When the city of Mattoon was chosen over possible locations in Texas, the secretary of energy set out to kill FutureGen," Durbin said.
More:
And while Illinois politicians are decrying the news that FutureGen may be no more, FutureGen Alliance spokesman Lawrence Pacheco said the alliance has gotten no official statement from the Department of Energy.
"All the alliance has heard is vague statements about how the DOE wants to restructure the project," Pacheco said.
As far as the alliance is concerned, Pacheco said, it still has a cooperative agreement with the department, "and it's still in effect today," he said.
The Bush administration appeared on the verge of killing off the $1.8 billion FutureGen project only a day after the president highlighted plans for a big hike in energy research spending in his State of the Union address.
...
Members of Illinois' congressional delegation, including Republican allies of President Bush, reacted with fury to the development.
"The [Energy Department] has turned its back on us," charged U.S. Rep. Timothy Johnson, a Republican whose district includes Mattoon. "We played by their rules. . . . Secretary Bodman's response this morning was a slap in the face."
A spokeswoman for Bodman said soaring cost projections and technological advances have led the department to rethink the project even as it remains committed to its goals.
"Clean coal remains a cornerstone of the administration's [energy] vision," spokeswoman Julie Ruggiero said. She said Bodman would announce a revamped plan for FutureGen "within days" but declined to say whether the project in Mattoon would survive.
There was bipartisan outrage by state elected officials on DOE’s plans to dismantle FutureGen. Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich called it “an example of politics at its worst.”
“On November 30, 2007, the Department of Energy sent a letter reaffirming that the project was moving forward as planned. Only after it became clear that an Illinois site would be chosen over a Texas site, the Department suggested the project be delayed and now today, that it be dismantled,” the governor said.
State Rep. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, called the FutureGen project the most bipartisan effort in state government last year.
“FutureGen was the one bright spot. It was how things were meant to be in government for achieving a common goal. I will cooperate anyway I can with members of Congress to see that FutureGen does come to Mattoon,” Rose said.
Interesting reaction from Texas:
FutureGen Texas Regional Coordinator Hoxie Smith of Midland on Friday confirmed the prospect that the DOE either will award "a piece" of the project to the Basin or a private company will build a plant using FutureGen technology on 600 acres north of Penwell, 20 miles west of Odessa.
Awaiting his flight to Dallas Friday afternoon in Washington, Melton said Odessa city and Chamber of Commerce officials will meet with a company there next month to review its plans for a near zero emissions coal-fired electrical plant producing carbon dioxide for oilwell injection.
"The subject of FutureGen came up in discussions with all four leaders and I don't think anybody knows 100 percent what is going to happen," said Melton after attending the U.S. Conference of Mayors. "They all think it will be scaled back because the DOE would have to put a lot more money into it than they want to.
"There are rumors of breaking it into pieces and I think we will get something going. But I'm not sure it will be FutureGen. We have a meeting in February with a company looking at us for a project similar to FutureGen."
This article, from the on-line New York Times, best describes the challenges facing the next president.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/magazine/27world-t.html?pagewanted=8&_r=1&th&emc=th
I always remain surprised that candidtaes are not asked who they would consider ideal members of their cabinet if they were elected. This would be a significant insight into a candidate's thinking and policies.
From today's News-Gazette, in the wake of yesterday's story:
A consortium of some of the largest coal producers and users in the world on Friday offered to pay a greater portion of the cost of the $1.8 billion FutureGen clean coal plant.
If the proposal is accepted by the Department of Energy, which previously was responsible for 74 percent of the costs, plans to build FutureGen in Coles County may proceed without future delays, according to a statement from U.S. Rep. Tim Johnson, R-Urbana.
"The Alliance's movement on this issue gives us momentum and strengthens our resolve to get this project back where it belongs," Johnson's statement said. "I am strongly opposed to the notion of breaking up this project into pieces as has been suggested by the Department of Energy once they found out Mattoon was the chosen site."
Discuss.
More reasons to be less-than-optimistic that this thing will ever be built:
Plans for a clean-burning FutureGen power plant may drastically change, said U.S. Rep. John Shimkus, R-Collinsville, who thinks the Department of Energy's plan to restructure could mean breaking it into different sites around the country.
Shimkus said Thursday he believes downsizing and restructuring FutureGen make it more feasible.
"I'm afraid if we go as planned, we get nothing," Shimkus said Thursday in a phone interview with The News-Gazette.
