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by April McGreger

Why can’t a revolution based on traditional Appalachian foodways be televised?Photo: April McGreger

Having watched the first three episodes, I’ve been thinking a lot
about Jamie Oliver’s “Food Revolution” TV Show. Who can argue with his efforts to
get fresh food into West Virginia’s schools? No doubt, the pantries and
fridges in most school cafeterias need to be purged and restocked.

However,
from what I can tell so far, our imported food revolutionary could
stand to slow down and think a little bit harder about what he’s up to.

First,
Oliver has demonstrated little knowledge of (or interest in) the
traditional food culture of the region whose people he has set out to
“save.” Over the decades, Southern Appalachians have been plagued by
many well meaning do-gooders who wanted to teach those poor, underprivileged folks how to act more civilized—and eat better. Problem is, time and again, those reformers proved to be wrong.

According to the scholar and Appalachian native Elizabeth Engelhardt, for example, public health officials in the early 20th century targeted cornbread as the latest source of diet-based diseases in the South. Activists set out to create a social revolution in Appalachia by switching mountain women from cornbread to beaten biscuits, the symbol of aristocratic Southern cooking, for which their efforts were sardonically christened the “Beaten Biscuit Crusade.”

These biscuits required prohibitively expensive wheat flour, elaborate middle-class equipment—including a marble slab and modern ovens—and much more labor and time than their common cornbread. Beaten biscuits became an aspirational dish, separating the privileged from the poor and—-following now discredited public-heath logic—the healthy from the unhealthy.

On the contrary, replacing whole-grain, freshly milled cornmeal with chemically bleached, nutrient-stripped, shelf-stable industrial flour proved nothing but detrimental to Appalachian health. You need only watch Appalshop’s 1977 documentary Waterground, about fifth-generation miller Walter Winebarger, to know that traditional wisdom foresaw this sad outcome.

Cornbread is just one of a long list of other traditional foods that were replaced with inferior industrial ones—many of which succeeded through propaganda campaigns. Lard from pastured hogs was demonized (largely by nutritionists funded by the vegetable oil industry) and replaced by now-maligned partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening, touted for its “purity.” Fresh-churned butter gave way to another trans-fat bomb, margarine. Much-beloved, live-cultured, and naturally low-fat buttermilk was banished in favor of inert, homogenized, pasteurized, growth hormone-injected, high-fat milk. Wholesome beans, greens, and cornbread gave way to sad casseroles based on canned soup and highly processed “cheese food.”

Overall, I worry that Oliver’s “Food Revolution” show obscures the fact that our food crisis is a symptom of underlying structural problems. In Appalachia, the government watched idly while the coal industry grabbed control of the region’s abundant natural resources. Widespread erosion of topsoil, contamination of drinking water, devastation of forests, and gut-wrenching destruction of the world’s oldest mountain range has resulted. The area remains in dire need of environmental protection. Is it any wonder why its economy is in ruins and the people in Huntington, West Virginia, are the unhealthiest in the country, as Oliver repeatedly reminds us?

Then there’s the workers’ rights crisis. Since stagnant wages compelled many women to leave the household and go to work a generation ago, who is supposed to make the from-scratch meals Oliver talks about? Many working mothers are on the clock until 5 or 6 o’clock. Add to that a long commute that many families endure to find jobs, and there is just no way. The system is unsustainable. Long hours at sedentary jobs with fast-food lunches produce unhealthy parents who then produce unhealthy children.

Moreover, the outrageous school district nutrition guidelines that Oliver struggles with are just one of a whole host of government policies that prop up the industrial food system that supplies most school cafeterias.

Our food system’s problems run deep—and the solutions won’t come easy.  However, we can begin by recognizing, celebrating, and supporting wholesome, traditional foodways. They hang on despite being ground down by industrialization. Here, we find much-needed common ground between two often opposed groups—the liberal outsider and the mountain old-timer.  This partnership could provide the fire for a real, lasting food revolution—one that heals Appalachian people, Appalachian economies, and Appalachian environments.   

