Posted on 07/10/2009 11:03:57 PM PDT by pissant
Gov. Brian Schweitzer is calling on the Obama administration to force General Motors to honor its contract with a Montana mining company instead of going overseas to buy the precious metals used to control vehicle pollution.
By failing to shield the platinum and palladium mines, the Democrat said Friday that the administration had shown a bias against his state -- at a time when other U.S. jobs were protected with a "buy American" clause in the $787 billion stimulus act. GM is shedding its contracts with Stillwater Mining Co.'s platinum and palladium mines as part of the automaker's emergence from bankruptcy protection.....
(snip)
Columbus-based Stillwater employs more than 1,300 people and runs the only mines in the United States producing the metals, about 90 miles southwest of Billings.
With platinum and palladium mined in just two other countries, Russia and South Africa, Schweitzer said GM's cancellation would put the U.S. at a strategic risk and hurt the mining industry.
A White House spokesman declined comment.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessweek.com ...
I’ve been hearing a fair number of talk radio callers defending the economy, saying that people don’t have jobs because the jobs were sent overseas by Bush/Republicans/conservatives/you people/fill in the blank.
Hope talk radio has this article handy for reference.
It was really close. Many many counties went to zero, mine did
True burns was a rare exception. However he had a lot of backers. The man single handedly kept Malmstrom open, and for that the people up in Great Falls love him.
I recall, nearly 2 decades ago, pointing out how South Africa was forced to change when Russia opened up to us as a source for these and other metals. Economic geology has geopolitical effects, no pun intended.
How do you get a geologist or miner out of a tree?
Cut the rope.
Funny how FReepers complain about anti-market policies, yet complain when 0bama lets the market run its course instead of using interventionist mandate, isn’t it?
I think few Americans realize how much has been sold off to maintain a facade of “prosperity” over the past couple of decades.
Look this up folks....Cloward-Piven.http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6967
Nails it! We have work to do, although it may be way too late.
this pissant governor can't hide his rat allegiance by criticizing bama.....their made all from one hide...
Excellent analysis. In fact, we are in a counter revolution that started with Reagan and took out the mother ship (Thatcher and Kohl were a big part of the effort, as was John Paul II). We’ve suffered a setback but, as usual, the Libs are pushing too fast and too far. The momentum is shifting back to the Right but the war is not over. G-d allowed Liberalism to spring forth in the 1800s and we are still fighting the fight today. Some say this is the beginning of the End Times. With millions dead from Communist and Nazi dictators, they may be right.
I posted this the other day on a similar thread, when someone stated that Obama was trying to destroy the country.
I agreed, and here is one of the reasons why:
Joseph McCarthy gave a speech on the Senate floor in 1951, and later wrote a book that expounded on and backed up his points that he made on the floor, called Americas Retreat from Victory.
Like many people, I was unwilling to attach any negative aspirations or actions to someone who was hailed as a war hero and one of the greatest men of the 20th century.
McCarthy was not so shy, and was willing not only to say what he thought publicly, but to back it up with documentation, which he did in his book mentioned above (A copy of which I purchased a couple of years ago)
It is a stunning book, but how it relates to this subject here is this: In his analysis, Joseph McCarthy made the point that if some of the things that were done by Marshall that helped the communists were simply the result of a poor analysis or choice on his part, someone with his intellect would be likely to choose correctly at least SOME of the time, as a matter of averages. And that never happened. Without fail, nearly every choice and action in which Marshall was part of, they all were to the advantage of the communists.
The same can be said of Obama, in my estimation. If some of his actions were due to his stupidity or inexperience, at least some of his actions would be helpful.
None are. And that tells me something.
Exactly! Well covered.
yeah, that's what 0bama is thinking. /sarc
0bama is screwing the USA with EVERY decision.
Every one.
Ahem, what are we going to burn to produce the electricity required to charge those cars?
Seriously. What?
I think that was coal.
Russian owned mines. Get them back in American hands, perhaps they will be reopened.
Seriously. What?
....................................
coal, my favorite fuel
Nighttime load is more like 60% of what is spinning, not 20%.
Here are a couple of typical load profiles found online.
http://esm.versar.com/pprp/factbook/stateneed.htm
http://www.dpe.gov.za/images/Eskom_4.gif
Many power-intensive industries actually ramp up operations at night to take advantage of lower power costs. This tends to flatten the demand curve.
The other big fallacy is that there is no easy way, in most utilities, to ensure charging only happens at night during off-peak times. This is a HUGE issue for utilities. When you start affecting system peaks, even just a little, there is an enormously expensive capital cost for additional generation, transmission, and distribution.
This would have to be overcome for your scenario to be workable.
It’s also worth mentioning that an EV that runs at your level of power consumption is a much less capable vehicle than what most people are used to currently, especially in this country. So there would be a huge acceptance issue, and/or the power requirements would go up dramatically, perhaps as much as 2X.
Like most things, the devil is in the details. I’m not saying it’s not do-able, but it’s not as easy a thing as you seem to be assuming.
60% of spinning, so what, they turned stuff off.
your numbers are either a fraud, or a special case.
............................................................
US capacity is one million megawatts.
2006 output was 4,064,702 thousand megawatt-hours
there are 8760 hours in a year.
do the math, yearly average load factor is less than 50 percent
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table1_1.html
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