my mid life crisis is inventing
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
I hate to see alternate energy projects run into problems,,,I think it shows how fickel our potential market is also...fwiw
Oil baron's wind farm project hits doldrums
By Chloe Melas
CNN
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Billionaire oil man T. Boone Pickens is shelving plans to build the world's largest wind farm.
The chairman of BP Capital Management announced Tuesday that his plans for the Pampa Wind Project, designed to generate 4,000 megawatts of electricity using thousands of wind turbines, is on hold.
"I had hoped that Pampa would be the starting point, but transmission issues and the problem with the capital markets make that unfeasible at this point," Pickens told CNN's Ali Velshi. "I expect to continue development of the Pampa project, but not at the pace that I originally expected."
The Pickens Plan was an attempt to wean the United States off foreign oil and switch to wind and natural gas. The project was to be set in four Texas Panhandle counties.
Pickens said he faced hurdles in routing the power from Texas to a distribution system. His plans were also stymied by a plunge in natural gas prices and a tightening credit market.
"The capital markets have dealt us all a setback, and I'm less aggressive with the Panhandle project than I have been," Pickens said.
He said he was still committed to 667 wind turbines that he has already ordered and would find homes for them.
The Texas billionaire pushed The Pickens Plan in television commercials and lobbying efforts that started last summer. Pickens had hoped to complete his $12 billion plan in 2014 and provide enough electricity to power 1.3 million homes.
Renewable energy is the source of only a small portion of electricity used today, but in 2008, the United States became the world's leading provider of wind power.
Pickens, 81, made his fortune in oil production and trading and is listed in Forbes magazine as the 117th richest person in the United States with a net worth of about $3 billion in 2007.
lol, I agree tech
understand, been waiting a while myself
how many of you think this recent activity has a lot to do with the renewable fuels/global warming/economy stimulus package emphasis of the current administration?
I am starting to think we may have hit the "perfect storm" part of the KDS's growth.
We have our patents in place, the political winds appear to be aligned and our mgmt is aware and staffing up...
I would love it to be true. If not, fun dreaming again. Right Sam?
Looks just like you though.....lol
I agree, I think it will take futher thinking outside of the box but I think it's time has come. Will FASC factor in each possibility? I don't think so but I think we can get enough of the scraps to succeed.
I haven't taken this much "FASC time" out of a day of work in more than several years...lol
Poo Power Expands: Vancouver-area Sewage Treatment Plant to Produce Biogas
by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY on 07.29.08
In that wastewater is a plentiful potential energy source. At least that’s what some companies are hoping for. Photo by JL Johnson.
Waste-to-energy projects seem to be popping up more and more: A number of cities are experimenting with either waste-to-ethanol, waste gasification, or waste-to-electricity facilities. A recent report regaled us with the details of how cow manure could provide up to 3% of US electricity generation.
Some areas have investigated the power hidden in human excrement: A new project outside of Vancouver, British Columbia is one such facility hoping that poo power can displace at least a portion of fossil fuels. There's not too much solid on this one yet, in terms of actual performance, but here are the details:
Human Waste-to-Biogas Pilot Project
The Lions Gate Wastewater Treatment Plant Biomethane Project, is a pilot project being developed by Terasen Gas, QuestAir Technologies and Metro Vancouver which will produce biogas from from human waste and pump into into the area’s natural gas distribution system. This will be the first human waste-to-energy facility in British Columbia.
The $1.1 million project is expected to “provide enough energy for 100 homes and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 500 tonnes each year,” according to Terasen’s press release. The project is expected to operational by July 2009.
With this sort of project on the increase, I may have to do something which I thought I had safely left behind in grade school: Brush up on my toilet humor.
via :: Terasen, :: EcoGeek, and :: The Vancouver Sun
This is a neat site for recycle news:
www.treehugger.com
China’s First Chicken Waste-Biogas Plant Turns Manure Into Electricity and Heat
by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY on 08. 8.08
Let’s remember that on a chicken farm containing 3 million birds, they probably never are let outside. Photo by Tim via flickr.
We recently heard about a report which estimates that 3% of US electrical demand could be met though utilizing cow manure to generate electricity. While for me it’s a bit of cold comfort to know that a byproduct of industrial agriculture could generate renewable electricity, at least a waste product is being put to better use. Along those lines, an industrial-scale chicken farm (3 million chickens!) in China has recently installed the nation’s first chicken manure-biogas plant.
