Palm Sunday

 With Morgan Hollie:

Ganoderma "butt rot" on palm

Reuters, Palm oil yields at risk as Ganoderma appears in earlier planting cycles

A fungal disease once confined to older palm trees in coastal areas is spreading across Malaysian palm plantations and appearing much earlier in growth cycles, threatening yields in newly replanted areas, agricultural industry experts say.

The rise of the fungus in second-largest palm oil exporter Malaysia, as well as in top producer Indonesia, is another headache for an industry struggling with stagnating output of the world's most popular vegetable oil as plantations age.

Ganoderma, the fungus, is emerging in second-generation plantings, whereas previously it was only evident after three planting cycles, said Julian McGill, managing director of oil crop advisory firm Glenauk Economics.

The disease occurs more frequently when successive palm generations are replanted on the same land. “The enforcement of zero-burning policies in the field has also increased its spread, and examples of Ganoderma in newer plantings, inland soils and younger trees appear to be becoming more frequent,” McGill said.

Ganoderma spreads slowly but detection is difficult. “By the time you see the symptoms in the field the disease is already well established, and the infection may have spread,” McGill said.

I found it interesting that this is shelf fungus, like many we see in our woods here.

It's a wonder anything ever gets grown, with all the diseases out there.

Linked at The Pirate's Cove in the weekly Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup and links. The Wombat has posted Rule 5 Sunday: Karin Hart at the usual time and place.

Palm Sunday

With Amy-Jane Brand, yesterday's Rule 5 subject:

From Nature, ‘Tree islands’ give oil-palm plantation a biodiversity boost. "Five-year study shows islands increase ecosystem health without lowering crop yield, and a house built from concrete and nappies."

The Wombat came through with Late Night With Rule 5 Sunday: Double-Scoop Swimsuit Edition! 

Oregon, My Oregon

Mahonia Hall, the Oregon Governor's mansion

Another great moment in liberal hypocrisy from  Cathy Salgado at PJ Media, After Bashing Natural Gas, Oregon Gov. Installs $300K Natural Gas Generator at Mansion

Just as Bill Gates isn’t going to switch to a diet of grasshoppers and climate alarmists travel the world in polluting private jets, Oregon’s Democrat governor evidently believes natural gas restrictions are only for peon ordinary citizens, not for special politicians like her (though she’s happy for citizens to pay for her mansion improvements). The Post Millennial reported Feb. 27 that Kotek is having a dual natural gas and propane backup generator installed at the official governor’s mansion, Mahonia Hall. Yet, while campaigning for governor, Kotek “stressed the importance of making it easier for Oregonians to buy and charge electric vehicles” and claimed that reducing natural gas use would be a focus for her, The Post Millennial said.

The Tina for Oregon campaign website still lists this priority: “Transition away from the use of fossil fuels like methane gas in homes and commercial buildings.” The site also boasts, “Tina put Oregon on a path to 100% clean electricity by 2040.” But 100% would appear to be an exaggeration if a pricey natural gas generator is running at the gubernatorial mansion.

The Post Millennial cited the City of Salem permit and the official bid. The former says the project is “Adding piping from existing NG (natural gas) Utilities to new generator.” Meanwhile, the official bid says, “The project includes updating the utility service with backup emergency dual natural gas and propane. Adds a full building services generator to the facility for power, should normal utility power fail.”

This project of Kotek’s will cost a whopping $308,934, which talk radio host Lars Larson told The Post Millennial is four times what it “should reasonably cost” at the very least, based on what the contractors he consulted said. The Post Millennial said the project will further include the addition of a “500-gallon propane tank” and a new outdoor concrete pad, “covered with a new pergola structure.” It is to be presumed Oregon’s taxpayers are footing the bill, since the official bid’s listed purchaser is the state Department of Administrative Services’ Kelly Mann.

Oregon, at least the western third, is literally covered with trees. Surely for 400k the Oregon government ought to be able to buy a wood burning stove, or a pellet stove to keep the mansion warm during those dreary Salem winters. Or better yet, freeze in the dark like a good liberal should.

Chicken Shit Solution in the Pipeline

Natural gas pipeline, chicken litter bio-refinery partner on Eastern Shore energy project

The Dover-based Chesapeake Utilities Corp. announced earlier this month it would diversify its sources of natural gas with a plentiful and problematic Delmarva resource: chicken litter.

Via a partnership with CleanBay Renewables, an enviro-tech company focused on sustainably sourced natural gas, Chesapeake Utilities will deliver natural gas generated from chicken litter to customers on the Eastern Shore, according to a company announcement.

"As Chesapeake Utilities Corporation and its subsidiaries continue to move forward with regional expansion, the goal is to create a renewable natural gas ecosystem directly connected to Chesapeake Utilities' infrastructure," the announcement states.

Chicken litter is a combination of manure, bedding material, feathers and spilled feed.

The litter is a source of phosphorous and nitrogen (on average, a ton of dry litter contains 60 pounds of nitrogen and 40 pounds of phosphorus) which are nutrients that, while necessary for life, are overabundant in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and cause aquatic habitat destruction.

Chicken litter can be converted into biogas, a type of natural gas that consists mostly of methane and carbon dioxide. Because chicken litter can be a problem on Delmarva due to its environmental implications and abundance, turning it into biogas is an eco-friendly solution, CleanBay says.

"Through this partnership, Chesapeake Utilities Corporation has an immediate and scalable opportunity to further impact climate change," said Thomas Spangler, CleanBay Renewables' executive chairman, in a statement. "Our process to turn poultry litter into renewable natural gas is a sustainable, environmentally friendly way to both positively influence our region's poultry ecosystem and reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions for end-use customers, including powering vehicle fleets with clean, green energy."

