Free Republic

WASHINGTON, Sept. 5, 2008 – Dominion Resources has a simple philosophy when it comes to supporting its employees who serve part-time in the military: “Whatever it takes, for as long as it takes.” That philosophy has led to a companywide culture of support for the military and also earned Dominion the 2008 Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award. Dominion, with headquarters in Richmond, Va., is one of 15 companies receiving the award, which recognizes employers who provide exceptional support to employees serving in the National Guard or Reserve. Dominion has many programs to support its employees who are...

The moon is once again a popular destination, as several space-faring nations are talking about setting up bases there. One reason would be to mine fuel for future fusion reactors. The fuel in this case is helium-3, a lighter isotope of the helium used in balloons. In high energy collisions, helium-3 fuses with other nuclei to release more energy and less waste than the reactions in traditional nuclear reactors. "If we can show that we can burn helium-3, it is a much cleaner and safer energy source than other nuclear fuels," said Gerald Kulcinski, director of the Fusion Technology Institute...

I was just looking at the task of providing wind power to according to T Boone Pickens Plan. It is not a pretty picture. But here is a try at it. TX power Requirement (MW) 104,754 MW Amount of Wind Power Desired 20.00% MW of Wind 20950.8 MW Area per Megawatt 0.02 MW/Acre Efficiency 35.00% percent Sq Miles Wind Power 2992971.4 Acres Acres / Sq MIle 640 SqMi/A Actual Sq Miles Req 4676.52 sq miles Distance from Minot ND to Big Bend TX 1300 miles Width of Corridor 3.60 miles Watts per Tower 1.5 MW Quantity towers 13,967 units Cost...

As North Texans sweltered through another 100-degree-plus day, the windmills around Sweetwater turned lazily in the West Texas breeze, generating enough electricity to power about 250,000 homes. It’s not much — barely 1 percent of the peak electricity demand Monday for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, operator of the transmission grid for about 75 percent of the state. But it’s about what is expected from the state’s wind-power industry, by far the nation’s largest, during the dog days of summer, when temperatures climb but wind speeds dip on the West Texas plains. "In general, wind’s peak energy does not...

Other than John McCain and Barack Obama, no U.S. politician is riding higher than Nancy Pelosi. The speaker leads the most unified party in the recent history of the House of Representatives. She might add at least a dozen, and probably more, members to her 37-seat margin this November. She played an important, if subtle, role in facilitating Obama's nomination. Pelosi is the toast of television talk shows as she peddles her new book, "Know Your Power." She even held her own on Jon Stewart's satirical comedy program, "The Daily Show." Just last week, the Republican candidate, McCain, pointedly praised...

Currently, the United States meets the majority of its energy needs by burning fossil fuels. Alternative energy sources are not a new technology, but with the rising cost of fuel, more research is being funded to develop cleaner, cheaper versions of existing alternative energy. Solar power has long been a rather inefficient source of power yielding only 5-15% electrical generation from the rays that hit the solar panel. Recent developments by Alvin M. Marks may turn that efficiency into 70-80%. Marks believes he has developed the technology needed to boost the amount of power we can receive from a particular...

Opponents of drilling offshore raise the environmental issue. Actually, more oil is spilled from tankers bringing imported oil into the U.S. than is spilled from oil production and drilling platforms. According to the Minerals Management Service and the U.S. Coast Guard, 45 percent of oil spilled comes from ships and only 3 percent comes from drilling rigs and platforms. Additionally, the MMS noted that during hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which destroyed hundreds of offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, there were no major oil spills. The last major oil spill in the U.S. from a drilling platform was off...

* The economy is by far the No. 1 issue on most Americans' minds. Gas prices are a close second. The two issues are intimately related. But the spike in oil prices this year is just the tip of the iceberg. Due to similar developments in supply and demand, electricity prices are set to skyrocket next year. While American oil consumption has grown only 15% since 1973, electricity use has shot up 115%. Right now the U.S. has 760 gigawatts of power to meet consumption. We will need 135 gigawatts of new capacity over the next decade to keep the...

