Speaking before a new Congress in his State of the Union address, President Obama gave an alternative suggestion for Congress now that cap and trade is out of the picture. He pitched an aggressive clean energy standard, saying he wants 80 percent of our electricity to come from carbon-free sources of energy by 2035. For reference, the Energy Information Administration shows that carbon-free sources generated 31 percent of our total electricity in 2009 (20 percent nuclear, 7 percent hydroelectric, and 4 percent other renewables). As Kim Strassel points out in …
The impact of U.S. sanctions against Iran and other state sponsors of terrorism have been undermined by loopholes that allow exemptions for humanitarian, agricultural and medical exports, according to a report in The New York Times. Most of the loopholes were created by a 2000 law that created exemptions for agricultural and medical exports for humanitarian purposes and resulted in $1.7 billion of U.S. exports to Iran in the last ten years. Although these exports have not directly aided Iran’s military buildup, some of the exemptions have benefited Iranian companies …
The sudden firing of Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki while he was abroad on a diplomatic mission lying for his country is a sign of growing political tension within Iran’s increasingly isolated government. The abrupt sacking of Mottaki, who has served as Iran’s top diplomat since the installation of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government in 2005, is another indication of growing schisms in the ruling establishment, which is under increasing international pressure due to its continued defiance on the nuclear issue. Mottaki has been replaced on an interim basis by the head of …
Pyongyang revealed a covert facility for enriching uranium to a visiting U.S. scientist last week. Dr. Siegfried Hecker, former head of the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory, stated he was shown a vast plant containing “hundreds and hundreds” of centrifuges—North Korea claimed 2,000—controlled by an “ultra modern control room.” The discovery affirms a U.N. report released earlier this month that North Korea continues to “use a number of masking techniques in order to circumvent the Security Council measures” to curtail Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs. Although the United States has long …
With Congress divided, will anything actually get done in the next two years? President Obama recently suggested energy policy as an area in which bipartisan support could exist. Rather than trying to pass a large climate change bill, Obama stressed the importance of increasing technologies and energy sources to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – including nuclear, clean coal, electric vehicles, wind, solar, and renewable fuels. Sometimes deemed an “all of the above” energy approach, it guarantees handouts and subsidies for all energy sources to make everyone happy. In other words, …
When asked about his reaction to the signing of a Russian deal that promises to deliver two nuclear power plants to oil-rich Venezuela, President Obama answered: We have no incentive nor interest in increasing friction between Venezuela and the US, but we do think Venezuela needs to act responsibly. Our attitude is that Venezuela has rights to peacefully develop nuclear power,” he [Obama] said, “adding that as a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty it must also meet its obligations not to weaponize those systems. For all the many rebuffs …
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki today insisted that sanctions would have little effect on Iran while his bombastic boss, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whined about the sanctions. Mottaki wrote letters to the foreign ministers of the fifteen members of the U.N. Security Council that criticized “the hasty adoption, at the insistence of America and its allies, of an unjust and illegal resolution against the great nation of Iran” and asserted that Iran is now “more determined” than ever to push forward on its nuclear program. Mottaki, an active pen pal, also …
Leon Panetta, the low-key Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, made an eye-opening disclosure on Sunday that received little attention, yet called into question the Obama Administration’s strategy for preventing Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon. Speaking on ABC’s Sunday news show, “This Week”, Panetta revealed that Tehran could soon have a nuclear weapon: “We think they have enough low-enriched uranium right now for two weapons. They do have to enrich it, fully, in order to get there. And we would estimate that if they made that decision, it would …
Diplomats based in Vienna leaked some interesting news on Friday: IAEA nuclear inspectors have discovered that Iran has removed equipment that was the focus of an investigation into experiments to advance Iran’s clandestine nuclear weapons program. The inspectors are concerned that the Iranians may be involved in yet another cover-up: “At issue is pyroprocessing, a procedure that can be used to purify uranium metal used in nuclear warheads. Iran in January confirmed to the agency that it had carried out pyroprocessing experiments, prompting a request from the nuclear agency for …
The government is announcing its approval of the nation’s first off-shore wind farm today after a contentious, nearly decade long debate including many interested parties. Millions have been spent on lobbying both to move the project forward and stop it in its tracks. This is nothing new to energy projects. Coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear and renewables each have supporters and naysayers. Overregulation and special-interest politicking are two problems that are unlikely to disappear any time soon, but given the small percentage of energy that renewables provide and the ambitious …