The Westover bio-refinery can repurpose more than 150,000 tons of chicken litter annually, which is equal to 765,000 million British thermal units of natural gas — enough energy to power about 10,000 homes, the announcement says.

I'm all for it, but the article doesn't deal with the other byproducts of biogas production from chicken shit, the nitrogen and phosphorus, which are the focus of the problems of applying chicken shit to farm fields in the Bay area. If I read this article on the production of biogas from manure, in addition to the biogas (mostly methane and CO2), the byproduct is a sludge, which presumably still contains the bulk of the N and P in the original shit.

Now, one could imagine that the sludge is trucked out of the Bay region to be put on farm fields, but simple economics suggests it will be used fairly close to the point of origin. It's not going to magically disappear.

You Can't See the Forests For the Powerplant

Drax Power Station, North Yorkshire, England

Green Shock: Entire Forests Being Murdered to Produce Wood Pellet Biomass

Greens have discovered to their horror that producing renewable wood pellet biomass requires a large supply of dead trees.

Hardwood forests cut down to feed Drax Power plant, Channel 4 Dispatches claims
Brendan Montague | 16th April 2018
A Dispatches investigation has uncovered evidence of hardwood forests being chopped down to provide ‘green energy’ for the UK. Experts say unique habitats rich in wildlife are under threat as Britain’s power stations switch from burning coal to wood, writes BRENDAN MONTAGUE
Huge areas of hardwood forest in the state of Virginia are being chainsawed to create ‘biomass’ energy in Britain as the government attempts to reach targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in efforts to tackle climate change, an investigation by Channel 4 Dispatches has found.
A key part of government efforts to hit its green energy targets is to switch from generating electricity from burning coal to burning wood – or so-called biomass. It’s a policy that is costing taxpayers more than £700 million per year through a levy on their electricity bills.
The biomass industry and government argue that because wood is a renewable source of energy and trees can be replanted to reabsorb carbon dioxide this policy is good for the environment.

The power station giant claims that burning pellets instead of coal reduces carbon emissions by more than 80 percent.
However, Dispatches conducted a simple experiment at a laboratory at the University of Nottingham to compare the carbon dioxide emitted when burning wood pellets, similar to those used by Drax, instead of coal.
Dozens of scientists
It found that to burn an amount of wood pellets that would generate the same amount of electricity as coal it would actually produce roughly eight percent more carbon.
…
Read more: https://theecologist.org/2018/apr/16/hardwood-forests-cut-down-feed-drax-power-plant-channel-4-dispatches-claims

Lets hope the next Dispatches investigation is a wind turbine special titled “where have all our birds gone?“.

Burning wood for heat (which is all a power plant does, with either wood or coal) is slightly more efficient than coal in terms of CO2 produced, because wood is also partly hydrogen, being a long chain carbohydrate. However, most of the claims of carbon dioxide savings is due to the renewable nature of wood. In theory, you can burn the wood, producing CO2, while existing trees continue to soak up equivalent amounts of CO2 from the air to build biomass. However, to run that as a cycle with no net output of CO2 would require an enormous forest tract to tap continuously, and no losses to fossil fuel use in the growing, harvesting, and transportation of the wood for fuel. And I know for a fact that the ships carrying the wood from Virginia to England don't run on wood, electricity, wind power or nuclear. They use oil, either diesel or bunker oil.

Algae, the Fuel of the Future

The thing about the future is that sometimes it never arrives: “Hard Lessons From the Great Algae Biofuel Bubble”

From 2005 to 2012, dozens of companies managed to extract hundreds of millions in cash from VCs in hopes of ultimately extracting fuel oil from algae.
CEOs, entrepreneurs and investors were making huge claims about the promise of algae-based biofuels; the U.S. Department of Energy was also making big bets through its bioenergy technologies office; industry advocates claimed that commercial algae fuels were within near-term reach.
Jim Lane of Biofuels Digest authored what was possibly history’s least accurate market forecast, projecting that algal biofuel capacity would reach 1 billion gallons by 2014. In 2009, Solazyme promised competitively priced fuel from algae by 2012. Algenol planned to make 100 million gallons of ethanol annually in Mexico’s Sonoran Desert by the end of 2009 and 1 billion gallons by the end of 2012 at a production rate of 10,000 gallons per acre. PetroSun looked to develop an algae farm network of 1,100 acres of saltwater ponds that could produce 4.4 million gallons of algal oil and 110 million pounds of biomass per year.
Nothing close to 1 billion (or even 1 million) gallons has yet been achieved — nor has competitive pricing.
[…]
The promise of algae is tantalizing. Some algal species contain up to 40 percent lipids by weight, a figure that could be boosted further through selective breeding and genetic modification. That basic lipid can be converted into diesel, synthetic petroleum, butanol or industrial chemicals.
According to some sources, an acre of algae could yield 5,000 to 10,000 gallons of oil a year, making algae far more productive than soy (50 gallons per acre), rapeseed (110 to 145 gallons), jatropha (175 gallons), palm (650 gallons), or cellulosic ethanol from poplars (2,700 gallons).
[…]
Green Tech Media

Algae can grow really fast given ideal conditions, but they're still limited by sunlight light falling on the surface of the earth, like solar power, a

The problem with algal biofuel is this:

According to some sources, an acre of algae could yield 5,000 to 10,000 gallons of oil a year, making algae far more productive than…

10,000 gallons is 238 barrels per acre. A typical oil well in the Gulf of Mexico yields 300-500 barrels per acre*foot and a typical reservoir is 50-100′ thick. This works out to 15,000 to 50,000 barrels per acre over the life of the well. Assuming the well produced for 10 years, this works out to 1,500 to 5,000 barrels per acre per year.