Researchers at the University of Michigan have developed a low-power microchip which uses 30,000 times less power in sleep mode and 10 times less in active mode than similar chips now on the market. Named the Phoenix Processor, it is intended for use in cutting-edge sensor-based devices such as medical implants, environment monitors, and surveillance equipment. � Professor David Blaauw (Credit: University of Michigan) In the future, sensors may be implanted in our bodies to measure blood-glucose levels of diabetics or retinal pressure in glaucoma patients. In practical terms, the chips would have to both be very small and...

Sloshing back and forth in constant rhythm, the ocean's tides are a predictable source of renewable energy. Hoping to tap into this, the world's largest tidal turbine is set to start generating electricity this month. The installation of the SeaGen marine current generator was completed this past May in Strangford Lough, a large inlet on the coast of Northern Ireland. The system, designed and built by Marine Current Turbines Ltd., has two rotors that each span 16 meters (52 feet) in diameter. "The technology is very analogous to wind, except we are doing everything underwater," said Peter Fraenkel, the company's...

Nisshinbo Industries Inc. (TSE:3105) has worked with the Tokyo Institute of Technology to develop the technology to use carbon instead of expensive platinum as the electrode catalyst for fuel cells. The company hopes to have a practical version of the new catalyst ready in fiscal 2009, and will start by commercializing a product for the electrodes of residential fuel cells. Later, it will develop and commercialize a version for automotive fuel cells.

OPEC's policies spurring price hike Dailyrecord.com, NJ - Jul 5, 2008 While it is true that the United States gets most of its oil from non-Arab countries, it is in fact the Arab oil-producing nations that are driving up the price. He states that the "price of oil is dictated to a large extent by U.S. oil companies." That is not the case. OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, is a cartel of 12 member nations, with all but one, Venezuela, a Middle Eastern country. A cartel is, according to the American Heritage Dictionary, a combination of independent business...

Solar-power costs could be slashed by cheap collectors, claim researchers. A simple sheet of glass coated with dye could be enough to cut the costs of solar power. Concentrating light onto photovoltaic cells could push down solar power costs.Donna Coveney, MIT That's the claim from researchers who have created a 'solar concentrator' that harvests photons and funnels them into photovoltaic devices. The device allows relatively small solar cells to harness rays from a much larger area. Mirrors that track the Sun are already used to deliver extra light onto solar panels and maximize their electricity output. But these mirrors can...

With Columbia Gorge turbines pumping out extra electricity, the agency had to quickly adjust its hydro generation Columbia Basin river managers had a close call this week when they were forced to cut back on hydropower after a surge in wind energy blasted through the system. The surge forced them to spill more water over dams, risking the health of migrating fish. For the first time, it also exposed serious kinks in a plan that was supposed to deal smoothly with just such emergencies. As it turned out, the spills weren't heavy enough to harm fish. But the federal Bonneville...

George Washington 1789 - fragments of the Draft First Inaugural Address The blessed Religion revealed in the word of God will remain an eternal and awful monument to prove that the best Institution may be abused by human depravity; and that they may even, in some instances be made subservient to the vilest purposes. Should, hereafter, those incited by the lust of power and prompted by the Supineness or venality of their Constituents, overleap the known barriers of this Constitution and violate the unalienable rights of humanity: it will only serve to shew, that no compact among men (however provident...

In 1828, President John Quincy Adams's reelection campaign reportedly traded on innuendoes that Rachel Jackson had been imperfectly divorced from her first husband. Since her second husband, Andrew Jackson, once killed a man in a duel for the same insult to his wife's honor, Adams was perhaps lucky to lose no more than the presidency to Old Hickory. So, while there are abundant signs that Republicans this year are itching to take the practice to new lows, let's not forget that attacks on first ladies, actual or putative, go back a long way. And for all of the fear in...

