American Crude Oil Surplus Highest In 80 Years

US Running Out Of Room To Store Oil; Price Collapse Next?

 

 

 

 

” The U.S. has so much crude that it is running out of places to put it, and that could drive oil and gasoline prices even lower in the coming months.

  For the past seven weeks, the United States has been producing and importing an average of 1 million more barrels of oil every day than it is consuming. That extra crude is flowing into storage tanks, especially at the country’s main trading hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, pushing U.S. supplies to their highest point in at least 80 years, the Energy Department reported last week.

  If this keeps up, storage tanks could approach their operational limits, known in the industry as “tank tops,” by mid-April and send the price of crude — and probably gasoline, too — plummeting.

” The fact of the matter is we are running out of storage capacity in the U.S.,” Ed Morse, head of commodities research at Citibank, said at a recent symposium at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.”

 

Continued

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Radioactive Leak Discovered At Alabama Reactor

Radioactive Tritium Leak Reported At TVA Nuclear Plant In Northern Alabama

 

 

 

” A Chattanooga newspaper reports that radioactive water leaked from a tank at an Alabama nuclear plant, releasing tritium into the environment.

  The report said that the leak occurred last week at the Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant near Athens, Alabama.

  A spokesman for the Tennessee Valley Authority, which operates the plant, said the leak was quickly contained and presented no public risk.”

 

WRCBTV

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Screggagh Wind Farm Turbine Collapses

Probe As Wind Turbine Collapse

 

 

 

 

 

” A major investigation has been launched after an 80-metre wind turbine worth £2m collapsed on a mountainside.

  No-one was injured when the giant structure worth about £2 million unexpectedly buckled and hit the ground, scattering debris across a wide area of mountainside in Northern Ireland.

  It was one of eight turbines on the Screggagh wind farm located between Fintona and Fivemiletown in rural Co Tyrone.

  Doreen Walker, director of the operation, said officials were “working closely” with turbine supplier Nordex UK to establish the cause of the collapse.

” The Screggagh wind farm has been completely shut down since the wind turbine collapsed on Friday evening,” she said.

” It will remain shut down until Nordex UK Ltd has completed a full investigation in to the remaining seven wind turbines and confirms that they are safe to operate.”

  It is understood the rotor blades spun out of control and the sound of the mechanical structure crashing to the ground could be heard up to seven miles away. Some people compared it to an explosion while others claimed to have heard the sound of grinding metal throughout the day.”

 

Irish Independent

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Head East Oilman: Canadian Oil Companies Propose End-Run Around Obama’s Keystone XL Opposition

Keystone Be Darned: Canada Finds Oil Route Around Obama

 

 

 

 

 

” So you’re the Canadian oil industry and you do what you think is a great thing by developing a mother lode of heavy crude beneath the forests and muskeg of northern Alberta. The plan is to send it clear to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast via a pipeline called Keystone XL. Just a few years back, America desperately wanted that oil.

  Then one day the politics get sticky. In Nebraska, farmers don’t want the pipeline running through their fields or over their water source. U.S. environmentalists invoke global warming in protesting the project. President Barack Obama keeps siding with them, delaying and delaying approval. From the Canadian perspective, Keystone has become a tractor mired in an interminably muddy field.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

” In this period of national gloom comes an idea — a crazy-sounding notion, or maybe, actually, an epiphany. How about an all-Canadian route to liberate that oil sands crude from Alberta’s isolation and America’s fickleness? Canada’s own environmental and aboriginal politics are holding up a shorter and cheaper pipeline to the Pacific that would supply a shipping portal to oil-thirsty Asia.

  Instead, go east, all the way to the Atlantic.

  Thus was born Energy East, an improbable pipeline that its backers say has a high probability of being built. It will cost C$12 billion ($10.7 billion) and could be up and running by 2018. Its 4,600-kilometer (2,858-mile) path, taking advantage of a vast length of existing and underused natural gas pipeline, would wend through six provinces and four time zones. It would be Keystone on steroids, more than twice as long and carrying a third more crude.

  Its end point, a refinery in Saint John, New Brunswick, operated by a reclusive Canadian billionaire family, would give Canada’s oil-sands crude supertanker access to the same Louisiana and Texas refineries Keystone was meant to supply.”