Chicken Manure to Provide Electricity and Heat
The Beijing Deqingyuan Chicken Farm Waste Utilization plant, located about 50 kilometers north of Beijing will utilize the 220 tons of manure the farm’s chickens produce every day to generate energy. The waste will be fed into an anaerobic digester to produce biogas, which will fuel two GE Jenbacher gas engines.
This system will produce 14,600 MWh of electricity a year, as well as providing heat for the farm. It is expected to reduce the farm’s carbon emissions by 95,000 tons annually, as well as saving them $1.2 million in electricity costs.
In addition to providing heat and electricity to the farm, the project is hoped to reduce electric shortages in the region as a whole.
North Carolina Law Requires Electric Utility Plant Combustion Of Chicken Poop
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 03. 5.09
Crane moving chicken litter in power plant fuel hall during Fibrominn Grand Opening,
Benson, Minnesota. Image credit:Fibrowatt USA.
The poo-burn requirement is according to a story from the The News & Observer, Activists fight small power plants. Chicken waste as fuel draws fire
Fibrowatt USA, a Pennsylvania subsidiary of New Hampsire's Homeland Renewable Energy, wants to build dedicated chicken-poop-fired electical generators in North Carolina, where, one assumes, they must have way too much chicken waste. The poo-boilers will have to pass emission tests to get air operating permits. Know what one of the big emission concerns is? Arsenic.
Arsenic in chicken waste? Where does it end up?
Chicken feed on factory farms contains added arsenic. Most of the added arsenic passes through the chickens' digestive tracts and goes with the flow. (Why chickens are fed extra arsenic is a story for another day.)
Here is the ludicrous part of this story. If you burn chicken droppings in a coal-fired electric plant, the power plant owner will have no difficulty meeting its air emissions permit requirements because coal plants already receive arsenic in their coal supplies and emit it via fly ash, and to some degree up the stack.
However, if you build a dedicated chicken poop power-fired power plant, you will need an air permit limit, specifically, for arsenic. And, for whatever else goes up the stack in significant amounts.
Chicken poop combustion - dirtier than coal combustion.
A preliminary study by this state's Division of Air Quality shows that Fibrowatt's Minnesota plant emits more particulates, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxides than a coal-burning power plant.
You will have most certainly heard of "Clean Coal." An opportunity may exist for a talented ad agency rep to start a "Clean Chicken Poop" campaign.
More chicken poop posts for your delight.
Connecticut Egg Farm Will Convert Chicken Poop to Power
Dutch Biomass Plant to Use Chicken Manure to Power 90000 Homes ...http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/09/dutch-biomass-plant-chicken-manure-netherlands.php
China’s First Chicken Waste-Biogas Plant Turns Manure Into ...
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
Facts about Pollution from Livestock Farms
Giant livestock farms, which can house hundreds of thousands of pigs, chickens, or cows, produce vast amounts of waste -- often generating the waste equivalent of a small city. While a problem of this nature -- and scale -- sounds almost comical, pollution from livestock farms seriously threatens humans, fish and ecosystems. Below are facts and statistics that tell the story.
Livestock pollution and public health
California officials identify agriculture, including cows, as the major source of nitrate pollution in more than 100,000 square miles of polluted groundwater.
In Oklahoma, nitrates from Seaboard Farms' hog operations contaminated drinking water wells, prompting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to issue an emergency order in June 2001 requiring the company to provide safe drinking water to area residents.
In 1996 the Centers for Disease Control established a link between spontaneous abortions and high nitrate levels in Indiana drinking water wells located close to feedlots.
High levels of nitrates in drinking water also increase the risk of methemoglobinemia, or "blue-baby syndrome," which can kill infants.
Animal waste contains disease-causing pathogens, such as Salmonella, E. coli, Cryptosporidium, and fecal coliform, which can be 10 to 100 times more concentrated than in human waste. More than 40 diseases can be transferred to humans through manure.
In May 2000, 1,300 cases of gastroenteritis were reported and six people died as the result of E. coli contaminating drinking water in Walkerton, Ontario. Health authorities determined that the most likely source was cattle manure runoff.
Manure from dairy cows is thought to have contributed to the disastrous Cryptosporidium contamination of Milwaukee's drinking water in 1993, which killed more than 100 people, made 400,000 sick and resulted in $37 million in lost wages and productivity.