Gallons of Oil per Acre per Year     Min        Max
Algae                                              5,000      10,000
Typical GOM Oil Field                    63,000   210,000

Granted, there are a lot of differences between crude oil and algal oil… And, hypothetically, the acre of algae is “renewable”… However, 1 acre of algae requires 1 acre of land. An oil well only requires the acreage that it’s production facility covers. Oil reservoirs can cover 100’s or 1,000’s of acres, can be well over 100′ thick and often occur in stacked sequences.

Shell’s Mars oil field (Mississippi Canyon 807) has produced about 1.3 billion barrels of oil and 1.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas since 1996. This works out to about 1.6 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE). The “footprint” of the field (platform + outline of directional wells) covers about 11,000 acres. The field has averaged over 6,700 BOE (over 280,000 gallons) per acre per year from 1996-2016.

The math was never hard to do.  From the beginning, it could easily be seen that biofuels of any sort would never make a good replacement for oil if economics were considered. It was always a way for politicians to buy and cultivate friends.

GAO Predicts EPA Renewable Fuel Failure

GAO: EPA fuel program set to fail

The Environmental Protection Agency's renewable fuel program is bound to fail over the next five years, a federal watchdog agency said Monday, citing the low cost of oil and the relatively high cost of green fuels.

The Government Accountability Office released two reports showing that the EPA's Renewable Fuel Standard will not reach its 2022 production target of blending 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel per year into the nation's fuel supply, while failing to achieve its greenhouse gas emission reductions.
. . .
"It is unlikely that the goals of the RFS will be met as envisioned because there is limited production of advanced biofuels to be blended into domestic transportation fuels and limited potential for expanded production by 2022," one of the two GAO reports said.

The reports showed that advanced biofuels are the primary sticking point. Under the program, the fuels are expected to comprise nearly half of the total 2022 target. The fuels are also mandated to be lower in carbon pollution than more conventional biofuels such as corn ethanol. But without adequate production, the climate change benefits of the program have been lower than expected.

We can grow enough corn, and make enough ethanol by fermentation to satisfy the demand. However, the promise of easy and cheap fuel from random biomass (cheat grass or algae) has been like a mirage; always on the horizon, and never near.

It can't fail soon enough for me. Corn ethanol has been a disaster from every aspect. It takes more energy to produce than it produces, it's taken land out of wild area to turn into field, it's ruined motors, and it's raised food prices.

But alas, it has been a bipartisan folly, with democrat envirogreenies, and republican farm interests combining to keep this nightmare program alive. And I fear the Trump administration, with it's dependence on mid-west votes, and it's willingness to interfere in markets, is not likely to fix this.

She Probably Wasn't Hired for Her Brains

Weather Channel Reporter: Haitian Kids are Eating Trees and Causing Deforestation



Personally, I appreciate a hint of oak in my bourbon or wine, but they're terrible in salads

But at least she learns, if slowly: Weather Channel Meteorologist Apologizes For Haitian Children 'Eat Trees' Comment

Delgado later issued a on-air apology, that some say is not enough.

"I want to begin by apologizing for a statement I made yesterday that was found inappropriate," she said. "My intention is always to inform and educate."

Which would make it more imperative that you know your facts.

Delgado also posted an apology to her Facebook page.

But many commenters noted her statement was not simply "inappropriate", it was false.

"You lied on TV. You deserve to be dismissed," wrote McKenzie Fleurimond, a former North Miami Beach councilman.

As they say on Seinfeld, it's not a lie if you believe it. The truth is that Haitians burn trees to cook their food, because they're too poor to afford fossil fuels. That's called a sustainable biofuel.

Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Tuesday: Birthday Edition" up at The Other McCain.

EPA Ignores Law in Ethanol Mandates

EPA admits never studying effects of ethanol as required by law

After being repeatedly poked on the subject by the Associate Press, the Inspector General for the EPA admitted this week that the agency has simply ignored those instructions and the studies were never conducted. (AT&T Live)

The Obama administration has failed to study as legally required the impact of requiring ethanol in gasoline and ensuring that new regulations intended to address one problem do not actually make other problems worse, the Environmental Protection Agency inspector general said Thursday.
The conclusion in the new audit confirmed findings of an Associated Press investigation in November 2013. The AP said the administration never conducted studies to determine whether air and water quality benefits from adding corn-based ethanol to gasoline. Such reports to Congress were required every three years under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.

Can you imagine what the EPA would do if a fossil fuel or mining company simply ignored the law requiring them to study the environmental consequences of their actions?

Given the ongoing debates on the subject, up to and including arguments between the presidential candidates all through the primary battles of both parties for two straight election cycles it’s rather amazing that the EPA could simply blow this off. The topic has made it into the platform committee discussions for both parties and it engulfs a variety of questions ranging from environmental impact to government mandates. There have been hearings held on the hill and endless scholarly papers penned on both sides of the debate.

But they don't have to study it, because deep in their hearts, they have an almost religious conviction that the ethanol mandates are good for, well somebody.

