Free In Idaho!

Do you remember “The Island of Doctor Moreau“, or the ’30’s movie version “Island of Lost Souls“?  Forgive me then, if that is the first thing that pops into my mind when I read an article like this, from the island of Once-Great Britain

British scientists have today have been given the go-ahead to create part-human, part-animal embryos.

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) granted licences to conduct research using hybrids – made from animal eggs that have had their nucleus replaced with human genetic code.

Researchers will now use the technique to create embryonic stem cells in order to study the causes of and develop treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cystic fibrosis, motor neurone disease (MND) and Huntington’s.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean that you should.  One of the traits that mankind has that sets us above the rest of Creation is a sense of right and wrong, a sense of ethics.  But when you believe that life is an accidental, random happening billions of years ago in the primordial goo, it becomes easier to believe that you are the center of the universe and that you’re entitled to do whatever you want.  Ethics?  “Ethical is whatever we say it is”.  Including mixing animal embryos with human genetic material… 

… “What?  You have a problem with that?” 

Dr Stephen Minger and colleagues at King’s College want to use the cloned hybrid embryos from cow, rabbit, sheep and goat eggs to create embryonic stem cells carrying the defects responsible for a range of serious diseases.

Dr Lyle Armstrong and Dr Majlinda Lako at the North East England Stem Cell Institute in Newcastle plan to insert human skin cells into cow eggs to study how eggs can reprogramme adult tissues into more primitive cells.

“While scientists may prefer to use human eggs, these are in short supply and preference should rightly be for their use in treating infertility.”

Recent developments in stem cell research indicate that embryonic research and cloning is unnecessary, because they have found that great things can be done with adult stem cells, which do not require the destruction of human embryos.

Reports from four of the leading international laboratories working in ES cell research have shown that pluripotent stem (iPS) cells can be induced from adult mouse and human cells. These iPS cells have been shown to have all the properties previously attributed to ES cells, and thus provide a means of preparing individually tailored pluripotent cells without the ethical problems involved in therapeutic cloning.

To this must be added the fact that iPS cells can readily be prepared, whereas human therapeutic cloning has never been achieved. If it ever had been, it is such an inefficient process that it would always have required unacceptably large numbers of egg donations by women. The recently published first success with therapeutic cloning in a primate required 304 monkey eggs to be provided in order to produce two ES cell lines.

Ethics is a difficult subject from the start.  I believe it becomes impossible when your starting place is primordial goo.  Laugh at me all you want for my belief in the Creator and His requirement that our stewardship of His creation be according to His rules (yes, “ethical”).  Money, fame, scientific curiosity, and technical ability are poor foundations for making decisions concerning meddling with the intricacies of life.  Comes a time when you reach a point you should fear to go further.  I think we’re there, but no one seems to care. 

I have always tried to pursue a certain level of preparedness in life, for those things that would disprupt “life as we know it”.  Auto insurance, fire insurance, health insurance, savings, and all that, of course.  And my sweetie sometimes calls me the Boy Scout, like when we drive up to the big city in the winter.  In the trunk I’ll have food, water, sleeping bags, camp stove, chains, shovel, sand, extra boots and gloves, flares and lights… in short, I try to be prepared for the “just in case”.  Here at home, we have a pantry that is full and could take us months if need be, and we have preparations far beyond what FEMA suggests.  Yes, I got ready for Y2K, and not just the week before, I started in Y98.  We were covered for the “longshot”.  Still are.

As part of that, I like to swing by and read some of the preparedness websites regularly.  Not just the survival sites, but the Peak Oil sites too.  Yes, it’s difficult to find good ones, especially ones that don’t tout what I consider an extreme political point of view.  Sorry, I’m just not into New Age Gaia worship, hippie communes (been there, did that), or secret mountain militias.  One of the themes I find common to both is an under-riding pessimism that nothing good will happen to change the course of what looks like our headlong rush to complete disaster.  Especially on some of the Peak Oil type sites, the idea that science and technology can actually come up with any kind of alternative energy that will matter is an idea that is dismissed almost universally.  Look at the right side of that Bell Curve, they say, and you can clearly see we’re heading into the New Middle Ages.  Our dependence on oil is too great, there is no possible replacement, we’re heading for a complete collapse…In fact, I was reading a long article last night on a site that seems to promote exactly that belief.

