Monday, July 25, 2011

The Final Battle

In October 2004, Osama bin Laden issued one of his famous videotapes in which the head of al Qaeda said his group's goal is to force America into bankruptcy.


Bin Laden had not been heard from in almost three years. Posted just before election day, the video was clearly directed at an American audience that was facing a decision - continue with the status quo, or reverse course with new leadership. The CIA had just reported that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, placing in doubt the credibility of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq. The number of U.S. casualties had topped 1,000, the Abu Ghraib atrocities were front-page news, and a new government in Iraq gave a glimmer of hope that American forces should and would be coming home soon.

Bin Laden's missive gave Americans even more to consider. "We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah," bin Laden said. He said his fighters did the same thing to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, "using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers."

"We, alongside the mujahideen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat," bin Laden said.

He also said al Qaeda has found it "easy for us to provoke and bait this administration."

"All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations," bin Laden said.

As part of the "bleed-until-bankruptcy plan," bin Laden cited a British estimate that it cost al Qaeda about $500,000 to carry out the attacks of September 11, 2001, an amount that he said paled in comparison with the costs incurred by the United States.

"Every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million dollars, by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs," he said. "As for the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.

"It all shows that the real loser is you," bin Laden said. "It is the American people and their economy.""It all shows that the real loser is you," bin Laden said. "It is the American people and their economy."

The total U.S. national debt, now over $14 trillion, was more than $7 trillion in 2004. The U.S. federal deficit in 2010 was almost four times as much as it was in 2004. Our unemployment rate rose from 5.4% in October 2004 to 9.2% today.

Now, Osama bin Laden is gone. Good riddance. But his legacy lives on. For our national leaders are now embroiled in a battle over whether to raise the national debt limit, to accommodate the hemorrhage of red ink of the past decade, or dive into the untested waters of default.

Most economists agree that the ramifications of default are catastrophic. An unprecedented downgrade of the nation's creditworthiness could send shock waves through markets around the world, raise interest rates and fuel inflation at home, and gut the struggling economic recovery.

It is no longer a question of how the crisis will be averted. Whether spending will be cut, Social Security or Medicare are trimmed, or taxes are raised, the common denominator is that the debt limit must be raised. Everyone wants their pet preference pampered. Everyone wants to be able to crow to their constituents that they solved the problem. That's great re-election fodder. But it's selfish, and doesn't help the common good.

Those who push us to the precipice are in fact fulfilling the prophecy of Osama bin Laden. He and his minions would love nothing more than to see our economic collapse. For that, the stage has been set. While bin Laden is not entitled to all the credit - we injured ourselves by allowing the mortgage industry to run unchecked - we spent billions on an unnecessary war in Iraq and are achieving limited success in Afghanistan chasing the Taliban.

The President is ready to strike a deal to extend the debt ceiling. As he said in his press conference on July 22, he's been left at the altar more than once. However, Republican negotiators have repeatedly walked away from the table, failing to reach an accord to avert this calamity, always coming up with an excuse as to why they cannot say yes and follow through on a commitment.

Nobody ever gets everything they want in a negotiated settlement. Everyone must give in order to reach a deal. But some extremists on the right have taken rigid pledges that they'll vote for no new taxes - a pledge that sounds great, but in reality is naive. It ties their hands and prevents them from having the necessary flexibility to deal with the facts before them. There is no single solution; what's needed is a balanced approach to stem the tide, and some are too bound to dogma to be of any help. There will always be time to revisit those issues. But here and now, we need to avert this crisis and extend the debt ceiling.

By their actions, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan and their Tea Party compatriots do nothing less than give aid and comfort to al-Qaeda. As each minute slips by, as the August 2 deadline draws near, al-Qaeda's remaining leaders keep their fingers crossed that their unwitting allies, the Republicans, will stand their ground and bring America to its knees.

