Editor Note: This letter from a U.S. citizen/taxpayer to the U.S. Department of Energy is an example of grass-root opposition to government-dependent windpower. For a previous post along the same lines, see “New York’s Thousand Islands Are Being Ruined” (Letter to Sen. Schumer on the blight of government-dependent windpower).
Dr. Steven Chu
Secretary of Energy
U.S. Department of Energy
1000 Independence Avenue S.W.
Washington, DC 20585
Dear Secretary Chu:
You and other officials of the US Department of Energy should be ashamed of yourselves because:
… Continue Reading· Despite thousands of employees and billions in our tax dollars, you have found it necessary to have some low level “energy analyst” from a CONTRACTOR organization reply to an email from a US citizen and taxpayer, and
· The reply was so lacking in substance (see attached) that your contractor (and, presumably, your staff) apparently assumes that citizens and taxpayers outside Washington have no knowledge of DOE programs or the true costs and benefits of wind energy – the subject of my email.
Is the proliferation of electronic devices in homes and offices causing a net increase or decrease in electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions?
This question has been a topic of heated controversy ever since 1999, when technology analyst Mark P. Mills published a study provocatively titled “The Internet Begins with Coal,” and co-authored with Peter Huber a Forbes column titled “Dig more coal – the PCs are coming.”
Others–notably Joe Romm and researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory–argued that the Internet was a minor contributor to electricity demand and potentially a major contributor to energy savings in such areas as supply chain management, telecommuting, and online purchasing.
Mills and Huber argued that digital networks, server farms, chip manufacture, and information technology had become a new key driver of electricity demand. …
Continue Reading… Continue Reading“Since 1976, Enron [and predecessor company] employees have been at the forefront of developing air credit trading policies for governments and businesses…. Enron today is the largest and most sophisticated air emissions credit and allowance trading organization in the United States. Since 1990, Enron has participated in over 80 SOx allowance transactions and has also been active in establishing policies for trading NOx in the United States and carbon [dioxide] world-wide.”
– “Enron Corp.’s Participation in Air Trading,” Enron Capital & Trade Resources, November 4, 1996 (copy in files).
“If implemented, [the Kyoto Protocol] will do more to promote Enron’s business than will almost any other regulatory initiative…. The endorsement of [CO2] emissions trading was another victory for us…. This agreement will be good for Enron stock!”
– John Palmisano (December 12, 1997) from Kyoto, Japan.