I like to be prepared, but I also like to be more optimistic than that.  I have a great faith in God and His Plan, and in His hand on everything.  And I have a little faith in man, especially American man, and his ability to come up with ingenious things (although, judging from many of the commercials and tv shows lately, that ability is not widely practiced, but that is a different post).  So it doesn’t surprise me to wake up in the morning and find an article announcing some kind of breakthrough process that might turn out to be something really great.  Here is just that sort of article which I stumbled on this morning (hat tip Instapundit)

DETROIT — General Motors announced a partnership today with bio-fuel developer Coskata that it hopes will result in the production of cost-effective E85 by 2011.

..

Using patented microorganisms and transformative bioreactor designs, Coskata ethanol is produced via a unique three-step conversion process that turns virtually any carbon-based feedstock—including biomass, municipal solid waste, and a variety of agricultural waste—into ethanol, making production a possibility in almost any geography. The technology is ethanol-specific and enzyme independent, requiring no additional chemicals or pre-treatments.

Simply put, the Coskata process can produce ethanol almost anywhere in the world, using practically any renewable source, including feedstock, garbage, old tires and plant waste. And it can do so for less than a dollar per gallon.

The process also uses less than a gallon of water to make a gallon of ethanol compared with three gallons or more for other processes.

According to Argonne National Laboratory, which analyzed Coskata’s process, for every unit of energy used, it generates up to 7.7 times that amount of energy, and it reduces CO2 emissions by up to 84 percent compared with a well-to-wheel analysis of gasoline.

From this short article, it appears to be a process that addresses all the knocks on ethanol as an energy source.  It takes the pressure off of agricultural raw materials (corn), it is more water efficient, it requires less energy input… in short, it is one of those good things that happens in a capitalistic economy.  There is a need that folks are willing to pay money to solve.  Some smart guy finds a way to solve the need less expensively than the other guy.  I hope they make a ton of bucks!  And I hope an even smarter guy comes along with an even better solution.  That is, after all, the American Way.  

Here’s an interesting tidbit I found while making the rounds tonight (hat tip to Ace of Spades HQ).    How does your own, neighborhood private nuclear power plant sound to you?  I’m intrigued by this idea, and it certainly gives a whole new dimension to “living off the grid”.   200 kilowatts, 5 cents per kilowatt hour, lasts for up to 40 years… the CCRs don’t restrict it either.  Wonder if the city would mind?  I’ll bet Idaho Power would have an objection though. 

No mention of the cost.  I wonder if the cost would put it in range of a possible church project?  I know some folks who went to Africa this past summer to help install wells and water systems in impoverished areas.  A pocket nuke might be something to consider too, if it was in range, pricewise? 

I don’t know about you, but this picture is a perfect argument for the utility and everyday necessity of high cap mags and semi-autos chambered for anything bigger than .223 cal.  308 is a nice number, don’t ya think?  Or perhaps a 12 gauge Rem 870 with an extended magazine loaded with at least BB shells… a flame thrower might be good too.

Look at the SIZE of that thing!  I hope that one is dead.  Maybe not.  I think the guy is humming that old Jacko tune “Ben“…

One of the hallmarks of a valid scientific theory is the ability not only to describe, but to predict.  Many breakthroughs in physics and chemistry came because a model or a theory predicted something that hadn’t been discovered or seen yet, but caused scientists to “find it”.  How wonderful is that?

What does that have to do with glowball warming?  Well, what would you say if it predicted something, but that something wasn’t actually observed?  How does this sound to you

..Part of the scientific consensus on global warming may be flawed, a new study asserts.

The researchers compared predictions of 22 widely used climate “models” — elaborate schematics that try to forecast how the global weather system will behave — with actual readings gathered by surface stations, weather balloons and orbiting satellites over the past three decades.

The study, published online this week in the International Journal of Climatology, found that while most of the models predicted that the middle and upper parts of the troposphere —1 to 6 miles above the Earth’s surface — would have warmed drastically over the past 30 years, actual observations showed only a little warming, especially over tropical regions.

Ouch!  That’s gotta hurt.  Maybe that explains why AlGore is doing so much flying around these days?  Gotta get those atmospheric readings up “where they’re supposed to be”.  Ya think?  He’d better hurry though, ’cause they’re losing ground fast.  Remember this, from last week?

