…
Who knew the US government accepted loan repayments in peanuts? And what happens to the $74 million dollars worth of peanuts that come in? They could pay politicians with it…
Other waste identified by Senator Flake in Wastebook: PORKémon Go, includes a study that found girls are more likely to play with Barbie dolls than boys are. Nearly $2m was spent on holograms of dead comedians. The IRS, not so surprisingly, says the IRS doesn’t waste tax dollars. Flake points out they spend $12m on an email archiving service in 2014 that they never even installed.
If the US government spent $12 million on using the sun to model the climate instead, it would be about 0.1% of what they’ve spent on models driven by CO2 which still don’t work after 20 years of tweaking.
Public relations and advertising amounted to a total of $1.4 billion. US national Debt is nearly $20 trillion.
Press Release
Among the 50 examples of egregious federal spending uncovered in Flake’s 2017 report are a program that accepts peanuts for loan repayments, a computer that binge-watches Desperate Housewives, and a study into what happens when you put a fish on a treadmill.
Highlights from Flake’s 2017 edition of Wastebook include (click links to view related footage and other content):
- $1.7 million for a comedy club starring holograms of dead comedians
- $74 million for a program that allows taxpayer-backed loans to be repaid with peanuts
- $1.5 million to test the endurance of a fish on a treadmill
- $5 million to study the partying habits of fraternities and sororities
- $460,000 for a computer to binge-watch “Desperate Housewives” and “The Office” in order to learn human behavior
- $3.5 million to learn why people are afraid of going to the dentist
- $817,000 to study monkey drool
- $3.4 million for hamster cage fight matches
- $300,000 to study if girls or boys spend more time playing with Barbie dolls
- $450,000 to determine if dinosaurs could sing
- $12 million for an IRS unused e-mail archiving service
Read the National Enquirer or download the PDF. Weep. Be glad someone is tracking this.
h/t Willie S
Apparently the fish endurance training was prior to it’s failed entry in to the Tour de France cycle race.
60
There is a conspiracy theory that fish treadmills are really powered by cats.
60
That’s a lie!
A story put out by those faĸe news purveyors at ‘ABBC Hagfish News-Corp’.
Those spineless b’stards just ooze such slime.
60
Senator Flake, fish treadmills, this punding is off the scale…….
50
Does anyone outside Victoria know what ‘flake’ is? I know it as shark, otherwise known as ‘swimmers’ revenge’.
20
Where I come from, “a flake” is somebody who can’t handle pressure, or bad news, or the fact that it is not lunchtime yet.
I personally also refer to them as, “vaporous luvies”, or “hand wringers”.
30
Senator Flake is a RINO, pro- open borders, illegal amnesty; he is anti-Trump, and flunky to carry water for Sen John McCain. Both Flake and McCain are globalists.
Flake, like old McCain is a publicity hound, and will betray his country and his state to get in the limelight with stunts like this. Easy to see his voting record.
20
Shark sold as fish’n’chips?
20
In Britain, in the leaner times of the 1960 and ’70, the small coastal shark was sold as a cheap alternative to cod, under names such as “flake”, “catfish”, “huss” “rock eel”, or “rock salmon”.
The actual fish used were many species of small shark, including the Spiny Dogfish, Rough-hound, Bull Huss, and others.
The dish is rarely seen now as many of these species are endangered due to over-fishing.
20
Correction in Britain it is still being sold —
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2707964/Warning-Your-fish-chips-actually-SHARK-Steve-Boggan-reveals-unsuspecting-customers-conned-vast-scale.html
20
A Million here a million there pretty soon it’s real money.
110
Everett Dirksen; American Republican senator;
–
A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you’re talking real money.
–
Apparently a journalist, ie; fact twisters and fake news creators who call themselves journalists as is perfectly usual with most journalists, got his facts wrong again and misquoted Dirksen who later claimed it sounded so good that he never bothered to deny saying it,
Dirksen was a renown orator so a couple of Dirksen’s other quotes;
I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.