 

Read more at Bloomberg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Help The Arabs Stay Rich & Fund Terror … “Ban Fracking” … LOL

The Sheik: Help Me Stay Rich Colorado

 

 

 

 

HT/ Instapundit

—

—

Gasoline Price Gouging State By State … An Interactive Map On Why You Pay So Much At The Pump

This Eye-Opening Map Shows The Reason Gas Is More Expensive In Some States Than Others

 

   This map shows why the cost of gasoline is so high and why there is so much variation from state to state . The simple answer is , of course , taxes , both state and federal . Click on the map below to go to the interactive page that will give the reader specific details for each individual state and bear in mind that , even as the Statists demonize the oil industry as some sort of price-gouging profiteers , that the various government entities make more from the sale of a gallon of gas than do the evil energy producers .

 

 

Click Map For Interactive Link

 

 

” The federal excise tax is 18.4 cents per gallon, and the rest of the taxes are particular to each state and vary greatly around the country.

  The two states with the biggest taxes: New York at $0.505 and California at $0.4978. The two states with the lowest taxes: Alaska at $0.124 and New Jersey at $0.145.

  Expressed as a percentage, based upon current prices which are $3.678 as averaged across the nation, the price for a gallon of gas breaks down like this:

• 10% for refining costs and profits
• 10% for transportation and retailing costs and profits
• 13% for taxes and fees
• 67% for crude oil

  One thing to notice: The total costs and profits for everything except the oil is just slightly larger than the amount that goes to state and federal taxes.”

 

 

Here is a bit more perspective on those “massive profits” raked in by “Big Oil” …

 

 

 

 

 

 

” ExxonMobil’s earnings are from operations in more than 100 countries around the world. The part of the business that refines and sells gasoline and diesel in the United States represents less than 3 percent – or 3 cents on the dollar – of our total earnings. For every gallon of gasoline, diesel or finished products we manufactured and sold in the United States in the last three months of 2010, we earned a little more than 2 cents per gallon. That’s not a typo. Two cents.”

 

 

 

As the astute reader can easily ascertain , the only “price gouger” in the energy business is the State .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

—

Project Veritas Expose’s The Hypocrisy Of The Hollywood Anti-Fracking Movement

Hollywood Celebrities Caught On Hidden Camera Accepting Money From “Middle Eastern Oil Interests”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Published on May 20, 2014

” James O’Keefe Premieres “Expose: Hollywood’s War on US Energy” at Cannes Hollywood celebrities caught on hidden camera accepting money from “Middle Eastern oil interests”

  CANNES — In a blockbuster new video, Project Veritas has exposed the truth about the dark funding behind Hollywood’s anti-fracking messaging machine.

  New York Times Bestselling Author and Project Veritas founder and president James O’Keefe debuted the latest investigation at a “premiere” in Cannes, France on Wednesday.

  In the investigation, an undercover journalist from Project Veritas posed as a member of a Middle Eastern oil dynasty and offered $9 million in funding to American filmmakers to fund an anti-fracking movie.

  In video from a meeting with Ed Begley Jr., Mariel Hemingway and Josh Tickell, a Project Veritas investigator disguised as “Muhammed” offered $9 million for an anti-fracking film. “Muhammad” clearly states: “If Washington DC continues fracking, America will be energy efficient, and then they won’t need my oil anymore.”

  In the same conversation, Begley and Hemingway accept the funding and agree to hide the source of funds for the anti-fracking movie. Hemingway agreeing that those who will know the source of the funding are “only at this table.” 

  Ed Begley Jr. is an outspoken environmental activist and current Governor on the board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science (the organization that brings us the OSCARS every year.)

Mariel Hemingway is a Golden Globe- and Oscar-nominated actress.

  Josh Tickell is a Sundance Film Festival Winner and the director of environmental message movies “Fuel”, “The Big Fix” and “PUMP”.

  Team Begley even submitted a video of Oscar-nominated actor Mark Ruffalo offering his unwavering support for the fictitious anti-fracking film project.