"The DOE is scrambling for a way to do it with the current cost escalations," Shimkus said. "Rescoping means a lot of things. I think it could mean the ability to produce more power and sell it on the grid, (or do) limited research at one site and another aspect of the research at another site."
More links on CapFax.
Rich Miller over at CapFax is urging caution, rather than celebration:
Yesterday’s announcement that the lucrative FutureGen project would be sited in Illinois created a lot of hype. But the Bush administration’s Energy Department wasn’t at the press conference. The US government’s share of the project’s cost is huge, and DOE officials have been grumbling about the rising costs of the project for a couple of weeks (a bit before Illinois started to get private signals that it was ahead in the bidding war with Texas) so that should have sent up a lot more red flags than it did…
Read the whole thing.
UPDATE: From today's News-Gazette:
Jack Slutz, the acting principal deputy assistant secretary for fossil energy, released a statement Tuesday calling for restructuring the current agreement between the federal government and the alliance, which is composed of power companies from all over the world.
Slutz said that because clean coal technology is so important, the public deserves to get the best technology in the most cost-efficient way. Restructuring is the answer, he said, and more information will be forthcoming in the next month.
FutureGen Alliance spokesman Lawrence Pacheco called the statement "baffling."
Congratulations!
UPDATE: I was listening to the announcement on WDWS, but the NG had the story a few minutes before the live announcement. I'll collect links to stories and such as the day continues. Feel free to post anything you find, along with your thoughts and reactions, in the comments.
LINKS:
Mine is Tuscola, and it more of a guess than a prediction.
The NG had this fluff article about the FutureGen selection on Tuesday.
Brian Moody says it feels like Christmas Eve in Tuscola.
He just isn't sure if there will be anything under the tree if the announcement is made Tuesday on which town gets the $1.5 billion FutureGen plant.
"I haven't been sleeping very much at all this week," said Moody, the executive director of Tuscola Economic Development Inc. "This is the culmination of a lot of work by a lot of people."
Meanwhile, the Mattoon community is filled with nervous energy as it awaits the decision from the 14-member FutureGen Alliance board.
"We're on the edge of the seats," City Administrator Allan Gilmore said. "After all, we've been working on this since February of 2006."
Keep your fingers crossed for either Illinois site.
There's been lots of speculation that a FutureGen announcement may be coming soon:
Developers of a $1.5 billion experimental low-pollution power plant said today they are ready to announce whether it will be built in Illinois or Texas, despite an unexpected letter from their federal partner advising them to slow down.
The Futuregen Alliance, coal and power companies planning to construct the plant in partnership with the Department of Energy, says it will announce the plant’s future home at a news conference Tuesday in Washington, D.C.
Four towns — Mattoon and Tuscola in east-central Illinois, Jewett in east Texas and Penwell in west Texas — are in the running.
But a DOE official told FutureGen Alliance chief executive Michael Mudd in a letter Monday that the developers are moving too fast.
The department will not have issued what is known as a record of decision — a final step indicating all four sites are suitable — by Tuesday, wrote James Slutz, acting
principal deputy assistant secretary for fossil energy.Arrangements for the announcement “(were) done without any consultation with the department,” Slutz said.
“We consider it inadvisable for the alliance to schedule any site selection announcement or media advisory at this time without prior consultation with the department,” Slutz added.
Just a hunch: I think a delay hurts Illinois' chances.
(Hat tip: CapFax)
I've been out of the loop for a week or so, but I just caught this, and it seems rather huge to me:
North Korea's decision to abandon its nuclear program could be significant, especially because it appears that it will not rely on UN inspectors but will instead involve US technicians overseeing the actual dismantling of North Korean nuclear facilities.
That's outstanding.
How else can you explain that our gas prices have been falling while oil prices have been at record highs.
The News-Gazette today reported that you can now get energy credits in Illinois.
Illinoisans who buy solar panels, wind generators or other types of renewable energy equipment can now get a little more bang for their buck.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich recently signed legislation creating a statewide net-metering program, which means customers can use excess power they generate through such equipment as a credit against electricity they buy from their utility company. In a year when electricity rates jumped significantly, that could make a big difference in a customer's bill.
Ameren apparently didn't offer this before, but says they're not opposed to it. It'll be interesting to see how many people make the conversion. If I didn't have a huge big shady tree on the east side of my house, thereby limiting that side's exposure to sunlight, it would be a lot more attractive to me. Maybe if I put them on top of the garage?
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