Comment

Comment by John Paul Jones on February 5, 2012 at 10:54am

Jerry E. Jones, you made my point for me, technology is good; yes there are many jobs that will disappear but there are always new ones to take their place as technology improves.  This is what I loved about America it was the place of creation productivity and innovation now we don't produce anything to speak of in this country.  We need, no we must get back to the basics of what made this country the greatest in the world.  Putting people to work allows progress to occur, it gives people the power to get somewhere and be creative.  Your right education is the key to success and this country has failed greatly but that is another story.  Drilling and Building at this point in time will fuel creation of an America so that it can stand on its own produce its own products and secure its future. 

Comment by David Ammerman on February 5, 2012 at 1:42am

I like Ron Paul's idea to lower the tax rate's for producers of goods. It's simple, and would make them more competitive, and beable to absorb the cost of  regulations.  Free trade is a great idea unless your fighting with one hand tied behind your back.

 

 

Comment by Jerry E. Jones on February 4, 2012 at 8:09pm

employment.  In the period from 1979 to 1999, manufacturing employment held steady at around 18 million jobs.  But in just the small time from 1999 to now, manufacturing employment has steadily decreased to only 12 million jobs.  In that same period, manufacturing output in the U.S. has grown from $1.5 trillion to $3.5 trillion.  During the job decline from 1999 to 2007, as jobs decreased by 30%, manufacturing output in the U.S. grew from $3 trillion up to a high of $3.5 trillion -- a 8% increase.  It dropped a little in 2008, but is back up to about $3.3 trilllion.

Just as jobs producing food in the U.S. dropped dramatically in the last century -- food production has increased, due to machinery and automation.  Just look at a large John Deere tractor today -- the operator (farmer) sits in a huge air conditioned cab, with surround sound stereo, while a GPS system tracks moisture content of the soil, past years crop yields, and distributes the seed and fertilizer automatically.  We not only produce more than 90% of the food consumed in the U.S., we also feed a very large segment of the rest of the world.  What we are seeing is the same thing in manufacturing.  Cycle times on assembly lines in Detroit today are generally less than 70 seconds.  Humans cannot possibly do those jobs that fast.  I went to a demonstration four months ago of new robot technology in the auto industry, and there are robots that can do almost anything.

I saw two small robots, one pulled six large containers of pills off of a shelf and dumped them onto a flat surface.  The second one, using cameras and computers, picked up those pills and sorted them into prescription bottles -- using the pill color and shape.  It moved so fast that we couldn't see what it was doing, until they deliberately slowed it down.  Those two robots can fill prescriptions for people and can replace 10 Pharmacists, and do it with higher accuracy -- because they never get tired, or come to work with a hangover, etc., or make a mistake.

Jobs that people have today, simply aren't going to exist soon.  Jobs to design, engineer, and program these systems are the future.  Scientists, engineers, compute scientists, etc. are already in higher demand than we are producing.  Many of those jobs are being filled by immigrants (legal ones).  What our President needs to be doing in the 2013 - 2017 term is to make sure that we are re-training unemployed people in the U.S., and educating people for the next decades.  So, Made In America is alive and well and increasing in output, and very competitive -- but employment in U.S. factories is dropping like a rock. 

Comment by Jerry E. Jones on February 4, 2012 at 7:43pm

John Paul -- I agree with you, the new coal plants are much cleaner, virtually all of them sell ash, sulfer compounds, and many collect some CO2 and sell it for carbonated beverages and welding gas, but over half of them have no mercury cleaning on them yet. 

The standard measure, of what you call "Cost Ratio to output" is what is known in the industry as the generated Cost of Energy (COE), which is the total annual cost (including the capital expense and the maintenance -- everything) divided by the total annual output (which includes the down time with a wind plant).  The new coal plants, however, have a COE of well over 4 cents per KW-hr, some as high as 6 cents, while new wind farms are generating at around 4 to 4.5 cents.  New coal plants no longer generate electricity cheaper than wind -- they were a few years ago, but wind is now on par, or cheaper than coal generated electricity.  We're going to have a wind turbine on our place soon, which is projected to have a COE of 3.9 cents -- we're going to be competitive with natural gas, but we'll beat coal.