–
When I face an issue of great import that cleaves both constituents and colleagues, I always take the same approach. I engage in deep deliberation and quiet contemplation. I wait to the last available minute and then I always vote with the losers.
Because, my friend, the winners never remember and the losers never forget.
20
And how much was wasted on green energy schemes, renewable subsidies, climate change action, climate change mitigation, reparations to “climate refugees”, and trying to prove the theory despite it being all supposedly settled? Not to mention the opportunity costs to the economy of all the regulations and [[snip] bad] Gov policies.
60
Oh my,,,,,,,, desperate housewives and the office are good examples for learning human behavior?
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/k1wqciODsC8/maxresdefault.jpg
60
My friend from China said they were advised to watch Big Bang Theory in order to learn how Americans think.
20
And in Canberra they spend billions on a massive pig’s trough for a herd of pigs that fill their bellies then are allowed to retire well fed and well heeled to spend the rest of their lives in luscious green pastures.
100
And in London, Paris, Washington and in particular in the UN in New York
40
Don’t forget Brussels and all those unelected bureaucrats.
50
Apart from the equivalence in Canberra, how much is being spent on subsidies for wind and solar energy schemes which, at best, yield between,say, 15 and 30% of their nameplate capacity, put the cost of electricity up by a factor of 3 or 4 times, and will not alter an iota global temperatures??? What does the Federal Dept. on Energy do when the states either run or control the generators?
What about the jet fuel used by Ministers flying around the country doing personal business?
Since the WW2 when the Commonwealth took over taxation from the states as a temporary war measure, there has been a continual erosion of state powers using the external treaty powers of the Commonwealth in the main (Thank you to Dr. Evatt), e.g. the Gordon R. Stage 2 Hydro scheme, and incredible duplication of government.
40
Census fail, anyone?
80
You ain’t seen nothing until you look at your country’s foreign aid budget and ‘climate change’ departments and then lift up the stone and try counting the worms.
No one can waste money like government. Look at anything to do with supposed climate change and related government actions.
80
The day Governments of the democracies worldwide realized when bribing the public with its own money, and maximizing the mortgaging of the nation was practically limitless, the madness began.
100
But they don’t bribe the public with their own money. They print brand new money to use as bribes, thus lowering the value of all money.
20
For Western Governments to print more money the Government sells public assets (taxpayer paid for asset) , or issues debt (Government bonds) to the markets.
Either way they are mortgaging the country.
30
These methods mean that markets hold some of the risk, while the currency gradually inflates as the government increases the money supply. Which is what nearly all of them are doing now.
With all these methods the government is gaining income in the short-term but often are loading more debt to the following generation.
This will work if the money is spent wisely on projects that will benefit people today and the following generation. However currently most governments issue bonds just to cover the economic mismanagement of the previous administrations, or the current one. This is typical of BIG government financing. Nations heavily indebted to foreigner powers, renting everything they need from outsiders, and believing the country is rich because they can print some currency. Welcome to the New World Order.
10
I’m not a fan of QE, but your description is simply wrong. Inflation lowers the future value of current debt. And QE prints money to buy government and other debt, which the central bank can then cancel if it wants, as the government owes itself. There are no asset sales required to issue more money. In fact, QE is supposed to allow banks and other investors to invest in real assets, as QE clears their balance sheets. Moreover, despite all the dire warnings from experts, inflation has not taken hold anywhere where QE is being tried.
Nobody believes printing more money makes you rich – certainly not those doing the printing.
There are valid criticisms of what governments are doing, but you just spout the invalid ones.
30
Many thanks for the correction.
I needed that.
The underlying problem is that we are, by all these actions, mortgaging our children’s future by racking up such huge national debts.
10
I do not assume inflation is current. I see QE as a method of wagering that at best QE cash stimulates growth that will override future inflation, and at worst inflation is just deferred to a future date.
In as much as your view of the mechanics of QE are correct, my point is to look more holistically out to how this is done and the likely consequences.
