Flywheel Power Grid Storage Project
August 9th, 2010Via: Cnet:
Beacon Power on Monday said it has closed a $43 million loan guarantee with the Department of Energy for a project to use flywheels to buffer 20 megawatts of power on the grid.
The loan covers 62.5 percent of the estimated $69 million needed to construct the flywheel storage plant in Stephentown, N.Y. The New York Energy Research and Development Authority is also providing $2 million in funding for the plant which is now under construction.
Once done, Beacon Power said that the plant will be the only one of its kind in the world. Rather than use a large battery, it will use a network of flywheels to store electricity from the grid as kinetic energy and disperse it in quick bursts of up to 15 minutes.
Right now, grid operators typically use natural gas power plants to maintain a balance between supply and demand and keep a steady frequency of 60 cycles per second. The Stephentown project, expected to be completed by the end of the first quarter next year, will be able to provide 10 percent of the frequency regulation services in New York needed on a typical day.
The project is significant step up for the technology, which so far has been used in smaller-scale installation of about one megawatt of power.
Matt Simmons Dead “Of An Apparent Heart Attack”
August 9th, 2010Update: Reader Email
F writes:
You probably want to avoid wild speculation but do you have any possible insights into this, assuming it’s not “natural causes” or an accident?
All along, I never really knew what to make of Matt Simmons. I didn’t post the Bloomberg video below because (no offense intended to family and friends of the man) I started to think that he was using his media access to play his BP short position.
But now… Hmm.
My guess is that, if he was assassinated, it was because of this:
There is no doubt at all that governments have access to exotic, covert assassination methods. I’ll briefly get into some material that might be relevant here.
This is ancient history, of course, but there’s the CIA’s heart attack inducing dart gun that emerged in the Church Committee hearings of the 1970s. This is from Secrets of the CIA:
The atrocities of the apartheid era regime in South Africa included covert assassination projects. Inducing heart attacks was an area of interest. This is from Project Coast: Apartheid’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme by Chandré Gould and Peter Folb. RRL is Roodeplaat Research Laboratories:
According to Goosen, the objective was to develop the ultimate murder weapon—a lethal poison that could not be traced during an autopsy (or, if traced, could not be traced back to RRL or the military).
Some RRL research reports appear to support Goosen’s claim that RRL was single minded in this objective. The reports demonstrate an obsession with finding substances that would be impossible to trace post-mortem. A report headed: Product information about botulinum toxin informs the reader that the toxin is soluble in tap water, dam water, milk, beer and wine and warns that mixing the toxin with strongly alcoholic substances such as whisky and gin should be avoided.248 Research done into ionophore antibiotics showed that RRL was “investigating the substances for clandestine use” because “the advantage is that if it can cause acute or subacute heart failure, the ionophore will not be traceable”. Overdoses of antibiotics were also investigated through animal experiments. Overdoses of the veterinary antibiotic monensin was known to attack the heart muscles in ruminants. A horse used in an RRL experiment had nearly died of heart failure. These findings, according to the report, had led RRL to investigate the possibility of using the drugs for covert operations against human beings. To this end, tests had been done on baboons. When mixed with alcohol and administered intravenously, the antibiotics killed the baboons within six hours. No damage to the heart muscle could be found during autopsy, and the substance was undetectable in the post-mortem toxicology results.
I haven’t been able to tell, with any degree of certainty, how closely foreign intelligence agencies worked with the Project Coast-Wouter Basson-RRL octopus, but there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that this thing was connected to several foreign governments. See Gould and Folb (linked above) as well as Did this man ‘kill blacks big time’? In short, I strongly doubt that Wouter Basson thought it all up on his own.
So, do governments carry out covert assassinations that are made to look like heart attacks?
Yes, without any doubt.
Was Matt Simmons assassinated?
I have no idea. That’s the point of covert assassination.
Finally, keep in mind that the methods above are probably stone age relics compared to what is likely available now. I don’t reference them because I think that these methods were used here (maybe, maybe not), but rather to demonstrate what these regimes were doing decades ago.
—End Update—
Update: Drowned?
A former energy adviser to president George W. Bush from North Haven died Sunday.
