Rep. With Wind Farm Ties Denies Power Play

[NVMojo]

(This guy is a jerk)

Aides to California Rep. Richard W. Pombo pressed officials of the U.S. Department of the Interior last year to suspend environmental guidelines opposed by the wind-power industry without disclosing that Pombo's family had a substantial financial stake in wind energy.

The guidelines, issued in 2003, seek to reduce the number of birds killed by the spinning blades of wind turbines, such as those that flank the Altamont Pass east of Oakland.

Pombo (R-Tracy), heads the House committee that oversees the Interior Department. His parents own a 300-acre ranch in the Altamont Pass and have received hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties from wind-power turbines on their land over the last 17 years — much more than the family gets from cattle on that land.

"I signed a confidentiality agreement so I can't tell you exactly" how much, said Ralph Pombo, the congressman's father, "but there is no comparison. I get a lot more from wind."

In an interview with The Times, Rep. Pombo strongly denied any conflict of interest.

According to price and production records obtained by The Times, his parents' royalties for the most recent year available, 2001, topped $125,000. That was at the peak of the California energy crisis when prices were unusually high.

more...

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pombo7apr07,0,7940207.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. They won't recognize a conflict of interest until the shit hits the fan.

Zero tolerance is the only way to get the point across. Zero tolerance from the local level on up. If you have any family interest in a decision, you should remove yourself from the vote ir from lobbying. That's the end game.

[AlCzervik]

2. OMG!!! Pombo is a snake!!

my rep sucks but i'm so glad i'm not in Pombo's district.

[NVMojo]

3. Yeah, he is a jerk! He screwed over the Western Shoshone last year

with a bad claims settlement. I should have known he was a sticky rich guy.

[AutumnMist]

4. I worked for Enron

in Tehachapi California that had a busy department dealing with wind energy. They spent millions on the wind mills they built. It was very "in-house" so to speak. The small construction company that built the wind mills worked for Enron and they built the mills while Enron bought up land and existing "Wind Farms". It all seemed shady to me at the time. This was years before the Enron scandal hit. I was a temp worker and worked there for a short time. I think so many big business companies have corrupted a positive and very affordable energy source. The spin is always that it's for the people from these big companies...but after we get our energy bills. I think we all know better. :think:

[Coastie for Truth]

5. Wind Farms

I worked in photovoltaics (in the lab, in the Silicon fab), high energy batteries (for cell phones, lab tops, hybrid EV's and straight EV's), and fuel cells.

Pombo is a sleaze. I work in his District, and I live in Zoe Lofgren's District.

But, Yes, I believe in "Peak Oil" and No I do not believe in "Abiotic Oil" and Yes I believe that we are in Iraq for OIL.

We need Wind Turbine Farms - Pombo's parents land is ideally suited for the Altamont Wind Turbine Farms.

My nasty comment -- "
The guidelines, issued in 2003, seek to reduce the number of birds killed by the spinning blades of wind turbines, such as those that flank the Altamont Pass east of Oakland." but wind turbines reduce the number of Americans killed by "Insurgents" in Iraq.

You can't really fuss with siting wind turbines the way you can finagle highways.

Please - before you ad hominem criticize me please read Deffeye's books ("Beyond Oil : The View from Hubbert's Peak"; "Hubbert's Peak : The Impending World Oil Shortage") and Goodstein's book ("Out of Gas: The End of the Age Of Oil") and Unger's book ("House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties").

[Trillo]

6. It just struck me that a wind turbine could be built that was bird safe.

Why aren't the blades enclosed in a cage?

If you're having trouble visualizing what I mean, just think of how an oscillating fan, that most people have seen, is enclosed in a 'cage.'

[Ian David]

7. Perhaps we can kill two birds with one windmill: Put them near airports

That way, you keep all those pesky seagulls from being sucked into airplane engines, and let the windmills take them out instead.

It may also be a good way to keep Canada Geese off the golf courses.

Seriously, though. I also heard a thing on NPR about how nobody thought about the problem of BATS being mangled by windmills until they started finding their cute little furry bodies mangled on the ground.

It sounds like we DO have to find a way to keep birds AND bats out of windmills.

Putting giant plastic owls on them and perhaps recordings of "danger sounds" made by birds and bats might do it.

I hear Gospel music works, too.

You know where is a great place for wind and solar energy farms?

I'm thinking of someplace that's sunny and dry and hot and has large uninhabited, open areas hundreds of miles wide.

The Middle East.

[Trillo]

9. Does Barbara Boxer support wind power?

Do you care to clarify your point?

You wrote "seriously", did you really mean sarcastically?
Do you mean that protecting 'flying critters' is a false argument waged by some? That perhaps the danger to them is overstated?

[Massacure]

11. The sand storms would raise hell for the wind turbines.

Besides, electricity can't be transfered 12,000 miles to the United States.

[Ian David]

12. Wind and Solar Energy could fuel a new economic boom in The Mid-East

OK, sandstorms may be a problem for wind and solar energy production in The Middle East. I imagine that solar panels could be "shuttered" closed during sandstorms, or that wind turbines could be created with a method for withdrawing the blades.