  The meeting came about after a series of discussions with Josh and Rebecca Tickell. A Project Veritas journalist posed as an ad executive seeking to broker a deal for his client (“Muhammed”) to fund an American-made anti-fracking film.

  In a phone call to Tickell, the ad executive states: “My client’s interest is to end American energy independence; your interest is to end fracking. And you guys understand that?”

  Tickell’s response: “Correct. Yes, super clear.”

  Tickell makes it clear on the tape that revealing the source of funding for an activist film can undermine its credibility. Tickell notes that the movie “Promised Land” undermined its own message because it was labeled as being funded by Image Nation Abu Dhabi. His advice: “So rather than putting that [the source of funding] up front, don’t mention that.”

  In a follow-up call with Josh and Rebecca Tickell, Rebecca Tickell assures our investigator: “We would never tell about where the funding is coming from. That would be really awkward for us.”

  Josh Tickell: “We’re confident that we can keep this zip locked, you know tight, air-tight forever. If we don’t protect who is kind of funding this thing, if we have to disclose that or that becomes a necessary part of it, the whole enterprise will not work.” 

  Project Veritas founder and president James O’Keefe stated Wednesday:

” This latest investigation shows the dark side of Hollywood’s environmental movement. Hollywood is willing to take and conceal money from Middle Eastern oil interests in order to advance their cause of destroying American energy independence.”

  The raw video can be found at http://Youtube.com/VeritasVisuals

  Project Veritas is non-partisan and does not advocate for political candidates or parties. The purpose of Project Veritas’ investigations is to expose waste, fraud, dishonesty and self-dealing.

  Stay up to date on who responds by following us on Facebook at http://Facebook.com/ProjectVeritas and on Twitter @Project_Veritas.

Support Project Veritas’ investigations at http://ProjectVeritas.com/donate “

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

—

Obama’s Slip Is Showing Among His Special Interest Coalition … Michael Barone Reports

Obama’s Top-And-Bottom Coalition Shows Signs Of Strain

 

 

 

 

 

” America’s two major political parties are inevitably coalitions, forced by the winner-take-all Electoral College and the need of candidates in single-member congressional districts to amass 50 percent of the vote, or nearly that, to win election.

  In a nation of America’s cultural variety, that means holding together groups that have different priorities and conflicting positions on issues.

  So coalitions don’t last forever, and change composition over time. John Kennedy’s Democratic coalition united white Southerners and northern Catholics. Half a century later, Republican Mitt Romney carried white Southerners and white Catholics by wide margins.

  Barack Obama’s Democratic Party is a top-and-bottom coalition, with affluent gentry liberals and blacks, single women, recent Hispanic immigrants and young voters — all groups of little political heft in Kennedy’s day.

  Now in the sixth year of the Obama presidency, with his job approval stuck below 50 percent, there are signs of strain. And choices made earlier, when Democrats held congressional supermajorities, are starting to prove troublesome.

  One choice was to not bring forward immigration legislation that would provide a path to legalization for immigrants in the country unlawfully. This was a top priority for the Hispanic Caucus, but Obama and Democratic congressional leaders chose not to advance an issue that would cost them the support of some Democrats and require Republican votes.”

 

 

It’s always worth your while to read what Michael Barone has to say . This article is no exception .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

—

Destruction Of Just Nine Electrical Substations Could Black Out America For A Year

America Could Be Plunged Into A Nationwide Blackout If Just NINE Of Its Thousands Of Power Plants Were Attacked

 

 

 

” Federal reports have revealed that terrorists would only have to sabotage nine out of the 55,000 electric-transmission substations across the U.S. in order to cause a national blackout that could last for more than a year.

  A coast-to-coast blackout has become a very harrowing- and plausible- prospect that has scared federal regulators into issuing warnings calling for widespread security precautions to be put into place.

  The Wall Street Journal has published the findings from a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that told how the three electric systems could be brought down entirely by attacks on select stations.

‘ Destroy nine interconnection substations and a transformer manufacturer and the entire United States grid would be down for at least 18 months, probably longer,’ wrote FERC’s director of external affairs Leonard Tao in a June memo that was only revealed publicly today.”

