Thursday, October 9, 2008

Bush Can't Smell the Fart Mist

"In 2006, the Bush administration cut most geothermal spending - federal programs that received as much as $100 million a year in the 1980s shrank to $5 million. Research projects were dismantled. Scientists in the field had to find other jobs.... 'we are going to have to relearn a lot of what the people who we just let go learned'"

"Filipinos find power in buried heat; Geothermal energy draws new attention" by Blaine Harden, Washington Post | October 9, 2008

ORMOC, Philippines - Geothermal power now accounts for about 28 percent of the electricity generated in the Philippines. With 90 million people, about 40 percent of whom live on less than $2 a day, this country has become the world's largest consumer of electricity from geothermal sources. Billions of dollars have been saved here because of reduced need for imported oil and coal.

Which is why Bush cut funding and wasn't interested; this doesn't put $$$ in the pockets of his friends and cronies!!!!

In installed geothermal power capacity, the country ranks second in the world, narrowly trailing the United States, which has far more geothermal potential, far more engineering talent, and far greater demand for clean sustainable power.

But unlike in the Philippines, government policy in the United States has been inconsistent. In 2006, the Bush administration cut most geothermal spending - federal programs that received as much as $100 million a year in the 1980s shrank to $5 million. Research projects were dismantled. Scientists in the field had to find other jobs.

"Most of the federal infrastructure, the laboratories, and the researchers are now gone," said Karl Gawell, executive director of the Geothermal Energy Association in Washington.

As oil and coal prices soared in the past year, and as popular demand increased for alternative energy sources, the Bush administration rediscovered geothermal. It has proposed spending $90 million over three years on research.

PFFFFFFTTTT!

"That's the good news, but the bad news is that we are going to have to relearn a lot of what the people who we just let go learned over the past 20 years," Gawell said. "The problem with our government's approach to alternative energy is that it is too short-term. You need a sustained commitment." --Filipinos find power in buried heat --"

As if government was about helping the people and not pushing a corporate agenda!

FUK U, AmeriKan MSM!!!!