Also, we are paying billions of dollars in subsidies to coal.  Just as an example, Amtrak does much of the rail maintenance on it's right-of-ways, even though coal is transported on those same tracks.

It will take decades to change -- over half of our electricity is generated from burning coal, now.  But, to continue building new coal plants is just plain dumb.  As the technology continues to improve, the price of wind energy will continue to come down.  As the price of coal continues to go up, the price of coal burning plants generated electricty will continue to go up.  Cheap coal from near-surface strip coal mines is not the standard any more.  Coal in the U.S. now has to come from deeper and deeper mines, which use huge expensive mining equipment -- and despite all of this machinery and automation, the price continues to go up and up.

As for your Made in America point, we actually are competitive.  Total manufacturing output in the U.S. is at an all time high.  However, the manufacturing that is done in the U.S. is so automated and productive, that our manufacturing sector doesn't employ very many people anymore.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics closely tracks how an average American spends their money in an annual report called the Consumer Expenditure Survey. In 2010, the average American spent 34% of their income on housing, 13% on food, 11% on insurance and pensions, 7% on health care, and 2% on education. Those categories alone make up nearly 70% of total spending, and are comprised almost entirely of American-made goods and services (only 7% of food is imported, according to the USDA).

Even when looking at physical goods alone, Chinese imports still account for just a small fraction of U.S. spending. Just 6.4% of nondurable goods -- things like food, clothing and toys -- purchased in the U.S. are made in China; 76.2% are made in America. For durable goods -- things like cars and furniture -- 12% are made in China; 66.6% are made in America.

Another way to grasp the value of Chinese-made goods is to look at imports. The U.S. is on track to import $340 billion worth of goods from China this year, which is only 2.3% of our $14.5 trillion economy.

Part of your (and many other people's) misconception is likely driven by the notion that America's manufacturing base has been in steep decline. The truth, surprising to many, is that real manufacturing output today is near an all-time high. What's dropped precipitously in recent decades is manufacturing

Comment by John Paul Jones on February 4, 2012 at 5:25pm

Jerry E. Jones, you have to look at the Cost Ratio to output.  Coal, Oil and Gas are still the cheapest.  They are much cleaner than you think because the ones built today are clean burning. Lets take Coal it was the dirty fuel for the longest time, now because of the technologies used coal is a useful means of Energy and we have an abundance of it.  I built a few or should I say I helped design and build them.  One of the ways is to scrub all the pollutants out, now we take all the garbage and make useful products of them such as ash is used in glass, sulfur is used in medicine and makeup, even the CO is broken down into products.  

Jerry the purpose of this post is to get America back to work, be energy independent from all foreign sources.  Right now if the Middle East explodes which it will our economy would collapse and so will America.  We absolutely have to use all of the resources including oil, gas, coal and nuclear along with solar, wind and my favorite FUSION.  We need to get manufacturing cost down to the point that America will be competitive in the world market.  I want to see MADE IN AMERICA products again

Comment by Jerry E. Jones on February 4, 2012 at 3:08pm

You, of course are right, John Paul, the wind doesn't blow 24/7.  But, even with today's technology it is possible to generate more than one-half of our energy with wind, cost effectively.  For example, Xcel Energy, one of the largest utilities in the U.S., at one point last year was delivering 55.6% of its energy generated by wind.

Old antiquated coal fired steam boiler generating plants do take days to bring on-line.  But, the newer technology pumped-hydro and gas turbine plants can spin-up in minutes (some even in seconds).  Pumped-hydro plants can have generated cost of energy in the 1 cent per killowatt-hour range, and gas turbine plants can run well below 4 cents.  New coal plants are approaching 6 or more cents, because of rising fuel costs -- and those costs will be passed along to customers.

As you also point out, maintenance costs used to be a serious problem with wind.  However, GE has over 10,000 of its 1.5 million watt wind turbines in operation world wide and their maintenance history is excellent.  Newer turbines like the new GE-Scanwind 4 milllion watt turbine, use electronics to synchronize the 60 cycle per second power with the grid.  They don't use a gearbox like the older turbines, which was the primary maintenance problem.  This technology has made wind energy a very reliable source of power.

