• Cumulative loss in U.S. GDP up to $2.1 trillion;
• As many as 1.9 million jobs lost
• Residential electricity price increases up to 42 percent and
• Gasoline price increases (per gallon) up 18 percent

The study, which was conducted by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) using input assumptions provided by the ACCF and the SBE Council, assesses the impact of the Kerry-Lieberman Bill on manufacturing, jobs, energy prices and the overall U.S. economy. The ACCF and SBE Council released national data and will include state-specific analyses for all 50 U.S. states in the coming days. These study results reflect a combination of the Kerry-Lieberman provisions and ACCF assumptions about future electricity generation technology availability.
Dr. Margo Thorning, senior vice president and chief economist for ACCF, said “The analysis shows strong negative impacts from the American Power Act on economic and job growth and severe impacts on manufacturing given our assumptions about the potential deployment of future generation technology. This is exactly the wrong prescription to restore the vitality of the U.S. economy.”
“The report makes clear that Kerry-Lieberman would impose additional burdens and hardship on small business owners, who have suffered considerably during this recession,” explains SBE Council President and CEO Karen Kerrigan. “Come November, federal lawmakers will be hard pressed to explain their support for such a costly, economically damaging plan, especially to voters who are out of work or struggling to make ends meet. Small business owners cannot create more jobs when costly policies such as Kerry-Lieberman take more of their hard-earned resources.”
In Analysis of the Kerry-Lieberman Bill “The American Power Act of 2010″, ACCF and SBE Council employed a project-specific version of the National Energy Modeling System (NEMS), NEMS/ACCF-SBE Council, and the ACCF-SBE Council input assumptions to assess Kerry-Lieberman’s potential impact on manufacturing, jobs, energy prices and our overall economy.
Researchers accounted for all federal energy laws and regulations currently in effect, as well as increased access to oil and natural gas supplies, new and extended tax credits for renewable generation technologies, increased World Oil Price (WOP) profile, and permit allocations for industry and international offsets. The ACCF-SBE Council input assumptions also included assumptions regarding the likely availability of domestic and international offsets — key factors influencing analysis of the cost of limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

Resource

ACCF-SBEC Powerpoint Presentation on Kerry-Lieberman Bill Analysis

ACCF-SBEC Full Report on Kerry-Lieberman Bill

ACCF-SBEC National News Release on Kerry-Lieberman Analysis

In this aerial photo taken in the Gulf of Mexico more than 50 miles southeast of Venice on Louisiana's tip, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig is seen burning Wednesday, April 21, 2010. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

In this aerial photo taken in the Gulf of Mexico more than 50 miles southeast of Venice on Louisiana's tip, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig is seen burning Wednesday, April 21, 2010. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

]]> http://www.dagorret.net/2010/05/12/photographs-of-the-explosion-in-the-gulf-of-mexico-the-story-of-a-desaste/feed/ 0 http://www.dagorret.net/2010/02/18/u-s-scientists-took-a-key-step-toward-controlled-nuclear-fusion/ http://www.dagorret.net/2010/02/18/u-s-scientists-took-a-key-step-toward-controlled-nuclear-fusion/#comments Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:26:59 +0000 Carlos Dagorret http://www.dagorret.net/?p=2887 U.S. scientists have crossed a key step toward controlled nuclear fusion,
atomic process that could result in an inexhaustible source of clean energy and solve problems around fossil fuels and emission of greenhouse gases.

The researchers managed to produce an unprecedented level of energy and break the barrier of megajoule, said the National Nuclear Security Administration of the United States.

“Breaking the barrier of megajoule us closer to the fusion ignition,” said agency administrator, Thomas Dagostino, in a statement.

U.S. scientists managed to produce one megajoule with concentration of 192 laser beams simultaneously at a temperature of 111 million degrees Celsius on a tube the size of a pencil sharpener filled with deuterium and tritium, two isotopes of hydrogen.

