Category — Luddites

Luddites loose in La-La land

The price of oil is likely to hit 150 dollars (Canadian, US) a barrel by 2010 and soar to 225 dollars a barrel by 2012 as supply becomes increasingly tight, a Canadian bank said Thursday. (April 24^th) [snip]

Electricity and heat production in the Northeast derives from oil for the most part. In Vermont, there are no oil or coal plants; however, we have a clean energy producer in Vermont Yankee nuclear plant. The other energy source, a contract with Hydro Quebec, which proved to be a bad indenture, is defunct in 2009. Whether it is renewed or not, indubitably it will not be at current rates.

This chart comes from a Green Mountain Power bill insert.

Instead of embracing nuclear power as a means of insuring clean energy, the Vermont house:

MONTPELIER — The House voted 81-58 Wednesday for a bill that would require new corporate owners of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant to guarantee more money is available to dismantle the plant when the time comes.

Senate President Pro Tempore Peter Shumlin, D-Windham, agitated in the Senate to require Entergy (Vermont Yankee owners) to deposit the money to clean up the site now.

This response came from corporate spokesmen.

Vermont Yankee officials, meanwhile, provided fuel for a possible veto by saying that if the bill passes they would likely sell or shut down the Vernon nuclear power plant because it would no longer make sense financially to include it in the new corporate spinoff. That could make the plant more expensive to run as a lone unit and raise the cost of the electricity it produces, he said.

The Luddite fascists in Vermont want the plant closed yesterday regardless of cost to the ratepayers. Money set aside at interest by Entergy, is sufficient to decommission and clean up the site. If this shutdown occurs, average monthly electric bills will go from $100/mo. to $200, maybe $250/mo.

Welcome to socialist economics, these idiots wish to festoon the mountainsides with wind turbines. The cost of electricity will enforce conservation, the desired goal; no other idea makes any sense. And they cannot tell from where the replacement power will come.

Vermont will be a microcosm of a Democrat controlled country if Yobama is elected. Clinton will be just as bad.

Maybe drinking biofuels tastes fine.

Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World

Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks. [snip]

In lean times, biotech grains are less taboo

Soaring food prices and global grain shortages are bringing new pressures on governments, food companies and consumers to relax their longstanding resistance to genetically engineered crops. [snip]

There can’t be a food shortage, we have food to burn. Ethanol is the wave of the future. This is what the greenies wanted, this is what results.
First, understand there isn’t a shortage of food, there is a shortage of non-GE food. In Europe, Asia and areas like Vermont, they want non-modified food. This is a self-inflicted predicament for 75% of the corn grown in the US is GE. If they want corn, they get what we sell and pay the price. Or, grow their own. They can have precisely what they want then.
If they don’t, Frankenfoods, the bane of every Luddite, are coming to their plate.

There is one more option:

I could not tell if this was a pickup or a delivery.

Creating a third world country

Conservation is good isn’t it! We can save the planet while joining hands skipping around a tree singing Kumbaya. Often we hear the enviros tell us how dire life for the “poor” is because we splurge on everything from toilet paper to gasoline. Conserve, conserve and more conservation, we are running out of everything. We are not running out of idiots though, that’s the embarrassment. We’re living in a PBS state.

Examination of how the poor really fare with the dreadfully emotional regulations of the barkheads is absolutely enlightening.

First, we must understand every business has a bottom line cost, for product, maintenance and repairs of infrastructure, salaries and then physical plant if different from infrastructure. Profits must figure into this, otherwise why bother producing anything. This is of course anathema to the Loony Left. For the examples, all numbers presume no increase is operating/repair costs, which really is ridiculous.

Let us start with your electrical provider. Generating power costs x (where x equals the bottom line). Determine billing by y (where y is the total class of purchasers). Individual cost of electricity then is x/y. (For the logic and math deficient I’ll apply figures where x=$100,000.00 and y=10,000, therefore power costs $10/customer)

If everyone conserves by reducing consumption by 10%, the electrical company pays only 90% of the monthly costs. To cover the bottom line, they increase billing to y+10% per billing period. So, 10% of $100,000= $10,000.00 divided by 10,000 customers= $1 each. Power now costs $11 per billing cycle.

This causes all who conserve to cut back again, another 9% leaving the monthly bill $10.01 per customer. The company then collects $100,100 to cover $110,000, a short fall of $9900.00. They raise rates by another 9% to cover the billing to $11.99 / customer/period. Conservation saved you how much? Will you conserve to pay the new cost? The next increase is 8%, which is a 24.65% increase over the entire period.

Prohibiting increases by legislative fiat produces a cutback of maintenance, upgrades and/or layoffs of personnel, which of course has many other ramifications; the maximum is living in the dark.

State mandated conservation on driving to cut down on air pollution, global warming or being the greenest fool enfolds the same stupidity.

Police, road and bridge repair, snow plowing etc. rely on sales taxes from fuel sales, vehicle sales tax, registration, fees, tickets and parking/tolls.

Suffice to say fewer gallons vended, cheaper cars purchased, less driving in general cuts into the tax base very quickly. Vermont is a perfect example of the simplemindedness of the conserve to save mentality.

A short numerical example augments discernment: Give an average of 15,000 driven miles per annum divided by a very generous 30MPG =500 gallons of gas x $0.20/gal sales tax=$100.00 to the state. There are approximately 516,631 cars, light trucks and motorcycles registered in the state. (Year 2000 figures) of which about half are trucks excluding farm vehicles. Gas sales tax revenues are about $51.7M/year. Cutting back driving by 25%, the state takes a $12.9M hit to the treasury. I’m leaving out the tourists, diesel fuel sales for trucks and farm machinery, sales tax on oil changes, and other maintenance.

What new taxes or maintenance diminutions transpire to make up the arrears? Charges go up to fill in the revenue insufficiency or things start breaking. Who is going to patrol the byways, fill potholes or repair bridges? The state could make the Big Dig look good!

Try these examples with water, telephone or public transportation.

Who pays the cost?

The poor downtrodden proles for whom the Left professes to care wind up paying for the increases. When taxes on top of self-induced rising costs become onerous, the middle class and well to do move, leaving the “least fortunate” footing the bill. Moreover, pay they will for the basic infrastructure has to exist or the state goes away. I cannot picture the elected elite taking responsibility for the debacle. It must be the poor not paying their fair share. Who’s left?

Far be it from me to advocate excess consumption, I cannot afford it. However, belief in conservation as the road to Xanadu, has to be the product of a drug addled mind. The Teletubbies make more sense.