In this country, roughly 24 million pounds of antibiotics -- about 70 percent of the nation's antibiotics use in total -- are added to animal feed every year to speed livestock growth. This widespread use of antibiotics on animals contributes to the rise of resistant bacteria, making it harder to treat human illnesses.
Large hog farms emit hydrogen sulfide, a gas that most often causes flu-like symptoms in humans, but at high concentrations can lead to brain damage. In 1998, the National Institute of Health reported that 19 people died as a result of hydrogen sulfide emissions from manure pits.
Livestock pollution and water pollution
Huge open-air waste lagoons, often as big as several football fields, are prone to leaks and spills. In 1995 an eight-acre hog-waste lagoon in North Carolina burst, spilling 25 million gallons of manure into the New River. The spill killed about 10 million fish and closed 364,000 acres of coastal wetlands to shellfishing.
From 1995 to 1998, 1,000 spills or pollution incidents occurred at livestock feedlots in 10 states and 200 manure-related fish kills resulted in the death of 13 million fish.
When Hurricane Floyd hit North Carolina in 1999, at least five manure lagoons burst and approximately 47 lagoons were completely flooded.
Runoff of chicken and hog waste from factory farms in Maryland and North Carolina is believed to have contributed to outbreaks of Pfiesteria piscicida, killing millions of fish and causing skin irritation, short-term memory loss and other cognitive problems in local people.
Nutrients in animal waste cause algal blooms, which use up oxygen in the water, contributing to a "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico where there's not enough oxygen to support aquatic life. The dead zone fluctuates in size each year, extending over 5,800 square miles during the summer of 2004 and stretching over 7,700 square miles during the summer of 1999.
Ammonia, a toxic form of nitrogen released in gas form during waste disposal, can be carried more than 300 miles through the air before being dumped back onto the ground or into the water, where it causes algal blooms and fish kills.
The growth of factory farms
During the past 15 years the number of hog farms in the United States dropped from 600,000 to 157,000, yet the number of hogs remains almost the same.
In 1999, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that 2 percent of the hog farms in the country produce over 46 percent of the total number of hogs.
Ten large companies produce more than 90 percent of the nation's poultry.
Factory east of Jay will turn chicken waste to fuel
Factory east of Jay will turn chicken waste to fuel
Comments 1
Buzz up!By John David Sutter
Published: August 12, 2008
A factory set to open this fall east of Jay, near the Arkansas border, is designed to turn chicken waste into cheap fertilizer and eventually fuel.
Featured Gallery
Advertisement
If the $1.5 million state- and private-funded project succeeds, proponents say a bigger version of the idea would help alleviate water pollution in northeast Oklahoma.
Ken Stamper, a consultant and engineer on the project with a group called Production Specialties, said the plant will process 10 to 30 tons of chicken manure per day.
That relatively modest amount — about 1 percent to 3 percent of what the state attorney general's office estimates is produced daily in Oklahoma — is designed to prove the process works and can be economical, Stamper said.
"It won't make a big dent, but you're doing the demonstration so you can build plants large enough that they can make a dent,” he said.
Waste to liquid fertilizer
Environmentalists and some state legislators have pointed to waste treatment as a solution to water pollution issues in northeast Oklahoma, which are thought to be caused when manure from industrial poultry farms is spread on the land and washes into streams.
Phosphorus from the manure causes algal blooms and saps the water of oxygen.
Initially, the Process Technology Demonstration Facility will turn the waste into liquid fertilizer, which can more easily be trucked to distant farms than raw chicken litter.
Stamper said the hope is that the process will also shoot off byproducts that can be used as fuel.
How process works
The chicken waste is subject to a number of chemical and biological reactions, Stamper said, much like those used at wastewater treatment plants that treat human sewage.
One of the processes involves anaerobic digestion, which gives off a gas that could be burned to fuel other industry.
The only unused byproduct of the process is calcium carbonate, which is an ingredient in antacids and chalk.
High chemical fertilizer prices will make the chicken fertilizer more economical than before, Stamper said, however, high fuel prices may offset that benefit.
Stamper said $1.2 million of the project's funding comes from public sources, including the state Conservation Commission and the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science & Technology.
The remaining $300,000 is from private donations, Stamper said.
State Secrets: What Are They Hiding On Maryland Chicken Farms?
