Airlines Order Biodiesel, Stalled Heath Care Insurance Reform, "The Visitor", Obama Listens with Jarrett's Ears

Airlines are already ordering biofuels. A group of 8 American air carrier companies has placed an order with Rentech Inc. for 1.5 million gallons of biodiesel. The fuel will be used for ground service vehicles at the Los Angeles (LAX) airport. The contract specifies that the fuel is to be made from "woody urban green waste" materials and will be used by the ground crews of American Airlines, Alaskan Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United, UPS Airlines and US Airways. Rentech has its own proprietary process for converting biomass into synthetic fuels, and that process is also adaptable to using coal or petroleum coke as part of its feedstock too. But before you start thinking this is another "dirty coal" company traveling under the cloak of "green" biofuels, take a look at these pictures.





Notice how much cleaner burning the Rentech synthetic fuel is? A notation with the picture on their website indicates this is due to lesser amounts of "aromatics", which is one of those petroleum refining terms that is a "class" of compounds not one specific chemical formula. In the following photo, you can see the difference "plain as day" as the expression goes, that Rentech Inc.´s synthetic fuel is clean and clear compared to the petroleum version next to it.




As you can see from the diagram (picture) at the top of this column, the Rentech Inc. process also produces electricity. Since they can handle municipal solid waste, sewage and almost any biomass as input, that kind of versatility appeals to me very much and I really wish them well.

Mosquito Elephants

Elephants are known for (among other things)rough, tough skin. If you ever tried to "pet" a full grown pig you know why so many brushes have been made from pig "hair" which is also known as bristles. Elephant "hair" is so thick and stiff that it can be used as a sewing needle.

Mosquitoes are insect that, like many others, require a good sip of high protein liquid at least once in a lifetime, the preferred color being red, it turns out that blood fills the bill (and the bug) rather nicely. It is my understanding that this bonus protein is needed for the little buggers to reproduce. Laying eggs is not only hard work, but that´s more protein that a mother can spare if she´s a mosquito, so she has to find a drink of blood somewhere. Fortunately for us (humans, that is) mosquitoes are not all that fussy about what kind of mammalian blood they get just as long as it has the necessary chemical composition, so even though frogs are exempt, cats and dogs and bunny rabbits get their share of insect bites too. Worse actually since fleas not only bite you they take up residence in your fur and may be there for many generations.

Now why am I ranting about mosquitoes and elephants? Well, you see, I am feeling more than a little like the mosquito that tried to bite and elephant and all I got for the effort was a sore stinger thingy. In this case the wrinkled old pachyderm that I refer to is T. Boone Pickens. He´s got a lot more people listening to him that I have to me, and so his so-called "Natural Gas Bill" got a big boost from members of the Federal House of Representatives this past week. And ole Boone was palling it up with the best of them in grand green style at Senator Harry Ried´s party in Nevada (or was it John Podesta´s party, it was hard to tell) that included not only such luminaries as Al Gore, but official voices of the government were singing background, including DOE Secretary Steven Chu.

Clearly my attempts to worry at his heels have gone unheeded, and like a mosquito bite on an elephant, he never even notices.

Ah, but today I have sharpened my proboscis once again with a new piece of artillery (I love a good mixed metaphor/aphorism.) The picture that warmed my heart today was of a truck made by Balqon a firm that makes several "electric trucks", and we are not talking about any "toy" trucks here. They have several models and indeed some of them they call "tractors" (do you remember when they used to call "18 wheelers" "tractor trailer trucks"?) that haul up to 60,000 pounds. Go ahead, take a look. Now I admit that 30 tons that has a range of "only" 90 miles may not be exactly the kind of "long haul" trucking that Boone has been talking about as a place that "needs" to have Natural Gas as a clean fuels source because "batteries can´t do the job." But think about that for a minute.

Isn´t there a company already (hint: yes there is) that has proposed to have battery swapping stations so that we can produce electric vehicles more cheaply (you don´t "buy" the battery, you by the electric charge in the battery until you need it swapped out, so the cost of batteries is separated from the cars). The Company that plans to do that, and has already gotten approval from Denmark, Israel, and Hawai´i to proceed with this plan is called "Better Place", and they have already arranged for over 103 million Euros in financing just specifically for Denmark (if I read that article correctly). So I am inclined to think that doubling the battery capacity by adding a second battery is not an impossible solution. After all, would it not be worth the trade off to make it a 29.5 ton hauling capacity and give it a 200 mile range, at which point a fast battery swap-out takes place (the driver has been driving for 3 - 4 hours already, it is time for him to take a restroom break at least)

And off he goes (with his tank emptied and his batteries full) and thus we have long range heavy duty trucking with NO innovative technology that does not exist already.







Boone is a really likeable personable guy, (most of the time at least) and you kind of want him to succeed. He seems like what he wants is so nearly completely altruistic. But he is also a Texas rattler with a lot of bodies by the roadside during his long career, and I wish people would take the time to look more carefully at what he is trying to do.

To Your Health

Some people have started tossing around the phrase "Obama Care" and in certain groups that is automatically understood to be an negative characterization of the Health Insurance Reform proposals conceived in the administration, but whose details are still being crafted in the House and Senate. Let´s be clear on one thing, for sure, for certain, and truly, as of this week there IS NO HEALTH CARE BILL! No bill has come to a vote in the House of Representatives, and (shame on her) Nancy Pelosi is "playing politics" with bringing about any such even because she wants, "to see what the Senate can come up with first." There have been three separate versions of a piece of legislation that MIGHT for a basis for the final bill to be voted on by the whole House, which have been passed by three separate committees of the House, but that doesn´t mean there is any actual "bill" to be voted on yet in that realm.