Let's hope sanity will prevail. Heaven help us all if it does not.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Something To Consider: A Front Range Bypass

Heavy rains in the Midwest this spring have pumped historic volumes of water down the Mississippi River, headed for the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. Corps of Engineers in May opened floodgates into Louisiana's Morganza Spillway for the first time since 1973 to prevent flooding in New Orleans and other riverside cities.

Now, folks in the Missouri River basin, where the Dakotas, Iowa, Nebraska and other states are either under water or bracing for flooding from record rains and melting snow in the northern Rocky Mountains. The Corps is urging people living along the river to once again make evacuation plans.

It's a dance that's been repeated for centuries. But, as cities grow along their banks, the consequences grow as well. Everyone wants a view of the water, just not in their living rooms.

Much of the problem is not with the Mississippi River itself, but with her tributaries. They cannot discharge their regular flows into the Mississippi because the water level of the Mississippi is so high, so streams back up into urban neighborhoods and overflow their banks.

Meanwhile, western Oklahoma and Texas continues to suffer from drought and fire danger. Is there a way to bring balance to this natural imbalance?

The Mississippi River is the world's third-largest watershed, funneling runoff from 41% of the nation's land area from the Continental Divide to the Appalachian Mountains. The Corps has spent decades trying to understand it, and speculating on what combination of factors would create the greatest calamity downstream. As levees are built, and rivers (including the North Canadian River through Oklahoma City) are channelized and developed, the Corps' challenge is constantly changing. Add global warming and amazing climate fluctuations, and the best-made plans of these engineers are questioned and reviewed.

Three-fourths of the basin's land area is between the Mississippi and the Continental Divide. The Great Plains have fed the nation, and the water to grow those crops in the semi-arid plains has often come from water wells tapping the Ogallala Aquifer, one of the largest underground water sources in the world.

Runoff from the Rocky Mountains either flows above ground, to the Mississippi, or below ground into the Ogallala Aquifer. It's essentially a massive lake ranging from a few feet to more than a thousand feet deep, depending on the depth of the ancient surface below. As the Rocky Mountains eroded, sediment washed into the ancient lakebed to the east, filling in the valleys with more porous material burying the water. We have mined, in effect, over 250 million acre-feet of water from the Ogallala in less than two centuries. At the rate we're going, some estimates indicate it will dry up in the next couple of decades.

The U.S. Geological Survey reports that about 27% of the irrigated land in the United States lies over the aquifer, which yields about 30% of the nation's ground water used for irrigation. The aquifer also provides drinking water to 82% of the people who live above it. When you fly from Oklahoma City to Denver, you can see round circles of green; those are fields watered by center-pivot irrigation wells tapping into the Ogallala.

So, is there a way to detour floodwaters bound for the mighty Mississippi, and store that precious liquid in the Ogallala?

The Rocky Mountains, of course, form a spine running from Canada into Mexico; rainfall on the east side of the Continental Divide flows toward the Mississippi, through rivers like the Missouri, the Arkansas, the Canadian and the Red. The terrain gradually slopes from Denver, a mile above sea level, toward the Mississippi. If you look at a topographic map, the gradient lines run evenly from north to south. Lubbock in the south at 3,241 feet is as high above sea level as Rapid City, some 850 miles to the north.

So what would happen if we did what our grandfathers used to do, but on a grander scale, and terrace the Great Plains? What if we carved a huge trench, running 1,200 miles from South Dakota's Black Hills down to the Pecos River in Texas, which flows into the Rio Grande? Through a series of gates, water flow could be controlled and diverted into the myriad of rivers that cross the Great Plains, including the North and South Canadian, the Arkansas and the Red that flow through Oklahoma. With smart engineering, excess water flow from the Rockies can be redirected into drier territory, bringing new life to the western Great Plains and providing a source of replenishment for the Ogallala.

What's neat about this concept is that forecasters have considerable lead time in which to act. If the Rockies receive above-average snowfall, engineers can detour some of the melting snow in the spring so the east-bound rivers can maintain an appropriate flow of water. Or, if North Dakota is hit with heavy rains causing flash flooding, water flowing into the Platte River in South Dakota can be reduced so that, by the time the two meet around Omaha, flooding can be minimized from that point downstream.