1. The government is ‘allowed’ to do this effective debt swap because credit agencies such as Moody’s, S&P, etc have rated a nation’s ability to pay back debt by making timely interest payments and the likelihood, or otherwise, of default. Without a high credit rating governments could not take this QE action. Lose the AA grade and the nation quickly feels the cost. Therefore this is not just an internal national matter as you imply but an international one.
How good and well these credit assessments are, is very subjective and market conscious. Don’t think so? Just look at the last banking crisis.
2. “There are no asset sales required to issue more money. In fact, QE is supposed to allow banks and other investors to invest in real assets, as QE clears their balance sheets.” Yes but only in the short term. It is just a fancy debt to cash swap (via international credit and currency reputational assessment), later the debt has to be paid. If new businesses flourish and prosper all is well. If it fails to happen, then just as in the past real property will be lost to outside (off-shore) companies and countries, and national financial reputation damaged.
3.”Moreover, despite all the dire warnings from experts, inflation has not taken hold anywhere where QE is being tried.”
Wrong! The inflation has been and is still happening but selectively. Those on fixed incomes, pensions and investment funds are weathering the brunt of it. Effectively the inflation will not appear immediately but will be felt (individually) as soon as retirement looms.
4. This QE only has real value only if it stimulates the economy to new potentials and growth. If it does, everything is well and good. If it does not then the rating agencies and markets will ensure the future is far less comfortable.
20
For an earlier version of such:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Fleece_Award
There are comments from those that support research in general, even if some of it seems wasteful.
Then there is the sort of thing a nearby town tried. Using other people’s money, 5 small wind turbines of non-standard design were erected. The software** to monitor them never worked and then one blew over in a wind of about 50 miles per hour. City crews removed that wreck and the 4 others still standing. Mayor says it was money well spent because they learned something. No one knows what was learned. There has been no other news and no report.
[**Getting it working would have required money from the City; not OPM.]
In other news, check out the electrical output of turbines in the Oregon-Washington region. It is very cold under High Pressure, so no wind.
https://transmission.bpa.gov/business/operations/wind/baltwg.aspx
Note the green line (now flat) near the bottom.
60
Reading through this 2011 Forbes story I was amazed to see Jo get a mention.
‘According to the GAO, annual federal climate spending has increased from $4.6 billion in 2003 to $8.8 billion in 2010, amounting to $106.7 billion over that period. The money was spent in four general categories: technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, science to understand climate changes, international assistance for developing countries, and wildlife adaptation to respond to actual or expected changes. Technology spending, the largest category, grew from $2.56 billion to $5.5 billion over this period, increasingly advancing over others in total share.
‘Data compiled by Joanne Nova at the Science and Policy Institute indicates that the U.S. Government spent more than $32.5 billion on climate studies between 1989 and 2009. This doesn’t count about $79 billion more spent for climate change technology research, foreign aid and tax breaks for “green energy.”
90
As I wrote on this blog in January 2016..
“Nothing quite as bad as the Science grant pointed out by Andrew Bolt. $23.5Million for studying depression in Italy in the middle ages. When threatened with loss of this grant, the head attacked Tony Abbott saying he would have ‘blood on his hands’ if he touched it. Now who do you interview to ask about depression in 1260? Climate Change depression will be the next science grant application area and cash compensation for depression or stress from finding out you were wrong.”
No one questioned how you could study depression in Medieval Italy 700 years later. Printing had not been invented and the Renaissance had not started and after forty generations, everyone is dead. Interview Holograms of dead Italian peasants perhaps?
Perhaps without Christopher Columbus and friends after 1492, the Italians would not yet have Tomatoes, capsicum, potatoes(gnocci), chilli, corn (Polenta) and of course Aztec chocolate. Columbus’s chilli swept around the world in twenty years, to India and China. So no wonder they were depressed! Still the $24.5Million would have made some scientists happy and we all know paleo psychologists are still scientists.
80
As an Arizonan – Senator Flake is as well – I would be proud IF. And that if is if Senator Flake can say he voted against any of the war measures that came up while he was serving in the Senate, and whether or not he voted against wasting tax payers money buying the Wild Turkey, aka F-35. A man should not be making a big thing out of peanuts when he has voted to throw away peanut farms.