Ethanol is hardly without controversy. On the production side it’s been repeatedly shown that it uses up to 300% more water than anyone expected. Vast amounts of land were converted to corn fields in the rush to cash in on the government mandate, causing all manner of environmental havoc. And the resulting fuel has been problematic at best. Consumer Reports has been warning for years that ethanol blends can destroy small engines and boat motors. In fact, this mandate has spawned an entire new industry which produces additives specifically designed to remove the ethanol which the government insists must be added to our gasoline. (There’s an unexpected government stimulus program for you.)

You see this over and over. The administration, or rather really, the permanent bureaucracy that nominally answers to the administration regardless of who is in office, decides that parts of the law that allegedly bind them into doing something will simply not be enforced. After all, who will impose the laws will on EPA? I suppose the Justice Department could, perhaps, but there's no joy in that; they'd rather spend their time looking for white collar criminals and people suspected of harboring prejudices against protected classes. And itself, another case.

EPA, like most agencies now, has men with assault rifles available to support their directives against the public, but where in the government is the agency will to deploy them against the EPA when it refuses to follow the law? Hell, they can't even hardly be fired, let alone fined if they break the law.

Couldn't We Just Drink it Instead?

The new EPA ethanol mandate will break the Blend Wall

The EPA is getting ready to finalize their new ethanol blending mandates for the nation’s gasoline supply beginning next year and industry experts are already raising the alarm. This latest chapter in the saga of the Renewable Fuel Standard will drive almost an addition three quarters of a billion gallons of the “biofuel” into our gasoline and it’s going to bust through the blend wall which small engine manufacturers (as well as the automotive industry) have been warning us about for ages. (Washington Times)

The Environmental Protection Agency’s move to add more ethanol to gasoline will wreak havoc on lawn mowers, snow blowers, boats and even cars, say critics.
Mixing an additional 700 million gallons of ethanol and other biofuels into the nation’s fuel supply to meet a goal of 18.8 billion gallons in 2017 will raise the biofuel percentage to 10.44 percent, or past the “blend wall” after which car engines can be damaged, said Heartland Institute research fellow Isaac Orr.
“It’s hard for anyone to argue that the renewable fuel standard has been a good policy, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to increase the amount of ethanol in the nation’s fuel supply means this train wreck of a policy will continue for at least another year,” Mr. Orr said in a Thursday statement.
“Owners of small engines like lawn mowers, snow blowers, and boats are hurt by ethanol mandates because ethanol is hard on these engines,” he said.

I have too much direct experience with this subject to simply ignore what the EPA is up to this time. We’ve already had to deal with the issue of boat engines for years since we spend a fair amount of time each summer fishing in my family. You can’t put ethanol laced gasoline into your boat’s outboard motor for any period of time without it simply dying and requiring costly repairs. There are gas treatments which alleviate the problem to a large degree, but not everyone trusts them 100% and it’s just another added operational expense.

The only time I have ever had to be towed off the Bay was caused by water in the gas, due to ethanol in the gas (ethanol free gas is not available in our area).

Ethanol laced gasoline, so called gasohol, has been a bipartisan folly. It doesn't save carbon, it's benefits as a fuel are nearly offset by the loss of mileage (what good does having 10% ethanol in the gas doe, if your mileage drops 10% as a result), it drives up food prices, puts more land into agricultural production (and most farm equipment doesn't run on ethanol). But it makes farmers money, and it makes environmentalists feel better, so it just Keeps on Keepin' on.

PA to Allow Unlimited Shitty Power Generation by Farmers

Ruling: Farmers can continue to sell excess power from manure digesters to utilities

A new state regulatory decision will allow farmers to continue selling electricity from manure-based digesters to utilities.

The digesters have been pushed as one way for agriculture to reduce nutrients that pollute the Chesapeake Bay.

Pennsylvania's Public Utility Commission in its ruling last Thursday exempted manure-fueled electricity generators at farms in the Chesapeake Bay watershed — including those in Lancaster County  — from new caps on how much electricity utility companies are required to buy from them at retail prices.

Under this law, (and there are many like it regarding "renewable energy"), farmers are allowed to sell any power they generate using manure digesters back to power distributors at retail rates. It's a bit like if grocery stores were required to buy peoples home grown tomatoes back at the price marked on the bin, even if they weren't quite as regular, and needed to be cleaned and displayed for sale. Do you think they'd be very happy about it?

Utilities aren't happy about purchasing excess power at retail price, which is higher than the wholesale price used to purchase most of their power.

That and costs associated with putting the excess alternative-energy power into electrical grid will have to be borne by other consumers, and that is unfair, utilities argue.

Initially, the commission had sided with the utilities and proposed limiting excess energy purchase to 110 percent beyond the alternative energy producer’s needs. However, Thursday, the commission voted 3-2 vote to raise the ceiling to 200 percent.

And, they exempted methane digesters at farms in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. In Lancaster County, that applies to at least nine farms.

It makes it look like the  power companies are paying for the renewable power. Of course, that's not true, ultimately the consumers are paying the price in increased rates.

Can the "Boater Voters" Change the Election?

Super Tuesday “boater voters” and the Renewable Fuel Standard

. . .