“This milestone is an example of the benefits achieved with our nation’s investment in nuclear security and other areas, from advances in energy technology to better  understanding of the universe, “he added.

Nuclear fusion is the engine of the sun and the stars and their artificial production would provide an unlimited choice of clean generation to replace the reliance on dwindling fossil fuel reserves. However, until now controlled fusion technology is an unresolved challenge for researchers because of the very high pressures and temperatures involved.

In the experiment the laser energy was converted into X rays, which compressed fuel to levels of temperature and pressure billions of times greater than Earth’s atmosphere, the statement said.

The process leads to the fusion of hydrogen nuclei, releasing energy from nuclear fusion precursor.

The temperature produced by the device during the few billionths of a second experiment, was equivalent to 500 times the energy consumed by U.S. in that same time.

It is also thirty times greater than that obtained so far by any other process with a group of lasers in the world.

Nuclear energy can be released in two forms: nuclear fission, which already occurs in a controlled and arises from the division of nuclei of radioactive elements and heavy as uranium-and nuclear fusion, which in turn binds (hence the name of fusion) of hydrogen nuclei into helium, the two lighter elements.

Twenty years ago, chemists Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann caused a sensation by announcing that they had succeeded in producing a cold fusion, a very coveted by scientists in its search for energy sources, clean and economical.

But the dramatic announcement that lost strength after several scientific research teams failed to seek to replicate the experience.

Source:

192 Laser Beams Combined to Form One Megajoule Laser Shot

References

1. Statement by Dr. Raymond L. Orbach, Under Secretary for Science and Director, Office of Science, US Department of Energy (22 May 2008) [Back]

2. Sandia’s Z machine exceeds two billion degrees Kelvin, Sandia National Laboratories news release (8 March 2006) [Back]

3. Safety and Environmental Impact of Fusion, I. Cook, G. Marbach, L. Di Pace, C. Girard, N. P. Taylor, EUR (01) CCE-FU / FTC 8/5 (April 2001) [Back]

General sources

Iter website (www.iter.org)
JET website (www.jet.efda.org)
National Ignition Facility website (https://lasers.llnl.gov)
PETAL website (www.petal.aquitaine.fr)
HiPER website (www.hiper-laser.org)
The Fusion Power website of the EURATOM/UKAEA Fusion Association (www.fusion.org.uk)
European Fusion Network Information website (www.fusion-eur.org)
Website of the Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) program of the US Department of Energy’s Office of Science (www.er.doe.gov/Program_Offices/fes.htm)
Large Helical Device website (www.lhd.nifs.ac.jp)
HiPER activity, Nuclear Engineering International (November 2008)
Fast track to fusion energy, Michael H. Key, Nature 412, 775-776 (23 August 2001)

The invention has several names – wheel hub motor, Plug-in Hybrid Retrofit Kit or “Machine for Augmentation, Storage and Conservation of Vehicle Motive Energy (the one submitted to the United States Patent and Trademark Office) – and it recently gained statewide notoriety.

The Plug-in Hybrid received the Tennessee Technology Development Corporation’s first-place award of $50,000 in the semi-annual series of grants designed to help Tennessee inventors take their innovations from the lab to the marketplace.

“We’re pretty excited,” said Perry, an electrical engineer and holder of the Russell Chair of Manufacturing Excellence at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro. The award was tops among 15 proposals from institutions around the state, including Oak Ridge Laboratories, K-12 (a spin off of Oak Ridge), St. Jude Research Center, Vanderbilt University, the University of Tennessee Research Foundation and Tennessee Board of Regents universities.

Additionally, Palmer Labs LLC of Reston, Va., has made an oral agreement to match the $50K grant, Perry said.

“We are excited to support the work being done by Dr. Perry and his team at MTSU,” said Dr. Miles Palmer, president of Palmer Labs. “This technology will be a key element in Palmer Labs’ plan to help transform our nation’s transportation infrastructure.” The goal is to have Palmer Labs commercialize the invention.