Such a huge venture wouldn't be impossible. The Suez Canal and the Panama Canal were massive engineering projects over relatively short distances. The California Aqueduct which waters southern California is over 700 miles long, pumping water over numerous mountain ranges. They're all much more sophisticated than this overflow canal would need to be.

Instead, think of China's Grand Canal. It was begun over 1400 years ago to transport grain to Beijing and control flooding. Instead of flowing downhill, it connects five river systems parallel to the coastline, with an elevation change of about 100 feet over its 1,115 mile length.

At the north end, the American canal could begin in the natural basin created between the Black Hills of South Dakota and the Laramie Mountains of Wyoming, along the North Platte River. At the south end in Texas, the canal could feed into the Colorado River or Pecos River, both of which are important water supplies for both agriculture and urban centers in south Texas.

One of the beneficiaries would be the 48,000-acre Lugert-Altus Irrigation District in southwestern Oklahoma. Begun during World War II, the project includes more than 300 miles of concrete canals that bring water from Lake Altus-Lugert to cotton, peanut and alfalfa farmers in the region, as well as municipal water for Altus. During times of drought, the lake level drops so low that visitors can see the foundations of buildings of the old town of Lugert in the lakebed.

Usually the lake builds up water reserves through July 4, which begins the irrigation season in the region. But western Oklahoma's drought is taking its toll; as of May 11, the lake was less than 48% full, 20% below where it was this time a year ago. It could be argued that some of the water that could be filling Lake Altus-Lugert is flooding homes and farms in Memphis at this very moment.

The canal wouldn't be intended to carry freight; it wouldn't become a noodle of a lake, either. The main purposes would be to move water north and south when the need is greatest, and to recharge the Ogallala Aquifer whenever possible.

The cost? I have no idea. But it would be less than the cost of the damage being done along the Mississippi River today. It would bring new life to the western Great Plains, which would stimulate economic productivity. And, it would employ a lot of people who need jobs as we struggle to recover from this recession.

Smarter people can come up with the details. But it's a project worth considering.

Friday, April 29, 2011

Sally Kern's Rant

Controversial State Representative Sally Kern has done it again. This time she's disparaged African Americans and, incredibly, even women, of which she is one. In particular, she asserted that women don't work very hard because their minds are on their children and their families (as if men's minds are not) and that "people of color" are lazy and don't work hard. (No mention was made as to whether people who are not "of color" are sometimes lazy as well, as if only African Americans bear that inherent trait.)

Some have called for her resignation, or at least a reprimand from her peers and supporters. Neither is likely; indeed, as Senate Minority Leader Andrew Rice said, "I know of no instance in which a fellow Republican has ever condemned her."

Rep. Kern has a habit of speaking her mind. She drew nationwide attention when she said, a few years ago, that gays pose a bigger threat to America than al Qaeda. This time, instead of a conservative Republican forum, she spoke on the floor of the Oklahoma House of Representatives.

I don't think Mrs. Kern should be vilified for expressing her opinion. She is, after all, entitled to it. In a nation that cherishes freedom of speech, we should make sure she has every opportunity to speak her mind. Let everyone clearly know how she thinks, what she believes, and why she votes the way she does.

And let the Republicans, who control the House, the Senate and the Governor's Office, stand behind her. Let it be clear that she is one of them, a spokesperson for their cause.

Then let the voters reject such nonsense on Election Day.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Google: Welcome to Oklahoma!

Google continues to invest in innovative sources of alternative energy, and that brings the California cash machine all the way to Oklahoma.

Through its subsidiary Google Energy LLC, the search engine giant recently announced a deal to buy electricity from an Oklahoma wind farm to power its new data center near Pryor. The $600 million facility is one of four developed by Google in the past four years. It's located on the 9,000 acre Mid-America Industrial Park, the largest rural industrial complex in the nation, and is expected to open later this year.