As we enter 2016, Americans must now comply with the new Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) volumes, which were set late last year. The latest iteration of the regulation calls for 18.11 billion gallons of renewable fuel to be blended with gasoline, an amount over 4 billion gallons short of the EPA’s original target of 22.25 gallons. The final regulation shows that the EPA has failed once again to get the RFS on track to comply with the goals of the Energy Policy Act. As the EPA struggles to find enough renewable fuel to meet its goals, it may be time to consider a reset on this costly, uncertain, and challenging regulation…
The RFS has an impact on fuel prices. Ethanol is more expensive per gallon than gasoline. The current fuel prices (dated 1/27/16) are $1.05/gallon for RBOB gasoline (Reformulated Gasoline Blendstock for Oxygen Blending), and $1.40/gallon for ethanol.* Ethanol also has a lower energy density than gasoline (reflected in fuel efficiency), and it takes 1.51 gallons of ethanol to achieve the energy of a single gallon of gasoline, meaning at current prices it costs $1.06 more for the same amount of energy. The latest RFS will require 14.5 billion gallons of ethanol to be blended, which will have the energy equivalent of 9.6 billion gallons of gasoline. If the cost difference continues to be around $0.35/gallon higher for ethanol, then the RFS could end up costing consumers around $10 billion in 2016. Even if the gap compresses to around $0.20 (what was originally projected for 2016), the costs would still be around $9 billion.

The blending gap is slowly but surely being felt, though current, rock bottom oil prices around the globe are muting the effect on prices at the pump for now. But there are more concerns regarding ethanol than the bite out of your wallet, and they are of particular interest to fisherman and boaters… the “boater voters” if you prefer. (This segment of the voting population is even more massive in the south than other parts of the nation.) Over the years, we’ve seen a constant stream of complaints from outdoor sports enthusiasts, such as this one which warns that ethanol is deadly for outboard motors.

Just when you believe government regulations can’t get any more bizarre, intrusive, or anti-business, along comes the EPA opening the way for E15 gasoline…
Although all major manufacturers of outboard motors reports their engines run just fine on E10 fuel (E15 support is doubtful, and, in fact, may void warrantees), spokespersons for those same companies know that in the real world of fishing and boating, ethanol-added fuel has been a disaster.

Their complaints come from real world experience and are very specific to the boating community, but also apply to most other small engines. They include:

• Ethanol is hygroscopic, meaning it has a strong attraction to moisture.
• Ethanol increases the amount of water accumulating in fuel tanks.
• Ethanol produces less energy (BTUs) than an equivalent unit of gasoline.
• Ethanol fuel’s usable life span may be less than the normal length of off-season boat storage.

Corn ethanol is a bipartisan folly. It hardly saves any fossil fuel, puts more land into corn production, and yet takes food out of the economy, and if you worry about carbon emissions, it doesn't help much there either.

And yet Cruz beat Trump in Iowa despite, or perhaps even because of his opposition to corn ethanol, and the Donald's support for it. I'd love to see Cruz hammer him in the south on this issue that will clearly resonate even better among the boaters in the Republican Party in the south.

I personally hate ethanol in gas. The only time I ever had to be towed off the Bay was due to water build up in my gas tank due to ethanol.

Iowa?

Iowa's quadrennial day in the sun is past, the results are in, and they can go back to producing the corn needed to feed animals and men, and to brew into carshine that nobody really wants to burn in cars, but that Iowa's have lobbied to have made mandatory.

Don't Come Home, Marty

Onto the business of the day. On the Democrat side, the results show Hillary Clinton with a razor thin victory over Sanders, with 700 votes to his 695. Martin O'Malley's delusional dream fetched him 8 votes (less than 1%), and his dropping out has not only clarified the race by leaving the choice between a slightly demented socialist with no accomplishments, and a brain damaged Peronist apparatchik with negative accomplishments possessing female genitalia, but it has raised the average age of the democratic candidates from 65 to 72. It has not affected the color balance one whit, however.

This result suggests to me that the kids and old hippies feeling the Bern aren't likely going to be active enough to stop Hillary's long march to the nomination, which is all but wrapped up by superdelegates to the Democratic convention in any event. I would guess that the only things that could derail Hillary now are a sudden health crisis, or serious charges from the Department of Justice. My guess is that someday very soon either Loretta Lynch or Barack Obama himself will come out with a statement that it would be wrong to let a criminal process interfere with the coronation election of the next Democrat.

On the Republican side, the results are nearly a three way tie, Cruz 28%, Trump 24% and Rubio 23%, Carson a distant 9% and the wannabes trailing in their wakes. This suggests to me that the media supported Trump hype is somewhat overblown, and that many of his supporters may seem earnest, they won't necessarily be the most reliable voters. In other words, Reagan democrats. The victory of Cruz in Iowa is amazing given his outspoken (and principled) opposition to corn ethanol as mandatory auto fuel. The race just became a little less depressing for me.

Time to get the band back together

In the undercard,  Paul > Bush > Fiorina > Kasich > Huckabee > Christie > Santorum. Huckabee has had enough abuse, and dropped out.  How many Presidents from Hope, Arkansas, can we stand? I can't see anyone in this crowd making it, and it's time some more of them dropped out. Santorum is considering his options and  Jeb spent approximately $2900 per vote in Iowa. While I commend him for redistributing the lucre of his wealthy donors to sign makers and TV advertisers, I can't see this as sustainable. You might gamble on South Carolina, but how many more ads can you put on Fox?

So I guess all the party of old white men from flyover states has to offer a Hispano-Canadio-American, a Cuban Floridian, a New Yorker, and a female business executive, among others. Fiorina is in it for VP, and that's fine.

EPA Goes Into the Art Business

EPA fraudster's biofuel booty hits the auction block

The luxury auction house Christie's will begin auctioning off $15 million of ill-gotten artwork obtained from renewable fuel fraudsters, after they were caught selling fake credits used to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency's biofuel program to major oil companies and refiners.

The fraud scandal unfolded in the early part of the decade and is widely considered a black mark on the EPA Renewable Fuel Standard program, or RFS.