Among Red White and Blue American’s, the Supreme Court’s decision to validate the Second Amendment was greeted with celebration and fanfare. The issue has been a polarizing and divisive issue ever since crime has taken the spotlight over the last 100 years. In the 1890’s, handguns were banned from the New York docks as the dock workers union was coming into being. The issue is really nothing new. Urban Centers are the primary source of contention regarding this issue as the vast majority of gun violence takes place in them. Asking the Feds to devise a “one size fits all”...

Engineer spins up plan to generate electricity from sucked-up air Coiled up in a tornado is as much energy as an entire power plant. So a Canadian engineer has a plan to spin up his own twister and extract energy from its tethered tail. It all depends on heating the air near the surface so that it is much warmer than the air above. "You can generate energy whenever you have a temperature gradient," said Louis Michaud. "The source of the energy here is the natural movement of warm and cold air currents." These so-called convective air currents are only...

RUSH: Tim Russert passed away before the program ended, but the news on Friday didn't happen until afterwards.  I actually got the news at about a quarter of three Friday afternoon in an e-mail that said "Not For Reporting" because it hadn't been confirmed.  A very, very, very sad thing.  I knew Tim Russert, and he was just a prince of a guy. But I have to tell you, folks, this orgy of coverage from about four o'clock Friday afternoon on ceased to be about Tim Russert and instead it's been about the media and who they are and how...

WASHINGTON -- Thousands homes and businesses are without power and Dupont Circle and Metro Center Metrorail stations are closed after a major outage in northwest D.C. on Friday. Officials said the outage was due to a failure at a substation on 10th Street. About 12,000 customers were without power at 10:30 a.m. Pepco said the outages stretches from as far north as U Street N.W. to F Street N.W., the Dupont Circle area to the west and Third Street N.W. to the east. Many downtown workers have been waiting outside on city streets because their offices are dark. Power is...

Who Shalt Not Kill? Brain Power Leads To Level-headedness When Faced With Moral Dilemmas ScienceDaily (Jun. 11, 2008) — Should a sergeant sacrifice a wounded private on the battlefield in order to save the rest of his troops? Is euthanasia acceptable if it prevents needless suffering? Many of us will have to face some sort of extreme moral choice such as these at least once in our life. And we are also surrounded by less dramatic moral choices everyday: Do I buy the hybrid? Do I vote for a particular presidential candidate? Unfortunately, very little is known beyond philosophical speculation...

http://www.terrorfreeoil.org/ Cartoon In UAE Paper: Arab World Sitting On Oil, Hungry For BreadCartoonist: 'Amer Al-Zo'abiSource: Akhbar Al-Arab, UAE, May 28, 2008 http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/7671.htm Threats to U.S. Energy Security: The Challenge of Arab Oil Therefore, "the Arab oil states were to discover that the sheer power of the oil weapon imposed equally powerful...http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/bg95.cfm    SudanTribune article : Darfur’s ugly resonance in the Arab world A troubled Arab citizenry’s silent acquiescence in violence and ... of poor governance and distorted Arab power structures over a period of decades. ...http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article4624   Arab oil billionaires have certainly found the means to influence public opinion by...

Power Mrs. du Toit Or… “The things your mother should have told you… if she’d known about them.” I want to settle an age old question: “Who Wears the Pants in the Family?”

The future of the world's economy and climate may depend on which side winsThis week the U.S. Senate is debating the Climate Security Act, a piece of legislation which would require the country to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 4 percent in 2012, 19 percent in 2020, and 71 percent in 2050 below what they were in 2005. The act rations the emission of greenhouse gases produced by burning fossil fuels by issuing an ever declining supply of emissions allowances. Emitters such as electric power generators, coal, oil and natural gas companies, and energy intensive industries like steel and...

WASHINGTON — For years, scientists have had a straightforward idea for taming global warming. They want to take the carbon dioxide that spews from coal-burning power plants and pump it back into the ground. President Bush is for it, and indeed has spent years talking up the virtues of “clean coal.” All three candidates to succeed him favor the approach. So do many other members of Congress. Coal companies are for it. Many environmentalists favor it. Utility executives are practically begging for the technology. But it has become clear in recent months that the nation’s effort to develop the technique...

