Apparently the US laws covering oil exploration and production requires leaseholders for federally own oil to pay royalties on every drop of oil removed from the ground.  This royalty is required, no matter what becomes of that oil, whether sold, spilled or destroyed. Unlike a brewer or tobacco producer that pays it’s federal excise taxes only on the product packaged for sale. Beer lagering in tanks, wine aging in barrels, etc aren’t taxed until bottled for sale.  Of course excise tax is something placed on a product developed by a business while, an oil lease represents a resource owned by government being sold a predetermined price.  All the oil belongs to the government, if the resource is removed the leaseholder must pay for that resource.

And that is why BP owes Uncle Sam, for oil spilled, in addition to the costs of the cleanup.

I continue on my listing of alternate meanings for BP, despite British Protests

British Protests

Brown Pitch

Broken Pipe

Branded Pollution

Bent Perspective

Bloody Pinheads

Bad Preparation

Bubbling Petroleum

Blatant Posers

Bring Pails

I have nothing wise or helpful to say on the BP oil blowout in the the Gulf of Mexico.  So, i’m just going to list a bunch of nasty names that the letters BP stand for.

Bigtime Polluters - thanks Dick Cheney for making “Bigtime”, big time.

Bad Planning

Big Putz

Bad Preparation

Bad People

Bad Polluters

Bad Profesionals

Big Profanity

Big Profiteer

Big Pinheads

Butthead Professionals

Bitchy President

i’m sure i’ll come up with more, since clearly you can never have enough ways to insult BP

For anyone who didn’t watch 60 Minutes this last Sunday, I’ll explain why you should watch the video.

The Bloom Box is a fuel cell designed to provide homes electricity from a box the size of a stack of 15 cd/dvds that costs about $3000.  The fuel cell does emit CO2 when fueled by carbon based fuels, but it creates twice as much electricity as traditional natural gas generators. This means that substituting these methane powered fuel cells for coal power plants could cut CO2 emissions by 75%. Deploying small, off grid Bloom devices further reduces transmission loses and grid costs associated with delivering power.  A successful Bloom Box, could have a huge impact on on a world increasingly run on electricity.

Will it work? Well they’ve got systems running at Google, eBay and FedEx in northern California and they’re funded by Kleiner Perkins, et. al. for $400 Million. That makes it seem like it’s coming soon. If this works, my only question is could we capture enough methane, from bio sources to power society without continuing to add CO2 from burning “mined” fuels?

Check out this video:

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Panasonic, the giant Japanese based electronics manufacturer and marketer has launched an LED lightbulb, for the US market at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.  The bulb, which was first launched in Japan in september, is known as the EverLed, requires no change of lighting equipment, fitting in standard screw in fixtures for incandescent light build.  Consumers will be able to swap out a 60watt traditional bulb with a 6.9 watt “bulb” with several LEDs.  Panasonic has branded the bulb, which are expected to last 19 years, as the “EverLed” and they currently sell for approximately $40 USD. The bulb can be expected to save 8200 kwh or about over $500 of electricity at 7 cents per/kwh.

It’s been said that “There are liars, lies and statistics”, which those who don’t know anything about statistics have led them to infer that statistics aren’t useful, which is wrong. We’ve heard all about the hacked emails that show English climate researchers, at Univ. of East Anglia talked about manipulating data and the reaction who question the existence of a global warming crisis. What we haven’t heard much of is an explanation as to why this isn’t the smoking gun that the right wing media portrays it to be.  If Glenn Beck, Hannity and the rest of the folk don’t understand how science works, and they are the only ones “explaining” the meaning of this, the whole rational world is in trouble.

First of all, science itself, by definition, is a practice that is designed to avoid just the very problem of the “Cheating Scientist”.  The first two requirements of science are “results that are both measurable and repeatable”. if this scientist and his associates fudged his numbers then the 100s or 1000s of other researchers wouldn’t have found the evidence of climate change that they’ve already documented.  Granted, some people may have used the manipulated data series, but the fact is that researchers in many different fields have done experiments within their areas of studies and most support the idea that their is a climate change crisis.  If all the scientists are wrong, because of one group in the UK, there is a lot more wrong with the world than global warning.

