I'd like to invite them for a nice swim in the Gowanus Canal.

Here is where you can find out what projects are affected.
https://www.glri.us/

In under a minute on that site I came up with two projects, a "feasibility study" and "technical assistance" to the tune of a million dollars, both targeting an area 40 miles from a Great Lake.

Germany renewable energy provides 30% of supply needed daily and perfect conditions almost 85% of it's needs. Americas best 16% on it's best day.

Germany and I believe Norway?? are both leading the way to energy independence to fossil fuels. They have a different mindset and are also probably not in bed with the fossil fuel industry as well.

They also utitlize rolling blackouts or start very expensive combustion turbines when the wind forecast is not cooperating. They also have a very extensive nuclear program that serves their base load. I wish the US nuclear program was on the same level as the Europeans. They using breeder reactors and nuclear waste reprocessing to turn nuclear waste into another isotope to use in different reactors. Unfortunately, Jimmy Carter put the halt to that for the US. I'm no where near an expert on nuclear recycling but if you want a good read google it. Its actually some really cool technology.

I'm not saying that I think renewable forms of energy are garbage, I just think we need to further the technology for the applications that we need here in the United States.Germany has a forcasted annual peak load of 75,000 MW's while Norway is around 24 MW's (not 100% of those numbers, just pulled them from google search). In comparison, just the PJM footprint of the electric grid is 150,000 MW's so that in itself presents an issue. This doesnt include the southeastern US, midwest, Texas, maritimes, or California. I'm no where near an expert at this. I do deal with it daily but there is so much that goes into reliable operations of the grid that we could sit here all day and discuss this topic (which I'm ok with, I love these types of discussions....lol)

We can do better

Nova had a good episode on developing future power plant



http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/th...ar-option.html

It will be interesting to see what Musk can get going with solar and some sort of cooperation from Florida and Nevada state government regs now that he has bought solar city.

Between solar panels and musk battery packs for my house along with a Tesla SUV to pull my carbon fiber high speed foiling sailing catamaran to the Gulf , I think I am set in Sunny Florida .

Europe is different. Air conditioning in homes is rare, home heating is usually significantly cooler than what we expect. Most homes own single cars and people ride bikes. Unnecessary lights turn off etc, etc,. You learn to shower quickly also.

All you Boyne Thunder entrants probably don't know there's a decommissioned nuke plant nearby north of Char.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ro...ar_Power_Plant

I like the Bill Gates approach to nuclear:
Develop technology to use the existing waste.
Been working on it for a decade.

http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060051090

Good read. Thanks for sharing.
https://whatisnuclear.com/articles/recycling.html
that is the technology that is employed overseas. Unfortunately, until some new legislation concerning nucealr power is derived in the US, we wont be able to do any of this.

I just want a permit to shoot silver carp. Let's start with something easy. :silenced:

Yea. The greens I'm sure sit around their monthly meeting thanking their lucky stars that this happened. It's something they enjoy hanging their hat on. Pipelines are the safest and most efficient mode of transportation
for oil. Is there a chance it could leak? Absolutely. Is it likely to? No. Shut it down and they will just use a different, riskier, mode to get it from point A to point B.

Yes, as a matter of fact I am. Without them I can't fill my gas tank.

I'm all for developing alternative sources of energy but lets fully develop them before installing. Unfortunately, the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine. Instead of subsidIzing something that doesn't fully work, lets spend that money on researching and developing the technology to solve the problem.

It gets better with each and every development, research and developing technology is working. Keep it up IMO.

BTW...I need gas for my tank too, but fuk the rag heads, the only thing that keeps us in that sh!thole wasteland is oil...they sure as heck don't have anything else to offer us.

It's working? Not really... Wind, solar, it's all subsidized by the government aka your tax money, and it all looses money so far.

The technology that does work for electricity without subsidy, Nuclear, coal, natural gas and we have tight restrictions to darn near kill it driving those prices up just to justify wasting money on the Solar and wind projects.
If your so into waste as you said before. Cut out the stupid regulations on Nuclear and Coal and Natural gas and for electricity we are independent.
For Oil/Gasoline purposes. As the middle east countries cut production to raise prices the USA has increased production to stabilize the price. The USA at this point has the ability to be completely self sufficient on Oil and Electricity and the prices reasonable without government wasted money.

If someone wants to develop solar and wind that work I'm all for it. Just do it on there companies dime not the taxpayer dime.

Since all the regulations on how we make electricity has increased over the lat 8 years, did you notice electricity went up also every year. Notice how we were told wind and solar were going to keep electricity prices low (kinda like health care). What a expensive Joke
Government can not regulate things and keep prices low. It has not happened in the history of the USA. Why are healthcare drugs so much more expensive in USA than Canada or Mexico or anywhere? GOVERNMENT INVOLVED REGULATIONS!