The EPA program requires oil companies and refiners to blend ethanol, biodiesel and a host of other advanced fuels into the nation's fuel supply or be penalized.

The scandal crushed the market value of clean diesel credits, forcing many biofuel companies to file for bankruptcy, while sparking the ire of oil companies that were fined by the EPA for using the phony credits, even though it was proven they were unaware that the credits were fake.

Refiners forced the EPA to devise a rule that would make biofuel firms responsible for verifying credits before selling them on the open market by third-party auditors. And all this because of a few bad apples in the biofuels bunch.

Christie's will be auctioning off the $15 million worth of highly sought-after photography, which one of the fraudulent companies, Green Diesel, used to launder its millions. The international art publication of record, Art Newspaper, says the U.S. Attorney General Office of New Jersey recently "consigned the confiscated works to Christie's, which will sell them in a series of themed auctions" in New York starting Feb. 17.

Yet another reason to get rid of the Renewable Fuel Standard program, as if the facts that gasohol is not saving energy, not reducing carbon dioxide output (if you care), damaging and ruining motors, increasing air pollution,  putting more land under agriculture and increasing water pollution, and raising food prices. It was an idea so bad it took both parties to promote it.

Actually, cheating on the program was probably a net benefit.

Enviros Oppose Chickenshit Energy Plan

Petitioners: Chicken poop not renewable energy

A group has organized a petition drive to declassify chicken manure as a renewable energy source in Maryland.

Food and Water Watch, a consumer advocacy group, says the state categorizes burning animal waste and trash with its top-tier renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, which receive incentives. The petitioners believe incinerating poultry poop can be as hazardous to the environment as burning coal.

"While I guess technically trash and animal waste are renewable, it violates the spirit and intention of the RPS," said Phil Ateto, a solar energy consultant, using the acronym for Maryland's renewable portfolio standards.

My bold. I guess he doesn't want chickenshit burners competing for his precious renewable energy subsidies.

A handful of residents rallied in Annapolis Wednesday before they said they would deliver 700 petitions and 30 handwritten letters to House Speaker Michael E. Busch's staff. They stood in front of miniature wind turbines.

Gov. Larry Hogan and Democrats reached a deal earlier this year on how to address chicken manure, which flows off farms into the Chesapeake Bay and pollutes the water. Under new rules, most farmers will have up to nine years to stop adding more manure to their land.

One of the reasons to support chickenshit burning power plants, aside from the their being at least partially renewable power, is that it also serves the purpose of getting rid of the nutrients in the poop, which otherwise would likely end up in the Bay.

For amusement, one might also want to look at this chart of environmental energy groups to guess at their real agenda. Click to enlarge.

Serving Up More Clinton.com Schadenfreude

Before we wander off into the server stuff, just a reminder that Clinton.com is really a giant scheme for transferring money to the Clinton's personal use:

Clinton Foundation Donors Sold ‘Green’ Fuel to Military for $149 per Gallon

The CEO and Board of Directors of Solazyme, a company the military paid $149 per gallon for “alternative” fuel, have donated more than $300,000 to Democratic candidates and committees, according to aWashington Free Beacon analysis.

Recipients of significant donations included the Obama Victory Fund and the Democratic National Committee. Additionally, Solazyme donated between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

A Congressional Research Service (CRS) report found that the Department of Defense (DOD) paid Solazyme $149 per gallon for fuel made of algal oil, costing taxpayers a total of $223,500 in 2009. The group also received a $21 million stimulus grant from Department of Energy in 2009.

Such a deal! Clinton's get free money to play with, and you get the bill.

And now, back to the Hillary Clinton State Department email scandal. Intelligence community wants Clinton’s security clearance suspended

Security experts say that if Hillary Rodham Clinton retained her government security clearance when she left the State Department, as is normal practice, it should be suspended now that it is known her unprotected private email server contained top secret material.

“Standard procedure is that when there is evidence of a security breach, the clearance of the individual is suspended in many, but not all, cases,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. William Boykin, who was deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence in the George W. Bush administration. “This rises to the level of requiring a suspension.”

A State Department official declined to comment on whether Mrs. Clinton still holds her clearance or whether it is under review by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, which awards and suspends security clearances.

Does this mean we can expect equal treatment? Hmmm: Petraeus investigator managing DoJ probe into Hillary server

The investigation into The Saga of the Secret Server took a couple of interesting turns yesterday evening. Many critics of the slow response from the Department of Justice to Hillary Clinton’s exclusive use of an unauthorized and unsecured secret server have wondered why the Obama administration seemed much more interested in prosecuting former CIA Director and Iraq War genius David Petraeus for a less-impactful exposure. The Washington Post’s Carol Leonnig, Karen Tumulty, and Rosalind Helderman noted at the bottom of their late-afternoon roundup that the pressure may be picking up after all:

The investigation is being overseen by two veteran prosecutors in the Justice Department’s National Security Division. One of them helped manage the prosecution of David H. Petraeus, the retired general and former CIA director who was sentenced to probation earlier this year after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified materials. He was also fined $100,000.

The Post also noted that Hillary’s initial public declarations on this have turned out to be “false,” in their terminology . . .

What? She lied? Whodda thunk? But would an equivalent decision and punishment actually hurt Hillary's prospects? I doubt it. Her husband lied under oath, and was punished by having his license to practice law removed. It didn't affect his popularity among democrats substantially.