In that spirit, here are a couple of recipes meant to fuel a food revolution while celebrating mountain food culture, clean and healthy environments, and glorious spring!

(Next page: Recipe for Spring Vegetable Cornbread ).

That good home cooking.Photo: April McGregerSpring Vegetable Cornbread
This recipe is my effort to reinvent a family favorite recipe for broccoli cornbread. Broccoli cornbread might sound healthy, but it’s not. The original recipe calls for a very sweet cornbread mix heavy on preservatives and trans fats, and light on nutrition. It also calls for a full two sticks of butter, or—worse—margarine. In my version, I’ve slashed the amount of butter, tripled the amount of vegetables, and relied on traditional, stone-ground ,organic cornmeal instead of a commercial mix. This recipe is still a cinch to pull together and the resulting dish exceptionally moist and chocked full of naturally sweet vegetables that kids love.

It takes less than 10 minutes to prep and 20 minutes to cook. I know that finding lots of fresh vegetables in rural areas can be difficult, so I’ve even tried this with a variety of frozen vegetables. It works great, and frozen are definitely the better nutritional alternative to canned (unless they are home canned). This recipe is also endlessly adaptable—try a summer vegetable cornbread bake with fresh corn, green beans, peppers, and tomatoes. It works just as well as a side dish as it does a main course.

5 cups mixed spring vegetables, cut into bite size pieces (frozen vegetables are fine and you can even use the microwave to steam them .if it’s more convenient). I used asparagus, leeks, snap peas, and broccoli in about equal amounts.
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
2 cups stone ground organic cornmeal
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
4 eggs
1 Tablespoon honey
2 cups cottage cheese (I used 2%)
6 Tablespoons unsalted butter (you can substitute olive oil if you prefer)

Preheat oven 400 degrees F.

Cut fresh vegetables into bite size pieces and steam until just tender. Frozen vegetables can simply be defrosted. Sprinkle with ½ teaspoon salt and ½ teaspoon black pepper and set aside.

In a 9-by-13 inch baking dish, place the 6 Tablespoons butter and place in the oven to melt.

In a mixing bowl whisk together cornmeal, 1 ½ teaspoons salt, and 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

To the cornmeal mixture whisk in four eggs, cottage cheese, and 1 tablespoon honey. Fold in the steamed vegetables.

Remove the baking dish of melted butter from the oven. Pour about ½ of the butter into the cornbread batter and whisk to combine. Then pour the batter into the baking dish with the rest of the melted butter and use a spatula to spread the batter evenly.

Bake at 400 degrees F for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the dish comes out clean.

Next page: Appalachian-style Wilted Salad

Appalachian-style Wilted Salad
This salad is very similar to the classic French salad of frisee aux lardons with a poached egg. However, this version is straight out of Appalachia. Traditionally the salad would include foraged spring greens, like dandelions and lamb’s quarters, as well as wild ramps. It’s just what the body needs to awaken it from winter’s slumber.

Makes 4 side salad servings

1/2 pound young spring lettuces
1 spring onion or ramp, sliced thinly
2 slices thick cut or slab bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
3 tablespoons apple-cider vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
1 hard-boiled egg, chopped
Salt and ground black pepper

Wash lettuce and spin is a salad spinner until very dry. Place in a serving bowl with the spring onions.

Cook bacon in over medium heat until crisp. Transfer with a slotted spoon and to drain on paper towels. Hold bacon drippings warm in the pan over low heat.

Stir the vinegar and honey into the bacon drippings. Increase the heat to medium and cook the mixture until it is just bubbles.

Pour the hot dressing immediately over the lettuce and onions, tossing to coat and wilt the greens just slightly. Season with salt and pepper, top with chopped boiled egg, and serve immediately. 

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In an effort to make its new Ford Transit Connect more appealing to small business owners, FoMoCo will launch a new Web site next week for owners to design and order wraps for their work vans. The cost for the wraps will start as little as $100 for something simple to $3,500 for a complete Transit wraparound.

