T. Boone Pickens: Our Ongoing Energy Crisis

We Don't Need No Stinking Giant Fans
Just as the rest of the world begins to realize that SDA is Canada's greatest untapped source for investment advice on Alternative Energy... After 30 months, countless TV appearances, and $80 million spent on an extravagant PR campaign, T. Boone Pickens has finally admitted the obvious: The Wind Energy business isn’t a very good one. The Dallas-based entrepreneur, who has relentlessly promoted his “Pickens Plan” since July 4, 2008, announced earlier this month that he’s abandoning

Interview with Paul Gipe, Wind Energy Pioneer
Paul Gipe has been involved with Wind Energy for 30 years. He has authored several books in the field, and was instrumental in the successful campaign for Ontario's 2006 implementation of Advanced Renewable Tariffs to promote distributed Renewable Energy supply. Hassan Masum: Paul, thanks for talking to us. Let's start with a bit of background: what first motivated you to start working in the Renewable Energy field, and what changes in this field do you most notice when you look back at your car...

Britain abandons renewable power mandates, embraces feed-in tariffs
In a potentially precedent-setting move for the English-speaking world, Great Britain's ruling coalition proposes abandoning its long-running experiment with so-called "market reforms" of the 1990s. Included in the proposal released by Chris Huhne, Energy and Climate Change Secretary Dec. 16, 2010, is wholesale revision of the country's Renewable Obligation, the British version of Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS). While the renewable targets will remain, the government proposes abandoning the...

Germany's RWE drawn to Italy's wind regime
ESSEN, Germany, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- The wind regime in Italy provides an attractive environment to expand the onshore Wind Energy sector, Germany energy company RWE said. RWE's Renewable Energy division RWE Innogy announced it commissioned a second onshore Wind Farm near the coastal town of Temoli in southern Italy. The 13 turbines designated for the Wind Farm will provide enough energy to meet the demands of more than 18,000 households in the region. Fritz Vahrenholt, board director for the German...

JCC to offer energy classes
Hoping to capitalize on Wind Farm projects in the north country, Jefferson Community College is launching a new program for those who want to get into the renewable-energy business. "This is something people have been telling us folks needed in the community, and we're trying to be responsive to employers and future workers," JCC President Carole A. McCoy said. "We would also like to do more to be energy efficient ourselves and to utilize it on campus." The program will start out as a cert...

Branstad: Power Fund likely will continue
Gov.-elect Terry Branstad campaigned against the Iowa Power Fund, which promotes development of Renewable Energy, but on Thursday said he expects the fund to live on within a retooled Economic Development department. Departing Gov. Chet Culver, a Democrat, championed creation of the Power Fund and the Office of Energy Independence, which administers the fund. Branstad said the office likely will be eliminated. The Power Fund has attracted support from business and agriculture because of Iowa's...

Subsidizing stupidity
Ethanol isn't the only heavily subsidized energy source that won a multibillion dollar jackpot in last week's tax deal. The other big winner was the wind industry, which received a one year extension of a $3 billion grant program for Renewable Energy projects. Talk about throwing good money after bad. Despite more than $30 billion in Subsidies for "Clean Energy" in the 2009 stimulus bill, Big Wind still can't make it in the marketplace. Denise Bode, CEO of the American Wind...

Empowering the Free Energy Markets
Once again, Congress is poised to play the "winners and losers" game in Energy Policy, by extending various tax advantages to subsidize wind power, solar power, Biofuels, and various "Energy Efficiency" standards. Meanwhile, the Obama Administration has implemented a virtual Moratorium on exploration and production of additional domestic Oil and gas, and the White House is already sowing doubt in capital markets about whether America will be able to exploit the massive reserves of shale-gas an...

OPEC Members 'Target $100'...
Oil consumers grow wary as some OPEC members target $100 crude. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg Oil importers are growing wary of the impact of prices near two-year highs as some OPEC members foresee a further rally to the $100-a-barrel level and Arab oil ministers gather for a meeting in Cairo. Japan’s economy minister said today the government needs to keep an eye on climbing prices while the deputy Governor of the Chinese Central Bank said Inflation pressures are rising. Shok...

U.S. defends permits for deals in sanctioned nations
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Treasury Department on Thursday defended its issuance of special licenses for American companies to do business with Iran and other blacklisted nations, in response to a New York Times report on deals made despite sanctions and trade embargoes. An examination by the newspaper found the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control has made nearly 10,000 exceptions to U.S. sanctions rules over the past decade. A Treasury official said the majority of the cases ...

U.S. defends permits for deals in sanctioned nations
An examination by the newspaper found the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control has made nearly 10,000 exceptions to U.S. sanctions rules over the past decade. A Treasury official said the majority of the cases examined by The Times were approved under a law requiring the Treasury to license exports of agricultural and medical Humanitarian Aid to Iran and Sudan. "These are not discretionary exceptions to U.S. sanctions made by Treasury," the official said, speaking on condition...

U.S. defends permits for deals in sanctioned nations
WASHINGTON | Thu Dec 23, 2010 10:14pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Treasury Department on Thursday defended its issuance of special licenses for American companies to do business with Iran and other blacklisted nations, in response to a New York Times report on deals made despite sanctions and trade embargoes. An examination by the newspaper found the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control has made nearly 10,000 exceptions to U.S. sanctions rules over the past decade. A Trea...

American Detox
The dealers who profit from this Addiction, even encourage it, are perhaps even more repulsive than the disease itself. Like tobacco mavens back in the day with their "healthy" Cigarettes, these criminals "push" the so-called "benefits" of their wares -- reduced taxes, reduced taxes, reduced taxes -- all the while conning innocents into a taste. It usually isn't long before this new meat starts visiting daily, shaking, sweat erupting from their foreheads like water beading on a glass. As for w...

