SteveLendmanBlog: Obama's Cap and Trade Carbon Emissions Bill - A Stealth Scheme to License Pollution and Fraud

On May 15, HR 2454: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACESA) was introduced in the House purportedly "To create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy."

In fact, it's to let corporate polluters reap huge windfall profits by charging consumers more for energy and fuel as well as create a new bubble through carbon trading derivatives speculation. It does nothing to address environmental issues, yet on June 26 the House narrowly passed (229 - 212) and sent it to the Senate to be debated and voted on. More on that below.

Offshore wind power: Tilting in the breeze | The Economist

One obvious drawback is that connecting deep-water turbines to the electrical grid will be expensive. But the biggest expense—the one that will make or break far-offshore wind power—will probably be maintenance. In deep seas, it will not be possible to use repair vessels that can jack themselves up on the seabed for stability, like the machines that repair shallow-water turbines. Instead maintenance will only be possible in good weather. If the Hywind turbine turns out to need frequent repairs, the cost of leaving it idle while waiting for fair weather, and of ferrying people and equipment to and fro, will outweigh the gains from generating more power. But if all goes according to plan, and the turbine does not need such ministrations, it would put wind in the sails of far-offshore power generation.

What is Obama’s international climate [fraud] strategy? | David "climate Nuremberg" Roberts - Grist

International climate negotiations often seem like some sort of cosmic science fair project—an aquarium full of hamsters connected to rudimentary motors. There’s a lot of frantic running, a lot of sweat and heat, but in the end, very little light.

Faith in the UN climate process has dimmed. Joe Romm calls it a “dead man walking.” The Copenhagen talks in December are generally discussed with the same dissonant mixture of urgency (“You have to do it in Copenhagen,” says UNFCCC chair Yvo de Boer) and fatalism (“There is no movement,” says German environment minister Sigmar Gabriel) as the last dozen rounds of international talks.