“We’ve been trying to get money for two years,” Perry said. “We’ve been working with Dr. Mike Allen’s office (dean of MTSU’s College of Graduate Studies) and the TBR counsel, Lou Svendsen. Lou was very instrumental in us getting this (matching) grant. He has been our advocate and adviser in how to prepare this grant.”

MTSU will partner with Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tenn., another of the six four-year universities in the TBR system. TTU has agreed to serve as the sub-contractor that will build a prototype device.

“I will be happy to work with you and deliver a product that we will all be proud of,” TTU’s Dr. Ali Alouani, professor of electrical and computer engineering, stated in a memo to Perry.

“We are very pleased to find the electrical engineering expertise we need for this project at another of the Board of Regents schools,” Svendsen said. “We hope that this is the start of many productive collaborations between the world-class researchers found at various TBR institutions.”

“Environmental quality will be enhanced and energy savings will result,” Perry said of the patent application that will reduce carbon emissions.

With 80 percent of Americans driving an average of 28 miles per day in their vehicles, Perry said the wheel hub motor (in hybrid mode) would double drivers’ gas mileage, and that it mainly would be an around-town function, not for highway driving. He said once it becomes mass-produced, the target consumer installation cost would be $3,000 to $5,000.

“Our first goal is to build a demonstration of a working prototype,” Perry said. “Then, working with the state of Tennessee, we’d like to build one dozen to two dozen prototypes. We’d like to put them on state vehicles to get data. Then we’d look at a capital investment. Ultimately, Palmer Labs would like to build a facility that would create 2,000 jobs.”

Working with Perry on the project is Paul Martin III, who is an automotive engineering technology expert. He is the grandson of Paul W. Martin Sr., namesake of MTSU’s University Honors College building, and son of Murray and Paul W. Martin Jr., who, along with his brother, Lee, provided $2 million toward the honors building.

“He is a perfect match,” Perry said of the younger Martin. “He has the right combination of skills. He is an applications guy. He came up with other ways to do things.”

Perry said Martin’s name has been added to the patent.

He added that Tennessee Tech would receive part of the $100,000, but at this point he was not sure how much.

Wal-Mart to Nearly Double Solar Energy Use in California.

Expansion expected to generate energy equal to powering more than 1300 homes annually.

LOS ANGELES, April 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Today Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) , as part of its commitment to accelerate and broaden its sustainability efforts, announced it is expanding its solar power program in California. The company plans to add solar panels on 10 to 20 additional Wal-Mart facilities within the next 18 months.

This commitment is in addition to the 18 solar arrays currently installed at Wal-Mart facilities in California. When combined, Wal-Mart’s total solar installations are expected to:

  --  Generate up to 32 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of renewable energy per
      year - the equivalent of powering more than 2,600 homes*;
  --  Avoid producing more than 22,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide
      emissions per year - the equivalent of taking more than 4,000 cars off
      the road*;
  --  Provide 20 to 30 percent of each location's total electric energy
      needs.

“Increasing the use of solar energy is the right thing to do for the environment and makes tremendous business sense, especially in these economic conditions,” said Kimberly Sentovich, Wal-Mart’s California regional general manager. “Thanks to Governor Schwarzenegger’s leadership, California is an excellent environment for us to grow our investment in renewable energy and help create more green jobs for America. Wal-Mart is excited to continue collaborating with our partner BP Solar on expanding our solar footprint.”

“All over the state we are harnessing the power of the famous California sun and creating energy that is pollution free,” said Governor Schwarzenegger. “This project is all about taking bold action so we can see solar panels on commercial rooftops all across California while putting people to work. Today’s action helps prove that even in an economic downturn, it is possible to get serious about clean, renewable energy.”