Continue reading

 

 

 

 

—

Nice Refinery You Got There , It’d Be A Shame …

Europe’s Largest Oil Refinery Catches On Fire, Happens To Be In Russia

 

 

 

 

” Amazingly, no one was injured when Europe’s largest oil refinery, like, totally burned with the force of a thousand suns yesterday. And obviously it’s in Russia.”

” The refinery is OJSC TANECO, formerly known as the Nizhnekamsk refinery, in Tartarstan. If you get into your Lada and drive due East from Moscow, you’ll get there in about 14 hours.”

 

 

Read more & more

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

—

 

 

Thousands Of Texans Discover That Being “Green” Will Cost Them Green

Thousands Of Texans Being Charged For Conserving Power

 

 

 

 

 

” Hundreds of thousands of Texans have been charged by their power providers for not using enough power.

  We have all heard the pleas, “Use as little power as you can.” But that may be costing you and you don’t even know it.

  After hearing a complaint from an 11 News viewer Jeremy Desel dug into the power problem and found you may be one of thousands paying for something you did not even use.

“ Surprise! You did not use enough electricity so we are going to tack on a $10 fee,” Cole found.

  You heard right a $9.95 fee that was right there in his energy bill, but not there every month. His energy provider calls it a Base charge on the bill, but that is not true because it is really a minimum usage charge.

  There in the fine print of almost every plan from every provider available here is similar language, if your usage is less than 1000KW hours, expect a fee of anywhere from 10 to 30 dollars depending on the provider.”

 

Read more on this hypocrisy here

 

 

 

 

 

 

—

The Much-Maligned Woodstove Is Greener Than You Think

How Unheralded Wood Stoves Could Save The World

 

 

 

” Imagine two homeowners: One is a wealthy investor building a vacation house near Lake Tahoe in California. The other owns a middle-class home outside Burlington, Vt. Both are interested in keeping their energy costs under control—and helping the environment while they’re at it. The owner of the Tahoe ski palace installs an expensive solar-energy system to power his lights and appliances, covering his roof with photovoltaic panels. (He uses natural gas for heat.) The Vermonter invests in a clean-burning wood-pellet stove, cutting his consumption of heating oil by about 80 percent. 

  Our Tahoe homeowner enjoys the virtuous glow of being seen as an alternative-energy pioneer. He also enjoys something else: Under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, he is entitled to a tax credit equal to 30 percent of the cost of his system, including installation. Let’s say Mr. Tahoe installed a 6-kilowatt PV system at a cost of about $23,000. His federal tax credit works out to nearly $7000, and the state of California kicks in additional incentives. 

  Our Vermont homeowner isn’t so lucky. The IRS offers only a 10 percent credit on biomass heating systems like his stove. The credit doesn’t include installation costs, and the total is capped at $300. That’s a grudging level of support—yet the pellet stove may be doing more than the solar array to help the environment. 

  The systems are tough to compare: It’s electricity versus heat, and removing reliance on a distant power plant rather than an oil burner in the basement. But to get a rough idea, we can calculate the energy savings from both systems using British thermal units, or Btu. The Vermont homeowner’s system saves about 575 gallons of oil yearly, which is the equivalent of 79 million Btu. The Tahoe system might produce close to 9000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a year—about 30 million Btu.”

 

Read the rest and see how , once again , the Obama Science is anything but “settled” .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Judge Jeanine Pirro – Opening Statement 2.22.14

Justice Investigates: US Power Grid – Lights Out!

 

 

 

Published on Feb 22, 2014

” Judge Jeanine Pirro Opening Statement – Justice Investigates: U.S. Power Grid – Lights Out!
==============================­=========­­=­===
**Please Click Below to SUBSCRIBE for More “Mass Tea Party” Videos:
http://goo.gl/Z5ShLs “

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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“Green” Power Towers Frying The Indigenous Avian Lifeforms

The $2.2 Billion Bird-Scorching Solar Project

 

 

 

 

 

” A giant solar-power project officially opening this week in the California desert is the first of its kind, and may be among the last, in part because of growing evidence that the technology it uses is killing birds.

  U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz is scheduled to speak Thursday at an opening ceremony for the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Station, which received a $1.6 billion federal loan guarantee.

