The Truth About the Black Out

Amazing how left wing nuts (lightly salted) like Palast and the democrats try to blame anything they can on Bush, even when it can be shown to be a fraudulent claim and an attempt to deceive the public, as they hypocritically try to shift the blame from themselves.

Here is the full article for thise who don't want to click on the link:

Finger-Pointing
By Jack Kelly

Within hours of the lights going out in New York, Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton was blaming President Bush for the power failure. While the rest of us thought Mr. Bush was in California visiting a military base, she spotted him in Akron, Ohio, turning out the warning lights at the FirstEnergy facility there.

Actually, what Mrs. Clinton told ABC's Ted Koppel and CNN's Larry King was that Mr. Bush's support for energy deregulation was to blame. But this bears no more relation to reality than the scenario described above.

The electric power industry consists of three now largely separated functions: energy production, electric-power generation and transmission of electricity. Energy production and electric-power generation have partially been deregulated, but transmission is as heavily regulated as ever. Last week's failure was a failure in transmission.

Whether partial deregulation of the electric power industry is a good idea or a bad idea, Mr. Bush deserves neither credit nor blame. The major step was taken in 1996. Mr. Bush was not president then. Mrs. Clinton's husband was.

Former Clinton Energy Secretary Bill Richardson also took to the airwaves to blame Republicans for failing to expand the electrical grid. But his statements, like Mrs. Clinton's, were at variance with the facts. Early in his tenure at Energy, Mr. Richardson met with environmental groups committed to blocking expan-sion of power resources, including ceding federal land for regional installation of expanded power lines.

Mr. Richardson "committed the department to not seeking that kind of expansion," a career official at Energy told the American Spectator. "They even blocked the study of the power grid that [current Energy Secretary Spencer] Abraham ordered when he came into office. That study could have been completed more than three years ago."

For Democrats, playing politics is more important than formulating public policy. They would rather fix blame than fix the problem. Fortunately, the Bush administration has a
different approach.

The eight years of the Clinton administration passed without initiatives from the White House to increase domestic production of energy, to build more power plants or to upgrade the electric power grid. But shortly after he became president, Mr. Bush formed a task force headed by Vice President Richard Cheney to study energy challenges facing the United States. In May 2001, the National Energy Policy Development Group issued its findings and recommendations.

"Our nation's most pressing long-term electricity challenge is to build enough new generation and transmission capacity to meet projected growth in demand," the group said. "Over the next 20 years the United States will need 1,300 to 1,900 new power plants. ... But even with adequate generating capacity, we do not have enough infrastructure to ensure reliable supply of electricity."

We have a burgeoning shortage of electricity chiefly because of a welter of ancient and often conflicting federal, state and local regulations that artificially constrain the production of energy, the construction of power plants and the building of new transmission lines, the group said.

For instance, federal law governing the siting of transmission facilities has not been updated since 1935, when there was no interstate commerce — let alone international commerce — in electricity.

Mr. Bush put the group's recommendations for reform into his energy bill, which Democrats in the Senate have kept bottled up ever since. Iraqis are denied reliable sources of electricity by Saddam Hussein's saboteurs. Americans are denied reliable sources of electricity by Democratic filibusters.

Americans will have safe, reliable and affordable electricity only if we develop more domestic sources of energy, build more plants to convert that energy into electricity and build more transmission lines to bring electricity to consumers.

But environmentalists do not want to drill for oil or mine for coal. They do not want to build electric-power generating plants. Environmentalists do not want new electric-transmission lines built near their homes, or on federal land.

Brownouts and blackouts will become regular features of American life if Democrats continue to pay more heed to the fantasies of environmentalists than to the realities of economics.

Jack Kelly, a syndicated columnist, is a former Marine and Green Beret and a former deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. He is national security writer for the Pittsburgh (Pa.) Post-Gazette

Hey, no prob, we can import energy from France, Japan etc. All we got to do is build the trans-ocean transmisson lines (on the bottom) and voila, all is solved. Just can't fool around with the MUCH cheaper solution of buiding more capacity in THIS country.

Hey, no prob, we can import energy from France, Japan etc. All we got to do is build the trans-ocean transmisson lines (on the bottom) and voila, all is solved.

I hope that you're not serious. It's darn near impossible to get usable amounts of energy from the midwest to the east coast, due to line losses and lack of usable transmission lines. The idea that you could get much usable power trans-oceanac is laughable. Transmission lines that long would cost a fortune and wouldn't deliver enough energy to light your Christmas lights. Not to mention the enviromental squabbles over sending megavoltage range power into the depths of the sea.

But for problems with this idea,line losses are the most vexing. Power lines lose energy to heat and lessen the usable power at the other end. The longer the line, the more energy you lose to this thief called resistance.

Now if we can come up with a usable superconducting transmission line you may be able to remove your tongue from your cheek and start negotiations with the Japanese.

As a side note, Japan is currently in their own electric power crisis, so your plea may fall on deaf ears.

I once heard that transporting electricity is like carrying sand in a mesh bag. The losses over distance are very significant.

I once heard that transporting electricity is like carrying sand in a mesh bag. The losses over distance are very significant.

I always thought that the idea of electric cars was stupid for this and another reason.

When you charge an electric car, sure it's 'clean', but somewhere, someone else is putting up with the power plant. Which, of course is the perfect liberal solution: let's pretend.

It seems that most all politicians consider lying to be a necessary part of their job, but those who identify with the Democrat Party have decided that lying is a virtue.

As Bill Clinton searches for a legacy, I think he is missing the one thing that rises above all else, namely his mastery of deception.

The Truth About the Black Out

A couple of comments in the article stand out for me:

We have a burgeoning shortage of electricity chiefly because of a welter of ancient and often conflicting federal, state and local regulations that artificially constrain the production of energy, the construction of power plants and the building of new transmission lines, the group said.

and

But environmentalists do not want to drill for oil or mine for coal. They do not want to build electric-power generating plants. Environmentalists do not want new electric-transmission lines built near their homes, or on federal land.

Brownouts and blackouts will become regular features of American life if Democrats continue to pay more heed to the fantasies of environmentalists than to the realities of economics.

REGULATORY BODIES--taxpayer funded, NON-ELECTED REGULATORY BODIES--are killing American initiative and buseness. There is no doubt in my mind that electricity would be ubiquitous and cheap without the interference of socialists seeking to rule and ruin American business through REGULATORY BODIES with their arbitrary, agenda-driven headlong rush to impose fees and rules on every facet of American life. THESE AGENCIES SHOULD BE SHUT DOWN! We didn't vote for them, they exist only to make our lives less free and more difficult. WHAT ARE THEY DOING IN AMERICA?

Oh, geez. Now we're going to start reading reports in the liberal press that read - "Former Marine and Green Beret veteran reports in the Washington Times that President Bush seen turning out the warning lights at the FirstEnergy facility."

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