NewEnergyNews Coal Corner

WALL STREET JOURNAL'S Environmental Capital quotes NewEnergyNews:

  • 06/05/2007

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    WALL STREET JOURNAL selects NewEnergyNews as one of the "Blogs We Are Reading" --

  • 05/14/2007
  • 04/16/2007
  • 03/28/2007

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    FEATURED BOOKS:

  • Plug-in Hybrids: The Cars that will ReCharge America by Sherry Boschert: "Smart companies plan ahead and try to be the first to adopt new technology that will give them a competitive advantage. That’s what Toyota and Honda did with hybrids, and now they’re sitting pretty. Whichever company is first to bring a good plug-in hybrid to market will not only change their fortune but change the world."
    • Plug-in Hybrids, The Cars That Will Recharge America

  • Oil On The Brain; Adventures from the Pump to the Pipeline by Lisa Margonelli: "Spills are one of the costs of oil consumption that don’t appear at the pump. [Oil consultant Dagmar Schmidt Erkin]’s data shows that 120 million gallons of oil were spilled in inland waters between 1985 and 2003. From that she calculates that between 1980 and 2003, pipelines spilled 27 gallons of oil for every billion “ton miles” of oil they transported, while barges and tankers spilled around 15 gallons and trucks spilled 37 gallons. (A ton of oil is 294 gallons. If you ship a ton of oil for one mile you have one ton mile.) Right now the United States ships about 900 billion ton miles of oil and oil products per year."
    • Oil On The Brain

    NOTEWORTHY IN THE MEDIA:

  • Ethical Markets TV: A remarkable TV series showcasing people who “…illustrate the triple bottom line, respecting people and the environment while earning a profit…” Part of Ethical Markets: “Your gateway to cleaner, greener 21st century economies.”

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  • My Novels: OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The American Decades & OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The Story of Our Addiction
  • Review of OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The American Decades by Mark S. Friedman
  • OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The American Decades, the second volume of Herman K. Trabish’s retelling of oil’s history in fiction, picks up where the first book in the series, OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The Story of Our Addiction, left off. The new book is an engrossing, informative and entertaining tale of the Roaring 20s, World War II and the Cold War. You don’t have to know anything about the first historical fiction’s adventures set between the Civil War, when oil became a major commodity, and World War I, when it became a vital commodity, to enjoy this new chronicle of the U.S. emergence as a world superpower and a world oil power.
  • As the new book opens, Lefash, a minor character in the first book, witnesses the role Big Oil played in designing the post-Great War world at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Unjustly implicated in a murder perpetrated by Big Oil agents, LeFash takes the name Livingstone and flees to the U.S. to clear himself. Livingstone’s quest leads him through Babe Ruth’s New York City and Al Capone’s Chicago into oil boom Oklahoma. Stymied by oil and circumstance, Livingstone marries, has a son and eventually, surprisingly, resolves his grievances with the murderer and with oil.
  • In the new novel’s second episode the oil-and-auto-industry dynasty from the first book re-emerges in the charismatic person of Victoria Wade Bridger, “the woman everybody loved.” Victoria meets Saudi dynasty founder Ibn Saud, spies for the State Department in the Vichy embassy in Washington, D.C., and – for profound and moving personal reasons – accepts a mission into the heart of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe. Underlying all Victoria’s travels is the struggle between the allies and axis for control of the crucial oil resources that drove World War II.
  • As the Cold War begins, the novel’s third episode recounts the historic 1951 moment when Britain’s MI-6 handed off its operations in Iran to the CIA, marking the end to Britain’s dark manipulations and the beginning of the same work by the CIA. But in Trabish’s telling, the covert overthrow of Mossadeq in favor of the ill-fated Shah becomes a compelling romance and a melodramatic homage to the iconic “Casablanca” of Bogart and Bergman.
  • Monty Livingstone, veteran of an oil field youth, European WWII combat and a star-crossed post-war Berlin affair with a Russian female soldier, comes to 1951 Iran working for a U.S. oil company. He re-encounters his lost Russian love, now a Soviet agent helping prop up Mossadeq and extend Mother Russia’s Iranian oil ambitions. The reunited lovers are caught in a web of political, religious and Cold War forces until oil and power merge to restore the Shah to his future fate. The romance ends satisfyingly, America and the Soviet Union are the only forces left on the world stage and ambiguity is resolved with the answer so many of Trabish’s characters ultimately turn to: Oil.
  • Commenting on a recent National Petroleum Council report calling for government subsidies of the fossil fuels industries, a distinguished scholar said, “It appears that the whole report buys these dubious arguments that the consumer of energy is somehow stupid about energy…” Trabish’s great and important accomplishment is that you cannot read his emotionally engaging and informative tall tales and remain that stupid energy consumer. With our world rushing headlong toward Peak Oil and epic climate change, the OIL IN THEIR BLOOD series is a timely service as well as a consummate literary performance.
  • Oil history journal articles by Dr. Trabish: Oil Stories and Histories
  • Review of OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The Story of Our Addiction by Mark S. Friedman
  • "...ours is a culture of energy illiterates." (Paul Roberts, THE END OF OIL)
  • OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, a superb new historical fiction by Herman K. Trabish, addresses our energy illiteracy by putting the development of our addiction into a story about real people, giving readers a chance to think about how our addiction happened. Trabish's style is fine, straightforward storytelling and he tells his stories through his characters.
  • The book is the answer an oil family's matriarch gives to an interviewer who asks her to pass judgment on the industry. Like history itself, it is easier to tell stories about the oil industry than to judge it. She and Trabish let readers come to their own conclusions.
  • She begins by telling the story of her parents in post-Civil War western Pennsylvania, when oil became big business. This part of the story is like a John Ford western and its characters are classic American melodramatic heroes, heroines and villains.
  • In Part II, the matriarch tells the tragic story of the second generation and reveals how she came to be part of the tales. We see oil become an international commodity, traded on Wall Street and sought from London to Baku to Mesopotamia to Borneo. A baseball subplot compares the growth of the oil business to the growth of baseball, a fascinating reflection of our current president's personal career.
  • There is an unforgettable image near the center of the story: International oil entrepreneurs talk on a Baku street. This is Trabish at his best, portraying good men doing bad and bad men doing good, all laying plans for wealth and power in the muddy, oily alley of a tiny ancient town in the middle of everywhere. Because Part I was about triumphant American heroes, the tragedy here is entirely unexpected, despite Trabish's repeated allusions to other stories (Casey At The Bat, Hamlet) that do not end well.
  • In the final section, World War I looms. Baseball takes a back seat to early auto racing and oil-fueled modernity explodes. Love struggles with lust. A cavalry troop collides with an army truck. Here, Trabish has more than tragedy in mind. His lonely, confused young protagonist moves through the horrible destruction of the Romanian oilfields only to suffer worse and worse horrors, until--unexpectedly--he finds something, something a reviewer cannot reveal. Finally, the question of oil must be settled, so the oil industry comes back into the story in a way that is beyond good and bad, beyond melodrama and tragedy.
  • Along the way, Trabish gives readers a greater awareness of oil and how we became addicted to it. Awareness, Paul Roberts said in THE END OF OIL, "...may be the first tentative step toward building a more sustainable energy economy. Or it may simply mean that when our energy system does begin to fail, and we begin to lose everything that energy once supplied, we won't be so surprised."
  • Oil history journal articles by Dr. Trabish: Oil Stories and Histories