The site, www.fordtransitconnectgraphics.com, was developed by Ford’s partner in the program, Original Wraps Inc. It offers limitless options to customers so they can create just about any look for their Transit Connect; however, the site does warn against using copyrighted or obscene images.

“There may be no bigger investment a business owner makes than a first impression,” Len Deluca, director of Ford commercial vehicles, said in a statement. “This Web site provides a great way for a business owner to try out a look before making that investment.”

We’ll have more details next week. You can check out the site here for now.

2010 Ford Transit Connect:

– By: Kap Shah

Source: Detroit News

The troubles of Sen. John Ensign have finally dawned on Republican leaders in Nevada. They realize that having a corrupt, indicted leader at a time when they’re trying to take down the state’s Democratic Senator with candidates who have embraced that same indicted figure would be devastating. So gradually, they’re backing away from Ensign.

Rep. Dean Heller kicked off what looked to be a coordinated effort today.

U.S. Rep. Dean Heller stopped short of calling for U.S. Sen. John Ensign’s resignation, but he said Wednesday his fellow Republican’s ethical woes are dragging him down and could end up harming the state’s GOP candidates in the fall.

“The fact we have a wounded junior senator, yeah, it is cause for concern,” Heller said.

“Will it have impact up and down the ticket for Republicans this fall? I think there is the potential for that happening,” he said on KRNV-TV’s “Nevada Newsmakers.”

Heller went so far as to say that he thought a “stronger voice” was needed in Washington, and that he declined to challenge Harry Reid because he feared the Ensign fallout would bring him down.

Similarly, two former Clark County GOP officials openly called for Ensign’s resignation. Clark County includes Las Vegas and the majority of the population of Nevada.

We are on the verge of great victory come November, but the most long awaited victory can quickly slip through our grasp unless we immediately put the focus back on conservative issues. We call on all true conservative Republican leaders and activists to speak out now for the resignation of Senator Ensign.

There is no uprising by Republicans to fight the barrage of anti-Ensign media. Nobody is coming to his rescue. Only a small handful of Republican candidates have even sought his endorsement.

Nor are the elected Republican leaders in Washington throwing any lifeline to Senator Ensign. While they are not publicly calling for his resignation, they are not supporting Ensign either. Let’s all stop ignoring the problem. The only way the Ensign-problem for the GOP will go away is if enough of us call for his resignation.

I suspect this will only get louder in subsequent days. The Nevada GOP is in serious self-preservation mode. This has less to do with Ensign’s conduct, which is deplorable, and more to do with the threat to victory in November. For that reason alone, Ensign may actually be held accountable for his conduct, a rare thing in the GOP.

…Atrios is absolutely right, it’s downright bizarre that nobody in the media seems to care about the Ensign scandal.

 

San Francisco’s innovative “Pavement to Parks” program, which reclaims unused stretches of streets and turns them into public plazas and parks, is expanding with the addition of more sites. There are currently four new plazas across the city, with four more in the works. According to the project, streets and public rights-of-way make up 25 percent of the city’s land area, more than all space alloted towards public parks. “Many of our streets are excessively wide and contain large zones of wasted space, especially at intersections.” For San Francisco, unused streets presents an opportunity to generate new public space at relatively low cost.

San Francisco was inspired by New York City’s efforts to turn streets into pedestrian plazas. In New York City, excess roadway has been transformed into plazas and seating areas “simply by painting or treating the asphalt, placing protective barriers along the periphery, and installing moveable tables and chairs,” writes Pavement to Parks. There’s also the new Times Square pedestrian plaza, which was recently made permanent (see earlier post).

It’s not clear whether each Pavement to Parks project will seek permanence like NYC’s Times Square. San Francisco’s new public spaces were initially designed to test the “potential of the selected location to be permanently reclaimed as public open space.” Given the low-cost nature of the materials and relatively simple designs, the new plazas can be left in place of picked up and plugged in elsewhere in the city. 