“Wal-Mart is a leader in implementing cost-effective clean energy solutions,” said Christopher Lau, World Resources Institute’s California Green Power Group manager. “With this commitment to expand the use of solar power, Wal-Mart demonstrates that businesses can pursue long-term sustainability goals during tough economic times to the benefit of the environment, customers, and bottom line.”

This latest series of projects is expected to create about 130 jobs, including engineering, design, and installer technician jobs. Smaller numbers of workers will be engaged during the periods leading up to and following peak construction.

Wal-Mart is committed to expanding its solar presence in California. As construction nears completion on this group of 10 to 20 sites, Wal-Mart will evaluate the feasibility of expanding the program to additional sites. The company will take into account a variety of factors, including available locations, economic conditions, energy prices, as well as local, state and federal renewable energy policies and programs.

Wal-Mart will continue learning from its renewable projects to find additional ways to achieve its goal of being supplied by 100 percent renewable energy. In November 2008, Wal-Mart announced a major purchase of wind energy that will supply up to 15 percent of the retailer’s total energy load in approximately 350 Texas stores and other facilities. In Puerto Rico, the company is planning to outfit up to five stores with solar panels this year, and expects the project to expand to 22 stores in the next five years. Additionally, Wal-Mart de Mexico will eliminate approximately 140 tons of CO2 emissions annually through the completed installation of more than 1000 solar panels on the roof of the Bodega Aurrera Aguascalientes.

Wal-Mart’s ongoing commitment to renewable energy projects is helping the retailer build a more diversified energy portfolio and create more opportunities for advancements in clean energy through research and innovations.

* According to the EPA (http://www.epa.gov/solar/energy-resources/calculator.html)

About Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT)

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. operates Walmart discount stores, supercenters, Neighborhood Markets and Sam’s Club locations in the United States. The company also operates in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom. The company’s common stock is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol WMT. More information about Wal-Mart can be found by visiting www.walmartstores.com.

Online merchandise sales are available at www.walmart.com and www.samsclub.com.

Many people seem to be under the impression that if the United States could attain energy independence, we could stop worrying about the war on terror/militant Islam because without our petrodollars, the mullahs would be out of cash. Would that it were so. Leaving aside the moral implications of abandoning a third of the world to rot under an oppressive theocracy, it’s not likely that the Islamic world is going to become economically incapable of bringing the war to us any time soon.

If we get rid of our dependence on foreign oil (a good idea on its own merits, so don’t think I’m arguing against that), we free up room in the consumption pipeline for Africa and Asia to increase their use of cars and other oil-burning technologies. Saudi Arabia is likely to stay rich no matter what we do; we might just make the multitrillion dollar investment to move America to renewable sources, but we certainly aren’t going to make the megatrillion dollar investment to turn China, Africa, India, and Indonesia (to point to the first four billion people who would like cars now, please) into Ecotopia.

So they will have leverage, despite the fact that we hypothetically-don’t need their oil anymore, because they will still have money and power. And quite likely nukes, since for some strange reason, President Obama’s hypercharisma has failed to convince Iran that they don’t need nukes because the community organizer has their best interest at heart, and we all know he doesn’t have the clankers to go after Iran in any effective way. Nuclear-armed states don’t need us to need their export products for us to be embroiled in conflict with them; the USSR had nothing that we needed.

And even if tomorrow morning Al Gore wakes up with a ready-to-go patent application for the Galt Engine and we all start generating a personal terawatt using nothing more than the morning dew, mild sexual desire, and bits of yarn, all THAT will accomplish is to launch the biggest boom in plastic production since Pamela Anderson went shopping for new boobs. Oil price crashes, plastic starts costing eight cents a ton to make, and we all start building plastic houses – and oil ramps right back up to $30/barrel. Plastic houses would be cool and all (I personally want them to make giant Lego bricks about 3′ long that people can snap together to build their own structures because that would be awesome) but would leave the ayatollahs with plenty of cash on hand.

In the long run, readily-extractable hydrocarbons will always have significant economic value, even if nobody would dream of setting them on fire.