Meanwhile, claiming that they are going down the road of "bipartisanship" the Senate Finance committee, chaired by Max Baucus, (D-Montana) is a cozy little group of just 6 Senators who claim to be trying to work out some version of a bill that will be "more acceptable" to more Republicans. The balance of the committee is made up of Kent Conrad (D-North Dakota) and Jeff Bingaman (D-New Mexico) and Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). In fact, this group is creating the "bill nobody wants", not the Democrats, and not the Republicans either. Indeed Senator Grassley was quoted as saying that even if the bill incorporated every change that he had proposed that he was still unlikely to vote for it in the Senate. The "debate" in this committee has lead to what some consider to be a viable alternative to a government operated health insurance plan, which is a National Health Insurance Co-operative (or maybe multiple national health insurance co-ops). The brainchild (or so he thinks) of Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, the Senator is clinging to the inclusion of this in the Senate bill. What Senator Conrad has done is position himself for future public elevation in office, perhaps all the way to the White House, because he is going to end up looking like THE HERO of the Obama Health Insurance Reform program. The problem for the Democrats is that even if they go to the "reconciliation process" (after passing both houses by a bare majority), the only way there will be some kind of "public option" is if the Senate bill contains some language that can be molded into a truly non-profit, national health insurance entity.

Meanwhile some crafty "stagecraft" on the part of moderate Republican Senator Olympia Snowe is a recent statement that has said, there will be no public option in the Senate bill. What she actually said was, "We have not had the public option on the table," and ""It's been co-ops, and addressing the availability and affordability of plans through the exchange." So by painting the co-op as something other than a "public option" she has drawn a distinction that is actually a bit misleading but that separates "co-op" plans from "government" plans. As Howard Dean (Chairman of the Democratic National Committee and former Governor of Vermont) said on Face the Nation on CBS Sunday morning (Aug. 23, 2009) a government run plan would be just like Medicare which works perfectly well. In effect he wants to simply open Medicare to persons under 65 years of age with subsidies to those who cannot afford the insurance premiums, as well as contributions from corporations. Indeed he called the discussion of co-ops, "just political theater."

On the same program, Bob Schieffer editorialized about the "LBJ" way of handing congress. It was a somewhat romanticized version of what is more generally characterized as terrorizing the inhabitants, while he was in the Senate, as VP and as President. He "knew where the bodies were buried" (that´s the phrase I´ve heard most often) and he wasn´t shy about arm twisting. I am not a big fan of LBJ, but even I wax nostalgic for someone to carry out that role with congress and the Health Care Insurance Reform today. I wish that sweet-talking Vice President Joe Biden would take tough-talking White House Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emanuel and DNC Chair Howard Dean to visit all those "Blue Dog" Democrats who are threatening the viability of the Health Care Insurance Reform to an "out-behind-the-woodshed" session in which they are informed with all frankness and seriousness that they are likely to find themselves without National Democratic Party financial or logistical support when it comes time for the next election in their district unless they get in line with the Obama policy that includes a "public option", or even both a "public option" meaning government operated, and a co-op option as well, which, in my opinion would be the ideal situation to not only keep the "for profit" private insurance industry from gouging the public with outrageous premiums to support multi-member, multi-million dollar executive boards, but also to compete with each other for the absolutely best coverage that they can for the public they are insuring.

Get Your Ticket

I won´t spend long on it, but if you have not seen The Visitor written and directed by Tom McCarthy, who also wrote and directed a delightful little film called The Station Agent (from 2003). The film stars Richard Jenkins possibly best known for his character of the already deceased father and former mortuary owner Nathaniel Fisher from the HBO hit series, 6 Feet Under. The character is a fascinating portrait, but the interaction with the foreigners is quite delicately portrayed. A young Syrian man, and his girlfriend, a pretty, black, French-speaking girl from Senegal are trapped in an untenable situation in NYC when Jenkins character, a university professor, discovers that someone has sub-leased them his apartment without his permission (apparently pocketing the proceeds as well). And that is just the beginning of the young couples troubles. Not an extrovert do-gooder by nature, the shy and retiring professor attempts to untangle the young couple´s difficulties, reluctantly, but gradually more committed to his efforts, the story carries an emotional impact that is more intellectual than a Disney plot that attaches itself to every possible "heart-string". It is definitely worth the time to see this film, now available on DVD.

Up and Down is Up

I think I mentioned, and recommended, my colonoscopy in a previous column. This week the endoscope will be pointed down instead of up. The appointment is for an esophageal look-see. I´m also due to get the lab results of the parts removed in the colonoscopy, so the ultimate verdict is out on both counts at the moment, but the positive side is that whatever might be threatening my health, someone is taking a thorough look, which is better than hiding one´s head in the sand. It is fortunately that I have been able to afford the US$6000 in Health Insurance Premiums for the past couple of years. It is fortunate both from the standpoint that these things are being covered by my health insurance coverage, but also that having paid those hefty charges for a couple of years, the insurance company is not going to end up "in the red" over the care I am getting (barring things taking a sharp turn for the worst).

So my conclusion is endoscope up or endoscope down, it is all a positive development for me.

Valerie

Is the White House listening to the debate on health care insurance reform? You can judge for yourself, but it certainly appears that Valerie Jarrett, special advisor to President Obama is listening and tell him all about it. Take a look for yourself at this blog posting but in particular, notice that right there in this person's own blog, Valerie Jarrett replies. LoraLee (the blogger) is a chatty little person, but I enjoyed the long read, and especially the obvious sign that Ms. Jarrett wasn't just "blowing smoke" when she indicated she was listening.

Love and warm wishes,

Sincerely,

Stafford "Doc" Williamson

http://daochienergy.com