Matthew Simmons drowned at about 10 p.m. Sunday at a home on Salt Marsh Road, according to a press release from the Knox County Sheriff’s Department. The release did provide any details and the sheriff’s office did not immediately return calls Monday morning.
—End Update—
Via: Houston Business Journal:
Matt Simmons, founder and former head of Simmons & Co. International, died on Aug. 8 at his home in Maine of an apparent heart attack. He was reportedly in his hot tub.
John Williams: Times That Try Our Souls
August 9th, 2010This is a good piece and I’ve clipped some of the passages that I felt were the best. I’d recommend clicking through and reading the whole thing.
The advice given is in line with what you’ve been seeing on Cryptogon for years. With regard to the speculation about private property being outlawed: The federal government might try, but they would be dealing with running gun battles at that point. There are a lines in the sand that the government can’t cross, unless it wants open warfare with the states. Mass confiscation of private property would do it, so I doubt that the feds will go down that dead end path. See Nye County Sheriff Tony DeMeo on threatening BLM with armed responses to stop illegal BLM activities. If those types of incidents start to rise, watch out, the failed state reality show could be coming to a town near you.
Via: The Energy Report:
When Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke admits to seeing an “unusually uncertain” economy ahead, it’s pretty terrifying to imagine what he’s really thinking. What John Williams envisions—and he’s by no means looking to the far horizon—is a systemic collapse, a hyperinflationary great depression and the cessation of normal commerce.
…
I expect an accelerating pace of downturn in the next couple of months. The numbers will turn sharply worse. Consensus estimates are already moving in that direction and most everything will follow. Industrial production is still up but retail sales have been falling. Payroll numbers have been flat when you take out the effects of the census hiring. Those employment numbers will turn down in the next month or two, providing an important indicator of renewed economic contraction.
…
The popular press will describe it as a double dip, but we never had a recovery. Actually, this is just a very protracted, very deep downturn that has had a pattern of falling off a cliff, bottoming out, having a little bit of bump due to stimulus and then turning down again. Sort of shaped like the path of a novice skier going down a jump for the first time. Speeding sharply down the hill, he goes up in the air and starts spinning wildly as he tries to figure out which end is up with his skis. Then he takes a pretty bad tumble. We’re beginning to spin in the air.
…
Most of the growth we’d seen in the last decade prior to this downturn was due to debt expansion. The debt structures have pretty much been put through the wringer and consumers are not expanding credit, generally because it’s not available to them. Absent debt expansion and/or significant growth in income, no way can the consumer expand personal consumption. You have to address employment, quality of jobs.
…
The government is effectively bankrupt. Using GAAP accounting principles, the annual deficit is running in the range of $4 trillion to $5 trillion. That’s beyond containment. The government can’t cover it with taxes. They’d still be in deficit if they took 100% of personal income and corporate profits. They’d also still be in deficit if they cut every penny of government spending except for Social Security and Medicare. Washington lacks the will to slash its social programs severely, to change its approach to ever bigger government. The only option left going forward is for the government eventually to print the money for the obligations it cannot otherwise cover, which sets up a hyperinflation.
…
We’ve been talking about an economic recession, but we are headed for something far worse. I define a depression as a 10% peak-to-trough contraction in the economy. In terms of the broad economy, we’re not down 10% in GDP yet. So while we’re not formally in depression, we’re certainly seeing it in a number of indicators and I think we’ll be in a depression, with GDP down 10%, in the near future.
A contraction greater than 25% peak-to-trough puts you in a great depression. That is what I envision, but we’ll be taken there by hyperinflation and a resultant cessation of normal commerce.
…
My definition has been and will remain very simple. When the largest-denomination note in circulation—the $100 bill in the case of the U.S. dollar—has the same value as toilet paper, you have a hyperinflation. You saw that in the Weimar Republic. People papered their walls with money.
…
When people don’t have food, you end up in very dangerous circumstances.
…
I think a barter system is where it will go until the currency system is stabilized, but the currency system can’t stabilize until the government’s fiscal house is in order.