Not all utilities have been as progressive as Xcel.  But, wind energy costs have been going down steadlily for the last decade, while fossil energy costs (like coal) have been steadily increasing.  So, those utilities that can deliver increasing amounts of wind energy will be the ones to provide cheaper and cheaper electricity to their customers.  Customers of the ones that have to keep paying higher and higher fuel costs are going to find themselves paying much more for electricity.

If you want to find out more about Xcel and their pumped-hydro system go to http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_19342896.    The facility uses excess energy when the wind is blowing to pump water upstream into several reservoirs.  Then when the wind dies down, that water is run through turbines to generate electricity and is gathered in a reservoir at the bottom, ready to be pumped back up again, when the wind starts blowing again.  Technologies like this have made wind energy cost effective and reliable.

If you still want to rely on coal, then go to a restaurant like Red Lobster and try to order swordfish (which is my favorite fish), or other large fish.  You can't, because of mercury contamination.  Our lakes and streams are getting contaminated with a chemical called methylmercury.  If you log into the fish and wildlife department of your state, you will find an area that lists all of the lakes in that state with DO NOT EAT warnings.  In some states, more than 50% of the lakes have DO NOT EAT warnings due to mercury poisoning.  2/3 of the mercury contamination is from burning of coal and natural gas for generating electricity.  Mercury causes serious neurological problems and sometimes death.  The human liver cannot clean mercury out of our blood, once it is there, so it accumulates and our blood becomes more and more contaminated.  There is an old expression "mad as a hatter".  It comes from old England, where mercury was used to cure the leather used in top hats.  Virtually all of the people who worked in that industry making hats, eventually went stark raving mad, due to mercury poisoning.

Comment by John Paul Jones on February 4, 2012 at 1:32pm

Jerry E. Jones, sorry to burst your bubble, wind is nothing but hot air it is not a viable source of energy for three reasons, costs and upkeep and wind does not happen 24/7 also you would have to keep the normal power plants running at a minimum because wind doesn't happen 24/7, it takes about a day to three days to bring a power plant on line.  I know I worked on projects for wind and solar.

Comment by Jerry E. Jones on February 3, 2012 at 1:17pm

Unfortunately, the Petroleum Industry doesn't listen to people who shout "drill baby drill".  As they should in a capitalistic country, they listen to profits.  The U.S. started the massive use of energy, but unfortunately all of the cheap oil, gas, and coal in the U.S. is gone.  I listened to an interview of the President of Exxon Mobile, and he wasn't at all excited about ANWR.  I and my neighbors all have wells on our property, that, when they were shut down were still producing -- but at a cost higher than Saudia Arabian crude.  It is so much cheaper to get the near surface oil that is plentiful in Mexico, Canada, Saudi Arabia, etc. that no oil company is going to mount a major campaign to drill here.

 

What we do have is the "Saudi Arabia of Wind".  The U.S. Great Plains has enough wind energy to supply 3X the amount that the U.S. uses -- and most of it is agricultural land where the farmers are more than happy to give up 4% of their land to generate some pretty sizeable lease payments.  Believe me, when oil companies wanted to drill oil wells we were all ready to sign leases -- the agricultural community (poverty rate almost twice as high as rest of  in the U.S.) will be more than  happy to sign leases for wind turbines.

On-going R&D projects, funded by the Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E) can convert all of that excess carbon dioxide, plus hydrogen from water, into liquid fuels.  Using, low cost, plentiful wind energy, to make liquid fuels, the U.S. could actually become an energy exporting country.

 

The new, much larger, turbines being designed by Clipper and GE -- the two U.S. wind turbine manufacturers (GE is the biggest in the world -- another great export product for the U.S.) are going to be 40% more efficient, and will be able to produce wind energy cheaper than coal.  What we need to do is stop all of the subsidies for coal, oil, and natural gas (some of the richest and most profitable companies on earth), and transfer those subsidies to wind energy.  Coal and oil needed those subsidies when they were new technologies -- wind needs them now.  With the right encouragement, the wind energy industry could make us an energy exporting country, and lower all of our energy bills -- and employ a heck of a lot of people.

Comment by John Paul Jones on February 3, 2012 at 12:30pm

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs should be the primary goal to getting this country pointed in the right direction.  Jobs will lift the people and bring in the revenue desperately needed. But there is MORE.

