South Carolinians For Energy Independence

Comment

Comment by Archie Jacobs on July 27, 2009 at 5:22pm

Would like to share a music video that tells a story of a CNG truck. The video was shot all in SC.

Story of a CNG Truck

Comment by Mike Anthony Fernald Sr. on February 5, 2009 at 1:53am

Comment by Dawn on January 28, 2009 at 8:02am

MEETING FEB. 7 2009 at 10 AM SOCASTEE LIBRARY. Pickens Plan is really about conserving and producing energy from renewable sources.

The Price of Gas is going up and so is everything else including food, clothing and shelter!

Lets get together and share how we can help save each other some $$$ by going green. We can do it!

OPEN INVITE to ALL!

Comment by Joe Bellisario; 2009 District Leader on January 13, 2009 at 5:09am

Hello have you'all read this yet? Pres Elect Obabma dosent seem to have allocated any of the $800 Billion on renewables.


WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PROPOSED STIMULUS PACKAGE?
President-elect Barack Obama proposed a stimulus package of $800 billion. The proposed package consists of $300 billion in tax cuts and $500 billion in spending.
The tax cuts would be geared at lower and middle income workers in the form of $500 per worker ($1000 for couples) tax credits on your payroll taxes rather than a check sent in the mail. Businesses would receive various tax cuts including some geared at encouraging employers to hire new workers or delay lay-offs. The tax cut portion of the package is geared at recruiting Republican support in Congress. The tax cuts would be greater than the tax cuts enacted by President George W. Bush.
The spending provision focuses on infrastructure such as highway and bridge repair. It would also provide aid to states struggling with declining revenue in the form of expanding health care funding such as paying more of the states Medicare costs. Under consideration is further unemployment benefits and health care coverage for unemployed workers.
Republicans are demanding the aid to states be in the form of loans, rather than grants. They are also demanding a go-slow approach to the bill to allow for enough hearings,and review to catch any waste. Supporters and certain economists say that the stimulus package needs passed quickly to avert further job losses and a deepening of the recession. Initially, Congress hoped to pass a bill by the Inauguration of President Obama, but it appears that a realistic goal is the February recess of Congress instead.
What do you think needs done? Should the stimulus bill be passed quickly basically as currently proposed? Or should Congress take more time? And what provisions would you like to see changed, added or deleted to it? What should be done to stimulate the economy of the United States? Or should nothing be done?

It dosent seem as if they have got our msg yet or am I reading this wrong.

Comment by Dawn on January 12, 2009 at 7:19pm

MEETING FEB. 7 2009 at 10 AM SOCASTEE LIBRARY. Pickens Plan is really about conserving and producing energy from renewable sources.

The Price of Gas is going up and so is everything else including food, clothing and shelter!

Lets get together and share how we can help save each other some $$$ by going green. We can do it!

OPEN INVITE to ALL!

Comment by Joe Bellisario; 2009 District Leader on January 1, 2009 at 2:00pm

Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina Discusses the Strategic Importance of the Pickens Plan
You recently signed the Pickens Energy Independence Pledge. Tell us why.
We have certain industries that we watch out for. We have certain requirements in terms of intellectual properties that we don’t want to fall into the wrong hands because we think it’s of strategic importance. And yet these days, there’s nothing more strategic than our ability to run the economy, which is based in large part on energy. So I think that Boone is on to something from the standpoint of watching out for our strategic interest. I think he’s on to something from the standpoint of not going out of our way to arm those folks who oftentimes don’t wish us well. Whether it’s Chavez in Venezuela or folks in the Middle East, you can’t be shipping the kinds of dollars that we’re shipping and expect good things to happen either from the standpoint of arming their interests with dollars or from the standpoint of shipping the dollars out of our country.

You also mentioned an environmental component.
I’m a conservative’s conservative and that means being conservative not just with financial resources, but I think natural resources as well. If in fact we can put up a windmill that produces the energy but doesn’t have some of the byproducts that some of our current sources do, I think it’s something worth pursuing. So I signed on.

But you signed the pledge with a qualification.
I put a caveat at the bottom because I do believe that the private sector – not government – but the private sector is the best way of ultimately reaching these goals that Boone has laid out. But somebody’s got to draw a line in the sand and spur the next administration to indeed draw a line in the sand on energy independence. I’m very pleased that Boone has done so.

So your point is that government needs to raise the bar and then step back.
Patton once said in military terms when you tell a young lieutenant to take the hill, you tell him to take the hill. What you don’t do is tell them how to take the hill. There could literally be a thousand different ways of getting the job done, but if you prescribe specific steps – “You’ve got to go this route and you turn left and you go right” - then it doesn’t take into account the things that could go wrong, the different obstacles that can come that soldier’s way, any of the fog of war.

And so I think that’s what is important here. Boone has been great for awakening the American public to the need for us to demand of our political leadership that they draw the line in the sand and say, “We’re going to take this hill.” I mean Kennedy didn’t say, “I’ll tell you what. I hope that maybe we could make it to the moon.” He said, “We will put a man on the moon.” He was definitive. I think we need that kind of clarity when we think about this notion of energy independence for its implications as a matter of national security, for its implications in the value of the dollar, for its implications in every one of our wallets.

INTERVIEW CONDUCTED, CONDENSED, AND EDITED BY ERIC O’KEEFE

Comment by Joe Bellisario; 2009 District Leader on December 27, 2008 at 9:21am

Ask the Experts: Utility Adjustments
By Michael Welch, Randy Udall
Dec/Jan 2009 (#128) pp. 14
Introductory Level

Utility Adjustments

I hear that reducing individual energy consumption can make a difference in the country's carbon footprint. My question is, do the utility companies have software or systems in place to produce only what is needed, or when I reduce my usage, does the net extra energy just get wasted? If the coal plants and other generators are producing a predetermined amount of energy, conservation won't help much. Any insight into how the utilities manage the grid might go a long way toward helping consumers conserve energy.