  The $2.2 billion solar farm, which spans over five square miles of federal land southwest of Las Vegas, includes three towers as tall as 40-story buildings. Nearly 350,000 mirrors, each the size of a garage door, reflect sunlight onto boilers atop the towers, creating steam that drives power generators.

  The owners of the project— NRG Energy Inc.,  Google Inc. and BrightSource Energy Inc., the company that developed the “tower power” solar technology—call the plant a major feat of engineering that can light up about 140,000 homes a year.”

 

 

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction … surprise , surprise … nothing is without cost .

 

WSJ has more

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Obama’s First Promise Kept – Clean Coal Regs To Boost Energy Costs By 75%

Obama’s New Clean Coal Rules Will Increase Energy Costs By 70%-80%

 

 

 

    On this one we cannot say we weren’t warned … “… under my plan energy prices will necessarily skyrocket … because I’m capping greenhouse gases … “

 

    Beware of the falling porcine feces ,  he told the truth , so pigs can fly .

—

Yearly Climate Spending 10x More Than UN Estimate For Ending World Hunger

Yet UN Recommends Another $147B Be Spent On Warming

 

 

 

 

” The United Nations estimates it would cost $30 billion a year to end world hunger. That sounds like a lot, but the world spent more than ten times that amount in 2012 on global warming mitigation, according to a recent Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) study.

  And the UN says the world needs to spend even more on global warming mitigation. Much more.

  According to the Reuters analysis of the Summary for Policymakers of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report, due to be released this April, the UN is calling on the world to invest an extra $147 billion a year in wind, solar, and nuclear power from 2010 to 2029. If we add that figure to CPI’s measure, the UN wants us to spend approximately $506 billion a year to mitigate global warming.”

 

     Obviously it’s all about the benjamins and little to do with solving problems . If thirty billion would solve a real , known , provable problem like hunger , yet the UN would rather have us spend nearly seventeen times that on an issue who’s legitimacy is questionable then you just know it because someone(s) will get much richer off the climate change spending than could do so by feeding the hungry . 

 

” According to the UN, this amount would end world hunger for nearly 20 years.

  It’s important to ask what sort of return we can expect from these investments. As the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change reports, the human effect on climate “is likely to be small relative to natural variability, and whatever small warming is likely to occur will produce benefits as well as costs.” “

 

   Actually , we know the sort of return we will get for our “investment” … nada , zip , zilch … Some fat-cat cronies of Mr Carbon-Tax , the Almighty AlGore would undoubtably see a handsome return while the average citizen just gets lighter in the wallet .

 

Continued here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Drunk Bicyclist Should Have Walked … LOL

Drunk Cycling

 

 

 

 

 

Somebody should have taken his keys … LOL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Cleaning Up The Toxic Waste Of A Broken CFL Bulb

Cleaning Up A Broken CFL

 

 

” Before Cleanup

1. Have people and pets leave the room, and avoid the breakage area on the way out.
2. Open a window or door to the outdoors and leave the room for 5-10 minutes.
3. Shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning (H&AC) system, if you have one.
4. Collect materials you will need to clean up the broken bulb:
   • Stiff paper or cardboard
   • Sticky tape (e.g., duct tape)
   • Damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes (for hard surfaces
   • Glass jar with a metal lid (such as a canning jar) or a sealable plastic bag(s)”

 