Energy is the key to the whole jobs market.  People what made America great; it was the energy produced from Gas, Coal and Oil.  These fuels allowed America prosper and grow.  Now more than ever we need to drill and mine and build power plants.  The growth in our energy usage has grown 10 fold however Obama has shut off building and drilling. You want to put millions of Americans back to work quickly then drill baby drill.  Do you want to produce American products then build and drill?  People almost everything you touch is energy related think about it!  We need a new mantra "BUILD AND DRILL" 

By putting Newt in office we can put millions to work in less than a year and I will prove in my next post.

Comment by David Ammerman on January 24, 2012 at 12:01am

It's good to see the comments flowing. I feel energy is are countries biggest problem, and think Newt would be the best  President  to manage it's solutions. I still have his Drill Here Drill Now Pay Less  bumper sticker on my Electric Assist Bicycle. From his 2008 American Solutions campaign.

  A combination of more drilling, and the pipe line from Canada.  Would give us the energy security and economic prosperity to develop alternative energy solutions. Without crashing the economy or having to go to war to get the energy we all need and LUV.  The tricky part is to have the discipline to use the energy gained to set up an energy system that would become self sustaining.  

Comment by Jerry E. Jones on January 23, 2012 at 7:49pm

Leon -- I think a lof of us would like to see the pipeline built.  However, my family owns a farm which has had three oil wells.  The last one, the oil company promised to keep it clean and then agreed to clean up the area when the well was closed using the best technology available to them.  Well, the well was capped three years ago and then cleaned up to "industry standards" and now, three years later, nothing will grow there -- not even the most noxious of weeds.  BP/Amoco has responsibility for that very expensive pipeline across Alaska, which is moving the last of the oil from the north slope, down to the Port of Valdez.  It was discovered three years ago, or so, that BP/Amoco, to save the cost of the electricity, turned off the corrosion protection on the pipeline several years ago.  Now in some places it is less than 1/8" thick due to corrosion, and that oil company with over $10 billion in profit last year, doesn't want to pay to repair it.

Given the very dismal record of that industry I would like to feel certain that the pipeline is put in places which are the least sensitive to the inevitable environmental problems with will result due to incompetence and neglect by the petroleum industry.  President Obama asked to delay the approval of the pipeline so that an on-going study for re-routing the pipeline could be completed.  But, the Congress insisted that he either approve or disapprove of it now or they would take away his ability to do so.  He was not in favor of disapproving of the pipeline, but the deadline set by Congress was too soon to complete the re-routing study.

It has to be re-routed, because it goes through areas where it will be difficult or impossible to repair.  Given the track record of the petroleum industry with the Alaska Pipeline -- and many others -- I have to say that Congress should have set the deadline after the re-routing study was going to be completed.  Unfortunately, they didn't, so he had to disapprove. 

The pipeline will be built, but thanks to the President, the re-routing study will be completed first.  Congress is out of control, their approval rating is, by some measures, below 10%, and these kinds of games are why.  The pipeline is something that everyone agrees should be built -- so why didn't Congress just set the deadline after the re-routing study was completed.  Then the President would have approved it, as he already was going to do, and all of this turmoil would have been avoided.

Now, Canada is looking at alternatives, such as a pipeline to the BC Province so the oil can be loaded on tankers and sold on the world market.  They weren't going to do that if they were just waiting for the re-routing study -- but now that the pipeline had to be officially stopped -- because of the artificial deadline set by Congress -- I don't blame Canada for looking for other markets for their oil.

Comment by Jerry E. Jones on January 23, 2012 at 7:26pm

David -- not a bad concept -- less or no income tax on renewable energy.  However, the fact is the government is heavily subsidizing the coal and petroleum industries, so we in the wind energy business need a subsidy just to level the playing field.  The reason no one is talking about their subsidies, is because they are not line items for the Department of Energy -- instead they are cleverly hidden in other places.  For example, coal is primarily transported by rail.  But the maintenance standard for rail used for passenger travel is much more stringent than that for rail used for freight.  So the coal industry cleverly hauls coal on the same rail lines that AMTRAK uses for passenger travel.  AMTRAK can't allow the lines to deteriorate to the point where the coal and other freight carriers will do the maintainance, so they keep the rail maintained at a level necessary for passenger travel and the coal and other freight haulers are getting a free ride thanks to the taxpayers.  AMTRAK would actually show a profit, if the freight haulers were to pay their share of the cost.  It is these kinds of built in multi-billion dollar subsidies that we in the wind energy industry have to compete against.  We're a small industry with very small profits -- coal and petroleum, huge companies with aggregate profits over $100 billion each year are getting multi-billion dollar subsidies.  All we are asking for is a few tens of millions, so we can compete -- at least until the subsidies on our huge and very profitable competitors are removed too.