…
When hyperinflation starts to break, it can unfold in a matter of weeks, months. You’ll need to be able to handle things rapidly. Frankly I think the system will tend to break down. It’s not a happy circumstance. How will a small company get its goods to people? There might be blackouts. Who’s going to get the fuel to the power plants?
…
I think the odds are extremely high that we’ll see it break within the next year. I would put it six months to a year, outside. We’re getting extraordinary protestations from other central banks about the U.S. finances, its solvency, risk of the dollar. Before the current crisis you never would have heard any central banker making such comments. As this breaks, it’s going to be obvious that the U.S. is moving to debase its dollar. It’ll have no option to do otherwise. I would fully expect some foreign holders looking to dump the Treasuries. With the dollar plunging, the Treasury won’t be able to get the funding that it needs from a practical standpoint in the open markets.
The Fed will come in to salvage that situation, becoming the lender of last resort to the Treasury—literally monetizing the Treasury debt. The Fed might have a couple different ways to address the dollar situation, from raising interest rates to direct intervention, slapping on currency controls. I can’t tell you exactly how it’s going to go. But you’ll have an environment that’s effectively creating a perfect storm for the U.S. dollar. I hate to use the term but it’s a good one.
Heavy dollar selling will be exceptionally inflationary. Oil prices will spike in response to the weakness in the dollar. Oil is a primary commodity that drives consumer inflation; that’s how you can have inflation in a recession. The traditional wisdom is that strong demand against limited supply causes inflation, but you can also have inflation due to commodity price distortions, which is what we had back in ’73 and what we’ve seen over the last year or so.
Research Credit: pookie, tochigi
Fed Set to Downgrade Outlook for U.S.?
August 9th, 2010Additionally, Bloomberg is running some chatter about the Fed possibly having to buy up more debt directly:
Gold may climb in London on increased demand for a protector of wealth as the dollar weakens and on speculation that the Federal Reserve will step up buying of bonds to prop up the U.S. economy.
Via: Financial Times:
Although Fed policymakers still believe the basic trajectory of the economy remains one of moderate expansion, there may be more attention given to heightened dangers of a sharp slowdown. “The FOMC will have to tone down its assessment of the economy in view of recent weak indicators on real growth, real consumption spending and employment,” said Brian Bethune and Nigel Gault, economists at Global Insight.
The latest poor reading came in Friday’s monthly employment report, which showed the US private sector creating only 71,000 jobs in July – not enough to keep up with population growth, let alone bring down the unemployment rate. That followed news a week earlier that growth in US gross domestic product slowed from an annualised rate of 3.7 per cent in the first quarter to 2.4 per cent in the second quarter.
“Given how low inflation already is, and given the potential for the recovery to falter, we expect Fed officials will highlight downside risks and signal a bias to ease in the FOMC statement,” said Jim O’Sullivan, chief economist at MF Global.
Big Picture Gallery: Severe Flooding in Pakistan
August 9th, 2010Via: Boston Globe – Big Picture:
It is only the start of the monsoon season, but already Pakistan is experiencing some of the worst flooding it has seen in over 80 years. Entire villages have been washed away, an early estimate of over 1,600 deaths so far and over 2 million displaced or otherwise affected. Not only is the immediate water damage causing havoc, the floods have inundated crop-producing areas, dealing a crippling blow to the agricultural-based economy and threatening a food crisis. The Pakistani government now struggles to rescue and provide aid to millions – while still fighting with militant Islamist forces in many of the hardest-hit regions. With even more heavy rains predicted in the coming days, here are a handful of recent photographs of Pakistanis as they cope with this latest disaster.
Cryptogon Readers Send Contributions
August 9th, 2010Thank you.
Pookie $75
DS $20
LR $25
July Earnings
August 9th, 2010Earnings in July came to a total of $1095.21. Amazon affiliate sales were extremely strong in July. The Amazon U.S. commission total was $512.19. I think that’s the best Amazon result ever. Thanks very much to everyone who sent contributions and conducted business via the affiliate links on Cryptogon.
