Sunday, August 31, 2008
Enforcement and Reality
The start of the fall semester marks the first test of the housing regulation the city approved in March. The bylaw holds property owners, not students, responsible for violations, which carry penalties if not rectified.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
235 MPG, Pickens Plan and the Future
In the end, the Pickens Plan will not make that happen, no matter what kind of deathbed conversion T. Boone Pickens is experiencing. LINK
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Thursday, August 28, 2008
Middleboro Board of Selectmen and Progress
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Voter Registration Deadline
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Oil & Gas Drilling Safe?
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Southbridge: Not Forgotten
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Deja Vu All Over Again?
Single Sentences
Sen. Kerry was among featured speakers at energy summit
At a Bridgewater State College energy summit, the senator compares the green industry and energy independence to President Kennedy’s “Space Race” during the 1960s.
The article offers some good information, but the last sentence is telling:
Monday, August 18, 2008
ISO-New England: What are the facts?
Saturday, August 16, 2008
An Urgent Call to Energy Efficiency
Customers of Middleboro Gas and Electric received the Messenger enclosed with their bills revealing participation in complaints against ISO regarding the Canal generating plant, indicating the resolution
"...might result in saving each residential customer as much as $50 per year."
Maybe like most, I read the comment and almost accepted it believing it was real money. Then it occurred to me that that's only ~ $4.00 per month. As energy costs are rising, the percentage that $4.00 represents becomes increasingly negligible.
Further down, the same article spoke of the "Consumer Protection & Cost Accountability Act" and suggested checking out the News and Weather/News Brief section of the website http://mgandeonline.com/NewsWeather/Default.asp for the "latest information....'
Searching for the information, I also noticed that the Commissioners' Meeting Minutes that were previously posted are no longer available, so I couldn't even review those for a discussion of the Canal plant.
While I was thinking about this pittance of a savings the $4.00 represents and thinking about why our energy priorities are all wrong, I happened across the following in Cape Cod Today that just about says it all:
08/16/08 · 6:14 am :: posted by CCToday
Canal Power plant is not just ugly, it's costly and unnecessary
By Matt Patrick
Do you have any idea what we could do to make our homes, businesses and towns more energy efficient for $17 million a month? In a year's time every town in the Cape Light Compact could get a wind turbine to power their municipal needs. We could radically insulate thousands of homes on Cape Cod to reduce their heating and cooling energy needs by 80 percent or more. We could begin to put a photovoltaic array and a solar hot water system on every south facing roof on Cape Cod or we could install generating units at every hospital, school and nursing home to run when we are at peak load during the hottest summer months. That's what 1.5 cents per kWh will get you and that's what you are paying now to get more pollution from the Canal Power plant.
Cape Codders, this is a call to prepare for inevitable future of ever increasing energy costs.
Many of us who are over 45 remember the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979. We remember odd and even days to buy gas. We remember long lines waiting for gas and fist fights with the guy who wanted to cut in line. Every winter senior citizens were found frozen to death in their homes because of a lack of heat. Employment and the economy suffered terribly. It was not a happy time in our history. But the nation rallied to make our economy stronger and more impervious to the shocks of high energy costs.
At that time our nation's difficulties were caused by the cost of energy leaping so high yet it was the policies implemented at the time that gave us the reduction in energy costs in the late eighties and then the nineties. Congress implemented tax credits for weatherization of homes plus solar and wind energy. They also mandated higher miles per gallon fuel standards for cars. People don't realize it but we had more than twice the cars on the road in the 1990's using about the same amount of gasoline we used in the 1970's only because of the CAFÉ standards implemented by Congress.
The Cape Light Compact can be the vehicle or agency to help us do it. What do you think?
So, what can we do to prepare for the future? We can decide to continue to pay a portion of the 1.5 cents per kWh after the Canal Power Plant is shut down. We can then use it to make ourselves less dependent of fossil fuels. The Cape Light Compact can be the vehicle or agency to help us do it. What do you think? Is it worth the effort? Or, should we just sit back to see what happens?
Either comment below, or write me to let me know what you think here.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Middleboro Gazette: Still Only 50 Cents!
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Abramoff and Wampanoag Connections...Again!
McCain will attend a fundraiser with Abramoff crony Ralph Reed in Atlanta on August 18, despite pressure from watchdog groups. McCain's own Senate committee obtained e-mails clearly linking Reed and Abramoff during its investigation. The Hill reported [1]:
The Senate probe discovered $4 million in payments Reed accepted to run a bogus anti-casino campaign aimed at reducing gambling competition. An Indian tribe with a competing casino made payments to Reed, which according to the Senate investigation's final report,
were "passed through" Abramoff's firm, Preston, Gates, Ellis & Rouvelas Meeds, and another organization, Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Home-heating disaster looms
Home-heating disaster looms
The [Massachseutts] delegation is also seeking an increase in funding for the Weatherization Assistance Program. But while weatherization and replacement of inefficient heating units are useful ways to cut fuel use, the focus this year has to be on getting much more assistance to households as quickly as possible. State and municipal officials must also plan for the possibility that aid does not arrive by preparing emergency sites where families without heat can spend the nights.