40
Jo, it’s the National Review, a thoughtful and respectable conservative publication, possibly sometimes overboard to the right but nevertheless something well worthwhile to read.
The National Enquirer is sold at Supermarket checkout lines to those who have no lives of their own and thus must find excitement and meaning in wallowing in the missteps of the rich and famous. Or maybe I should say the celebrated and foolish. As far as I can tell there’s not a statement in any issue of that thing that I would believe unless I could verify it from some other source.
There’s quite a difference.
60
And when it comes down to wasted money I figure that by now DC has sunk so low that nearly every dollar it spends on anything is wasted in that better management of the peoples business could avoid spending half or more of it. We had no need to keep borrowing until my grandson and maybe his grandson too, will be underwater for their entire lives.
There is simply no discipline at all in Washington DC. None!
60
Fair point Roy. Willie sent me the Senators link and I searched and decided not to go with “the usual” news outlets. Promoting diversity… 🙂
41
Ah yes, diversity — another word that has morphed from something with a meaning into the equivalent of another 4-letter word in the English lexicon. It’s also used to tell “white privileged” males we’re guilty of such mortal sins that we’ve become the reason for just about every personal and governmental failure in the world.
It’s also become a buzzword needed in filling out such things as your class description for the accrediting committee’s visit so they can decide whether to continue your accreditation or remove it. In these days of political correctness that can prove to be a fight for your future as an institution of higher learning.
I kid you not. I had to describe how the course I taught, C++ programming, furthered the goals of diversity, whatever they are. Well, I taught all comers, whoever they might be without so much as even a first look at whoever they might be. But no, telling the simple truth will not do. You need to tell them what they want to hear, nevermind that their political correctness has yet to invade the world of programming languages. It’s so ill defined that I fell back on my department chair who had been through this before and knew how to weasel word it a little to get by the diversity police.
20
True Roy, I always think of National Enquirer with headlines like: ‘Man eats own head’ or ‘My son gave birth to his sister’ etc…….
30
Actually Roy,that is a little unfair; in todays tight media competition to sink to new lows.
Remember John Edwards?National Inquirer got that sleeze right, yet the “accredited” media ran cover for the lying little weezal for years.
As the emails from the DNC show, they have a whole stable of professional “newsmen” running cover for political corruption over at the Clinton News Network.
60
A green one from me. You’re absolutely right.
10
Should have read all the responses. But you earned the green thumb!
10
Given the track record of the MSM of late, the National Enquirer is a much more respected publication than they are! They did break the story of Edward’s love child and the blue dress.
20
Phil,
Respected is something that to me needs to be qualified by knowing who respects it.
In spite of my not remembering the story initially I do remember seeing the John Edwards headline and I also remember thinking, “I doubt you as a news source so much that I’ll only believe this when I see it corroborated by a better source.” And whether it was a better source or not, it got reported independently of the National Enquirer and became something I could believe.
In spite of their having broken the story, I cannot respect them. Their usual fare is trash to put it mildly. They have no qualms about stretching the truth or publishing wild stories blown all out of resemblance to what’s behind them, just to have a fantastic headline on the front of every issue.
If they were really a respectable publication they wouldn’t need to sell their output in checkout lines at the supermarket. They would have subscribers like any other newspaper with a reputation to uphold. And such as the reputation of some of them may be, they don’t publish the kind of trash the National Enquirer does. I think they must have a very small readership.
10
The question becomes – do you respect the MSM? “Respected” is more like an absolute. However, “more respected” is a comparative term. If you have 1% respect for the MSM, but 5% for the NE, they are more respected. And while I am with you and did indeed believe the same thing with the Edwards story, I put more weight on what they say today than what the MSM says.
The NE goes for the lurid. And so they will print ANYTHING that fits that mold, including things that are not true, but alleged. The MSM goes for partisanship. So they will only print half truths and things that are not true, but alleged.