..researchers, who include many of the world’s most acclaimed climate scientists, have issued the ‘Bali Climate Declaration by Scientists’ in which they call on government negotiators from the 180 nations represented at the meeting to recognize the urgency of taking action now. They say the world may have as little as 10 years to start reversing the global rise in emissions.

They must be pretty convinced it’s urgent.  But then again, maybe not so much.

..BALI, Indonesia (AP) — Guidelines on greenhouse gas emissions cuts opposed by the United States may be “too ambitious” to include in a final statement from the climate conference in Bali, the U.N. chief said Wednesday.

Bummer for you.  The climate models aren’t cooperating, the scientific data readings aren’t coming out right, and that darned United States still refuses to be shaken down for a patsy.  So they just aren’t going to pass the “guidelines for future worship of Gaia”, er, I mean, “guidelines for cutting greenhouse emissions by the evil United States”, er, I mean, the developed industrial nations”.  This here interweb thing is making it pretty tough to sell the global warming snake oil to some of the rubes.  Of course, none of those guys can predict the weather for next week, and they know it.  But that doesn’t seem to stop them. It’s hard to convince everyone to accept a prediction for irreversable climate disaster in ten years when your model predictions can’t get the temperature right this year.

But world climate conferences is where it’s at. Great gig, if you can pull it off with a straight face.  I mean, look at where they hold conferences.  Rio, Kyoto, Bali… I mean, Boise is 25 degrees today.  So is Bali.  25C is what, 77 degrees, at 4 AM?  Tough duty, this global warming conference stuff.
 

Back in July I wrote about a start up company that had a proposal to build a nuclear power plant in Idaho, in the Bruneau area.  This morning I read about another company, which has some not so start up backing, that is looking at some property in Payette county for the same purpose.

..A newly formed nuclear energy company controlled by billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is considering building a nuclear power plant in northern Payette County.

MidAmerican Nuclear Energy Co., a subsidiary of the Des Moines, Iowa-based MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., has been doing geologic testing on about 3,300 acres of private land south of Paddock Valley Reservoir.

According to the article, this holding company runs Rocky Mountain Power which provides power to the eastern part of the state, and PacifiCorp, the big Oregon power company.  What an excellent idea!  The size of this plant would be between 1100 and 1600 megawatts, which is the same size as the proposed plant from Alternate Energy holdings.  1600 megawatts is more power than all three hydro dam powerplants in Hells Canyon, and, are you enviros ready for this, no hydrocarbon emissions to contribute to global warming. Lots of “yeah buts” from the usual suspects though.

..Ken Miller, an energy specialist with the Snake River Alliance, says it makes sense for MidAmerican and other power companies to seek out nuclear power. “They need to reduce their carbon footprint, and nuclear has no emissions,” Miller said.

But Miller, whose organization calls itself Idaho’s nuclear watchdog, said nuclear power still generates radioactive waste that must be disposed of and strains water supplies.

“We take a position that we should be developing renewable energies and getting serious about energy conservation before going down that road,” Miller said.

Before going down that road?!  Mr Miller, what renewable alternate source of energy are you proposing that can get 1100 to 1600 watts of CLEAN power online in 10 to 12 years? (crickets)… It would be even faster than that, but for the politicians and the government regulation.  And speaking of politicians, isn’t Governor Otter supposed to be a supporter of nuclear power?

..Paul Kjellander, administrator of Otter’s Office of Energy Resources, said the state is aware of the project.

“I’m glad to see there is an interest in Idaho,” Kjellander said. “If you look at our energy future, nuclear has the potential to play a significant role. The governor supports the concept of nuclear energy, and that may make Idaho a little more attractive.”

Kjellander cautioned that nuclear power isn’t a full answer to the state’s energy needs.

“We can’t ignore energy efficiency, demand-side management or renewable resources,” he said. “These have to all remain on the table. The reality is that nuclear power is 10 to 15 years away from a reality, and we still have a lot of work ahead of us.”