Poll: Two percent of voters think Hillary told the truth about e-mail server — and only three percent of Democrats

In a poll of 1,008 registered voters, 58% say Hillary lied about the e-mails, and 54% believe she damaged national security:

A Fox News poll released Friday finds a 58 percent majority thinks Clinton “knowingly lied” when she announced in a March press conference that no emails on her private server contained classified information.  A third says there is “another explanation” for internal government investigators determining secret info was in fact on Clinton’s server (33 percent).
Moreover, by a 54-37 percent margin, voters feel Clinton put our national security at risk by using a private email server.

The poll gave three options: Clinton lied, There’s another explanation, and Clinton told the truth. Only 2% overall think Hillary told the truth, a staggeringly bad number, and only 33% overall think there’s another explanation than Hillary lying.  On option 3, the internals on this poll are instructive. The highest that Clinton told the truth polls in the demographics is 5% among black voters, where 63% choose another explanation. Among Democrats, the number is a whopping three percent. And among younger voters — who are presumably very familiar with e-mail — the “Hillary’s honest” option didn’t get enough responses to register.

Frankly, this question is designed to let respondents get off the hook for deciding whether Hillary lied or not. The middle option of another explanation implies incompetency — not exactly a good look for a presidential candidate — or some milder form of dishonesty. And yet, not many voters took the middle option. Self-described liberal, Democrats, and black voters all had majorities choosing the less-bad option, but almost none of them chose told the truth.

In short, she's a liar, but she's our liar.

And Hillary is displaying pride in her ability to hide her corruption: Hillary on Snapchat: I love how messages 'disappear all by themselves'

Clinton joked at the annual Iowa Democratic Wing Ding on Friday that social media service Snapchat, known for messages that disappear instantly, is perfect for her.

“By the way, you may have seen that I have recently launched a Snapchat account,” she said. “I love it — those messages disappear all by themselves.”

Are she and Huma swapping nude selfies? Not that there's anything wrong with that.

And Jonah Goldberg notes how the Hillary supporting MSM is shifting blame from Hillary to the server itself:

. . .The first rule of Clintonism is that someone else is always to blame.

That’s why the first iteration of Clinton’s defense was that evil Republicans were simply smearing her.

When that didn’t stick, Team Clinton expanded the indictment to include the partisan witch hunt by that famously right-wing organ the New York Times and two independent inspectors general (one at the State Department, the other for the intelligence community).

The reason the intelligence community’s IG referred the case to the Justice Department stems from the apparent fact that Clinton mishandled classified information, which she denied.

An investigation into a random sample of just 40 e-mails from a batch of more than 30,000 revealed that four contained classified information and at least two were “top secret.”

So now that the FBI and the Justice Department, both run by Obama appointees, are on the case, attacking the motives of inconvenient people no longer works. So the Clinton campaign has invoked a little-known codicil to the first rule of Clintonism: Blame an inanimate object.

The amazing thing is that this spin isn’t coming directly from the campaign but from the reporters covering it.

National Public Radio’s Tamara Keith reported Wednesday morning that the inquiry “isn’t targeted directly at [Clinton]” and is simply intended to determine whether the server was secure.

Business Insider reported that “Clinton’s private server is under investigation by the FBI, though Clinton is not a target of the investigation.”

Even the conservative Washington Free Beacon has fallen into using this locution, referring to the “private e-mail server being investigated by the FBI.”

McClatchy’s Anita Kumar, who helped break the story that two of the e-mails were top secret, felt compelled to step on her own scoop.

She said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that “there are several investigations into her conduct, not into her, but into her use of personal e-mail and a personal server.”
. . .
Hopefully the server will one day be able to testify on its own behalf: “I was just following orders.”

Vermont Dying to be Green

Vermont Struggles With Renewables

Along with the shuttering of the state’s largest generating station came dreams of windmills, solar collectors, and other “clean and green” options that would soon be taking its place. Like many other states and nations, Like many other states and nations, Vermont has assumed that passing laws mandating renewable energy quotas will solve the problem. The state has set a goal for itself of 55 percent renewables by 2017, 75 percent by 2032 and 90 percent by 2050. The figure now is 17 percent.

But like most other players, the Green Mountain State is finding that those goals must be tempered and sometimes outright abandoned. To date the most widespread initiative for switching to renewable energy has been importing hydropower from Quebec. The Canadians are proposing two cables that will run beneath Lake Champlain, one to southern New England and the other to New York City. Burlington and other Vermont cities would probably feed off of this.
. . .
Other attempts to go green have met with indifferent success. Several proposals to put windmills atop the Green Mountains – the obvious place for them – have been shouted down or stalled by local objections. An early attempt to put a new wood-burning plant right across the Massachusetts border was also quickly defeated – it would create air pollution. The project was also dampened by a Massachusetts study which concluded that burning trees for energy would soon exhaust the state’s forest resources.
. . .
Ironically, while some environmentalists have been developing small dams, others have been campaigning to tear down small dams around the state. The Newport 11 dam was recently removed from the Clyde River and other small dams are under fire. The strategy resembles one pursued for years by the Sierra Club, which favors small dams globally but campaigns to tear them down locally. Warshow developed three other small dams around the state.

As for wind power, the BED states as follows: “A small wind turbine is located at the Pine Street offices of BED and serves as a demonstration project designed to determine how much electricity can be generated from the Wind at the lake-front site.” BED does contract for wind electricity generated in other parts of the country. Finally, the BED admits employing “gas turbines [of] up to 25 MW, primarily used as a peaking unit and in emergencies.” The progress of solar energy has been slow. Burlington put solar collectors on the roof of is airport terminal and Rutland has built a 2 MW solar farm on an abandoned landfill.

