The Environment

Nebfanatic said:
Not all like that
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I worked in the hog industry and was in and out of hog confinements all over the state of Iowa.  I was in small mom and pop buildings all the way to the largest commercial units.  I helped advise producers on production issues, nutrition and ventilation systems.

Not once did I have to use a respirator to go into the building and the hogs aren't standing around eating each other.

 
BigRedBuster said:
Just to be clear....I'm hoping you over exaggerated this to make a point and realize hog confinements are not like that.
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Not really.  Just thinking of examples off the top of my head.  My wife's family owns two fairly recently built confinements, and I have worked in them.

The older confinements have issues with leaky manure containment from lagoons or the concrete basins.  The new ones are better, but it's definitely something that needs oversight and regulation IMO.  The ubiquitous hog confinements and cattle feed lots in Iowa are one of the biggest causes of surface water pollution and nitrification.

If you work in a hog confinement too long without a respirator, you can have some serious health problems from the strong ammonia fumes.  How would you like to be one of the pigs that live in there permanently?  It would suck.

As to the cannibalizing, some hog farmers simply assume that pigs are just "like that", but animals do funny things when they are held in confined spaces along with hundreds of others, with nothing to do but chew each other's tails off.  Once they get a taste for flesh, any pig that is vulnerable (sick, leg trapped, etc.) will get eaten alive.  Pigs are intelligent animals.  When intelligent animals get bored, they do weird stuff.  Like primates in zoos throwing poop.  You think they do that in the wild?

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not a PETA-pocket or Vegan.  I like meat, and I have a great respect for animal husbandry.  I know lots of farmers and ranchers that love and respect the animals they are charged with, and care about minimizing their suffering.  I just think that the industrialization of meat production has come at a great cost.  It has dehumanized the tradition of animal husbandry.

You are a religious man, BRB.  The bible tells us that plants and animals were created by God for humans use.  To me, that means we should respect that gift, and not exploit or destroy natural resources wantonly.  Also, Jesus was the "good shepherd" who would give his life to protect his sheep.  Just the way I look at it.  If we eat meat, we have to be OK with animals being killed for that purpose.  We don't have to make their lives hellish in the process, though.

 
BigRedBuster said:
I worked in the hog industry and was in and out of hog confinements all over the state of Iowa.  I was in small mom and pop buildings all the way to the largest commercial units.  I helped advise producers on production issues, nutrition and ventilation systems.

Not once did I have to use a respirator to go into the building and the hogs aren't standing around eating each other.
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I'm sure the older lagoon-based ones are possibly less ammonia-filled, but my in-laws wouldn't go into their confinements without a respirator.  There are plenty of old miners that prided themselves about not wearing masks.  Lots of them die of respiratory illness.  Plenty of farmers brag about not having to wear gloves when mixing chemicals.  chronic exposure to round-up isn't something to take lightly, IMO.

 
Kiyoat Husker said:
"The move to open America’s coastal waters to drilling is the latest in a series of efforts to reverse restrictions on energy production. The Interior Department has also repealed offshore drilling safety regulations that were put in place after the Deepwater Horizon disaster."
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BigRedBuster said:
That part I can agree on as long as it's reasonable regulation. 
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So how to you feel about repealing offshore drilling safety regulations?  I realize that we don't know the details, but the Deepwater Horizon spill damaged not only the gulf ecosystem, but many, many industries that depend on it, like fishing, tourism, etc.  Not to mention just local people that love the gulf, call it home, and don't want it polluted.

 
Kiyoat Husker said:
So how to you feel about repealing offshore drilling safety regulations?  I realize that we don't know the details, but the Deepwater Horizon spill damaged not only the gulf ecosystem, but many, many industries that depend on it, like fishing, tourism, etc.  Not to mention just local people that love the gulf, call it home, and don't want it polluted.
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I am not going to say I'm against these regulations.  I have not enough knowledge of the industry and what regulations were put in place to make an educated decision.

I will say this, I have absolutely no confidence in this administration and the people dealing with this under the administration that they have put in place to be educated on the subject and make a wise decision either.

It's like the banking industry where I have banker friends who b!^@h and complain about all the banking regulations that have been put in place the last 5-10 years.  I have to tell them, I don't feel one bit sorry for them because THEIR industry is the ones who crapped the bed and totally failed America in creating the crisis we went through.

Now, as usual, we go through something as bad as we went through from 2007 to 2010 and what happens is some form of regulation gets put in place and many times it's way more than what is needed.

So, in the case of off shore oil drilling and banking, I am all for tweaking and adjusting regulations.  I'm not going to say right now that I'm in love with the idea of getting rid of all of them just because Obama put them in place.

 
I don't see a topic on energy, so I'll put this here:

Lazard released their annual levelized cost of energy for 2017 (looks like it was released back in Nov. but I missed it then). Highlights:

  • Renewables like solar and wind continue to decline in cost and energy storage is declining in cost rapidly.
  • Coal and nuclear continue to be dominated (best coal and nuclear costs are higher than worst costs of other sources) by solar, wind, and combined cycle gas, and the gap is widening.
  • Both gas and diesel peaker plants are now mostly more costly globally than renewables with energy storage, and diesel is completely dominated by renewables everywhere except India.
  • Replacement of conventional peakers with renewables and energy storage means better economies of scale, which will drive down energy storage costs. (Renewables with energy storage predicted to be lowest cost energy source within a decade in most places.)
Here's a graph that gives a good idea of how the costs have been trending:

final-chart-2.jpg


P.S. These are all LCOE for unsubsidized renewables but with some subsidies for conventional (where the subsidies could not be estimated accurately, such as for coal and nuclear). Subsidized renewable costs are in the full report at the link above.

 
So this is neat.


The Trump administration is waiving dozens of environmental regulations to speed up construction of President Trump’s proposed wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a notice published in the Federal Register Monday that she was waiving the rules to accelerate construction on part of the wall in New Mexico.

The waiver excludes rules from major laws including the National Environment Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the National Historic Preservation Act and the Antiquities Act, among others. The notice claims that the “El Paso Sector is an area of high illegal entry,” citing its proximity to the city of Ciudad of Juarez, and will allow for vehicle barriers to be replaced with bollard wall for 20 miles on the border.
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