My RSS Feed

Tax Credits Aplenty

zorlon6@mac.com — 2009-04-22T00:02:13-07:00

Congress, and indeed our government by and large, has always used clever little means of taxing one thing and subsidizing another to enact its policies. Just because the mechanism is clever doesn't mean its necessarily corrupt. But once things start to get intertwined its easy to lose sight of where things are going. And on top of that politicians are very clever with their use of words. Thus when congress passed a highway bill that created a 50-cent-per-gallon tax credit for industries that mixed alternative fuels with their regular fossil fuels, it seemed like the math was fairly simple.

The math being of course, we want more "alternative energy," so we will give you money if you use it. And for a while I would surmise, all was well. However in 2007, congress decided to expand just what would count as an "alternative fuel." Bad thing? Not necessarily, more alternative fuels is a good thing, right? Well maybe not as the Wall street journal points out.

Problem is, when they said "expand" what they really meant was to "expand" it in such a way as to bring some of these tax credits back home to their constituents. The tax credit is now for non-mobile installations as well, making one wonder how it could possibly still be the highway bill passed in 2005. Furthermore, our tax dollars are now going to places like international paper, and fish processing plants. (since they use fish oil to run their boilers)

I am reminded, as I often am, of an episode of the Simpsons. The episode of note is one in which the family finds their house right under the path of jet plains headed for the Springfield airport. The Simpsons eventually get the airspace rezoned or some such, such that the jets would now fly over poor people instead. The means by which they do this is, by a janitor's suggestion, paper clipping their bill to the back of the "flags for children" bill.

I feel as though that is exactly what is going on here. congressmen want to bring home the bacon, and "alternative energy" simply provides them with some ready cover to do it.

Pentagon Programs

zorlon6@mac.com — 2009-04-14T21:20:09-07:00

As it turns out, and I guess this makes sense though I hadn't thought about this before, the Defense Department is the largest consumer of energy in the United States. And suppose that's perfectly reasonable, they use up more fuel, what with their jets and all... So I suppose it's super-huge news when the DoD says they're going green.

The US department of defense in fact plans to use millions in stimulus dollars to tackle many cool green projects. Among them is a device that converts base waste material into biofuel and then runs a 60 kilowatt generator with it. That seems reasonable enough to me, and what with fuel convoys making up about half of the operations where casualties have occurred, it seems to me anything to make the base more self-sufficient and less dependent on outside sources of energy has to be a good thing. Other projects include solar arrays that roll up for easy transport to forward bases and some foam that can be used to insulate tents, though I'm going to go out on a limb here and say since they didn't mention it being a uber-ecofriendly foam, it probably is terrible and doesn't break down for millennia.

All and all good things to research I believe, and I hope that some level of this technology is declassified and open for use in the private sector as I'm sure they've got a pretty good thing going if they think they can turn the ton of trash a base can produce per day into energy.

Nuclear Power

zorlon6@mac.com — 2009-04-09T20:42:19-07:00

The Obama administration came to power on the coat tails of many fears Americans these days seem to share. One of the best solutions to these fears has been the promise of renewable, green, clean, or alternative power. (Thus ending the fear that we'll run out, that we're funding terrorism overseas, or that pollution will precipitate another ice age)

To this end, the Obama administration has coddled the American people with such fantasies as power derived from wind, geothermal, biomass, and perhaps the most legitimate source, solar. What he has neglected to do is invest any money in a form of power generation that emits no greenhouse gasses, is safe, is real, and is being pursued to some degree by virtually the entire industrial world: Nuclear.

Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, the topic has been a taboo. People have assumed the use of nuclear power to be a decidedly bad, or dangerous thing to do. They would rather have their power generated by fanciful technologies that won't be developed for years. Per kilowatt, including even the price of construction, nuclear power is very competitive with coal and natural gas. It does take some money and some time to build a plant, but real solutions often do take time to implement.

There are over a hundred Nuclear Power plants in the US that have been operating without anyone noticing for years. No major incidents, and certainly great debacles over it causing climate change.

Storage is the only real issue, and there are several workable solutions to that problem including plans in the US to safely burry the waste inside a mountain where it should be relatively stable for the 20,000 years it will take to decay. Not only mountains, but also space serve as potential places to deposit the waste. With further developments of disposal techniques, such as transmutation, the process just gets cleaner and cleaner. But does any of that matter? No, people are too afraid of nuclear power.

There are a great many plants that are nearing the end of their licensed operational periods, and we will either need to build new ones or build reactors that run on hope very soon. All this is not to mention the lack of funding for Fusion reactor research, which could likely end the issue of generating power once and for all.

Solar

zorlon6@mac.com — 2009-03-10T00:50:56-07:00

I dunno about this one. Seems suspicious to me having the U.S. Treasury's Federal Financing Bank (had I heard of that before now?) give out loan guarantees to companies it deems appropriate?

