I’ve held off as long as I can with commenting on the presedential election, as it tends to suck all the oxygen right out of the room, but this issue needs to be aired. There’s more to Obama’s energy plan than bankrupting coal power plants. He also intends to make energy prices “skyrocket”:
This doesn’t sound sustainable to me. Hat tip to Jon Jewitt.
UPDATE: here is video from the San Francisco Chronicle of the actual interview:
Hat tip to Fred for this one.
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I can’t think of a faster way for him to lose the support of a majority of the Democrats in congress over this. Most of them are much more centrist than Obama is, plus their constituents will be screaming bloody murder at them once the pain sets in. But it may take a painful year or two for it to happen.
Spiking oil prices were the original cause of the recent economic panic, despite what the MSM would like us to believe – notice how things have started to move in a positive direction now that oil pricing has come down. Cost of energy affects every single part of the economy. If energy prices skyrocket, as they will if we abandon coal as a source, look for another panic and likely a depression until we can kick the idiots out that are promoting this lunacy.
Hmm.. can’t say I’m following foreign politics very much, but I understand the US has an election coming up shortly? And everyone knows that when politicians are going for re-election they will make any promises they are asked to, without consideration of the impact?
I suspect that these words are taken from an interview with an environmental group, and Obama is just saying what they want to hear. How else do you get votes? I’m sure that, once in power, he will find a good reason to go back on his word, as every other politician on the planet has learned how to do. I seem to recall a ‘Yes, Minister’ script where Sir Humphery pointed out that there was an unwritter bargain between Ministers and Civil Servants – if the Ministers would drop all their manifesto promises the Civil Service would help them hide the reversal….
If Obama does this, I am going to send him a lump of coal in a stocking for Christmas.
Forward this video to every American you know. I’ve started.
Perry
But remember, those bankruptcies are non-partisan change we can believe in. And I certainly believe that my rates will skyrocket in a non-partisan way, if he is elected. And all the poor people who will stuggle to pay their utility bills should be ashamed at their selfishness and lack of patriotism.
well i know the people who are buying the plant Im helping to build right now and the citizens who are buying the 1000+ MW of electricity it and a nextdoor unit are going to make are going to be pretty irate if this happens….what a genius…
A WSJ editorial compared the two candidates’ energy policies here.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122515084360974157.html
nothing new here.
the liberals have been FIGHTING FOR higher fuel and energy prices for decades.
The goal: restrain energy usage.
Exactly how they also restain housing growth in Kalifornia by making housing creation so expensive, people are forced into smaller houses and multi-story housing projects.
The big question I have – who will see this story before they vote? If it’s only on FoxNews then I doubt if anyone will be changing their minds.
I’d like to hear more specifics about this.
Anthony, you have seen it on a small scale in Chico, we are about to see it on a large scale across the country. Well meaning (perhaps) and mislead (certainly) folks trying to make the world better by deciding how you should live. Maggie Thatcher made a very good point in her preface to “The Downing Street Years”, setting the Conservative party in opposition to the idea that ‘the gentlemen in Whitehall know better how the people should live than the people themselves.’
It might not be so bad if there was solid evidence that it would help the environment or stabilize the climate. But current coal plants are better than they were a decade ago, new technologies will make them even cleaner, and the climate will do whatever it d— well pleases.
One thing this idea (even partially implemented) will do is raise taxes. In a soft economy. 75 years ago, FDR proved you can take a couple year recession and turn it into a decade long depression with a few tax hikes and a bit of government control. With a World War to fix it at the end.
I really don’t think that’s a good idea this time around.
Even scarier is this clip. Obama wants to create a “civilian national security force of the same size and power as the military.”
“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”
This is how the population was controlled in the USSR. A massive network of civilian spies who reported all dissident activity, in the name of national unity.
I wondered why he felt he needed a “National Police Force” composed of civilians. It will take force to cause this to happen, and he daren’t use
National Guard or Federal troops. I heard there was some rumbling from
a cemetery over in Britain showing up on seismometers. Seems a grave labeled Eric Blair is rumbling 24/7. Let me add another aside, as I toss another log into my stove (I heat a 1200 square foot home with wood fire), when will wood get put on the same “remove by” list?
Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio. All swing states, all coal producting states. Obama will get them all new “green jobs” I am sure.
Well, as both candidates seem to have eaten the bait of cap and trade hook line and sinker, I do not think it will make much difference as far as the results of a disastrous energy policy goes. Unless you believe that one of them will back out faster and more than the other?
A mitigating factor must be that both are in the middle of a campaign while the economy is rocking dangerously. It is evident that both should rethink economic and energy policies, but this is not the time for them to do so.
It seems the only thing that will save us is weather itself: a long arctic winter in the NH will soon have everybody rushing for energy .
I have a plan… all the coal generating plants should declare bankruptcy and cease operation. That’s what Obama wants, let’s give it to him. Then watch the price of energy skyrocket and the people freeze because we can’t afford to pay for the energy we need.
McCain wants to cut co2 emmissions by 66% by 2050.Obama has said 80% by the same date. McCain will spend $2bn per year on clean_up tech per year.Obama wants to do it with a PPP. Can’t see a lot in it personally.
Watch what happens when the electric prices sky rocket, air conditioning units will be turned off across America, the next big heat wave will kill hundreds, there by proving again the intensity of global warming.
Only good news is I hope we will see a new golden age for nuclear power.
I say no to B.O.
This site held more interest back when I thought that it was more scientifically motivated than politically. And talk about alarmism! AGW’er don’t have the corner on it apparently.
Signing off here.
REPLY: Sorry you feel that way, back to science after the election. Unfortunately science has become politicized so it is hard to avoid. – Anthony
Shouldn’t we really focus on what is really going on here — Pay more in taxes, so government can PRETEND to control the weather. Does anybody wonder where the taxes are going? Or what they are to be spent on?
Not all change is good. Fidel Castro wanted to change Cuba in 1954, and succeeded.
tarpon (08:55:04) :
About half of the USA electricity generation is coal burning power plants. … I vote we cut electricity to Al Gore’s house and Chicago first.
Chicago won’t see brownouts. Illinois gets more than half its juice from nuclear.
Richard deSousa (10:52:06) :
“all the coal generating plants should declare bankruptcy and cease operation.”
They need not be as drastic. They could declare a “lockout”. It is what the strike of the owners is called. If the coal plants organize they could stop this in its tracks.
As a member of the once “third world”, you americans are becoming new members of the “fourth world” with all that AGW pseudosience.
The USA will never be the last century´s USA again. You are really blind, we just can not believe how you are heading to a bottomless precipice