Brian Jarvis - Brookline, Massachusetts


Utilities have several types of power plants. Some are designed to run at or near maximum capacity at all times because that is the way they run best, and they may be slow to react to adjusting their output. Some produce energy so cheaply (like large hydro-electric plants) that the utilities want to run them at capacity as much as they can. Others, such as natural gas turbines and reciprocating engines, are designed to come online or ramp up production very quickly when needed.

That aside, utilities have gotten pretty good at predicting what the system-wide demand will be for any given time, based on years of history and what recent demand has been. Usually, only minor adjustments need to be made. But when there are big, sudden drops in demand, utilities take immediate steps to shut down some of their power plants' generation.

All utilities are connected together in a grid so that local changes in demand are absorbed fairly well. Also, reduction in household consumption typically happens slowly, over time.

Finally, even though many of us are finding ways to reduce consumption, the overall trend system-wide (in nearly all markets) is still an increase in demand, as population increases and business needs go up in our electronic world.

Michael Welch - Home Power


I was in a utility control room once when a 400-megawatt plant tripped and went off-line. The lights hardly flickered, as grid operators immediately dispatched their "spinning reserve," the backup power stations that are kept ready for just this purpose.

The electric grid is one of the nation's most marvelous machines. But it has one enormous downside — the production of electricity is responsible for nearly 40% of U.S. carbon emissions. Today, every 1,000 kilowatt-hours sold in this country comes "bundled" with 1,400 pounds of carbon dioxide, some of which will still be in the atmosphere 500 years from now.

Electric utilities are in the bull's-eye of climate policy, and many are beginning to examine how they can reduce emissions. On the menu: improving the efficiency of existing power plants; retiring older fossil-fueled plants; adding new, efficient natural-gas plants; purchasing carbon-free renewable energy; building new nuclear plants; and changing the order in which power plants are operated or "dispatched."

Some utilities are shrinking their carbon footprints. For example, in Colorado, Xcel Energy has lowered its carbon emissions per megawatt-hour by nearly 20%, and has set ambitious targets for further reductions in the years ahead.

There are two caveats, and they are big ones. First, reductions in emissions intensity are not sufficient to stop global warming; we need real reductions and large ones at that. Due to increased population and economic growth, it will be difficult for Xcel (and many other utilities) to reduce their total emissions. Second, since coal provides more than half of U.S. electricity and accounts for 80% of the sector's emissions, if we don't quickly develop and deploy much cleaner coal stations, or replace them with renewables, climate change is likely to accelerate.

Five to eight percent of all electricity is lost in the transmission system on its way to your home, so there's a new focus on reducing line losses in the distribution system. Improved transformers are available now, and superconductivity holds promise for the future.

At the personal level, a typical family produces enough greenhouse gases each year to fill two blimps. Half of this comes from burning gasoline, but most of the rest is due to electricity consumption. Cutting your personal electricity use through conservation and efficiency, and by using renewables, can save you money and lead to large decreases in your carbon footprint. For example, a solar efficiency retrofit of my home will keep 300,000 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere over the next 20 years.

Randy Udall - Independent Energy Analyst

Comment by Joe Bellisario; 2009 District Leader on December 22, 2008 at 4:13am

Hello everyone in SC.

I am planning a meeting at the Socastee Library for the first sat in Jan. We will meet at 10:00. We will have the room for 2 hours but the meeting can last as little or as long as we decide.

If you are in the area of Myrtle Beach that weekend-come and add to our planning session. Everyone is welcomed.

Call for directions Joe Bellisario 843 222 7627

Merry Christmas to ALL!

Comment by Joe Bellisario; 2009 District Leader on December 18, 2008 at 3:34am

From the desk of T. Boone Pickens
Hey Army,

I’ve told you this all along — our addiction to foreign oil could bring us to our knees, and there wouldn’t be a damn thing we could do about it. Now take a look at today’s headlines. OPEC just announced it’s cutting production by 2.2 million barrels. Remember – this is on top of the 2 million barrels in cuts they’ve already made since this summer! These guys are serious about getting the price of oil back up right where they like it: $75 a barrel, $100 a barrel, $150 a barrel.

This is exactly why now is the time to pull together and Push the Pickens Plan. Every time the price of oil drops, America falls asleep. The Saudis don’t. The Iranians don’t. The Venezuelans don’t. But we do.

President-elect Obama said it best a few weeks ago on 60 Minutes. “Oil prices go up, gas prices at the pump go up, everybody goes into a flurry of activity. And then the prices go back down and suddenly we act like it’s not important, and we start, you know, filling up our SUVs again. And, as a consequence, we never make any progress. It’s part of the addiction, all right. That has to be broken. Now is the time to break it.”

I couldn’t agree more. We’ve got to break that addiction now. Before it breaks us.

Click here to join your Pickens Plan District Group. Better yet, sign up to be the leader if there isn't one already so you can help bring in 500 more members to the New Energy Army in your Congressional District before Inauguration Day. Those first 100 days are right around the corner, and the way OPEC is playing we’re going to have to move fast.

-Boone

Comment by Joe Bellisario; 2009 District Leader on December 9, 2008 at 5:20pm

Hello Friends of Pickens;

My name is Joe Bellisario and I am your Congressional District #1
Leader. I have been commissioned only 3 days ago by Ed Matricardi

I am looking for a few good people since I LIVE IN Myrtle Beach- I am seeking volunteers to be my assistants in the other 1st District.cities!

I thank you all in advance and Merry Christmas to all.

Joe
.

I promise not to work you too hard!

I am thanking you in advance and Merry Christmas to all!

Joe

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