Cleanup Steps for Hard Surfaces

1. Carefully scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place debris and paper/cardboard in a glass jar with a metal lid. If a glass jar is not available, use a sealable plastic bag. (NOTE: Since a plastic bag will not prevent the mercury vapor from escaping, remove the plastic bag(s) from the home after cleanup.)
2. Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder. Place the used tape in the glass jar or plastic bag.
3. Wipe the area clean with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes. Place the towels in the glass jar or plastic bag.
4. Vacuuming of hard surfaces during cleanup is not recommended unless broken glass remains after all other cleanup steps have been taken. [NOTE: It is possible that vacuuming could spread mercury-containing powder or mercury vapor, although available information on this problem is limited.] If vacuuming is needed to ensure removal of all broken glass, keep the following tips in mind:
   • Keep a window or door to the outdoors open;  
   • Vacuum the area where the bulb was broken using the vacuum hose, if available; and 
   • Remove the vacuum bag (or empty and wipe the canister) and seal the bag/vacuum debris, and any materials used to clean the vacuum, in a plastic bag.
5. Promptly place all bulb debris and cleanup materials, including vacuum cleaner bags, outdoors in a trash container or protected area until materials can be disposed of.  Avoid leaving any bulb fragments or cleanup materials indoors. 
6. Next, check with your local government about disposal requirements in your area, because some localities require fluorescent bulbs (broken or unbroken) be taken to a local recycling center. If there is no such requirement in your area, you can dispose of the materials with your household trash.
7. Wash your hands with soap and water after disposing of the jars or plastic bags containing bulb debris and cleanup materials.
8. Continue to air out the room where the bulb was broken and leave the H&AC system shut off, as practical, for several hours.”

 

 

 

Aren’t you glad we’ve gotten rid of those evil incandescents ?

See the rest at EPA.gov

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Incandescent Ban Is Result Of Crony Capitalism Not Greenies

Industry, Not Environmentalists, Killed Traditional Bulbs

 

 

 

” The 2007 Energy Bill, a stew of regulations and subsidies, set mandatory efficiency standards for most light bulbs. Any bulbs that couldn’t produce a given brightness at the specified energy input would be illegal. That meant the 25-cent bulbs most Americans used in nearly every socket of their home would be outlawed.

  People often assume green regulations like this represent the triumph of environmental activists trying to save the planet. That’s rarely the case, and it wasn’t here. Light bulb manufacturers whole-heartedly supported the efficiency standards. General Electric, Sylvania and Philips — the three companies that dominated the bulb industry — all backed the 2007 rule, while opposing proposals to explicitly outlaw incandescent technology (thus leaving the door open for high-efficiency incandescents).

  This wasn’t a case of an industry getting on board with an inevitable regulation in order to tweak it. The lighting industry was the main reason the legislation was moving. As the New York Times reported in 2011, “Philips formed a coalition with environmental groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council to push for higher standards.” “

 

Continued …

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Introducing The “Newcandescent” Light Bulb

A MANUFACTURER FOUND A LOOPHOLE AROUND THAT INCANDESCENT LIGHT BULB BAN

” With millions of people still supporting the use of incandescent bulbs, Birnbaum found a loophole in the Energy Independence and Security Act. The ban applies to general service incandescent light bulbs but not rough service incandescents.

  While frequently used in automobiles, subway systems and other applications that require a heavy-duty, vibration-resistant bulb, rough service bulbs can still be used in a general application, according to Birnbaum.

  The website Bulbs.com breaks it down this way: “Rough service lamps function identically to regular incandescent lamps, but generally have additional wire within the glass enclosure that serves to protect and support the filament.” [emphasis added]

  Birnbaum’s company was one of two awarded a license to produce these bulbs in the country. After designing a bulb to meet the new specifications for rough service bulbs established in the law, the American-made Newcandescent was born.”

—

Coolest Car Ever Needs Refueling Once Every Hundred Years

Thorium-Fueled Automobile Engine Needs Refueling Once A Century

 

Cadillac World Thorium Fuel Concept Car

 

 

” There are now over one billion cars traveling roads around the world directly and indirectly costing trillions of dollars in material resources, time and noxious emissions. Imagine all these cars running cleanly for 100 years on just 8 grams of fuel each.

Laser Power Systems (LPS) from Connecticut, USA, is developing a new method of automotive propulsion with one of the most dense materials known in nature: thorium. Because thorium is so dense it has the potential to produce tremendous amounts of heat. The company has been experimenting with small bits of thorium, creating a laser that heats water, produces steam and powers a mini turbine.”

 

 

 

 

   A single gram of Thorium produces the energy equivalent of 7,400 gallons of gasoline . Read this for a primer on the natural element and ponder the alternative energy possibilities .

 

 

” Thorium is a naturally occurring radioactive chemical element with the symbol Th and atomic number 90. It was discovered in 1828 by the Norwegian mineralogist Morten Thrane Esmark and identified by the Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius and named after Thor, the Norse god of thunder.