Perhaps inflatable turbines could be "sucked inside" the tower during sandstorms, and solar panels can be covered in shutters to be blown free of sand using jet turbines once the weather is clear.

Middle Eastern solar power could be used to separate hydrogen from water to create hydrogen fuel.

Also, if wind and solar power fueled the local power needs of Middle East countries, that could mean they would have more oil to sell to The West.

For example, if there were millions of electric cars in The Middle East charged by electricity from wind and solar energy-- and all their homes and factories were powered by it-- they could create a new economic boom in the region.

Also, imagine if ports in The Middle East became a hub for electric or hydrogen-powered warships, cruise ships, and freighters.

Huge Maglev trains could drive goods across The Middle East to ports in Iran, Kuwait, and Iraq where they would be shipped around the world in hydrogen-powered ships.

The maglev trains could also be used to distribute hydrogen fuel, large batteries, and spun-up flywheels for energy use throughout the region.

Howstuffworks "How Maglev Trains Work"
http://travel.howstuffworks.com/maglev-train.htm

Energy Savers: Electric Vehicle Batteries
... For example, flywheel batteries do not store their energy as chemical ... into electrical energy. Flywheels are still in research and development. ...
www.eere.energy.gov/consumerinfo/factsheets/fa1.html

And if you're building maglev trains, you can also build magnetic rail guns.

<4.0> Space Guns
... Although a larger prototype was built to perform experiments and train gun ... Maglev systems have been much more thoroughly investigated than railguns ...
www.vectorsite.net/tarokt4.html

You could use magnetic rail guns to cheaply launch payloads into space, deliver freight around the world-- or to drop an atomic warhead anywhere on earth.

It could also be used to launch nuclear waste into space-- or down upon our heads.

To launch astronauts, tourists, business travelers, and other "fragile cargo" into space they could use powerful lasers on the ground to propel "lightcraft" space capsules into orbit and eventual solar sail powered craft to the outer planets and beyond.

See: Laser Powered SpaceCraft to Launch MicroSats Washington DC - December 14, 1997
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/laser-97b.html

Laser-Boosted Rocket Sets Altitude Record
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/laser_craft_001103-1.html


I'd be willing to bet that a maglev train system developed for "peaceful purposes" could be quickly, cheaply and stealthily converted into a rail gun weapon by (sort of) simply adding an upward-pointing accelerating track snuck-in overnight on a couple of large trucks.

See:
Railgun Information
http://www.physics.northwestern.edu/classes/2001Fall/Phyx135-2/19/railgun.htm

MAGRAC - A railgun simulation program
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1982ITM....18...94D


Here's a cheap way for the mid-east to make our lives miserable:

1) Solar and wind power are used to separate hydrogen from sea water. At the end of that process, you're pretty much left with oxygen and salt.
2) The cheap wind and solar energy is used to power magnetic rail guns that launch the salt into space inside ceramic shells to rain down onto American water supplies and crops. Some of the salt could be used to wreak havoc upon satellites in orbit.

On the other hand, I bet clouds of salt burning-up in the atmosphere would create a great fireworks display!

Perhaps if we made this clear to our politicians, they would expedite our development of alternative energy.

If we don't do it, we may be at the mercy of the same mid-east governments for the next hundred years as they develop a monopoly on terrestrial and space commerce systems as well as the hydrogen economy.

Except this time they'll have space-based weapons platforms placed in orbit by magnetic rail guns and fleets of silent hydrogen-powered submarines.

We need to create a new American hydrogen-based economy not just because freedom from foreign oil is of great strategic importance-- but also because freedom from foreign hydrogen sources is going to be of even greater importance.

I may be wrong about some (or even many) of these things, but I think it bears discussion and examination.

I'm going to cross-post this in another thread.

The Doubly-Important Strategic Importance of a Hydrogen Economy
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x21979

[Lindacooks]

8. I live 1/4 mile from a huge wind turbine.

Because it's so large, with only three blades, the blades turn slowly and there is absolutely no danger at all to birds. And there's no noise.

[medeak]

13. yes true

husband is looking into wind farming... that is one of the alternatives.

[MeinaShaw]

14. Because they throw blades and break (pic)

How come the blades are not enclosed in a cage? "Cause the blades fly off the things. And they fail. Check out this one.

[megatherium]

16. Last time I saw that picture, it was captioned Turbines 250, Birds 1. nt

[MeinaShaw]

17. Birds got more than one of them.

There have been more than one of them fail. Five in the same farm just like the one in the picture have be taken out of service for the same problem - one of the support legs at the top of the towers has cracks.

And these things throw blade with some frequency.

[megatherium]

15. yes, excellent books

or at least the two Deffeyes books, which I've read.

[jwirr]

10. Environmental Studies should be

encouraged in all alternative energy ideas because we are on the breaking edge of this technology and need to know the problems so they can be fixed. This guy is crazy.