By Bill Gerlach, Waterkeeper Alliance
Maryland poultry farms raise 270 million chickens each year and produce more than one billion pounds of poultry manure. This waste contains enormous amounts of phosphorus, nitrogen and other toxins — including human carcinogens, arsenic and other heavy metals. And when it rains, this waste doesn’t stay on the farm. Stormwater washes it off farms and fields straight into Chesapeake Bay. Today, agricultural runoff is the single largest source of pollution in the bay.
But the state agency responsible for managing this waste — the Maryland Department of Agriculture — is hiding the polluters. The department refuses to allow public access to the operational plans that detail how chicken farms dispose of their waste. No one actually knows where all this poop is going, except for factory farm operators, their bosses at large integrators such as Perdue, Tyson and Montaire, and a few privileged state bureaucrats. Maryland’s policy of keeping factory farm pollution a state secret poses a huge obstacle to citizen efforts to hold poultry operations accountable for water pollution. And federal requirements are little help. Federal law requires that large-scale factory farms operate under a Clean Water Act permit. Theoretically, these permits should detail waste plans and be available to the public. Unfortunately, in clear defiance of federal law, the State of Maryland has not required that these large operations obtain permits.
Waterkeeper Alliance and Waterkeepers Chesapeake are exploring litigation to open up the secret poop policy of Maryland’s tight-lipped chicken cabal of big poultry, their allies in the state assembly and pro-chicken state bureaucrats. It is only a matter of time before this information is made available to citizens. Litigation has already been successfully brought by Delaware Riverkeeper challenging New York State’s refusal to make similar factory farm plans available to the public. And a federal court has ruled in a case brought by Waterkeeper Alliance against U.S. EPA that factory farm waste management plans must be made available for public review. The time is coming soon for big poultry to face the music for their waste disposal practices. w
The business model of a factory farm simply doesn’t work unless they are able to pollute. What we’ve found in the Eastern Shore of Maryland is that many chicken factories are in the tidal zone. The chicken factories and fields where they spread their waste are underlain with pipes and ditches. The waste flows into these ditches. When the tide comes up, these ditches are connected to the bay. We have found fishermen’s bait boxes floating up the ditches, we’ve seen minnows swimming in chicken factory pipes. Poultry factories use the bay to dispose their waste.
Rick Dove, Waterkeeper Alliance
Connecticut Egg Farm Will Convert Chicken Poop to Power
by Jeff McIntire-Strasburg, St. Louis, MO on 08.17.06
Kofkoff Egg Farm, a frequent target of activists for factory farming issues, is taking a step to clean up at least one element of its operations: the massive amounts of poop created by 5 million chickens. The farm, along with Clearview Power, has announced plans to build a plant that will generate electricity from biomass made up of poultry poop and wood wastes. It turns out that the decision is primarily economic: chicken droppings don't have the market value they once did (seriously):
The problem for Kofkoff starts with the state's continuing shift away from agriculture.
The closure of farms - and their replacement with housing subdivisions - reduces the number of fields where Kofkoff can spread its manure. Dairy farms traditionally take chicken manure to fertilize fields for hay and corn.
At the same time, new federal regulations are placing limits on the amount of manure a farm can spread. The rules are meant to keep excess nutrients from ending up in lakes, rivers and bays. There, they can cause high amounts of algae growth, choking water habitats.
To comply with these regulations, dairy farms have to cut back on the amount of chicken waste they use, said Joseph Wettemann, a senior sanitary engineer for the state Department of Environmental Protection.
So with fewer places to put chicken manure, Kofkoff has to find new ways to dispose of its constant stream of waste.
"This manure-to-energy plant is our best shot right now," Wettemann said.
Large-scale animal agriculture operations have an equally massive environmental footprint, so such a plan provides a way to deal with one of the messier parts of Kofkoff's effect, and to create a cleaner source of energy for many in Connecticut, as the proposed plant will power up to 29,000 homes. While we like the idea of converting wastes to power, there's always that nagging feeling that such operations will also give these kinds of unsustainable operations some green cover for other much less desirable activities. We hope the power plant succeeds; we also hope activists keep pressing this giant agribusiness for even more genuinely green alternatives to business as usual. ::Hartford Courant via Alotta Errata
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
The best/over simplified example is my farm years, we already had a standby generator for emegencies. It was running on natural gas so conversion to methane would have been not a big deal.
Building the methane capture station would have been not real technically challenging, we had already built the slurry collection pit..
