Pacific Tribune

Archive for May, 2010

The United States is way behind in in the race for alternative energy.  China leads and we may have lost already.  See the below article and the others for a good perspective on this and other issues.

While you guys are facing the worsening-by-the-day consequences of the BP spill, some interesting news came out of the European “oil patch” – ie the North Sea:  UK’s offshore renewable energy could match one billion barrels of oil, report shows.  The UK’s offshore renewable energy sector could generate electricity equivalent of one billion barrels of oil annually, matching North Sea oil and gas production, according to a new report.  (that would be roughly 3 million barrels per day, ie about double current Gulf of Mexico production)

And there is more below.  Who does the Coast Guard work for BP or us?

At Energy Boom:

CBS has footage of their reporters being turned away from a public beach in Louisiana where they were filming oil washing up on shore.”This is BP’s rules, it’s not ours,” someone aboard the boat said. Coast Guard officials told CBS that they’re looking into it.

More at Huffington Post:

As the Coast Guard is a branch of the Armed Forces, it brings into question how closely the government and BP are working together to keep details of the disaster in the dark.  Furthermore, this may not be the sole incident of its kind. According to Mother Nature Network’s Karl Burkhart, his contacts in Louisiana have given him unconfirmed reports of equipment being turned away or confiscated.

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Every time there’s an energy-related disaster, it boosts the prospects for clean alternatives. Last month’s devastating explosion at the Upper Big Branch coal mine killed 29, and got people wondering if all that ancient coal shouldn’t just be left in the ground. And the spreading oil slick from the Deep Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico led to a flurry of Congressional bills banning offshore drilling, and rising public sentiment for cleaner alternatives.

The problem is that people’s memories are short, and the old arguments-coal is “native energy,” offshore oil offsets foreign imports-reassert themselves to reinforce the status quo. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s approval of the Cape Wind Project in Massachusetts April 28 could spur development of the dozen other offshore projects pending in the U.S. (and, indeed, also jumpstart other stalled energy projects).

Since it was first proposed in 2001, Cape Wind has been fighting determined opposition from Cape locals who don’t want to look at spinning white turbines. The tremendous cost of fighting those well-funded special interests has given both developers and potential funders pause. But if Cape Wind now goes forward (the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound and its allies are filing lawsuits) it could be a green light for green energy.

Here’s a progress report on four green energy technologies     Read more: http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/renewable-energy-460510?src=rss#ixzz0nVk7dmkk

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From the Saipan Tribune:

A federal report on the islands’ first ever gross domestic product data confirmed what everybody already knew: the CNMI economy, as well as its population, had been shrinking. It also highlighted an unpleasant fact: Of the four U.S. territories, it was only the CNMI that experienced an economic contraction.

The CNMI’s real GDP decreased at an average annual rate of 4.2 percent between 2002 and 2007, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis said Wednesday.

The total amount of products and services produced in the CNMI in 2002 was $1.32 billion as measured in the inflation-adjusted GDP, and steadily declined since then until it reached only $962 million in 2007, the U.S. Commerce report shows.

From Wikipedia:

The Northern Mariana Islands /ˈnɔrðərn mɛəriˈænə ˈaɪləndz/ (help·info), officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), is a commonwealth in political union with the United States, occupying a strategic region of the western Pacific Ocean. It consists of fifteen islands about three-quarters of the way from Hawaii to the Philippines, at 15°1′2″N 145°4′5″E. The United States Census Bureau reports the total land area of all islands as 179.01 square miles (463.63 km²).

The Northern Mariana Islands has a population of 80,362 (2005 estimate). The official 2000 census count was 69,221.^[2] More than 90% of the Commonwealth’s population lives on the island ofSaipan. Of the fourteen other islands, only two, Tinian and Rota, have a significant population. The islands of Agrihan and Alamagan have fewer than ten residents, and the remaining ten islands are unpopulated. The Northern Mariana Islands have the lowest male to female sex ratio in the world with an average of 76 men to every 100 women.^[3] That is due to the overwhelming female majority of foreign workers, especially in the garment industry.^[4]

The Commonwealth’s centre of government is located in the village of Capitol Hill on the island of Saipan. As the island is governed as a single municipality, most publications term “Saipan” as the Commonwealth’s capital.

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