10
11 Jan: Fox News: Peter Schweizer: Your money is being used to help bankroll the World Economic Forum in Davos. Why?
Held in the beautiful Alpine mountain resort of Davos-Klosters, attendance is strictly by invitation only. Basic membership in the WEF costs $50,000. A premium membership can set you back $500,000. But in recent years the WEF has enjoyed another source of income. Since 2013, the Obama administration has been sending foreign assistance dollars to the WEF through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). According to government records, the tab to taxpayers thus far is $26 million…
The 47th annual World Economic Forum convenes on January 17th and the theme is “responsive and responsible leadership.”
***In keeping with that idea, the responsible thing for the incoming Trump administration to do would be to halt grants and funding of this elite organization with taxpayer dollars.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/01/11/peter-schweizer-your-money-is-being-used-to-help-bankroll-world-economic-forum-in-davos-why.html
***should be a no-brainer given the contempt this bunch of elite globalists has for Trump and the people who voted for him:
13 Jan: Bloomberg: Davos Wonders If It’s Part of the Problem
Did the global elite’s devotion to borderless capitalism sow the seeds of a populist backlash?
by Matthew Campbell and Simon Kennedy
Kenneth Rogoff can pinpoint the moment he started to grow concerned Donald Trump would be the next U.S. president: It was when Rogoff’s fellow attendees at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting last January said it could never happen. “A joke I’ve told 1,000 people in the months since leaving Davos is that the conventional wisdom of Davos is always wrong,” says the Harvard professor and former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. “No matter how improbable, the event most likely to happen is the opposite of whatever the Davos consensus is.”…
The repeated failure of business and political elites to predict what’s coming—last year, that included the U.K.’s vote to leave the European Union—doesn’t strike those returning this month to the Swiss Alps as very funny…
This year’s conference agenda makes clear the degree of anxiety. Sessions include a panel of psychology experts offering thoughts on “cultivating appropriate emotions in a time of nationalist populism.” Another, titled “Squeezed and Angry: How to Fix the Middle Class Crisis,” will star International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde alongside hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio. Separately, Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg and Meg Whitman, chief executive officer of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, will try to stoke optimism in a chat about shaping “a positive narrative for the global community.”…
The most talked-about guest will undoubtedly be Chinese President Xi Jinping, who’s attending for the first time…
The bottom line: The Davos consensus nurtured by four decades of World Economic Forum meetings is at best broken and at worst dead.
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-01-13/davos-wonders-if-it-s-part-of-the-problem
30
It worse than we thought.
The $817,000 study on monkey drool was cut short when most of the moneys died when fed with $74 million worth of peanuts. The two moneys that have survived are on emergency weight reduction therapy.
Spokesperson for the monkeys said “Yes, yes we’ve learned a lot. You see business is like a jungle. And I… I am like a tiger. And Dwight is a monkey, that stabs the tiger in the back with a stick. Does the tiger fire the monkey? Does the tiger transfer the monkey to another branch? There is no way of knowing what goes on inside the tiger’s head. We don’t have the technology.”
30
“$300,000 to study if girls or boys spend more time playing with Barbie dolls.”
Angus Campbell and David Morrison found this very useful. They always suspected there were too many Ken dolls in the barracks and have moved to correct the imbalance. Malibu Barbie and vintage Pan Am Stewardess Barbie are now special favourites of our men in uniform.
These important developments tend to get overshadowed by such dry, dreary matters as the recent EU vote to form its own army and the US beefing up its NATO presence in Eastern Europe just last Friday with another 6000 men plus many tanks, fighting vehicles, artillery and aircraft. Really, who cares about WW3?
Now, what’s your favourite Barbie?
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Remember its who’s in charge that’ll dictate funding streams so when cultural Marxists waste public funds on insane unproductive research the worthy causes (eg:cancer research) are neglected so people naturally rally to help out mostly by charitable means which now has been hijacked by self promoting activism by the very types that enact the initial wasted funding.
With select troughers accessing free money and the engineering of society towards compliant reactionism its a win win for those that despise democratic freedoms.
40
Kleptocracy is a wonderful way to steal from the many to enrich the persuasive few.