Installing a reversable meter system would be the political kicker,,,,back then there might not have been such a thing...my point. It should be available now but it may not be legal in your jurisdiction.....
So you become your own personal politician/salesperson....you call your local oversite board and find out what to do next...
Wala, you are a big whig in the green energy power production revolution.....
If no luck,,,maybe try microbrewery, just a thought...lol
I would be so excited if FPL (Florida Power and Light) placed an order for 500 KDS's to fulfil their future mandadated 20% green energy requirement....but, I just don't see it happening.
I see as the best thing that can happen to FASC and other micro green/alternate energy suppliers is a law that requires a certain percentage set aside of the electricity generation green energy requirement for small producers....
My reasoning is not just to get the money spread around......the wire, the transmission system is the most efficent vehical to collect all of the fuel supplies.
If we truck all of the wood/garbage/other fuel long distances to the large generator it is completely not cost effective.
On the other hand, if we have generating plants close to the fuel supplies, there is no trucking of the product and the cost of local fuel collection is at it's most efficient..
I also do not see the large players as being interested in trying to learn how to manage a bunch of localized micro gen stations...they know how to run mega plants.
These micro plants would not be government or gov/private entities.....they would just have to be licenced like many other private companies. I was just explaining the process. Not unlike getting a building permit from your local county to build a house....their rules, they call the shots.
The only other kicker and what I was talking about about the email campain. Unlike applying for a building permit on a plot of land that is zoned for what you are wanting to build.
Going in front of a gov agency that oversees a utility, it would be simular to going for a rezoning hearing for your land.
You are going to have to convince them of why you should be allowed to basically compete with the mega generating company that you want them to force to buy your power.......
I think we can help educate every utility board in America the benifits of localized microgenerating and not just FASC's part, but all types of this style of energy production.
I know that one of the regional power provider's legitimate reasons for not wanting to have to deal with local, small providers is that they (regionals) have no way of managing their power availiability level, ie. knowing who is on line, ect. Also the comitment level of each small power supplier, (how reliable will the available power be, backup generators, etc.).
With the installation of Smart Grid technology I believe this will become less of a problem/excuse.
I firmly believe if it becomes a mandated requirement, the necessary monitoring technology will become available within weeks/months vs years as is claimed. And the contracted commitment level will be worked out to an acceptable level for all parties involved.....
For those who are not comfortable with more government, the local utilities are acepted monopolies and have government oversite boards just like cable co's and phone co's.
We just have to realize that we have to go to these boards and our elected reps to push out case just like any other competition does.
Infact, as proactive as this board is we should all spent 10 minutes to pull up the email's of our reps, state, congress, senate, and state electric boards and send them personal emails.
sorry about dup post
thanks for the clarification, I haven't followed the marketsmart thing.
I believe this is the start of more of the same. I think cleaning forests are where it is at. I may have missed what the final product of this project is but dust burning for electricity would be wonderful and in my opinion a no brainer.
You eliminate forest fire potential and you harness an untapped envirmetally friendly fuel supply. Sounds like a good day's work accomplished.
Growing up on a Nebraska hog farm 40 years ago,,,we were seriously looking at installing methane generators to process all of the slurry from our manure pits...
I have been interested in common sense, localized, small footprint energy production since I was a teenager..
I think with the global/political/enviromental pressures that are currently becoming much more laser focused, imo, we will get to see our FASC project become more of a mainstream investment.
I really like the way Kal & Co have stayed alive and now appear to be ready to take it to another level.
As I said before, imo, on a world wide basis, we have to have the politically powerful, regional power generating companies accept (polictically/new laws) small footprint, local micropower generators' the right to exist. Imo, this type of operation will be one of our largest client bases.
TR...ok, wouldn't be the first time....what did he mean?
So,, which is true, the supposed news or the denial as sleepin reports?
I agree.
At least we can suppose that Cal is excited about attracting them into the fold....he appears to have bought some stock over it...maybe the same reason he bought stock is the same reason these guys were willing to invest some time.
Just maybe with oil prices going back up, our time has come.
We all know that the race track generating stations were viable with the exception of not being able to sell the excess power to the grids. I believe it was the same thing that knocked the Indonesia project out initially.
If we can get the political winds to change direction (to force all power plant systems to purchase all available power) I believe there will be lots of small local powerplants installed for the burning of waste materials.
