Some new info on the Pickens wind farm scam

[2minkey]

every word true ... and totally misrepresented and out of context ... and because the facts are true, the swallow the lot.

nah, nah, a bunch of factlets cobbled together from various random internet sources are proof positive of whatever they superficially appear to represent to their ideologically driven collector.

 

[jimpeel]

The scammers abound ...

And Pickens isn't the only one scamming the public over global warming.

http://www.sbpost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqt=AGENDA-qqqs=agenda-qqqid=34805-qqqx=1.asp

Branson’s bogus eco-drive
03 August 2008 By Stephen Price
The Virgin boss’s much trumpeted pledge of €1.9bn to tackle global warming is nothing but smoke and mirrors.

In September 2006, Virgin boss Richard Branson pledged €1.9 billion towards tackling global warming. For the next ten years, he announced, the profits from his aviation and rail businesses would go towards combating the biggest, most complex problem that mankind has ever faced.

The promise earned Branson headlines around the world. Media outlets carried photos of him, Bill Clinton and Al Gore at a Clinton Global Initiative press conference in New York. Adults, Branson solemnly told the assembled media, had a duty to pass a ‘‘pristine’’ planet on to the next generation. Politicians and campaigners were effusive in their praise for his imagination and generosity.

However, a look at the not-very-small print revealed that this amazing gesture would not be a matter of taking the profits from Branson’s polluting industries and using them to protect vast tracts of the Amazon.

In fact, the money would go to a new division of the Virgin conglomerate, called Virgin Fuel. Branson was simply gearing himself up to make more money. But as always, the PR spin was that he’d be doing the rest of us a favour in the process.

Branson has built an empire on this perception. His first two business ventures - both failed - were growing Christmas trees and selling budgerigars, so he obviously understood from an early stage that nature is there to be exploited.

The Sunday Business Post is obviously posting "Articles written by a lobbyist on a site funded by corporations with an agenda" so let's try to see past the truth, shall we?

 

[spike]

Re: The scammers abound ...

The Sunday Business Post is obviously posting "Articles written by a lobbyist on a site funded by corporations with an agenda"

Is it run by the same people as junkscience? What's your point?

If it's not I'll check it out, although it's not exactly screaming objectivity so far.

If you do manage to find a couple businessmen profiteering off green energy what point do you end up with exactly Jim?

 

[jimpeel]

Then again perhaps these "articles written by a lobbyist on a site funded by corporations with an agenda" have some idea of what is going on behind the scenes.

http://atomicinsights.blogspot.com/2008/07/is-t-boone-pickens-holding-nuclear-hole.html

The problem with the Pickens Plan - at least what we know about it so far - is that adding wind energy by itself to the grid would probably increase our dependence on using natural gas for electricity rather than to decrease it. Natural gas is more costly than coal on a per unit heat basis, but it can compete if there are substantial charges for carbon emissions. It is also the fuel of choice for quick response generators that can be cycled to make up for the variations on the grid that would be imposed by having a growing portion of the grid coming from an intermittent power source like wind.

...

As I count the cards in the energy game, I am pretty certain that Pickens has a great hand. His ranch, with its extensive water rights and wind farm are near Amarillo, Texas. He seems to have a workable plan for connecting that water and wind power to major cities like Dallas-Fort Worth.

[more]

Now what type of power needs vast amounts of water?

This "article written by a lobbyist on a site funded by corporations with an agenda" at the Amarillo Globe-News tells that story.

http://www.amarillo.com/stories/031608/new_9881987.shtml

Navigating the nuclear greenfield
Developer pushes ahead with Amarillo site plan
By Karen Smith Welch
[email protected]

Dr. Scott M. Lieberman / AP

George Chapman: Amarillo Power founder is pushing for a nuclear plan in the Amarillo area.

"I think this (proposed Amarillo Power plant) remains one of the most exciting greenfield sites," UniStar Senior Vice President Joe Turnage said, using the industry term "greenfield" for land that does not contain an existing nuclear power facility.

"I should say that we are looking at other greenfield sites. But they don't have Amarillo Power's passion behind them."

Amarillo Power, a company formed by developer George Chapman, has notified the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it intends to seek licensing for a two-unit reactor at an undisclosed site near Amarillo.

[more]

Now, what's the connection between Pickens and Chapman?

http://cleantechnica.com/2008/07/10...so-does-george-chapman-his-amarillo-neighbor/

Pickens is a lifelong resident of Amarillo, Texas, owns a 68,000 acre ranch in Roberts County, and owns the water rights to a portion of the Ogallala Aquifer.

He also has a neighbor named George Chapman who has announced plans to build two large Evolutionary Power Reactors (EPR) in Amarillo. Each of those reactors will produce 1600 MW of 24 x 7 electrical power. They are also designed with load following capabilities.