DNA reveals sister power in Ancient Greece 02 Jun 2008 University of Manchester researchers have revealed how women, as well as men, held positions of power in ancient Greece by right of birth. Women were thought to have had little power in ancient Greece, unless they married a powerful man and were able to influence him. But a team of researchers testing ancient DNA from a high status, male-dominated cemetery at Mycenae in Greece believe they have identified a brother and sister buried together in a richly endowed grave, suggesting that she had as much power as him. The team,...

There is something magical about the term, "superdelegate," as if it's a representative with superhuman powers who might fly in at the last minute to save the election. This is not totally far from the truth. Unless, of course, you don't approve of how the political superheroes use their special abilities. (Or, if you are a Republican. Technically, there aren't any superdelegates in the GOP). Democratic hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama emerged from Super Tuesday neck and neck, separated by less than 100 delegates by most counts. This suggests — if the race continues to be similarly tight —...

ITALY, which last week decided to embrace nuclear power two decades after a public referendum banned nuclear power and deactivated all its reactors, could be just the first of several European countries to reverse its stance on nuclear power, a leading industry group has said. Ian Hore-Lacey, spokesman for the London-based World Nuclear Association, said: "Italy has had the most dramatic, the most public turnaround, but the sentiments against nuclear are reversing very quickly all across Europe." When asked which natioADVERTISEMENTns were likely to join Britain and France as major producers of nuclear power, he replied: "Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Germany...

Bo (woof) In Commentary: I’ve always known that mice can’t read, but this story makes me wonder whether the same is true of cats. (A cat chasing a mouse in Tirana’s main power station caused a 72-hour blackout across parts of the Albanian capital, the electricity company said on Friday (local time). “A cat and a mouse ran into the high-voltage cables,” a company spokeswoman said, showing pictures of the electrocuted animals.) What part of the DANGER - High Voltage sign did Mittens not understand? (con't @ http://boknowsonline.com/2008/05/21/442/#more-442 )

The Italian government said Thursday it would begin building nuclear power stations, reversing a 20-year ban in an initiative likely to spark strong resistance and take a long time to come to fruition. "During the term of this parliament, we will lay the first stone for the construction in our country of a group of new-generation nuclear power stations," Economic Development Minister Claudio Scajola told the Italian employers' federation Confindustria. "We can no longer avoid an action plan for a return to nuclear power," he said, recalling a campaign pledge by Italy's newly named right-wing prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, to...

CAMP TAJI, Iraq, May 20, 2008 – U.S. military forces dominate the battlefield with superior weaponry and disciplined talent, not only on the land and in the water, but in the air as well. Army Chief Warrant Officer 4 Dennis Seymour, a native of Hattiesburg, Miss., who serves as the brigade master gunner for all aircraft and the standardization pilot for AH-64 Apache helicopters with Task Force 12, Multinational Division Baghdad, checks the fluid levels and every major component of his AH-64 Apache helicopter before a mission in Baghdad May 14, 2008. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Aaron Rosencrans,...

This last week was a veritable cornucopia of liberal insanity, from Democrats' absurd over-reaction to President Bush's spot-on remarks to the Israeli Knesset, to the California Supreme Court forcing gay marriage on its constituents, to the polar bear being declared an at-risk species when it's not. Each one of these actions is completely disconnected from logic and reality, and taken together I think are very revealing when it comes to what really drives liberals. And given that it appears that we are about to hand over total, uncontested power to a Democrat president and congressional supermajority, it behooves us to...

China's main centers for designing, making and storing nuclear arms lie in the shattered earthquake zone, leading Western experts to look for signs of any damage that might allow radioactivity to escape. A senior U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue, said the United States was using spy satellites and other means to try to monitor the sprawling nuclear plants. "There appear to be no immediate concerns," the official said. Nonetheless, "it's potentially a serious issue," Hans Kristensen, a nuclear arms expert at the Federation of American Scientists, a private group...