So getting back to the real subject of this thread.
Cutting money from the Great Lakes AKA Researchers slush fund. I'm all for it spend 20% of the money efficiently, stop all the bull crap programs. Do it in all areas of the Government!

We have to see the difference between wants and needs! The Government wants to spend a crap load of money on nothing, but we need to spend as little money as possible and get as much as we can, this means getting people involved that accomplish things not just talk about things!

Depending on who you want to believe oil companies are subsidized by you and I to the tune of 20-50 billion a year.

I don't claim to be an expert in this field. Just an enthusiast who would like to see better options. I know that things are always more complicated than they appear when reading basic articles on how renewable energy can work. I definitely have my environmental concerns as I appreciate the beauty of the only world we have to live on and hope my son will get to enjoy it along with his children.... I just hope the experts do figure things out before it is too late.

One reason very little gets solved in government.
Everyone is willing to cut funding from stuff they don't like. But things they do like they don't want to change or touch unless your giving it more money.
The facts are there is waste in ALL areas that need to be cut out.
See my I need gasoline to run my business, my toys. But If there truly is oil subsidy of millions (depends who reports on what, everyone full of half truths). This should be cut also. If the oil companies can't make it on there own they need to get more efficient!
I am willing to cut the fat from even things I like and need.
I don't care if your right or left in politics, it's time to be honest.
I don't have to like what you do, you don't have to like what I do but if country is to get better it's time to think big picture and not be selfish and want others to pay for what you like.
That is by definition redistribution of wealth, socialism.

Very well said. I agree on the vast amounts of wasted governmental spending. If government was run like a business, without the option of being bailed out, it would have failed a long time ago.

One thing I can say after staying up in Michigan with some friends since Sept is Florida is dirt cheap to live compared to here.

Frikin property taxes are ridiculous . Your endless heat bills are crazy , and your electric bill that is powering nothing but the frig and lights cost more than I pay to air condition my house in the heat of summer in Florida.

Not a huge house nor an inefficient house I'm staying at..

Florida is damn cheap living if you bought an affordable house.

1st thing Trump needs to do is do away with ethanol subsidies and get rid of its production.

Get farmers back to growing affordable food for Americans . The single most inflationary affect on the average American is the cost of food.

I spent past 10yrs in the biofuels industry, and finally realized if it ain't black and pumped from the ground, no one gives a chit... Long as there is a few drops of crude left to suck out of the ground or suck out of tar sands, no one will ever willing chose to use alternatives. The whole biofuel market is made up of crooks and cheats who spend most of the day trying to figure how to get some special credits from the gov without ever making fuel.

That said, there is a reason for all the fraud. Most like myself got into it for the right reasons, then realized there was no market for the products. The gov promised everyone tax credits, blender credits, and built a tracking system called RIN's which assigned a tracking number to every gallon of biofuel produced. Then our Einstein politicians left it up to big oil to blend all this biofuel into the mainstream. When they didn't, they mandated so much per year be blended. After a couple years of solid mandates, they started delaying legistaion for the following year until about half way into that year. Tax credits, same thing, Releasing the proposed fuel tax credit figures for 2016 in like October 2016..

Whole deal would be equal the gov telling Apple they have to sell so many Samsung phones per year or pay a fine. Apple says Ok, we will buy 100 Samsung phones, toss them in the trash, and move on... Then next year by like say June, they say Apple you have to buy 120 phones this year. Leaving the small guys wondering for six months if the have any sales for the year or not. Basically how the whole thing works. Except Apple also spends 50x that money on adds slamming Samsung, and just as much to lobby against them in DC. Get the picture?? Substitute your favorite big oil company for Apple. It's so screwed up I said F-this whole venture, hope all the oil drys up soon and I can watch everyone walk to work...

Ethanol in the US is counter productive. Takes more energy to produce a gallon than ya get back from the fuel. Is purely due to Corn as the only feedstock. However, it does run great in a boosted engine as some are starting to learn. Biodiesel, made from used cooking oil is a positive on the energy chart. Also a great fuel when used correctly. Ran everything I owned including my boat on it for many years. However when it comes to demand side, you could meet the US market demand by making it out of Willie Nelson's left over pot seeds and he'd still have plenty to run his bus on... That's what I leaned first hand about clean energy in the US.

Bottom line for me is when I see the same passion surrounding something like military spending which accounts for 55% of our budget then I'll recant my dismissing this topic as nothing more than dogma.

If they spend something on keeping my playgrounds, water, air, et al, and some of it happens to be waste which exists in all areas then it's not going to get much attention from me. My water comes from a well, I'd like it to be clean and free from contaminates so I don't grow a thumb out of my forehead.