Thorium produces a radioactive gas, radon-220, as one of its decay products. Secondary decay products of thorium include radium and actinium. In nature, virtually all thorium is found as thorium-232, which undergoes alpha decay with a half-life of about 14.05 billion years. Other isotopes of thorium are short-lived intermediates in the decay chains of higher elements, and only found in trace amounts. Thorium is estimated to be about three to four times more abundant than uranium in the Earth’s crust, and is chiefly refined from monazite sands as a by-product of extracting rare earth metals.

Thorium was once commonly used as the light source in gas mantles and as an alloying material, but these applications have declined due to concerns about its radioactivity. Thorium is also used as an alloying element in nonconsumable TIG welding electrodes.

Canada, China, Germany, India, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States have experimented with using thorium as a substitute nuclear fuel in nuclear reactors. When compared to uranium, there is a growing interest in thorium-based nuclear power due to its greater safety benefits, absence of non-fertile isotopes and its higher occurrence and availability. India’s three stage nuclear power programme is possibly the most well known and well funded of such efforts.“

 

 

  Here is a documentary from the Motherboard Youtube channel on the Thorium Dream .

 

 

 

 

   And what would a dream energy source be if without controversy and conspiracy?

 

 

 

 

 

  As the Professor says , Faster Please …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Greenies Are Big Election Losers Nationwide

Environmental Causes Suffer Defeats Across The Country

 

 

” Environmental causes across the country saw defeat last night as voters from Maine to Colorado rejected anti-fossil fuel policies such as hydraulic fracturing restrictions and tar sands oil import bans.

Anti-fossil groups did see some victories on Tuesday night as three cities in Colorado passed restrictions on fracking and an Ohio city also voted to limit fracking. Other environmentalist attempts to harm the fossil fuel industry across the country, however, were stymied.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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MIT Students Produce A Prototype Personal Air Conditioner

MIT Students Develop Wearable Cooling Device That Could Make Air Conditioning Obsolete

 

 

 

” We come across quite a lot of cool technology, but it’s not every day that we find something that can literally cool you down. 

Developed by four engineering students at MIT, Wristify is a prototype wearable device that leverages the physical phenomenon known as the Peltier effect to reduce your body temperature.

Wristify is basically a series of these junctions (called a Peltier cooler) powered by a small battery and attached to a wrist strap. When placed against the skin, the device makes you feel cooler by reducing the temperature of your wrist a few fractions of a degree per second for a couple seconds at a time. Over the course of a few minutes, this process will cause you to perceive a whole-body cooling of a couple degrees Celsius. “

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Coal Country Fights Back

In EPA’s Grip, Coal Industry Is Headed To Washington

” Besieged by the Obama administration and its host of new environmental regulations, the U.S. coal industry is beginning to fight back.”

 

 

” Thousands of miners and their families will descend on Washington on Tuesday for the “Count on Coal” rally, bringing with them a simple message for the Environmental Protection Agency and other arms of the federal government that seem intent on relegating the fuel to the ash pile of history.

“The message is that there’s a lot of people out there in states that not only mine coal, but rely heavily on coal. There’s a lot of frustration building up at people here in Washington that they aren’t really listening and looking out for them,” said Hal Quinn, president of the National Mining Association, one of the rally’s prime organizers. “It’s a way of life. [Coal miners] are very proud of what they do for this country.” ”

 

 

This post gives more detail regarding  the closing of power generating facilities and mines under the new Obama EPA regulatory scheme . The list is extensive and growing at an alarming rate :

 

” Coal-fired power plants and coal mines are going down across the U.S., according to SNL Financial analyses.

Facing tougher federal health-based standards for mercury emissions in 2015, utility companies have been steadily shuttering coal-fired units, with 8,800 megawatts permanently closed in 2012 and another 5,781 megawatts projected to be closed this year.”

 

 

 

We were warned . This is one instance where Obama told the truth.

 

 

 

” Production data from the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration shows that mines idled in the first half of 2013 produced a combined 11.4 million tons of coal in 2012.”

 

 

   It’s only going to get worse , and as energy prices rise so does the cost of EVERYTHING else . It takes energy to produce goods and it takes energy to deliver goods . 

 

 

 

 

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