Mr. Chapman understands that there is a race on to build new nuclear plants in the US, with a significant financial reward waiting for those who cross the finish line in front. As he told Amarillo.com during an interview in early 2007, “If we didn’t think we were going to win it, we wouldn’t get in the race,” Chapman said. When Mr. Chapman first discussed his plans, people asked several questions including:

• Who will buy the power? (The sparsely populated Texas Panhandle does not need 3200 MW of electricity.)
• Where will you get the cooling water needed for large pressurized water reactors?

When Pickens completes a transmission corridor from his planned wind farms to population centers like Dallas-Ft. Worth, the lines will be able to provide a higher return on the investment by carrying reliable nuclear generated power as well as the intermittent power provided by the wind turbines.

Amarillo Power’s reactors will also displace a lot more gas from the electrical power grid than covering the panhandle of Texas with as many wind turbines as we can possibly build between now and 2016, which is when I predict that Chapman’s reactors will start operating.

Intriguing hypothesis, don’t you think?

Perhaps this left wing site, the Huffington Post, which posts "articles written by a lobbyist on a site funded by corporations with an agenda" has the answer.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/18/blue-gold-t-boone-pickens_n_107884.html

Blue Gold: T. Boone Pickens Hoarding Water Rights

BusinessWeek | Susan Berfield | June 18, 2008 03:54 PM

Roberts County is a neat square in a remote corner of the Texas Panhandle, a land of rolling hills, tall grass, oak trees, mesquite, and cattle. It has a desolate beauty, a striking sparseness. The county encompasses 924 square miles and is home to fewer than 900 people. One of them is T. Boone Pickens, the oilman and corporate raider, who first bought some property here in 1971 to hunt quail. He's now the largest landowner in the county: His Mesa Vista ranch sprawls across some 68,000 acres. Pickens has also bought up the rights to a considerable amount of water that lies below this part of the High Plains in a vast aquifer that came into existence millions of years ago.

If water is the new oil, T. Boone Pickens is a modern-day John D. Rockefeller. Pickens owns more water than any other individual in the U.S. and is looking to control even more. He hopes to sell the water he already has, some 65 billion gallons a year, to Dallas, transporting it over 250 miles, 11 counties, and about 650 tracts of private property. The electricity generated by an enormous wind farm he is setting up in the Panhandle would also flow along that corridor. As far as Pickens is concerned, he could be selling wind, water, natural gas, or uranium; it's all a matter of supply and demand. "There are people who will buy the water when they need it. And the people who have the water want to sell it. That's the blood, guts, and feathers of the thing," he says.

Read the whole story here.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_25/b4089040017753.htm?chan=search

Of course, we all know that Business Week is filled with "articles written by a lobbyist on a site funded by corporations with an agenda".

Another Lefty chimes in but I'm sure this is but another "article written by a lobbyist on a site funded by corporations with an agenda":

http://cleantechnica.com/2008/08/02/t-boone-pickens-out-for-water-not-wind/

Texas billionaire, T. Boone Pickens, is causing quite a stir across the nation with his bold Picken’s Plan to build the largest wind farm in the nation. In fact, he has caused such a commotion, that everyone seems to be forgetting about Mesa Water.

Pickens’ company, Mesa Water, bought more than 200,000 acres of ground water rights in Roberts County, Texas. Estimating that he could make more than $1 billion off of the $75 million investment over the next few decades, Pickens wants to drain the Ogallala Aquifer to meet the demand for water in west Texas.

This VIDEO from Zaproot, The Truth About the Pickens Plan, is very entertaining and does a great job of explaining the slight of hand trick that Pickens seems to be playing with wind, water and the dreaded emminent domain.

So the Left and the Right are saying the same thing. The difference is that the Right is lying and the Left is telling the truth ... right? It's the source that counts when considering the truth.

 

[jimpeel]

Re: The scammers abound ...

Is it run by the same people as junkscience? What's your point?

If it's not I'll check it out, although it's not exactly screaming objectivity so far.

If you do manage to find a couple businessmen profiteering off green energy what point do you end up with exactly Jim?

Global warming is a hoax and a scam. Those who profiteer from it are hoaxers and scammers.

'nuf said.

As detailed above, the Left and the Right are saying the same thing. To discount what junkscience posts as bunk, while everyone on all sides of the equation are saying the same thing, shows your personal bias.

 

[MrBishop]

Global warming is happening. "Global Warming" (note quote marks) is a ploy/tool of fear. The quotes are there to indicate the use of Man-made accelerating factors to global warming.

Feel better?

 

[jimpeel]

Global warming is happening. "Global Warming" (note quote marks) is a ploy/tool of fear. The quotes are there to indicate the use of Man-made accelerating factors to global warming.

Feel better?

Wrong. Global temperatures have been flat for the past ten years. There has been no global warming during that time.

Solar cycle 24 has yet to manifest and sunspot activity is a far better indicator than computer models which cannot even "predict" temperature trends which have already occurred.

Check out the sun today. That is what it has looked like for quite some time now. No sunspots. Read about it HERE.

The scammers now use the term "climate change" because their sainted "global warming" simply stopped in 1998.

Global warming, ala "climate change" is a Hegelian Dialectic; and those who are espousing its evils are keen to get their plans in place before the trend reverses without their intervention. That would show them for what they are -- a bunch of flim-flam men.