Personally, I'm unsure as to what makes Solyndra so special that they deserve such a loan. And here is this guy, ol' what's his name Energy Secretary Steven Chu says, "The DOE Loan Guarantee Program funding will enable Solyndra to achieve the economies of scale needed to deliver solar electricity at prices that are competitive with utility rates. This expansion is really about creating new jobs while meaningfully impacting global warming."

Sounds mysterious to me. Sounds like bad idea to build spec power plants with tax payer dollars. I mean, did they put up collateral? what if the whole thing goes south and they've got nothing to show for it?

I suppose the more likely outcome is that everything will go fine and some giant solar farm will be built and everyone will be happy with it. But I'm also concerned that what we'll end up with is a giant government-subsidized "green bubble" that will eventually pop, leaving us worse off then we were in the first place. Call me crazy, but I think there is probably some kind of free market version of this that doesn't involve these socialist schemes. I mean seriously, what did Solyndra do exactly, give money to the Obama campaign? I'm certain they weren't so transparent, but I feel there must be some story I'm also just not hear about this. Something smells of corruption about it. Who knows?

Not such a smart grid

zorlon6@mac.com — 2009-03-02T00:26:45-08:00

"IOActive, a professional security services firm, has concluded that with $500 of equipment and materials and a background in electronics and software engineering, a hacker could infiltrate the advanced meter infrastructure and cause a massive manipulation of service to homes and businesses."

You know, as something of a computer geek, I read a few technical blogs and a have a few techie RSS feeds set up, and so something like this comes up and I'm not surprised. The infrastructure of the internet, even most intranets, is woefully inadequate. I hear about it a chuckle. I shrug it off thinking that if it were anything really sensitive, they'd be extra careful. However, this is nothing to be shrugged off. Obama has pledged to spend something like 11 billion dollars on building a "smarter" energy grid, so it seems like this thing could become a reality. If only 11 billion were anywhere near what it should actually cost.

I'm reminded of a movie, something like diehard 3 I think. This is not something only diehard 3 is guilty of, but its still especially bad in the film. One of the protagonist's cohorts is, predictably, the obligatory hacker. What is surprising about his hacking skills is that he often manages to hack devices not only too fast to be believable, but even hack devices that AREN'T NETWORKED. For instance, he manages to hack traffic signals, but as we all know, when one of those go down, they have to send a guy out there to fix it and it takes hours. Why? because it isn't networked! If it were, then there would be a possibility that all traffic lights might go down at the same time! The more complex you make something the more there is to go wrong I suppose.

In the case of America's power grid, improving it is one of the sagest things Obama has suggested. However, "improving" it with anything less than rock solid security would jeopardize national security in ways only hollywood has ever dreamed of. (Like in Eagle Eye where they hack the power lines to make them explode) Regardless, these changes are needed, however I would put more money into the air force's cyber command before investing in a fancy new networked energy grid. Lest we lose said grid to some asshole who just wants to watch the world burn, and has nothing better to do than infiltrate systems and make some sysAdmins job, and indeed life, miserable.

Titles: what can't they do?

zorlon6@mac.com — 2009-02-05T20:20:21-08:00

I've given the page it's own unique flair. I'm quite proud of it already. There's a lot of power in a name, or so I'm told. And whenever I write a paper, I always stress over the title for quite some time for this very reason. In the case of this page, I've given it the title, "~~Goa'uld~~: Evil, Overdressed Snakes". The ~~Goa'uld~~ are, "

One of our galaxy's dominant species, the Goa'uld are serpent parasites that forcibly take human hosts, and possess a thirst for power and worship. They have enslaved countless worlds, using their inhabitants as hosts, soldiers, miners, and personal slaves.

" -Gateworld.net One of the alien races found in one of my favorite science fiction television series.

Is the title a metaphor for something? Am I saying that politicians are like the Goa'uld?

Yes. You've understood my meaning quite well. I'm impressed. Have a cookie.

First!

zorlon6@mac.com — 2009-02-05T19:54:46-08:00

Often times on a forum, (and it is worth mentioning that forums are a world unto themselves, and this is only a hint of their complex lexicon.) it is customary for some to offer the self-congradulatory phrase, "first". As in, first to respond to a question, or comment, or simply the first to post anything to a board. This is often a phrase used on social news aggregators that use karma systems to track the usefulness of the comments offered by particular users. In such situations, it is often considered childish or detrimental to simply make a comment of "first."

I will ask that no one does that here. Ever.

And more than likely, by asking this, I have ensured that someone will, purely out of spite.

Oh well. That all said, I'm getting my blog started for politics 101. No idea where I'm going with this quite yet, but I'm sure to have a better idea in the next few hours. Since that's when I'm most likely to decide.