Tag: Electricity

A demand for engineers in Michigan:

"Andrew Watt says he figures the shelf life of an auto engineer looking for a job in Michigan is about three days. Companies that wait longer than that will have to get back in line for the next candidate.

"If their skills are even on the edges of automotive, they can get a job," said Watt, whose iTalent LLC in Troy finds engineering and information technology workers for companies in nine states. "There's an extreme shortage. There's way more demand than supply."

Demand, Supply ..  Funny how such things work.

The long term effect of our emerging technical interaction with each other will continue to create demand for such things as better engineered automobiles, heavy equipment and other manufactured goodies.  But the most important thing that ties it all together is electricity.  Cheap, abundant electricity that will continue to power the goodies, toys, and necessary equipment that keeps us healthy, mobile, and interactive.

Environmentalists in Michigan, need to mature into the continuing reality of our still relatively industrial state.  Those idealists growing up and believing the world of The Lorax exists around us need to stop believing in the fairy tale promises of such efforts as the United Nations 25x25 plan which will appear on your Michigan ballot in November.

DR. Seuss is dead.

And yes, I DID say, the United Nations plan.

I have been adding to this all week, and have tried to make it as concise as possible, but as more information became available, editing was required.  Let me know if any clarification is needed.

I wrote at the beginning of the month about the coal fired plant in Marquette being threatened by a new and extremely aggressive set of EPA  rules.  The shutdown of that plant of course would leave in question the future of paper mills, and the electrical needs of yoopers.  At least the future of the cost being at all affordable.  The jobs that would be lost as higher costs come to bear also joined by a literal health care crisis as fewer would be insured, and less money in the pockets of those Michiganders would encourage poorer health choices.

Health, of course is the victim of the 'boogeyman' coal fired power industry.  You've seen the ubiquitous American Lung Association "coughing baby" ads supporting the Obama EPA's push to shut down the coal industry, right?  What might surprise you is that those ads are funded in part by Chesapeake Energy, the country's second-largest natural gas producer.

Coming amidst an impending decision by the EPA on the Utility MACT (maximum achievable control technology)  rule that is expected to lead to job loses, plant shutdowns, and rolling blackouts across the country, this strange partnership raises a question.  What does Chesapeake stand to gain, by pouring money into a seemingly disparate organization with extremely different objectives and priorities? Politico writes:

The ads come as the coal industry is at war with the Obama administration over new rules to curb pollution from coal-fired power plants. The EPA is expected to issue new rules on Friday to curb air toxics from power plants, which are estimated to cost industry about $10.9 billion each year.

Stricter rules for power plants are expected to offer a competitive advantage to the cleaner-burning natural gas industry.

I love the snow personally, but coming back up north on Saturday night after an affair in Grand Rapids, found us in the company of a slew of motoring eco sized cars... in the ditch, beams blazing brightly toward the sky.  The common denominator between them, and their cousins still on the road was indeed their size and ability to take a wind swipe, or get their tires into a snow groove and a concurrent inability to stay straight.  The poor little things just cannot take an oncoming storm very well.

As the nuclear white knuckles of young inexperienced drivers saw similarities with the older candle burning brightness of knuckles of yore, it took no engineering degree to determine there were SOME cars that ought not be on the road.  

The cars our liberal friends would 'necessarily' put us into.

Congressman Fred Upton is the grandson of the co-founder of Whirlpool.

I find that interesting.

Thomas Edison has been credited with bringing light to a world of darkness, but he also has been credited with coming up with the FIRST MODEL OF A COMPLETE CENTRAL POWER STATION.

Power generation to the masses gave rise to many more inventions, like the electric clothes washer.

If you though it was bad already be prepared for "bad" multiplied by ___<--Insert large number here.

Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow had an opportunity to stand up for Michigan, and its economic interests, and the jobs of its residents.  They had a chance in a vote held yesterday to say to the EPA, that CO2 is NOT a pollutant to be regulated by the agency, particularly in light of the climate-gate scandal that demonstrates the science was never truly settled. They had a chance to demonstrate they actually are paying attention to those developments showing the climate change "science" to be a fabrication of grant seeking opportunists willing to exchange their souls for a few coins.

Jason Allen puts it on record here:

"I would like to express my personal disappointment in Governor Granholm and her administration's decision late last Friday to deny Wolverine Electric Co-operative's application for an air quality permit needed for its proposed power plant in Rogers City.

But I would be only a single voice expressing this displeasure.

Maybe I should be speaking on behalf of the hundreds of construction workers, engineers, suppliers and contractors who would find employment at the power plant construction project in an area of the state that has been experiencing near 20 percent unemployment levels.

But I'm certain that they also are letting the Governor and her administration know that they strongly disagree with her ill-advised action.