On June 22, 1897, about 400 million people around the world -- one-fourth of humanity -- got the day off. It was the 60th anniversary of Queen Victoria's ascension to the British throne. The Diamond Jubilee stretched over five days on land and sea, but its high point was the parade and thanksgiving service on June 22. The 11 premiers of Britain's self-governing colonies were in attendance, along with princes, dukes, ambassadors, and envoys from the rest of the world. A military procession of 50,000 soldiers included hussars from Canada, cavalrymen from New South Wales, carabineers from Naples, camel troops...

Federal officials on Thursday opened a path to temporary legal status for illegal immigrants whose spouses or parents died on 9/11, a step the families’ supporters called a breakthrough in the effort to allow them to remain permanently in the United States. Lawyers for the immigrants said a concession by Homeland Security officials would help to bring the family members out of the shadows. They also said the measure should help clear a political logjam that has stalled bills in Congress that would grant the immigrants permanent legal status. “For the first time there is a program for these widows...

Do you like paying Sky High Gas Prices? Thank A Democrat. Of all the campaign issues that the candidates are not talking about, gas prices lead the list. On the heels of the worst housing slump since WWII our economy faces an even bigger threat; Loss of mobility. This is obvious to anyone who needs to fill up their transportation yet the elite, those who create the environmental dictates American’s must contend with couldn’t care less. They refuse to even engage the subject as they attempt to lie their way into the White House. Where are the new refineries, nuclear...

Solar power, the holy grail of renewable energy, has always faced the problem of how to store the energy captured from the sun’s rays so that demand for electricity can be met at night or whenever the sun is not shining. The difficulty is that electricity is hard to store. Batteries are not up to efficiently storing energy on a large scale. A different approach being tried by the solar power industry could eliminate the problem. The idea is to capture the sun’s heat. Heat, unlike electric current, is something that industry knows how to store cost-effectively. For example, a...

CAMP STRIKER — The Ready Made Clothing Company is ready to take on a greater load thanks to the donation last week of an 850-kilowatt generator to the factory in Mahmudiyah, Iraq. The factory currently operates at 10 percent of its former capacity, using only a small area of its complex. The new generator, for which the Baghdad-4 embedded Provincial Reconstruction Team, attached to 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), coordinated delivery, will end bouts of intermittent power and increase job opportunities as well as production. The increased power will allow the factory to return to two...

BRUSSELS (AFP) - Power companies in just five EU nations could reap windfall profits of up to 71 billion euros over five years thanks to Europe's emissions trading scheme, the green group WWF claimed Monday. The environmental group, which released the findings of a sector study, said the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) gives no incentive to move away from the most polluting coal-fired power stations and warned that Poland and other eastern European members were lobbying against a planned overhaul of the system after 2012. At the root of WWF's gripe is the free distribution of polluting permits to...

A new brain-scan study may help explain what's going on in the minds of financial titans when they take risky monetary gambles — sex. When young men were shown erotic pictures, they were more likely to make a larger financial gamble than if they were shown a picture of something scary, such a snake, or something neutral, such as a stapler, university researchers reported. The arousing pictures lit up the same part of the brain that lights up when financial risks are taken. "You have a need in an evolutionary sense for both money and women. They trigger the same...

Americans cover their bodies in the sauna more than Germans visiting an Italian church. Anyone visiting a health club in downtown Washington who walks into the sauna after exercising will encounter a host of people all wrapped in material. One towel is used to cover the chest and shoulders, while a second one is elaborately draped around the midsection and hips. But lust often rages beneath these towels and, in the case of some politicians, naked lunacy. When it comes to their sexual behavior, the Western superpower's elected representatives exhibit a number of traits that clearly distinguish them from politicians...

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Robert Gabriel Mugabe once assured Zimbabwe's fleeing whites that "there is a place for you in the sun." Now his own place in the country he has ruled for 28 years is uncertain. Mugabe was born in 1924, the son of a village carpenter in Zvimba, 40 miles west of Zimbabwe's capital Harare. As a child, he tended his grandfather's cattle, fished for bream in muddy water holes, played football and "boxed a lot," as he recalled later. Few blacks at the time learned to write their names. But Mugabe went to school, where he was...