We are producing cheap food! The cheapest in the world. Most of your facts were close until you talked about ethanol. Corn is not the only feed stock used in this country. Garbage, wood chips, switchgrass, corn stover and sugar can to name a few. Also it's not "counter productive". Those numbers are 20 years old.

Ayuh,... Typical progressive talkin' point,...
Problem is,...
Tax deductions are NOT Subsidies,....
Just as any other business uses Tax Deductions against spent moneys, 'n depleted resources,...

They are making advancements but it definitely is not at any kind of alarming rate. I too love the environment but being close to the energy industry, I just don't see us getting away from big base load power plants (coal, natural gas, nuclear) in my lifetime. There is just too many variables that make them a liability when talking about reliable grid operations. Another option that we are seeing explored at a high rate is the new "Ocean Wave Energy" renewable sources, but again, these are built offshore to importing the energy to the load centers is a chore. Batteries are also being researched and improved at a high rate and are now able to actually be a regulating resource in the energy market and they do so very well but more research and development is needed.

This thread was supposed about cutting money from the great lake fund correct???

This has turned into the Liberal Partisan talking point thread.

The quote above about military spending amounts is typical liberal talking points that are a complete spin on numbers. People here it and believe the politicians spewing the nonsense. This was my point earlier in a post of how both parties lie and get people worked up.
BTW how is cutting wasted research money from the great lakes effecting your well? I've never heard of anyone growing a extra thumb anywhere on there body from water. Another example of liberal spewed rhetoric, (if you don't do what I like you want dirty air and dirty water and your a killer). Liberals speak this non stop and have gotten away with it for years until recently. Now people are tired of the rhetoric bull crap and some are willing to call it what it is.

Just so others can see the real numbers.
Here is real military #'s Look them up yourself, don't feed others misleading #'s
Health Care 31% of federal budget (gone up from 28% in 2014 with the disaster pork filled bill Obama Care) Cut the pork and stupid restrictions from this bill also. Last I checked I cant use birth control pills or a mammogram or planned parenthood.
Social Security 25%
Military Defense and Homeland security 15% (homeland security airport security/border patrol, parts of the drug task force accounts for approx 4% of this) So really Military spending is 11% of federal budget. BTW I'm fine with cutting wasteful spending from this budget also!

This thread has gone no where near what it was labeled in the last couple of pages. Should probably be moved to the political section by a Mod.

If you want to use wind and solar energy so badly I'd kindly suggest buying a Sail boat. I see lots of them in the Apostle Island area using both solar and wind. Not my cup of tea but I also don't try to tell others what they have to do with there lives or like. Do what you like, just dont tell me how or what to like also.

Everyone on this site uses Gasoline to run there engines on there boat. (unless they have a diesel or turbine engine)

hustler guy not looking for a debate but America spends more on it's military then China,Russia,Saudi Arabia,France,United Kingdom,India,Germany combined. And the new admin whats to increase that number.

Neither here nor there, but that falls squarely on the Truman Doctrine and corporate liberals dating back about 70 years when we became the world's police force. Neither Obama nor Trump can be blamed for the national defense budget differences between nations.

I believe the biggest chunk by far is entitlements.

Back to cost of cleaning up the lakes.

From my green shaded sides sorta, kinda, round about way of looking at this. How many of you guys owning a truck with this emblem on the door ever consciously chose to buy Biodiesel blends of fuel?? I'll take anyone with a new Duramax or Dodge also, cause all models were specifically updated to run at least a B20 blend. Anyone?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]565538[/ATTACH]

It's not just you modern diesel truck owners fault, it's also the American farmers who refuse to change. Can't speak for the Ethanol side, but the National Biodiesel Board is made up of a majority from the National Soybean Growers Association. All my full time farmer buddies either grow beans or corn, cause that's what they've done well with for decades. Talk to any about growing something like canola, sugar beats or cane, you may as well be asking them to grow weed... Which some are now actually pretty open to, but that's a different topic. lol

But that's the main issue with "clean" biofuels in our country. From a 2016 US Department of Energy online document on biofuel feedstocks.
--

[SUP]Some plants are easier to process into ethanol than others. Some don't require many resources to grow, while others need many resources, as well as intensive care. Some plants are used for food as well as fuel, while others are cultivated exclusively for fuel production.
Nearly all ethanol produced in the world is derived from starch and sugar-based feedstocks. The sugars in these feedstocks are easy to extract and ferment, making large-scale ethanol production affordable. Corn is the leading U.S. crop and serves as the feedstock for most domestic ethanol production.
Cellulosic feedstocks are non-food based feedstocks that include crop residues, wood residues, dedicated energy crops, and industrial and other wastes. These feedstocks are composed of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin (typically extracted to provide energy for production). It's more challenging to release the sugars in these feedstocks for conversion to ethanol. Commercialization of these processes is a funding priority of the U.S. Department of Energy's Bioenergy Technologies Office.[/SUP]
--
Sounds simple, but when ya dig into the actual numbers, we are the only country who bases our biofuel primarily off just these two feedstocks. And they SUCK in the bang for the buck category. Much like palm oil has a great yield, but people are chopping down all the rain forests to grow it... End game is a bigger issue than the pollution.