Comment by Jerry E. Jones on January 23, 2012 at 7:15pm

Benjamin, I certainly agree with you that Congress is out of control.  But, the EPA has been working on three new rules -- but, in consultation with President Obama, they decided to delay them so that they won't cause any added cost to industry during this down time.  The third rule, which I believe is going to be issued, has to do with mercury.  As it turns out, all 50 states Fish and Wildlife Departments have been monitoring mercury levels in fish.  Every state has now listed on their website the lakes in their state with "do not eat warnings" because the mercury levels in the fish are dangerous.  In some states the problem is so bad that more than 50% of the lakes have "do not eat" warnings.  Even in my state of Colorado, where you would think that the problem wouldn't even exist, 22% of our lakes -- which we depend on heavily for tourism -- now have "do not eat" warnings.  Most of the mercury is man produced, and two-thirds of that is generated by burning coal and natural gas for electricity.  This is a rule that virtually every other industrialized country issued a long time ago -- but, President Obama has been holding it back to keep from causing loss of jobs.  However, it is long overdue -- first proposed when Europe and Japan put their rules in place back around 2002.  It has now been more than 7 years since Red Lobster restaurants quit serving Swordfish (my favorite) because of the increasing mercury levels.  I guess people can go ahead and eat the fish if they wish.  But, you may have heard the phrase "mad as a hatter".  It came from old England, where mercury was used to cure the leather for hats.  Virtually all "hatters" went stark raving mad and had to be jailed or institutionalized long before they grew old because of mercury poisoning.  This is definitely something we need to do something about.  President Obama has resisted the push by the liberals for 3 years, but there's a lot of us Republicans, like me, who have seen the effects of mercury, who are calling for restrictions on mercury emissions, which are quickly poisoning our lakes and streams.

Comment by Jerry E. Jones on January 23, 2012 at 7:02pm

Benjamin, GE has produced it's last incandescent bulb.  The company that was started by Thomas Edison will no longer produce those bulbs that he invented.  It is because they are so expensive to operate that the demand for them has essentially gone to zero -- that is, it is lower than GE will operate a manufacturing plant.  So the EPA is actually behind the times and is only following the trend in retail sales.  There are a few foreign manufacturers still producing them, but the U.S. was the last of the major industrialized countries to issue regulations against incandescent bulbs.  By the way, GE reports that job growth in producing the new bulbs is very good.  It is also nice to see the LED ones on cars they are brighter, higher safety, and use much less fuel.  GM and Ford both started using them before the regulations went into effect because they can put smaller generators in cars and reduce the cost to make them as well as increasing the fuel efficiency.

Comment by David Ammerman on January 22, 2012 at 1:42pm

Thanks for your input Benjamin. I wanted to add  the  idea that  the cost of mandates and regulations on are freedom and wallet could also be avoided by an incentives that would give large tax breaks.But I ran out of time and struglled with trying to expalin it. I'm not up on all the science behind what works and doesn't, but setting up system that would reward instead of regulate and mandated would be much better  and something to campaign with. 

 It is harder to read with CFL bulbs, but I haven't had a problem with them not lasting as long as expected. I do think LED's are great and anyone who uses them with flash-lights will tell you their batteries last a lot longer. I used the bulbs as an example. But lets say with my idea if you made them here in the good old US of A and made a tax free profit with them. They would be cheaper for the consumer and a good reason to make them here. As far as the disposal issue they are hard to defend.

 How about a S.P.I.T it's an acronym for an idea I have for solar power. It stands for Solar Power Investment Trust.The idea is that it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense watching individuals put them up one at a time on their houses, with all the issues of   roof slopes, and trees.I like shade trees! Instead a group of people who think they are a great idea pool their $$$ buy a bunch of them, and put them on top of a warehouse. Warehouses have big flat roofs and no trees and use lots of power during the day. Eventually the solar panels would be paid for and money may be made.The money made would thus be divided by the group  tax free.. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't! But at-lest the tax payers aren't on the hook if it doesn't.