Liberals get really testy when some folks, devout Christians for example, choose to live their lives under God’s laws; but have no compunction in compelling others to live under the tender mercies of the Nanny State where they make the rules. Five years ago, when the smoking ban in restaurants first went into effect in my home state of Connecticut, I told a few folks who were happy about it, that it was only a matter of time before the government came after their private property rights or other issues that were near and dear to their hearts. Most people...

So New York Governor Eliot Spitzer resigned because the FBI discovered he was sleeping with expensive call girls. America, predictably, went crazy. A man cheated on his wife! Quick, call all the pop psychologists and famous feminist authors, and book them for the morning talk shows! And I, a former booking agent at one of New York’s most exclusive escort agencies, just rolled my eyes. Remember that scene from Casablanca, when Captain Renault declares that he is shocked, shocked to find gambling going on — just as the croupier hands him his winnings? I keep thinking of that scene when...

The Bush administration has ear-marked $20 million in its 2009 budget toward the US Department of Energy's efforts to design nuclear power plants in the 250-to-500 megawatt range as part of its Global Nuclear Energy Program (GNEP). The money marks the first substantial commitment to building the new plants since President Bush announced the program in February 2006. The latest nuclear plants designed for US domestic use have capacities about 1300 megawatts. GNEP, which now includes 21 member countries, hopes to begin construction of its first reactor in a country currently without nuclear power in 2015, saying the plants will...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hillary and Bill Clinton are again teaming up on Barack Obama -- this time saying the first-term U.S. lawmaker, whom they have derided as inexperienced, would be a strong running mate on a Democratic presidential ticket headed by the former first lady. In talking up a joint ticket, the Clintons may be seeking the upper hand, attempting to put her in consideration for the top of the ticket when she so far has failed to win the votes necessary to assure that she would face Republican presidential candidate John McCain in the November election. The maneuver may...

Retreat! A day after calling Hillary Clinton a “monster”, Samantha Powers has departed from the Barack Obama campaign. The resignation comes after a deluge of criticism aimed at the Obama campaign: A top senior foreign policy adviser to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, Samantha Power, resigned Friday morning after calling Clinton a “monster” in an interview with a European newspaper.”With deep regret, I am resigning from my role as an advisor the Obama campaign effective today,” said Power in a statement issued by the Obama campaign. “Last Monday, I made inexcusable remarks that are at marked variance from my oft-stated admiration...

Ten years ago, he was a reclusive 31-year-old who, bashing away on a laptop in his grungy Hollywood apartment, shot to prominence after he broke the Monica Lewinsky scandal that threatened to bring down Bill Clinton's presidency. Now, Matt Drudge owns a luxurious home on Rivo Alto Island in Florida's Biscayne Bay, a condominium at the Four Seasons in Miami, and is said to drive a black Mustang. He remains an elusive, mysterious figure, but the Internet pioneer is arguably the world's most powerful journalist. Mr. Drudge is still an outsider, contemptuous of the cosy relationships and closed-door deals that...

Ten years ago, he was a reclusive, pasty-faced 31-year-old who, bashing away on his laptop in his grungy Hollywood apartment, shot to prominence when he threatened to bring down Bill Clinton's presidency by breaking news of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The Drudge Report breaks the Prince Harry story Now, Matt Drudge owns a luxurious Mediterranean-style stucco house on Rivo Alto Island in Florida's Biscayne Bay, a condominium at the Four Seasons in Miami and is said to drive a black Mustang. He remains an elusive, mysterious figure but the internet pioneer is arguably the single most powerful journalist – though...

Loss of wind causes Texas power grid emergency Wed Feb 27, 2008 8:11pm EST HOUSTON (Reuters) - A drop in wind generation late on Tuesday, coupled with colder weather, triggered an electric emergency that caused the Texas grid operator to cut service to some large customers, the grid agency said on Wednesday. Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said a decline in wind energy production in west Texas occurred at the same time evening electric demand was building as colder temperatures moved into the state. The grid operator went directly to the second stage of an emergency plan at 6:41...