Pavement to Parks says the locations are selected based on a set of criteria:

• Sizeable area of under-utilized roadway
• Lack of public space in the surrounding neighborhood
• Pre-existing community support for public space at the location
• Potential to improve pedestrian and bicyclist safety via redesign
• Surrounding uses that can attract people to the space
• Identified community or business steward

Some of the new spaces are also not exactly public plazas, but a new configuration called a “parklet.” As an example, the new 22nd Street Parklet will feature a “creative use of a parking lane”, where sidewalks are narrow and pedestrian activity high. “This pilot application will explore the idea of modularity, allowing for a ‘kit of parts’ to be developed for possible future installations.”

Learn more about the program and see images of recent projects.

Image credit: Good Magazine

Our cat-licking-(insert non-feline species name here) video kick continues Thursday with Ava, a rescued cat who’s good pals with Nibbles, a Dutch rabbit.

According to the pair’s owner, YouTube user bluetree3000, the little nips Ava makes are nothing more than "love bites," and in "bunny body language Ava’s grooming acknowledges that Nibbles is the alpha bunny."

We like Ava already, but her story gets better: She’s a rescue who was found with a swollen abdomen. A veterinary exam showed that Ava’s swelling was the result of a gunshot wound; a bullet had become embedded in her body and caused a hernia to develop. Fortunately, Ava "had surgery to repair the hernia and is the sweetest cat we’ve ever known despite her horrible ordeal," bluetree says. Now that’s a success story we can appreciate!

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— Lindsay Barnett

Video: bluetree3000 via YouTube

As a communications person, sometimes it’s hard to feel directly connected to EPA’s mission. How does editing a speech help protect human health and the environment? I’m not a scientist assessing monitoring data or an enforcement officer…enforcing things. I write about what they do.

Recently, though, I had an opportunity to get a little more involved by helping create an online discussion forum to get insights from the public on some of the biggest problems facing our nation’s water resources. We debuted Coming Together for Clean Water (in mid-March and took public comments on watershed management, nutrient pollution, and stormwater management for two weeks so that we could get broad input on these topics in advance of EPA’s upcoming conference of the same title. The conference will convene about 100 executive-level leaders from across the water sector to discuss these three topics. The comments from the online forum will be shared with conference participants.

We received hundreds of thoughtful, detailed comments from people involved in all aspects of the water sector—state environment officials, engineers, advocates, and interested citizens. A lot of participants seemed to want to harness the momentum of the environmental movement by ramping up outreach efforts. By making people feel ownership of their watersheds, rivers, and lakes, we can help them become partners in caring for these resources.

Moderating the comments and watching the conversation grow on this forum (or being the “blog mama,” as I called it) was a great experience. Reading so many great suggestions for addressing water pollution, frustrations about what’s not working, and success stories made me realize that EPA is not in the environmental fight alone—we’ve got lots of willing partners from all walks of life, and they are eager to share their experiences.

About the author: Jennah Durant works on the Office of Water communications team. This blog is part of an ongoing series about the EPA’s efforts toward the Open Government Directive that lays out the Obama Administration’s commitment to Open Government and the principles of transparency, participation and collaboration.

New York-based online video management company whistleBox has developed a new browser-based augmented reality (AR) experience geared directly at children by integrating it with the one thing every kid loves: cartoons. The project, dubbed Do Crew, is a series of animated stories for kids that include interactive AR games and challenges that the kids can play with using a webcam attached to a desktop or laptop computer.

Sponsor

In examples shown in videos on the Do Crew site, kids can control cartoon vehicles by jumping or leaning side-to-side, and can play other games by waving their hands in front of the camera. Think Project Natal but in a web browser, and integrated within kids’ cartoons. This is an excellent use of augmented reality technology because it is a practical application with genuine value, an attribute we discussed last week as being the strongest way AR can break into the mainstream.

Best of all, with games like these, kids will no longer be passively glued to their sofas as this new AR project encourages the kids of stand and use their body and arms to control the games. The Do Crew developers state that their mission with the game is help combat the growing epidemic of child obesity.