Imo, one of our good potential customer bases are these small generator stations.
lol I remember the Jigman......I need 8 cents to break even
shucks,,thought maybe we had something yesterday...sooner or later, hopefully sooner
Nice find TR and I remember it like you just stated.
Looking forward to the anual report. Hope this finds all still rich off of the stockmarket.
D
With alternative disposal routes expensive, and possibly to be closed in the relatively near future by EU
legislation, even the successful drying of wet sludge has considerable economic and disposal benefits.
Nice
thanks Tech
sentance=sentence
Tech, you are right. I took the last sentance of the last paragraph out of context.
You have to admit, the pathogens dying in max, 30 seconds exposure to 70-90c heat is pretty cool though.
D
Even an autoclave, pressurized so as to reach 121c has to sit for 15 minutes in order to do it's job on the little bacteria.
It seems so wierd that the KDS can touch material for 3-30 seconds and do the same job as applied heat does in 30 minutes.
D
Pasteurization. Pasteurization produces a Class A material when the biosolids are heated to at least 158°F (70°C) for 30 minutes. This extreme heat kills pathogens in the organic matter.
I wonder if 30 seconds would count. lol
It will be interesting to see if we get our Class A permit without someone having to explain the posibility of mechanical demicrobing along with the heat thing.
Great read, you and I are both right.lol
It appears to me as if he negates the first paragraph with the last...imo
D
Tech. Would be no value added by running dry material through the KDS.
The KDS has proven itself as unique in being able to remove moisture at sub boiling point in documented tests.
I don't have any questions. The article presents something new, something I have not heard in the 5+years of hanging around.
I am a little suprised you are saying the KDS boils it's throughput to dry it. That is all
D
Tech, what if industy standard for "dewatered biosolids" is 50+%, what I am sure they are used to dealing with with dumping. If this were the case then the article could be correct
I am sure dumps reqire less than 100% liquid and I know no biosolids are going in to dumps at 10-12% (KDS capability).
D
I see the article says that dewatered biosolids enter the machine. If I am not mistaken, drying is an integral part of the KDS's claim to fame. What financial benifit would the client gain by using the KDS over some other grinding machine? Unless say 60% moisture of material entering the drum?
I don't think the article is completely engineering correct. Yes I do believe the material has been dewatered to say 50-70% water. That water does come out mechanically, a lot of it, some comes out via heat but not the lion's share.
D
Thanks tech, makes sense. What about the pathogens in the water/material that is mechanically removed, some how not all of the moisture/material reaches boiling point though?
D
The Micronex system consists of a rotating mechanism inside a vertical cylinder through which dewatered biosolids are passed. Temperatures inside the cylinder are high enough to produce a Class A Biosolids in a relatively short time
The KDS doesn't use heat to kill the pathogens, fwiw.
I am really glad to see this article. I am not sure why our customer is wanting to do our selling for us? Are we entering a sales agreement with them? Fine if it works.
D
Tests to date indicate that the Micronex system can consistently produce a Class A Biosolids
sounds as if we passed the testing.....
D
Cheney's Fund Manager Attacks ... Cheney
By Brett Arends, TheStreet.com
(Page 2 of 2)
When I met Grantham last autumn he, quite rightly, refused to confirm that the vice president was a client. But you can see the evidence in Cheney's own personal financial disclosure.
There is an investment angle to Grantham's argument. He says he is "certain" that "oil substitution, energy conservation, and related environment issues will be the biggest investment issue of at last the next several decades." He adds: "It is clear there is no single solution so investment opportunities will be spread very broadly, especially in energy conservation."
He believes we will need more nuclear power.
But he calls corn-based ethanol "more or less a hoax" when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. "U.S. corn-based ethanol, as opposed to efficient, Brazilian sugar-based ethanol, is merely another U.S. farmer-protection program, made very expensive both directly and indirectly by inflating real agricultural prices."
Tell that to the presidential candidates currently stumping the Iowa caucus. (Incidentally, three MIT scientists told me the same thing about corn ethanol more than a year ago when I interviewed them on the subject. After my article appeared in the Boston Herald, I received a snotty letter denying there was any such thing as "an Iowa corn growers' racket." It was from the "chairman of the Iowa Corn Growers' Association.")
Grantham's full letter can be seen on his company Web site [www.gmo.com] , though you will need to register. It appears as the second half of the investment missive "Goldilocks Rules."