Got to enrich your friends,family and fellow travellors?
Give them a grant,start a charity or form an NGO(fully funded with taxpayer dollars of course)
Government does nothing well,
For example,we entrust them with defence, so that wars are as protracted,inept horror shows as can be.
Good governance has never existed, minimum interference with the producers while restraining the fools and bandits born to each generation is the very best the Bureaus can do.
Of course being bureaus, these are the last things they are content to do,instead growing ever more invasive until the productive are restrained in every way as the fools and bandits run amuck.
Then comes collapse.
40
11 Jan: World Economic Forum: Four key areas for global risks in 2017
by Cecilia Reyes, Group Chief Risk Officer, Zurich Insurance Group
1. Environmental
The most pressing of these risks relates to our environment. Even though the risk will play out over the long term, actions have to be immediate and long-lasting to have any hope of reversing the trajectory of climate change.
The environment dominates the 2017 global risk landscape in terms of impact and likelihood, with extreme weather events, large natural disasters as well as failure of mitigation and adaptation to climate change as the most prominent global risks. Climate change ranks as one of the top three trends to shape global developments over the next 10 years, and remains one of the truly existential risks to our world. Unlike the threat of nuclear weapons or pandemic disease, however, climate change ranks among the highest in terms of likelihood as well as impact…
Here, cooperation is fundamental to any response to the challenges faced from climate change, from managing “global commons” such as oceans and our atmosphere to enacting international accords like The Paris Agreement and statements that emerged from COP 22. Further progress was made during 2016 in addressing climate and other environmental risks. The pace of change, however, is not fast enough…
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/global-risks-in-2017
PDF: 78 pages: World Economic Forum: The Global Risks Report 2017
12th Edition
The information in this report, or on which this report is based, has been obtained from sources that the authors believe to be reliable and accurate. However, it has not been independently verified and no representation or warranty, express or implied, is made as to the accuracy or completeness of any information obtained from third parties. In addition, the statements in this report may provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to a historical fact or a current fact. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which are not exhaustive. The companies contributing to this report operate in a continually changing environment and new risks emerge continually. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these statements. The companies contributing to this report undertake no obligation to publicly revise or update any statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise and they shall in no event be liable for any loss or damage arising in connection with the use of the information in this report…
Strategic Partners:
Marsh & McLennan Companies
Zurich Insurance Group
Academic Advisers:
National University of Singapore
Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford
Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center, University of Pennsylvania
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GRR17_Report_web.pdf
20
12 Jan: Financial Times: Nathalie Thomas: UK review backs £1.3bn tidal lagoon project in Swansea Bay
Supporter says technology could provide 12% of UK electricity needs
Electricity generated by tidal power schemes will cost consumers “less than a pint of milk” a year, according to an independent review backing a £1.3bn project in Swansea Bay…
Tidal Lagoon Power has been seeking a contract with the goverment for Swansea that would involve the taxpayer agreeing to buy electricity for 90 years at a certain price, called the strike price…
LINK AT BOTTOM FROM “Latest on Renewable Energy in FT”
Lex column: Tidal power, going with the flow (Premium content)
Welsh pilot scheme looks expensive but should go ahead regardless…
https://www.ft.com/content/1dac0b28-d897-11e6-944b-e7eb37a6aa8e
11 Jan: Policy Exchange org UK: The Folly of Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon
If ever there was a textbook example of how to go about Government lobbying and project development, then it is the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon project. The developer, Tidal Lagoon Power, has done a frankly incredible job of promoting the project to policymakers and financiers. The project has gone from an interesting idea on paper a few years ago, to being backed financially by investment bank Macquarie amongst others, to garnering significant political support by the likes of the Rt. Hon. Sir Ed Davey (as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change), other Coalition Government Cabinet members, and the Welsh Government…
Based on my own knowledge of the project and technology, I suggest that it would be folly for the Government to agree to progress the Swansea Bay project further.