Comment by Benjamin Pritchard on January 22, 2012 at 8:57am

EPA and Congress are out of control and both need to be taken to task as to their actual response ability and over sight. Two recent, cases are the requirements of using corn for fuel ethyl supplement and light bulbs.

CFM and LED bulbs are mandated examples for a total expensive requirement that kills jobs cost many times the cost of incidence bulbs. All the CFM and LED light do not provide te same light and spectrum for quality lighting and contain mercury in CFM's and Arsenic and gallium in LED. This maks disposal a nightmare just waiting to happen. But no one even talks about how this can affect out land fill and environment. Anyone that has actual installed these new bulbs can tell you, light from both make hard for reading and working. They also do not last any were as long as both have a major flaw that no one is talking about.  Life of LED and CFM bulbs is drastically affected  every time they are switch on and off. The power conversion built in each is not efficient when used on common AC power (115 or 220 AC). So what does that mean, well in the case of LED each element or LED works on low DC voltage   in the range of 1.8 to 5 VDC so extra circuit has to be added to make work off household AC. CFM's  work at higher voltage to ionize the gas in them to light. This requires a transformer or circuit to boost start voltage. All of these circuits and add on's increase cost and are not very efficient. In the end, we could save far more by just turning off regular bulbs and we would not have environment disposal issues  or have exported the MFG jobs this has created. As no U.S. is willing to make them here.

Corn for gas was and is a bad idea, the whole concept was flawed with  increases in food chain supply and lower quality fuel at a higher cost. The real shame is was a bad choice for even considering such a plan as there many other more efficient was to get the most alcohol with affecting the food chain. Switch grass would have better choice.  Alcohol in current engines is not very good at getting mileage efficiency we all would like not even considering the   dam,age it causes to fuel system from water the alcohol based fuel cause. So what we ended up with having put more additives in to prevent damage and less effect fuel. Bottom line is it cost us more and food chain costs have increased dramatically. And government is subsiding this whole operation with tax dollars.

Comment by David Ammerman on January 22, 2012 at 12:58am

How about no Federal Income Tax on Alternative Energy production profits for the next 25, 50, or  more years and then get out of the way. Instead of subsidizing them, which is costing us all sorts of $$$. This idea should also include producers of products that use dramatically less energy. 

For examples, LED light bulbs use a lot less energy.  So if you develop a product like that, then bring it to Market your reward would be NO TAXES for a long time, a sweet little incentive. Or say a company wants to go out and buy a bunch of Solar Panels or invest in something like that.They would know that if  it started to make $$$, they would get to keep all of it for a long time. 

 So to summaries my idea: Instead of us tax payers watching all the fraud, waste and abuse , created by government subsidizing losing ventures and ideas. Lets pay for it on the back end, by rewarding the people and companies that get the job done.

  My 2¢ worth of an idea that needs some fine tuning. Thanks for considering it. 

  

   

 

Comment by Samuel King on December 28, 2011 at 4:51pm

Yes, we need to provide means for reducing "frivolous lawsuits," but if a loser pay rule is initiated, it could set an unwanted precedent for any such lawsuit.  Such a law could be used by many corporations as a weapon of fear towards any who would wish to oppose them in court.  Our courts have summary judgement rules.  I believe it would be better for congress to regulate the rules for which a case might be able to pass summary judgement under the authority of Article I of the Constitution.

Comment by Carlos Cantu on December 28, 2011 at 11:47am

Make mandatory for power companies to pay back in cash (no refunds/coupons, etc) to small renewable energy producers any excess energy they produce. To make it attractive, pay a bonus percentage, for example 40% more of the residential cost/watt to home owners or small renewable energy producers. 

Comment by Leon Elledge on December 18, 2011 at 2:13pm

 Unless the pipeline is going to be wider than Kansas and longer than Rt 80, We need it. I lived through the Carter energy crisis, and  seen what can happen if we do nothing. This pipeline will serve our country as well as Canada, and unite the two countries in opposition to greedy foreign powers. I have yet to see a single indication that it will harm the environment. The president just wants credit for it.

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