Grantham blames three decades of political cowardice for America's backward energy policy. As he dryly notes, "U.S. drivers -- the world's richest and some of the best behaved -- would, it was said, never accept increased taxes, where Italian drivers would! Even tax-neutral policies, such as taxing high mileage cars at purchase and subsidizing efficient cars, were never seriously considered."
The result: the fuel efficiency of U.S. cars has actually gone backward since 1982.
The irony is that this isn't, or shouldn't be, a partisan issue. Grantham singles out the Ford administration for his strongest praise on environmental matters. Everyone since, of both parties, has been a failure, he concludes. "The past 26 years have been such a wasted opportunity," Grantham writes. "This country had previously shown leadership in this field. President Ford got us off to a running start in energy efficiency... With a succession of President Fords, we would have ended up as an environmental leader and a great model."
I would love to know what President Ford's former chief of staff thinks of that.
His name? Richard B. Cheney.
Cheney's Fund Manager Attacks ... Cheney
By Brett Arends, TheStreet.com
The oil-based energy policies usually associated with Vice President Dick Cheney have just come under scathing attack. There's nothing remarkable about that, of course -- except the person doing the attacking.
Step forward, Jeremy Grantham -- Cheney's own investment manager. "What were we thinking?' Grantham demands in a four-page assault on U.S. energy policy mailed last week to all his clients, including the vice president.
Titled "While America Slept, 1982-2006: A Rant on Oil Dependency, Global Warming, and a Love of Feel-Good Data," Grantham's philippic adds up to an extraordinary critique of U.S. energy policy over the past two decades.
What Cheney makes of it can only be imagined.
"Successive U.S. administrations have taken little interest in either oil substitution or climate change," he writes, "and the current one has even seemed to have a vested interest in the idea that the science of climate change is uncertain."
Yet "there is now nearly universal scientific agreement that fossil fuel use is causing a rise in global temperatures," he writes. "The U.S. is the only country in which environmental data is steadily attacked in a well-funded campaign of disinformation (funded mainly by one large oil company)."
That's Exxon Mobil.
As for Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Richard Lindzen, who appears everywhere to question global warming, Grantham mocks him as "the solitary plausible academic [the skeptics] can dig up, out of hundreds working in the field."
And for those nonscientists who are still undecided about the issue, Grantham reminds them of an old logical principle known as Pascal's Paradox. It may be better known as the "what if we're wrong?" argument. If we act to stop global warming and we're wrong, well, we could waste some money. If we don't act, and we're wrong ... you get the picture.
As for the alleged economic costs of going "green," Grantham says that industrialized countries with better fuel efficiency have, on average, enjoyed faster economic growth over the past 50 years than the U.S.
Grantham says that other industrialized countries have far better energy productivity than the U.S. The GDP produced per unit of energy in Italy is 50% higher. Fifty percent. Japan: 60%.
And China "already has auto fuel efficiency standards well ahead of the U.S.!" he adds. You've probably heard about China's slow economic growth.
Grantham adds that past U.S. steps in this area, like sulfur dioxide caps adopted by the late President Gerald Ford, have done far more and cost far less than predicted. "Ingenuity sprung out of the woodwork when it was correctly motivated," he writes.
There is also a political and economic cost to our oil dependency, Grantham notes. Yet America could have eliminated its oil dependency on the Middle East years ago with just a "reasonable set of increased efficiencies." All it would take is 10% fewer vehicles, each driving 10% fewer miles and getting 50% more miles per gallon. Under that "sensible but still only moderately aggressive policy," he writes, "not one single barrel would have been needed from the Middle East." Not one.
I repeat: This is not some rainbow coalition. This is not even Al Gore. Grantham is the chairman of Boston-based fund management company Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo. He is British-born but has lived here since the early 1960s.
Grantham is, like most fund managers, prudent, conservative and inclined to favor the free market and smaller government. He has even said he supported Bush-Cheney in 2000. That doesn't make him particularly political. He also manages a portion of the Heinz-Kerry fortune, as well as those of many other wealthy types.
But he's certainly a man Cheney respects highly. According to the vice president's last personal financial disclosure form, filed with the Federal Election Commission, Cheney has somewhere between $1.6 million and $6 million of his family's money invested in four of Grantham's funds. These aren't even index funds. These are discretionary funds, where you trust the manager to look at the landscape, analyze all the data, and make the best investments. Cheney must have a lot of faith in Grantham's judgement and analytical skills.
CONTINUED
02/05/07 07:57 EDT