The state is aware of the project, and Butch supports the concept of nuclear energy?  Good.  What are you DOING to support it?  Nobody is saying that either of these projects is the final or complete answer to Idaho’s future energy needs.  But for crying out loud people, here are two companies with good ideas and you’re whining about alternate sources, and complaining about how long it will take.  Has it occurred to you that one of the major reasons it takes so long is because whining politicians stand in the way?  “Interest in Idaho” is a fine and typical thing for politicians to say but it only goes so far, and it doesn’t heat homes, power industry, build roads, or provide new infrastructure.

Would you really like to see the United States, and Idaho, become more energy independent?  Create a political climate that facilitates ALL types of energy production.  We’ve already told the coal power people they aren’t welcome.  Are we going to whine about nuclear for a couple years, put up a no man’s land of regulatory obstacles, and then tell them we don’t want them either?  Come on Idaho, let’s support the folks who are actually doing something, and quit sitting around with the hand wringing crowd waiting for the government to figure something out.   
 

The enviros are setting themselves up for another intrasquad fight.  Evil incandesent bulbs versus evil mercury containing compact flourescents.  This will be fun to watch, but either way, we’re all going to take it in the wallet.

..WASHINGTON – Al Gore says switching from incandescent light bulbs to compact fluorescents can help save the planet from global warming.

California, Canada and the European Union are so persuaded he’s right, the three governments are in the process of banning the sale of incandescent light bulbs, following the trailblazing paths of Fidel Castro in Cuba and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

Even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is on board, urging American citizens to do their part for the environment and switch to the twisty little CFL bulbs that last longer and use less electricity.

But opposition is building among other environmentalists who say the threat of mercury contamination as a result of hundreds of millions of broken CFLS, each containing about 5 milligrams of the highly toxic substance, outweighs any benefits from a switch from Thomas Edison’s trusty old invention.

As a card carrying right-wing wacko, my first reaction is to run up to Freddie’s and buy as many Edisons as I can and hide them in my attic.  After all, that’s what we do.   And then the REAL intent hit me… may I propose that this is all just another attack on Christmas?  I mean, really, Christmas lights are all old fashioned incandescents (kinda like the people who believe in Christmas, but that’s another post).  Track with me people, and look out your front window.  If your neighborhood is like mine, you see about 30 gazillion multi-colored INCANDESCENT bulbs quietly burning away, raising the planet’s temperature and putting us all in peril of our lives, not to mention the poor polar bears.  What better way to solve two problems at once?  Ban incandescent lights, and knock Christmas back into the dark ages where it belongs!  Brilliant.

All kidding aside, I do love it when they get themselves into these endless loop/no easy answer positions.  Reminds me of the Indians wanting to hunt whales up in Washington state… 

Let’s take a break from Hillary, the good Doctor and his bot-hordes, and whatever Glenn Beck’s “I’m mad as hell and not going to take it anymore” subject of the day is.  What do you say we look in on those fun guys at the wannabe world government, the United Nations?  Stop me if you’ve heard this one

..UNITED NATIONS —  Floods, droughts and other climate disasters will rob millions of children of the decent meals and schools they need unless rich nations pony up $86 billion by 2015 to help the poor adapt to global warming, an expert panel warned Tuesday.

The U.S. government needs to cover $40 billion of that spending, which will “strengthen the capacity of vulnerable people” to cope with climate-related risks, according to the report commissioned by the U.N. Development Program.

Let’s see, do we have all the elements?  Threats of disaster?  Check.  Victims?  Check.  EEEVVVIIILLL rich villains?  Check.  Shakedown demand?  Check.  Whining?  Wait, where’s the whining?

..Without the money, the panel found, a warmer world “could stall and then reverse human development” in the countries where 2.6 billion people live on $2 a day or less.

Whining… Check.  (I’ll mention in passing that on $2 a day they aren’t bothered by having garages and storage units full of lead painted Chinese junk.  I know, I’m heartless and just don’t “get it”.)  And dire predictions, do we have dire predictions? 

..Scientists have reported that temperatures rose an average 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 100 years, bringing the prospect of a century of extreme weather, rising seas, widening drought and disease and harm to fisheries, forests and farmland.

 According to development officials, the unfortunate consequences include women and young girls walking further to collect water in the Horn of Africa, people erecting bamboo flood shelters on stilts in the delta of the Ganges River, and others planting mangroves to protect themselves against storm surges in the delta of the Mekong River.

