The Death Of The American Dream; Minnesota Will Pass The Almost-Perfect Solar Energy Bill; Other Non-Bakken News

Updates

May 25, 2013: Minnesota passes the solar energy bill

• 1.5 percent of power from solar energy by 2020 [1.5% amounts to a "feel-good" bill]
• a "goal" of 10 percent by 2030
• current law: 25% of MN electricity must come from renewable sources by 2025

Original Post 

Active rigs: 187 (up slightly).

Nothing about the Bakken follows.

"We live in a communications society where image is more important than truth and spinning is our great new growth industry; even television reporters now have their own personal public relations people, the better, if not to spin their viewers and the ever admiring celebrity magazines, then at least to spin themselves on the value of what they do." -- David Halberstam, August 9, 2000 in the forward to Hunter S Thompson's Fear and Loathing in America: The Brutal Odyssey of an Outlaw Journalist, Volume II, 1968 - 1976.

I think HST would be appalled, but not surprised, that his party had sicced the IRS on American citizens. His opus was to be The Death of the American Dream. I think with the latest revelations we have seen it.

The president's reaction: "Outrageous." I'm not sure which meaning he would use but probably #2: "being well beyond the bounds of good taste." It's very likely that someone's wrist over at the IRS might be slapped. The operative word: "might." It will take the president a year or so to make a decision based on his ability to tackle the Keystone.

In lighter news, Art Carney is now being compared to Baghdad Bob. George Will says Art Carney's "usefulness to this administration is diminishing rapidly." Too knowledgeable too fire? A kiss and tell book coming out just before the mid-term elections would not be good; don't look for Art Carney to be fired before it would be too late to get a book published by August, 2014.

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This is a most interesting technology story, coming on the heels of my reading the memoirs of Freeman Dyson; James Gleick's The Information; and, George Dyson's Turing's Cathedral: The Wall Street Journal  is reporting that Samsung has developed 5G technology that would download send super-high-definition movie files in a matter of seconds.

The technology won't be available until 2020. Many networks still employ 3G technology; others are transitioning as fast as they can to 4G. An interim solution might be 4.5.

I believe my Samsung/Sprint clam shell cell phone is 1G.

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 The almost-perfect solar energy bill.

Oh, I almost forgot. The Minnesota legislature is looking to pass the "almost-perfect" solar energy bill. The Fargo Forum is reporting: 

The Senate version requires large utility companies to generate 1 percent of power from the sun by 2025. The House version requires 4 percent, in addition to the 25 percent renewable energy requirement passed in 2007.

Both bills exempt taconite operations, recycled iron ore mining operations and wood products plants from any rate increase attributed to the solar mandate.

The Duluth News Tribune says the House bill also exempts rural electric cooperatives and municipal utilities. Together, the bill would exempt nearly a third of the state.

A more-perfect solar energy bill:

• would require 1 percent of power from the sun by 2045
• include the same manufacturing exemptions, but add 3M, and any other manufacturing company that employs more than 5 people
• include the exemptions for rural and municipal utilities currently in the bill; but add exemptions for all state utilities
• aim for exempting 22/23rds of the state

The bill has nothing to do with global warming: it's all about legislators telling their low-information constituents they are cognizant (wow, that's a big word) of the ManBearPig and are doing something about it. The high-information constituents will see through this. One percent by 2025. You are joking, aren't you? A twelve-year-old with a 4-inch magnifying glass on July 20, 2024, should meet that requirement.