Google's electricity doesn't actually go directly from the wind generators to their data center, 180 miles away. But the electricity enters the grid and effectively substitutes a megawatt of electricity for every megawatt of power it draws down for its data center in Pryor. The result is a "greening" of Oklahoma's power grid and another move away from carbon-based energy sources for Oklahoma's economy.

Florida-based NextEra Energy Resources is developing the 100.8 megawatt wind farm near Minco, between Oklahoma City and Lawton. NextEra has the largest collection of wind farms in North America, generating 8.3 gigawatts of power. They already have more than 300 wind turbines in this state, enough to power over 137,000 average homes. But this 20-year contract with Google will keep energy flowing toward Google's servers, which draw huge quantities of power.

Google operates over one million servers in data centers around the world, and process over a billion search requests every day. IT and telecommunications facilities like Google's account for about 120 billion kilowatt hours of electricity a year, about 3% of all U.S. electricity use, according to the Energy Department. The current rapid growth in this industry would require the construction of two new large power plans a year just to keep pace - or alternative investments like wind power. (Google is also installing solar panels in California to provide up to 1.6 megawatts of electricity, enough to meet 30% of the energy requirements of their California corporate headquarters.)

The Grand River Dam Authority (GRDA), which powers Mid-America, has total production capacity of about $1,728 megawatts. Because over half of GRDA's power comes from hydroelectric and natural gas powered facilities, it is able to keep its cost per kWh down to $.0528 for industrial users (2009 figures). The average cost in the United States is 62% higher, and that was clearly a factor in attracting electricity-guzzling Google to the plains of Pryor. (Right to work, by the way, had nothing to do with it.)

Google is clearly sensitive to criticism from environmentalists about the amount of energy it consumes. Besides receiving sales tax and property tax incentives from state and local governments, Google persuaded the Oklahoma legislature to pass a law allowing municipal power companies to not report the power usage of their largest industrial customers. As a result, the local utility in Pryor doesn't have to disclose the amount of Google's energy usage. Now, Google has the additional argument that it is offsetting their massive power consumption with green energy. That lack of transparency may not reflect well on the company that has done so much to make information readily available to all.

This is the second such investment for Google Energy. Last year they invested $38.8 million in two NextEra wind farms worth 169.5 megawatts in North Dakota, buying a 20% stake in the project. They also bought 100 megawatts of Iowa wind energy from NextEra on a 20 year contract, near their Council Bluffs data center. Google Energy is also an investor in a project to build the Atlantic Wind Connection, an underwater cable network off the Atlantic coast designed to connect future offshore wind farms with on-shore transmission grids.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) now has authorized Google to buy and sell electricity on the wholesale market. Although Goggle expects to primarily power their own facilities, hundreds of large industrial consumers like Alcoa and Walmart have similar market-based rate authority.

All this reminds me of how the railroad barons in the 19th century fueled expansion across the United States. Cornelius Vanderbilt made a fortune in steamship lines, beginning with a ferry service between Staten Island and Manhattan when he was 16. By 1864 he'd sold all his steamships and concentrated on railroads. At the time of his death he was worth the equivalent of about $150 billion in today's currency. He and his competitors, folks like Jay Gould, invested millions in expansion of the railroads. Although ruthless business characters (and I'm not implying that the folks at Google share the same personality shortcomings), these capitalists made it possible for westward expansion to succeed. And, while the federal government helps by creating incentives, the dollars come from private hands.

The point is, somebody has to be on the front line, making the investments to bring down the cost of doing business. What Vanderbilt did with railroads in the 1800s, Samuel Morse did with the telegraph, AT&T did with telephones, and Bill Gates and Steve Jobs did with computers, now Google is doing for alternative energy. It's a critical step in the transition from carbon-based fuels to renewable energy. With lots of wind energy, Oklahoma's in a great position to benefit from the extra jobs and spending in the local economy.

Welcome, Google! And welcome, Oklahoma, a step closer to the 21st century!