The EPA has set new standards for power plants that include more stringent rules for arsenic and mercury. Presumably lower doses are more dangerous now. They also are limiting water use for cooling the plants. These decisions have uncertain motives but are good indicators of the potential for government manipulation towards an unspoken or unratified or unproven end. Any attack on domestic energy production in this country until our basic problems are solved is quite mad.
Fifty percent of Japanese women born in the '70s are childless. From 1990 to 2000, the percentage of Spanish women childless at age 30 almost doubled, from just over 30% to just shy of 60%. In Sweden, Finland, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, 20% of 40-year-old women are childless. The welfare state, whatever you call it, depends upon a growing base to the population's pyramid. If the base shrinks, as is apparent, a new model must--must--be created.
If Iran shuts the Straits of Hormuz, their foot will be on our gas hose. The impact will be on farming and transportation. (Interestingly, increase in petroleum costs hurts China's labor advantage in pricing.) For every 10% increase in petroleum costs, there is a 0.2% decrease in GDP.
City Councilwoman Marian Tasco will retire on Friday, collect a six-figure pension payment and then return to work after she is sworn-in on Monday to serve her seventh term.
Francis Bielli, executive director for the city’s Board of Pensions and Retirement, said he was recently notified that Tasco, who is enrolled in the controversial Deferred Retirement Option Plan, will retire on Friday and collect $478,057. (From the Philadelphia Daily News)
I suppose this is the price we have to pay to get really high quality people in government.
The USA installed between 1,700 and 2,000 megawatts of solar during 2011, and new solar power may have exceeded new coal. World investment in renewable energy plants exceeded investment in fossil fuel plants this year. Oil demand in 2011 is about 7% below 2010 levels; gasoline demand is down about 5% from 2011. Electricity demand will barely increase in 2011 and is projected to actually decline in 2012 by EIA. I suppose the less optimistic might say that in a financial slowdown, things slow down but something is going on here. One can only hope that natural gas plays a part.
Happy New Year!
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