Are we back to this already?
They’re talking about $100 a barrel oil again — only this time Unemployment isn’t 5% as it was at the beginning of 2008, it’s 10%. Bloomberg: Shokri Ghanem, chairman of Libya’s National Oil Corp., was the latest OPEC official to forecast $100. Iran and Venezuela have also said that represents a fair price while Saudi Arabia, the group’s biggest exporter, said it prefers prices centered on $75, a level that oil has traded above since September… Wall Street stra...

Business as Usual With Terror Supporters US Has Granted Over 10,000 Sanction Waivers?
The New York Times reported Thursday that the waivers were granted for companies ranging from Kraft to Pepsi , mostly under a law exempting agricultural and medical Humanitarian Aid from sanctions. But the billions in American business allowed through has included Cigarettes, chewing gum and hot sauce . Other applications were approved on the basis that they served American Foreign Policy goals. In one instance, a company was allowed to help on a natural-gas Pipeline job that enabled Iranian sal...

The Embargo is Working
Despite sanctions and trade embargoes, over the past decade the United States government has allowed American companies to do billions of dollars in business with Iran and other countries blacklisted as state sponsors of Terrorism, an examination by The New York Times has found. No! Say it isn’t so! There must be a good reason for this outrage! Most of the licenses were approved under a decade-old law mandating that agricultural and medical Humanitarian Aid be exempted from sanctions. But...

US Companies Sell to Iran Despite Sanctions
The New York Times reports: Despite sanctions and trade embargoes, over the past decade the United States government has allowed American companies to do billions of dollars in business with Iran and other countries blacklisted as state sponsors of Terrorism, an examination by The New York Times has found. At the behest of a host of companies — from Kraft Food and Pepsi to some of the nation’s largest banks — a little-known office of the Treasury Department has granted nearly 10,000

U.S. approved business with Iran and other state sponsors of terrorism
Selling them the rope with which they will hang us. "U.S. Approved Business With Blacklisted Nations," by Jo Becker in the New York Times, December 23: Despite sanctions and trade embargoes, over the past decade the United States government has allowed American companies to do billions of dollars in business with Iran and other countries blacklisted as state sponsors of Terrorism, an examination by The New York Times has found. At the behest of a host of companies -- from Kraft Food and Pepsi...

New Interest in Turning Gas to Diesel
By MATTHEW L. WALD NYT WASHINGTON — Diesel and jet fuel are usually made from Crude Oil. But with Oil Prices rising even as a glut of Natural Gas keeps prices for that fuel extraordinarily cheap, a bit of expensive alchemy is suddenly starting to look financially appealing: turning Natural Gas into liquid fuels. A South African firm, Sasol, announced Monday that it would spend just over 1 billion Canadian Dollars to buy a half-interest in a Canadian Shale Gas field, so it can explore turning...

Senate approves nuclear arms treaty with Russia
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate approved a landmark nuclear Arms Control treaty with Russia on Wednesday, giving President Barack Obama a major Foreign Policy victory in his drive to improve ties with Moscow and curb the spread of atomic weapons to other nations. The Senate voted 71-26 in favor of the New START Treaty between the former Cold War foes after a contentious debate with Republican leaders that threatened traditional Bipartisanship on security affairs. "This treaty will enhance our ...

Palin then: Wikileak cables threaten national security. Now: They prove I'm right about Iran.
Steve Benen notes that Sarah Palin cites "leaked diplomatic cables" in her anti-Obama screed on USA Today's op-ed page in which she endorses a more bellicose policy towards Iran. Why is this interesting? Because those "leaked diplomatic cables" that Palin's ghost-writer referenced are, of course, the materials published through Wikileaks. I'm not suggesting for a moment that the media steer clear of such revelations, but the former half-term Governor's reliance on the documents is, to put it mi...

Complex issues for China, North and South Korea?
by Andrew, Allied Liberty News Yes, I asked just that question. Consider this, N.Korea is armed with pre-vietnam era Soviet and Chinese Military hardware. N.Korea does not so much as breathe without China's orders. China is facing a huge monetary Inflation problem. This is in part due to fuel prices but mostly due to China allowing their own economy grow by a totally unsustainable 12%. In economics, when something grows in numbers or value by 12% in one year, you get what Economists call a "bu...

U.S. threatens WTO action on China rare earth curbs (Reuters)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – China has refused repeated U.S. requests to eliminate export restraints on rare earths that have rattled its trading partners, the U.S. Trade Representative's office said on Thursday. "Going forward, the United States will continue to pursue vigorous engagement with China on this issue and will not hesitate to take further action, including WTO dispute settlement, if appropriate," the trade representative's office said in an annual report on how w...

Symposium: America in Decline?
Posted by Jamie Glazov on Dec 24th, 2010 and filed under FrontPage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. Is America in decline? To discuss this question with us today, Frontpage Symposium has invited two distinguished guests: Robert Lieber , Professor of Government and International Affairs at Georgetown University, where he has previously served as Chair of the Government Department and In...

US: Travelers Brace for Snow, Ice in Midwest
© AP Photo/Jeff Chiu A woman pulls her travel bag in the International terminal at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, Thursday, Dec. 23, 2010. Holiday travelers in the Midwest braced for snow and ice from a storm Friday that was expected to deliver a rare White Christmas to Nashville and possibly Atlanta before rolling into the Northeast. A day after the most densely populated parts of the county got a break from the weather, several inches of snow were expected acros...