Energy Sites #1
Satellite images show that ice caps started to disintegrate dramatically several days ago as storms over Alaska's Beaufort Sea began sucking streams of warm air into the Arctic.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Who is the Jetpuffed Marshmellow Man?
It really is shameful. I attended Native American ceremonies and "earth blessing" rituals of several different tribes and they are serious and beautiful. What I saw from the pictures is mockery of what should be considered their religion. It would be like taking whiskey to a Catholic baptism or me wearing a pentacle to a Catholic Church. It is unheard of to take marshmallows to something like this. Naive and stupid.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
LEED Certification
Although the standards began with new construction, the information can be applied to older buildings and home renovations. The following sites provide additional information:
In 2006, five years after the 9/11 attacks, Gov. George Pataki announced that the Freedom Tower, World Trade Center Office Towers 2, 3, and 4 and World Trade Center Memorial and Memorial Museum would all be designed to achieve LEED Gold certification. Nearby, 7 World Trade Center has already earned LEED Gold and will house one of the largest fuel-cell installations.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Energy Tips #5
The following offer some additional energy saving information:
New American Dream
Texas Energy Partnership
WorldWatchInstitute
NESEA
Energy Story
And the following by Bill Scher:
Yes Conservatives, Inflating Tires Beats Coastal Drilling
How Stuff Works: Vampires
Some Things Aren't Funny!
Help The Arc Fight Offensive Portrayal of People with Intellectual Disabilities
Tropic Thunder is an action/adventure/comedy scheduled for nationwide release on August 13 and promises to be one of the blockbusters of the summer. DreamWorks is the film's producer and Paramount is its distributor. The premier will be held in Los Angeles, California on Monday, August 11.
$189,000 Better Spent
The report also misstates the inevitability of the Mashpee Wampanoag Bingo Hall in Middleboro.
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From Media Nation:
Casino study fails laugh test
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From Ryan Adams:
My Nickname for the Spectrum Casino Report:
The BS Report
From Truth to Power
Monson (or your town)
Spectrum Gaming Consulting Report Released
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From Bellicose Bumpkin:
First look at the Spectrum Gaming Report
Friday, August 8, 2008
Brockton Power Plant
In response to previous comments about the proposed Dirty Brockton Power Plant in, a friend with respiratory problems sent the following comment:
And BTW, Middleboro air quality is below the state average.
Asthma rates are the fastest growing in our region????
Why are all the athletes in China wearing masks?
We cannot afford to add 55,000 vehicles for a Middleboro Casino? Dirty Air! How Much More Can the Body Take?
At this late date, the Middleboro Board of Selectmen seem not to have noticed that the proposed Dirty Power Plant will effect already poor air quality.
The Brockton Enterprise offered the following 2 recent articles about the progress:
Mayor pledges to take Brockton plant fight all the way
Brockton Mayor James E. Harrington vows to appeal to the state’s highest court if a siting board approves the facility. Brockton Enterprise
Testimony against Brockton power plant gets noticed Brockton Enterprise
.Brockton Power Plant
Increased Air Quality Standards
Brockton Power Plant
Middleboro: Impressive Choices! referenced the following:
Oh, but not to worry, says search committee member Wayne Perkins, a former selectman and casino backer. Yunits may be taking money from a firm funded in part by the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe and the South African casino moguls who are behind all this, but his work with Liberty Square is "strictly" limited to lobbying for a power plant in Brockton.
Paris and New Energy
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Kudos to the Middleboro Gazette and Jeff Stevens
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Included in the article, a statement by Mr. Stevens:
The McCain Plan: Homer Simpson without the Donut
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Greenwashing Nuclear Power #3
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Estimated cost of Nevada nuke-waste dump soars
On capital markets:
Chinese Fur Farms
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I saw a video recently, that will haunt me forever.
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Please forward.
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If you have a pet, do it for their sake...for all the times you cuddled or found comfort and solace with them.
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"Animals" are intelligent. We are animals, although our intelligence is questionable sometimes. For some, barbarism prevails.
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Animal Cognition
Chinese Fur Farms
China supplies more than half of the finished fur garments imported for sale in the United States.
Greenwashing Nuclear Power #2
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There are no simple answers, but to nuclear proponents, it seems a little homework is necessary before proclaiming nuclear as part of the solution.
The simple-minded solutions (offered in the Washington Post article) that Senator McCain touts to satisfy Big Energy are disappointing, like the following that neglects reality:
On the stump, McCain talks frequently about electric power, a subject that energy experts say will do little to affect gas prices. His plan to build 45 nuclear power plants, which he will highlight with a visit to a Michigan plant Tuesday, would take decades.
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Previously posted information on Greenwashing Nuclear does not bode well, but that ignores the industry in the US.
Vermont Yankee Nuclear failures and Entergy's plans to distance itself from an aging nuclear plant close to 'decommissioning' should give taxpayers pause because they'll bear the costs of the hundreds of billions needed to address the cleanup and storage issues --- and they'll receive no power to boot!
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... rather than getting top-notch industry expertise and management, Vermonters saw a spate of mishaps at the plant. Just last year a spent fuel rod went missing and there was the spectacular collapse of cooling tower sections. The bad news led Republican Governor Jim Douglas to say that it seems as if “Homer Simpson is running the place.” CorpWatch (emphasis mine)
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