The main reason for this is simply the cost of the technology. The developer’s latest estimates are that the Swansea Bay project would cost £1.3 billion to construct. Interestingly, this headline cost has already increased by more than 40% compared to earlier estimates – a 2014 report to the developers assumed a lower capital cost of £913 million.
In order to get a better handle on the relative cost of the technology, it is informative to consider the cost per unit of electrical output (£/MWh) – often referred to as the ‘Levelised Cost of Energy’. The same report from 2014 put the cost of Swansea Bay at £168/MWh, roughly four times the current wholesale price of electricity. By comparison, the Government’s own estimates show that other low carbon technologies are considerably cheaper…
https://policyexchange.org.uk/the-folly-of-swansea-bay-tidal-lagoon/
GE’s John Wheeler says GE is looking at 45-year program to be able to get the power station generating electricity:
VIDEO: 39secs: 12 Jan: BBC: Tidal lagoon: GE project to make Swansea Bay turbines
GE and Andritz Hydro, based in Rugby, Warwickshire, would assemble the turbines there.
John Wheeler, GE’s project manager for the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon, explains how the whole supply chain could benefit from the £1.3bn investment.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-38598655
30
12 Jan: WaPo: Chelsea Harvey: Scientists have a new way to calculate what global warming costs. Trump’s team isn’t going to like it.
A ??much-anticipated new report (LINK), just released by the National Academy of Sciences, recommends major updates to a federal metric known as the “social cost of carbon” — and its suggestions could help address a growing scientific concern that we’re underestimating the damages global warming will cause…
But the new NAS report, requested by the federal Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Carbon, suggests the methodology used to arrive at this value is in need of updating, both to make it more transparent and more scientifically sound…
“I think the report has laid out an important blueprint for how to update the most important number that you’ve never heard of,” said Michael Greenstone, an economist at the University of Chicago and former chief economist for President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. Greenstone helped convene the first federal working group to estimate the social cost of carbon and served as a reviewer on the new NAS report…
The committee did not speculate on how the report’s recommendations would affect the metric’s values, and the new report isn’t binding — it’s simply a set of recommendations. This means the incoming Trump administration isn’t legally obligated to use them once in office…
Any changes made without adequate scientific justification would likely be struck down in court. And given that the new academy report is likely to be recognized as the “gold standard for scientific evaluation of the social cost of carbon,” he said, it would be difficult to justify any changes that dramatically depart from its recommendations…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/01/12/scientists-have-a-new-way-to-calculate-what-global-warming-costs-trumps-team-isnt-going-to-like-it/?utm_term=.4f29cb2f9b22
11 Jan: Science Mag: Here’s how to improve controversial carbon accounting tool that Trump allies want to gut, says U.S. science academy
By Robert F. Service
The U.S. government should tweak its approach for estimating the financial impacts of carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution, which it uses in drafting new regulations, according to a report released today by the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS).
The new report focuses on a controversial measure called the social cost of carbon (SCC), an estimate in dollars of the economic consequences of CO2 emissions…
The current estimate for the SCC in 2020 is $42 per metric ton of CO2 added to the atmosphere…
Members of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team have criticized the use of the SCC–saying it has been used to justify costly regulation–and have vowed to scrutinize how it is calculated (LINK)…
NAS beat them to the punch. Their committee did not recommend a dollar figure for the SCC, nor were they asked to…
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/01/here-s-how-improve-controversial-carbon-accounting-tool-trump-allies-want-gut-says-us
20
All of modern society has been built, and continues to be built, around the use of carbon, in steel, electricity, transport etc etc
There is NO SOCIAL COST to using carbon….
There is not proof anywhere that it has any warming effect on the atmosphere or has any negative effects whatsoever, or that even if it did, that the warming would be an issue.
Burning and using fossil fuels has ONLY A SOCIAL BENEFIT
Those who feel otherwise are more than welcome to divest themselves of ALL items or benefit associated with fossil fuels.
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As usual Andy the lefties can not differentiate between price, cost and value. These carbon schemes have no value (to ordinary people), have large social costs as they cause prices to rises.
But they do allow the deranged to virtue signal.
Coal is a case in point.