Vermont is small enough that "Not In My BackYard" translates to "Not In My State." Which is OK, I guess if you produce enough goods and services for other people willing to tolerate the aesthetic and moral assaults of producing power. But if your economy is dependent on tourism, cutting down the forests periodically  to run the boilers hardly seems a winning strategy.

Enviromental, Social Justice Concerns Slow Maryland Shit Burning Power Plant

MD manure-to-energy plant appears to be going nowhere

Maryland was supposed to be deep into the planning stages for a manure-to-energy plant by now, a plant that was a key component in the state’s strategy to reduce pollution from poultry manure.

The state signed a contract in October 2013 with Maryland Bio Energy, a subsidiary of California-based Green Planet Power Solutions, to construct a power plant on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The plant was to turn 175,000 tons of poultry manure — about 75 percent of Maryland’s Eastern Shore’s excess manure — into electricity. The state and the University of Maryland signed on as customers. A federal subsidy was in place. The plant was to be built in the fall of 2015 and to generate energy by 2016.

Its construction would have given poultry growers a safe place to take manure they could not use as fertilizer because of new rules designed to reduce pollution from phosphorus. Many of the Eastern Shore’s fields are saturated with phosphorus, and poultry manure is phosphorus-rich.

Instead, the state’s manure-to-energy plan appears stalled. Neither Green Planet Power Solutions nor Maryland Bio Energy have applied for the necessary air permits from the Maryland Department of the Environment, according to officials there. That permit review alone would likely take 11 months — the amount of time that the MDE estimates when public concern mounts in a public review process.

Getting rid of Maryland's excess chicken shit, so that farmers won't spread it on their fields and contribute to the eutrophication of the Chesapeake Bay? What could possibly be wrong with that?

Several environmental groups, including the Assateague Coastkeeper and Chesapeake Climate Action Network, oppose various aspects of the proposed plant. They are concerned about high ammonia emissions and health consequences.

What? You mean burning shit is even dirtier than burning coal, Maryland's traditional way of generating power? Whoda thunk?

Several local environmentalists are concerned about that site because it’s close to an African-American neighborhood. There is a growing concern in the Chesapeake Bay watershed — and everywhere else — that minority and lower-income communities have disproportionately borne the brunt of industrial processes, whether they are massive chicken operations or incinerators. Somerset County planning director Gary Pusey said the company would need a special exception to operate a manure-to-energy plant there. That application process would take at least six months, he said, and could take longer with public opposition.

We could satisfy the social justice people by claiming some land in  Montgomery (Maryland's wealthiest) to erect the shit burning power plant, and then truck or railroad thousands of tons of chickenshit through the suburbs to the power plant? I'm sure that will go over well.

Sadly, It's Not Too Dumb

From the New York Times, through Wombat-socho's "In the Mailbox, 01.29.15", Tom McGuire at Just One Minute reminds us biofuels are : Too Dumb Even For Environmentalists

Biofuels make little sense - who knew?

Western governments have made a wrong turn in energy policy by supporting the large-scale conversion of plants into fuel and should reconsider that strategy, according to a new report from a prominent environmental think tank.

Turning plant matter into liquid fuel or electricity is so inefficient that the approach is unlikely ever to supply a substantial fraction of global energy demand, the report found. It added that continuing to pursue this strategy — which has already led to billions of dollars of investment — is likely to use up vast tracts of fertile land that could be devoted to helping feed the world’s growing population.

If you're not in favor of nuclear energy, you're not really in favor of a sustainable energy plan, you just hate the human race. Do us a favor and leave:

. . .under mandates adopted by Congress during the George W. Bush administration and supported by the Obama administration, as much as 30 percent to 40 percent of the American corn crop is being turned into fuel for cars each year, displacing about 6 percent of the nation’s demand for gasoline.

Several studies have found that the policy has helped drive up global food prices, has worsened some types of air pollution and has done relatively little to reduce overall emissions of carbon dioxide, the gas primarily responsible for global warming.

But the madness continues driven by the power of ignorance and good intentions in the environmental community, and rent seeking by the farming community. A true unholy alliance.

Electric Cars, Not So Green

This, of course, is not really news, but to have the AP admit the obvious is rather novel:

Study: Your All-Electric Car May Not Be So Green

Charging a car with coal 

The key is where the source of the electricity all-electric cars. If it comes from coal, the electric cars produce 3.6 times more soot and smog deaths than gas, because of the pollution made in generating the electricity, according to the study that is published Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They also are significantly worse at heat-trapping carbon dioxide that worsens global warming, it found.
. . .
The study finds all-electric vehicles cause 86 percent more deaths from air pollution than do cars powered by regular gasoline. Coal produces 39 percent of the country's electricity, according to the Department of Energy.

But if the power supply comes from natural gas, the all-electric car produces half as many air pollution health problems as gas-powered cars do. And if the power comes from wind, water or wave energy, it produces about one-quarter of the air pollution deaths. Hybrids and diesel engines are cleaner than gas, causing fewer air pollution deaths and spewing less heat-trapping gas.

But ethanol isn't, with 80 percent more air pollution mortality, according to the study.
"If we're using ethanol for environmental benefits, for air quality and climate change, we're going down the wrong path," Hill said.

Of course, these are largely "statistical deaths"; deaths calculated to have occurred by a model which extrapolates from studies using much greater concentrations of pollutants than found in the real world, and using a number of assumptions including "no threshold" which "produces" deaths at very low levels of pollution, given the exposure of a sufficiently large population.

What the proponents of this model usually forget to tell people is that indoor air pollution, from local sources is much greater than outdoor pollution, and probably causes far greater mortality.