 

[MrBishop]

Last sizeable sun-spot was in the early 20's - electromagnetic storm that would knock out half the eastern seaboard's power grid if it happened again. Before that was late 19th century... MUCH bigger.

I've read some about the relationship between the sun and our overall temperature.

I'm talking more about our recovery from the last little ice age = global warming.

 

[MrBishop]

 

[jimpeel]

Last sizeable sun-spot was in the early 20's - electromagnetic storm that would knock out half the eastern seaboard's power grid if it happened again. Before that was late 19th century... MUCH bigger.

I've read some about the relationship between the sun and our overall temperature.

I'm talking more about our recovery from the last little ice age = global warming.

We were taught in grade school on the fifties that the world was still warming from the last ice age. The only difference today is that there are those who are seeking to profiteer from it. Nothing has changed with the exception of the politicization of that warming.

 

[jimpeel]

Then there's this on the one side from 2008:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352241,00.html

Scientist: Forget Global Warming, Prepare for New Ice Age
Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Sunspot activity has not resumed up after hitting an 11-year low in March last year, raising fears that — far from warming — the globe is about to return to an Ice Age, says an Australian-American scientist.

Physicist Phil Chapman, the first native-born Australian to become an astronaut with NASA [he became an American citizen to join up, though he never went into space], said pictures from the U.S. Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) showed no spots on the sun.

He said the world cooled quickly between January last year and January this year, by about 0.7 degrees Centigrade.

"This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record, and it puts us back to where we were in 1930," Chapman wrote in The Australian Wednesday. "If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over."

and this on the other from 1997:

http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap02/sunspots.html

Sunspots and climate prediction

We do not know why the Sun spends part of its time in a magnetically quiescent state, and whether the sunspot minima occur with a regularity that is sufficient to predict when the next quiescent episode might occur.

At present there is no concern about another Little Ice Age. Recent satellite measurements of solar brightness, analyzed by Willson (4), show an increase from the previous cycle of sunspot activity to the current one, indicating that the Earth is receiving more energy from the Sun. Willson indicates that if the current rate of increase of solar irradiance continues until the mid 21th century, then the surface temperatures will increase by about 0.5? C. This is small, but not a negligible fraction of the expected greenhouse warming.

So we will either warm or cool, that much is for certain.

 

[jimpeel]

You might find this article of interest.

http://www.unisci.com/stories/20022/0613022.htm

 

[MrBishop]

At this point...I've gotten pretty sick about arguments over global warming et al. Call it information overload. I need a mental health day (sick day without actually being sick) to help me recover.

Meteorologists can barely tell me what the weather is going to be tomorrow
, yet insist on predicting things 50 years into the future. It doesn't matter which side they're on - it's all a heaping pile of conjecture.

 

[MrBishop]

..

 

[catocom]

jim, pickens has said repeatedly that the main goal, is to get off foreign energies.
The green part is because he thought it'd bring more support, and was a good idea generally.

I still see nothing wrong here....yet.

 

[jimpeel]

At this point...I've gotten pretty sick about arguments over global warming et al. Call it information overload. I need a mental health day (sick day without actually being sick) to help me recover.

Meteorologists can barely tell me what the weather is going to be tomorrow
, yet insist on predicting things 50 years into the future. It doesn't matter which side they're on - it's all a heaping pile of conjecture.

I found the study that was done, that they used the computer models to predict what has already happened, interesting. The computer models could not predict history; so how can they predict the future?

 

[jimpeel]

jim, pickens has said repeatedly that the main goal, is to get off foreign energies.
The green part is because he thought it'd bring more support, and was a good idea generally.

I still see nothing wrong here....yet.

Getting off the foreign teat would be a good thing. However, I see nothing altruistic in Pickens proposals. He is abut money and power; and not necessarily in that order.

 

[catocom]

Getting off the foreign teat would be a good thing. However, I see nothing altruistic in Pickens proposals. He is abut money and power; and not necessarily in that order.

so, because it's good for him, it's bad for us?
I don't subscribe.

 

[jimpeel]

so, because it's good for him, it's bad for us?
I don't subscribe.

Did you miss that part about the Ogallala Aquifer? That's not good for us.

 

[spike]

Re: The scammers abound ...

Global warming is a hoax and a scam. Those who profiteer from it are hoaxers and scammers.

The question was "If you do manage to find a couple businessmen profiteering off green energy what point do you end up with exactly Jim?"

Would you mind answering that?

If Pickens is horading water rights what point do you have?

As detailed above, the Left and the Right are saying the same thing. To discount what junkscience posts as bunk, while everyone on all sides of the equation are saying the same thing, shows your personal bias.

No, the bias is from the junkscience site. Realizing that it's corporate funded with articles written by a registered lobbyist means that you need to find better sources of information if you want to be taken seriously.

We've already seen before that junkscience has a completely biased take on things. Follow the money Jim. Do you actually see no difference between the Business Week and junkscience articles?

Really?