    • About Me

    My Photo
    Name:
    Location: Agua Dulce, CA

    *Doctor with my hands *Author of the "OIL IN THEIR BLOOD" series with my head *Student of New Energy with my heart

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    CONTACT: herman@newenergynews.net

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    Pay a visit to the HARRY BOYKOFF page at Basketball Reference, sponsored by NewEnergyNews and Oil In Their Blood.

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    • NewEnergyNews

    NewEnergyNews HEADLINES:

    Sunday, September 19, 2010

    GUEST LEAD POST – Let a thousand carbon taxes bloom!

    Ted Glick, September 16, 2010

    Are you frustrated by the inaction in Washington, D.C. on the deepening climate crisis? Are you trying to figure out what more you could do, in addition to what you’re already doing, to advance a much-needed clean energy revolution in the USA?

    Here’s an answer: work to enact a local tax on carbon polluters in your area. It can happen, and it doesn’t take forever! In May of this year, in Montgomery County, Md., the County Council became the first county government in the country to enact a carbon tax.
    The owners of an 850 megawatt coal plant in the county, Mirant Corporation, will now have to pay approximately $15 million a year to the county for their pollution!

    Mirant went to federal court soon after this decision and lost. They have appealed to the Court of Appeals.

    You can find out more details about this successful campaign below.

    The Chesapeake Climate Action Network urges you to discuss this with other activists in your area and then reach out to town, city or county council members who have done positive things on the environment. It just takes one council member to introduce carbon tax legislation. We have information that can help you with your local effort at this link (http://www.chesapeakeclimate.org/detail/campaign.cfm?id=149) and here (http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/content/council/mem/berliner_r/pdfs/carbon_tax_information_packet.pdf).

    Let’s cultivate the seeds, shoots and flowers of a thousand local carbon tax efforts around the country!

    The Montgomery County Council campaign
    The successful effort in Montgomery County was directed at Mirant Corporation’s coal plant in Dickerson, Md. The carbon tax legislation was written to apply to any entity in the county which emits more than 1 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, and Mirant is the only one that meets that criterion.

    The $5 per ton tax will generate more than $15 million for the county at the same time that it creates an economic incentive for Mirant to reduce its emissions. At least half of the tax revenue will be used to fund county energy efficiency programs. The tax will have no discernible impact on local ratepayers, according to PEPCO, the local utility. PEPCO buys its power in an auction; if Mirant’s power is not competitive, it will not be purchased, and Mirant does not have enough “market power” to raise the price of power unilaterally.

    This victory was not won easily. Mirant and the Electric Power Supply Association used all kinds of tactics against the proposal, obviously treating it as a national test case. And in a classic case of overkill tactics backfiring, they brought in rowdy and disruptive Tea party protesters to a council meeting where a key vote was taken. Their behavior ended up strengthening support for the measure, and it passed by a vote of 8-1.

    It is gratifying that this carbon tax bill is now law. It is gratifying that polluter Mirant lost this round. It is gratifying that the Tea Party crowd was confronted and defeated. It will be even more gratifying if this victory in one county helps lead to similar efforts and victories in many other towns and counties this year and in coming years.

    posted by Herman K. Trabish @ 5:36 PM

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