TheAntiTerrorist on The Big Business of Being Behind Bars
August 9th, 2010Via: TheAntiTerrorist:
Related: Land Of The Free: Never In The Civilized World Have So Many Been Locked Up For So Little
The Ministry of Oil Defense
August 6th, 2010The article opens with:
It’s not polite to say so, but if Americans understood just how many trillions their military was really spending on protecting oil, they wouldn’t stand for it.
Oh really?
Tell us all another one about what “Americans” won’t stand for.
Via: Foreign Policy:
Shortly after the Marines rolled into Baghdad and tore down a statue of Saddam Hussein, I visited the Ministry of Oil. American troops surrounded the sand-colored building, protecting it like a strategic jewel. But not far away, looters were relieving the National Museum of its actual jewels. Baghdad had become a carnival of looting. A few dozen Iraqis who worked at the Oil Ministry were gathered outside the American cordon, and one of them, noting the protection afforded his workplace and the lack of protection everywhere else, remarked to me, “It is all about oil.”
The issue he raised is central to figuring out what we truly pay for a gallon of gas. The BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico has reminded Americans that the price at the pump is only a down payment; an honest calculation must include the contamination of our waters, land, and air. Yet the calculation remains incomplete if we don’t consider other factors too, especially what might be the largest externalized cost of all: the military one. To what extent is oil linked to the wars we fight and the more than half-trillion dollars we spend on our military every year? We are in an era of massive deficits, so it pays to know what we are paying for and how much it costs.
The debate often hovers at a sandbox level of did-so/did-not. Donald Rumsfeld, the former defense secretary, insisted the invasion of Iraq had “nothing to do with oil.” But even Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, rejected that line. “It is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows,” Greenspan wrote in his memoir. “The Iraq war is largely about oil.” If it is even partly true that we invade for oil and maintain a navy and army for oil, how much is that costing? This is one of the tricky things about oil, the hidden costs, and one of the reasons we are addicted to the substance — we don’t acknowledge its full price.
If we wish to know, we can. An innovative approach comes from Roger Stern, an economic geographer at Princeton University who in April published a peer-reviewed study on the cost of keeping aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf from 1976 to 2007. Because carriers patrol the gulf for the explicit mission of securing oil shipments, Stern was on solid ground in attributing that cost to oil. He had found an excellent metric. He combed through the Defense Department’s data — which is not easy to do because the Pentagon does not disaggregate its expenditures by region or mission — and came up with a total, over three decades, of $7.3 trillion. Yes, trillion.
And that’s just a partial accounting of peacetime spending. It’s far trickier to figure out the extent to which America’s wars are linked to oil and then put a price tag on it. But let’s assume that Rumsfeld, in an off-the-record moment of retirement candor, might be persuaded to acknowledge that the invasion of Iraq was somewhat related to oil. A 2008 study by Nobel Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University budget expert Linda Bilmes put the cost of that war — everything spent up to that point and likely to be spent in the years ahead — at a minimum of $3 trillion (and probably much more). Again, trillion.
And Now… Al Qaeda Responsible for Japanese Tanker Attack
August 6th, 2010That’s the ticket.
Via: CBS News:
Ten years after the deadly attack on the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Cole in the Gulf of Aden, al Qaeda once again struck at sea with a suicide attack on a Japanese oil tanker.
A UAE Coast Guard source confirmed Friday that the tanker, M. Star, was the target of a terrorist attack while passing through international waters near the Strait of Hormouz on July 28.
”UAE explosives experts who collected and examined samples found a dent on the starboard side above the water line and remains of homemade explosives on the hull,” the source said. “Probably the tanker had encountered a terrorist attack from a boat loaded with explosives.”
On Wednesday, an al Qaeda-linked group called “Abdullah Azzam Brigades” issued an online statement claiming that M. Star was the target of a kamikaze attack orchestrated by the group. It identified the suicide bomber as Ayyub al-Taishan. The group said that he blew himself up into the tanker in the Straight of Hormouz, between the U.A.E and Oman, causing major damage to the giant ship, which was carrying two million barrels of crude oil.
The attack only caused minor damage to the tanker’s starboard side, but it raises serious concerns over al Qaeda’s capacity to reach targets at sea, and its renewed interest in maritime Jihad.