And giving our hard earned $40 Billion to the United Nations gets us what, exactly?  Just asking… I mean, investing in United Nations projects is a little like buying a two legged stool from that guy at the county fair.  It’s never what it seems, it doesn’t do what you think it’s supposed to, or even what he said it would do, and damn, he’ll be back again next year trying to sell you another one

..The nearly 400-page Human Development Report comes just a week before the world’s nations convene in Indonesia to negotiate a new climate treaty.

A new treaty.  Say, that reminds me.  Did you hear the one about the United States President setting up a series of “can’t miss this time” peace talks between Israel and the Arabs?  What?  You’ve already heard that one?

In the midst of headlines about beating back another attempt to pass amnesty, the news that the California fires are arsons, and the completely absurd picture of Laura Bush sitting next to a couple of black bags, it would be easy to miss this little tidbit

..China has launched its first lunar orbiter, on a planned year-long exploration mission to the Moon.
The satellite, named Chang’e 1, took off from the Xichang Centre in south-west China’s Sichuan province at 1800 local time (1000 GMT).

Analysts say it is a key step towards China’s aim of putting a man on the Moon by 2020, in the latest stage of an Asian space race with Japan and India.

Anyone care to ask Hillary how many Chinese Army officers New York City dishwashers and corrupt American businessmen patriotic Democrat Party supporters it takes to make a Chinese cow jump over the moon?

I find it interesting that so many people, including the President, will jump on an idea that sounds kinda good, and they will ride that hobby horse off into the sunset, looking for all the world more like Don Quizote than the Lone Ranger.

Do they ever look at what the actual numbers are on some of the proposals they make?  I’m not even talking about the costs… I’m all for paying the price when it makes sense.  But you have to ask “does it make sense?” first.  Lately it seems we get the band playing loudly before anyone asks that question.

Take ethanol, for example.  Here are some numbers for ethanol production that make me question why so many people think that corn ethanol is such a great America saving idea

…”Look at the numbers: Americans use 150 billion gallons of gasoline [a year] … we make six billion gallons of ethanol,” said Durante. “What rational person could say that next 144 billion gallons is no problem for us? Nobody is saying that.”

Durante is Doug Durante, executive director of the ethanol advocacy group “Ethanol Across America”.  He was responding to a report from a liberal environmental group that was critical of ethanol as the energy alternative answer.  It’s just a guess, but could their criticism be because Bush seems to be for it?  I’m critical of it as well, but for different reasons.

…Yet Durante, with Ethanol Across America, said the industry as a whole and the corn ethanol industry in particular are fulfilling their intended mission — to provide an alternative to foreign-produced oil.

“There are lots of reasons to support domestic renewable fuels … what if we got to 10 percent [of domestic consumption]? That’s 15 billion gallons times three bucks [a gallon saved over the price of regular gas],” said Durante. “We’re going to spend that here and create roads and schools and jobs.”

Let’s see, to go from 6 billion gallons to 15 billion, is two and a half times the corn production we have now.  What does that translate to in acreage?  What effect would that have on the food industry?  And what happens the next time we have a drought year in the corn belt?  Just askin’… I don’t remember the answers to those questions coming up when the politicians were touting ethanol as the next big idea.  And it completely ignores the fact that ethanol doesn’t address the other things our petroleum based economy uses oil for (textiles, paint and other coatings, roads, plastics, etc).

It reminds me a bit of the compact flourescent bulb, which was not only going to save energy, it was going to stop global warming to boot.  I’m all for new ideas, and for saving energy, and if something I’m doing is really causing the earth to get warmer (which I doubt, but for the sake of discussion I’ll concede for now) I’d love to change it, but you know what?  Compact flourescents are a bad joke.  The light they make is still poor quality, they don’t last as long as they first told us they would, and if you break one your home becomes the next superfund site.  Did anyone estimate the effect on landfills?  At the same time they’re trying to ban plastic grocery bags, they’re also trying to get everyone to switch to these little mercury bombs (which, by the way, take more energy to make as well).  And I’ll believe in LEDs when they actually deliver a home product that works.  In the meantime, I’ve got a good mind to head down to Lowe’s and buy a lifetime supply of NORMAL bulbs and hide them in my crawlspace.  And on the way home I think I’ll stop at Freddie’s and get a couple steaks and some corn on the cob for the BBQ.