From the Green Facts website:
When ya compare the feedstock yields of sugar cane or sugar beets to Maize (corn) per Hectares. Sugar beats is 5060ltr/ha, sugar cane is 4550ltr/ha while the global average on corn is 1960 ltr/ha of ethanol .But somehow the US can squeeze 3751 ltr/ha from that same (ha) of corn planted. Either it's fuzzy math, or we use a lot more fertilizer than everyone else. By the recent increase of algae blooms on the Great Lakes, I'm betting there's one of your primary source. But canola grows great up there and doesn't require near the fertilizer of corn.

Since we started off this topic speaking of algae, that's the holy grail of Biodiesel feedstock. From a 2009 biofuels article; "Biofuel Advance Research & Development (BARD) is claiming in Biofuels Digest that it can produce "8,571,428 gallon of algae oil per acre. This is from Biofuels Digest's "50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy. 2009.

When ya go to that company link, www.bardalgae.com, ya get nothing, they're gone. Developer is probably on a yacht somewhere off Monaco drinking like a fish. Not cause he's producing billions of gallons of fuel, but like most of these "amazing" lab experiments, it was patented and sold off for millions to some sucker. Who soon realized while those numbers are theoretically possible, the finished fuel costs like $12 a gallon to produce. Not a big market or enough subsidy to cover that one yet... lol So back to the old trusty soybean or corn plant for easy production and guaranteed money in the local farmers pocket.

What it comes down to is, unless the farmers step it up, or the every day pump price of biofuels is substantially less than fossil fuels, without mandates, people will never adopt it. And that's not gonna happen long as big oil remains in business. In the near future all I get from the biofuels industry is:

No, I'm not the first king of controversy
I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley
To do black music so selfishly
And use it to get myself wealthy (Heyyy!)

-E "Eight Mile's #1 protogy..."

i was raised to leave the river, lake and field better than i found it so we could always go back to hunt fish and ski it.
parents just need to start smackin their kids back into line again, not to mention, the paddle and pledge of allegiance back in school.

fossil fuel isn't going away anytime soon, the thought of it going away, and hearing the utopians wish for it makes me physically ill.
besides w/out gas this would be the poundfest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA1GuJFqLlU

[QUOTE=outonsafari;4537137]i was raised to leave the river, lake and field better than i found it so we could always go back to hunt fish and ski it.
parents just need to start smackin their kids back into line again, not to mention, the paddle and pledge of allegiance back in school.

Perfectly said

Lost me at "liberal". Did not read the rest.

Lost me at progressive...did not read

Bottom line, I agree on cutting the research, it's crap. You don't need a study to come down on GE when they were polluting the Hudson, mutant fish and high mercury levels are enough. Guess what...the pollution stopped and the evil EPA forced GE to dredge their sh!t out of the river because people raised their voices. But I guess that's a bad thing right? Better to have Jack Welch line his pockets then to take care of the people who ate fish from the river though. I don't get it, are some of you for polluting our water and air? Are you defending those that do it? Where's the passion behind that? Where's the cry for cutting waste in other areas of the gov't?

Stopping polluters is a political thing, not a research thing. Unfortunately it requires documentation and back up to take these offenders to court to stop them, or are some of you against due process now? So yes it's a seeming waste of money, but some of it's needed to stop this. Take care of your planet, it gives you everything you have.

I run B20 in every diesel engine I own and have since my 7.3 turbo diesel. That includes semi and irrigation power units.
Sugar beats can be grown in pockets of the north, sugar cane can only be grown in tropical weather. Farmers are businessmen and will grow what makes the most $$ for their farm. But most are also stewards of the land that they are blessed to be able to farm so they will also grow what is best for the land. Today that includes cover crops to keep any remaining nutrients in the ground for next years crop instead of potentially getting into our water. That also sequesters carbon so it will remain in the soil as organic matter instead of "burning" off and going into the atmosphere as it does with tillage and uncovered open ground.
I'm well aware of the waist in all spending programs. I sit on 3 different boards for promoting Ag and conservation. I get very frustrated with all the time wasting with no real decisions. The budgets have become very boated and money is spent so it doesn't get removed from the next budget.
The algae bloom on Lake Erie is made worse by fertilizer run off but that isn't the cause. There is an area on the South West of the lake that is very shallow with almost no flow that gets very warm and stagnant in certain weather conditions. That is what triggers the problem. They should build a plant there to convert it to Ethanol. Or, better yet Biobutanol.