Because of its relative abundance it’s price is low. However it comes with social and usage costs — miners die young, mines are dangerous and unsightly, when burned flue and chimneys have to be kept in good order or the pubic suffers — all of these can be easily and cheaply mitigated against.
It has GREAT value for generating safe, reliable electricity or as a chemical and manufacturing feedstock.
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13 Jan: AP: ROB GILLIES: Trudeau says the Canadian oil sands needs to be ‘phased out’
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sparked anger in the oil-rich province of Alberta on Friday for saying Canada needs to phase out the oil sands…
Trudeau told a town-hall meeting in Peterborough, Ontario that they can’t shut down the oil sands tomorrow but they need to phase it out eventually…
Alberta opposition leader Brian Jean said the oil and gas industry provides thousands of good-paying jobs and if Trudeau wants to shut it down he’ll have to go through him and four million Albertans first.
Alberta has the third-largest oil reserves in the world…
Jason Kenney, a former federal Conservative minister and leadership candidate for Alberta’s provincial Conservative party, said the oil sands represent trillions of dollars of future wealth for Canadian families.
“That’s our ability to pay for pensions, health care, and infrastructure and education. It also represents hundreds of thousands of good paying jobs for working, middle-income families,” Kenney said.
Kenney said Alberta won’t let Trudeau do to Alberta what Trudeau’s father, late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, did to Alberta…
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CN_CANADA_TRUDEAU_OIL_SANDS?SITE=MYPSP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-01-13-22-41-45
12 Jan: AP: John Raby: In EPA rebuke, judge orders quick evaluation on coal jobs
CHARLESTON, W.Va.: A judge has ordered federal regulators to quickly evaluate how many power plant and coal mining jobs are lost because of air pollution regulations.
U.S. District Judge John Preston Bailey in Wheeling made the ruling after reviewing a response from outgoing U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy.
McCarthy had responded to the judge’s previous order in a lawsuit brought against her by Murray Energy Corp. that the EPA must start doing an analysis that it hadn’t done in decades.
According to Wednesday’s order, McCarthy asserted it would take the agency up to two years to devise a methodology to use to try to comply with the earlier ruling.
“This response is wholly insufficient, unacceptable, and unnecessary,” Bailey wrote…
Bailey ordered the EPA to identify facilities harmed by the regulations during the Obama presidency by July 1. That includes identifying facilities at risk of closure or reductions in employment.
The EPA had contended that analyzing job loss won’t change global energy trends.
The judge also set a Dec. 31 deadline for the EPA to provide documentation on how it is continuously evaluating the loss and shifts in employment that may result from administration and enforcement of the Clean Air Act…
“EPA does not get to decide whether compliance with (the law) is good policy, or would lead to too many difficulties for the agency,” Bailey wrote. “It is time for the EPA to recognize that Congress makes the law, and EPA must not only enforce the law, it must obey it.”…
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_EPA_RULING?SITE=MYPSP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-01-12-18-31-44
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Interesting list . And the Democrats were “surprised ” they lost . They lost because they were hijacked by greenie bag men out of touch with most of the people in “fly over ” country .
Trump pulled off a miracle but unfortunately is in for a very rough ride because the type of people who have grown to expect tax payer money to fund the study of “Barbie Doll” demographics and other goofy things on the list .
However, the biggest whopper of all is the $$ Billions going into stopping the earth from having a fever .
Trump could clean up every ghetto in the USA with the money that is poured down the drain from the global warming hoax .
Make America Great Again includes putting an end to the biggest overblown hoax in history, global warming (climate change ) hysteria .
Real scientists will be less bullied and even the DOE now suddenly wants to publish the work of so called scientists , contractors etc . For at least 8 years any departure from the global warming propaganda was not a good career call .
Can Trump change a culture of Barbie studies and global warming con men ? We will know within 100 days if he means what he says .
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I guess the IRS didn’t bother with their email archive because Hillary told them she had one they could use.
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[…] JoNova covers the Wastebook 2016 […]
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USA – More money than cents ! Ha ha
GeoffW
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