Whatever your opinion on the health care debate, i think you’ll agree, that it’s pushed most other public policy issues off the table. The fight against global warming is no longer a top priority.  In fact any legislation bringing in a carbon cap, doesn’t charge the largest emitters for their carbon credits and it sets the levels much higher than science suggests they need to be to stop and turn back Global Warming.  I personally think that if this is the sort of “carbon cap and trade” system that comes about, it will have little or no impact on the way most Americans live.  With or without cap and trade, it’s time to put a carbon tax on gasoline and other non-renewable fuels. What is needed now is a consumer movement toward greener products and adding a tax to gasoline, to fund green energy, via tax credits.  A movement toward renewable electricity will not only help the environment, but will also create new jobs in research, development, manufacturer, installation and maintenance of these systems

Cash for clunkers is the current raging political debate in the US.  Let’s cut away all the BS and look at what is happening: the cars being bought are on average about 10 mpg better than the clunkers (heard this on CNBC yesterday).  That means for an increase of about 40% for cars and 60% for trucks.  For a vehicle driving 20,000 miles a year, at 25mpg would use 800 gallons of fuel a year, saving about 600 gallons of fuel or 6 tons of CO2. If a car is used for 10 years (much more than average) the newer car would reduce CO2 emmissions by about 60 tons.

Yesterday, US carbon credits on the CCX traded for 40 cents, yes  $ 0.40, per ton.  So the US government is giving a $4500 rebate to protect the environment from $24 worth of CO2, about 200 times more than the market price.  So, if folks want to keep the program growing for the sake of ramping up car sales, that’s great.  Just don’t think the environmental benefit is worth the cost.

Is a ‘Smart Grid’ a good idea?  While some people wonder about benefits of this new technology, most of us just want to know what they are talking about.  Simply put, the Smart Grid is a power system that is more computer controlled. The Smart Grid connects computerized appliances, computerized meters, power generation and transmission networks together to optimize the production and use of electricity. This Smart Grid would allow the power companies to see where the use is highest, to increase rates or use interrupting services to manage demand.  In fact it would allow power companies to alow the pricing of power according to demand and discounting use in order to reduce the need to build reserve capacity.

Imagine a USA with only rechargeable cars, every family needing to recharge a couple of cars everyday.  Well during hot summer days we already seen demand outstripping supply in California a few days every  summer.  Government research labs say that off-peak generation capacity can power 73% of the vehicles in a world of electric cars.  When you put this all together it means the smart grid would let you plug in the car when you come home and let the smart meter decide when to charge it based on how much you are willing to pay. Your washer and dryer can wait to run at offpeak times to get the lowest rate. Plus this opens up the idea of ’whole home”  back up battery technology that would allow us to store up power during off peak hours to reduce the need to buy power off the grid during peak times. But the smart grid goes beyond that, it allows the electrical companies to sell more electricity with fewer plants by optimizing supply and demand.  Fewer power plants being built saves the industry billions of dollars. that’s money that can be spent on newer, greener power generating technology. 

So let’s teach our grid some new tricks, it’s conservation, optimization via automation.

One of the Obama administrations top priorities is energy.  Beyond the priority of energy is the administration’s focus on conservation and green energy.  When you are able to conserve energy in a less costly and polluting way than doing nothing, simple logic and thriftyness would cry out to do so.  Fortunately the US governement offers tax credits and as part of the recent recovery act, federal grants to retrofit schools, goverment building and homes of the poorest to do just that. 

In Allegheny county PA, home to Pittsburgh, the county expects to spend an $8.1 million federal grant on energy effienciency and getting that information out to the citizenry.  A recent project at the Allegheny county jail spent $950,000 to replace 805 lights with new LED fixtures.  LEDs, which can last over 20 years use as little as of 1/10 the power of incandescent bulbs.  The county expects to save about $180,000 on electric fees each year, paying the project back in 6 years, roughly a 12% return on investment.

How many county jails, hospitals, offices, etc. can make these switches, eventually every single one.  Until pricing comes down, by about 75%, homeowners and landlords won’t be able to afford to make the move.