“Children will not stop watching television, and parents will not stop feeling guilt about that fact. So, where does that leave us? It leaves us with a rare opportunity to acknowledge this epidemic and treat it at the most basic level,” the site says. “The Do Crew team is dedicated to making all passive media active, and we believe that with a little technology and imagination we can reimage the personal computer or console video game system as effective electronic exercise equipment.”

Going after the children’s entertainment market could also be a boon for the augmented reality industry which has yet to find the public spotlight. Time Magazine named AR as one of the top tech trends to watch in 2010, and by engaging children, AR may be able to make significant strides towards mass public adoption and acception.

Actually, AR experiences aimed at kids are not a new concept; a LEGO Store installation that helped kids see 3D reprensentations of model kits right on their boxes, and a web-based Topps baseball card experience that made the players on the cards come alive in 3D are two of the most well known AR roll-outs to date. New projects like Do Crew are not only great for kids, but also for AR as a whole as it strives to gain credibility and traction with as wide an audience as possible.

Discuss

Looks like the Samsung Moment may be joining the ranks of Android 2.1 soon. The official OTA has been leaked earlier today. Not one but two versions of the update have been leaked over at the SDX developer’s site.

The two versions are ECLAIR.DC23 and ECLAIR.DD03. Most users are saying ECLAIR.DD03 is the better of the two. Although, some users are reporting issues with the market other than that it seems pretty stable a solid. So, if you don’t mind wiping your phone or potentially bricking, head over to the SDX and give it a go.

Filed under: Performance, Hatchback, Vauxhall, UK

Vauxhall wants to shed inventory of its old Astra bodystyle and it’s using the go-to tactic of a limited special edition to do it. There will be just 500 VXR Arctic Editions will get your polar needles spinning, and the extras above and beyond the VXR trim includes a black roof, mirror housings, window tints and fascia pieces, heated leather Recaros and 19-inch alloys.

The 240-horsepower VXR Arctic starts at £23,595 ($36,019 U.S.), which is £720 ($1,099 U.S.) more than a basic VXR, but throws in another £1,245 ($1,900) in free goodies. If you still don’t think you’ve spent enough, you can always add the panoramic roof for another £920 ($1,404). They’re on sale now, and sure to be going… from 0-to-60 in 6.2 seconds…

[Source: Vauxhall via Parker’s]

White Out: Vauxhall VXR Arctic Edition revealed originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 08 Apr 2010 13:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Someone’s showing their ass on Twitter — and it isn’t Coco, for a change…..

E!’s First Lady of Late Night uploaded a photo of herself getting a B12 injection in her bare butt on Twitter Wednesday.

“Guess who’s getting a b12 shot for horniness?” Handler joked to her over 2 million followers.

Just days before Toyota announced its massive U.S. recall, a public relations executive at the company warned colleagues in an e-mail that the company needs to come clean about its accelerator problems. In documents obtained by The Associated Press, Irv Miller, group vice president for environment and public affairs for Toyota said: “We need to come clean” about accelerator problems. “We are not protecting our customers by keeping this quiet. The time to hide on this one is over.”

Miller, who has now retired, wrote the e-mail on Jan. 16, 2010, five days before Toyota officials went to Washington to discuss the problems with federal regulators. On Jan. 21, Toyota announced it would recall 2.3 million vehicles to address sticking pedals in six models.

“We better just hope that they can get NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) to work with us in coming (up) with a workable solution that does not put us out of business,” Miller wrote.

The e-mail was sent to Katsuhiko Koganei, executive coordinator for corporate communications for Toyota USA.

“I hate to break this to you but WE HAVE A tendency for MECHANICAL failure in accelerator pedals of a certain manufacturer on certain models,” Miller’s e-mail said.

– By: Omar Rana

Source: MSNBC

Intel’s new home tablet does more than just providing weather and video apps. Its main feature is an energy management system which can monitor your overall energy usage. It works with your local power company due to analyze energy consumed by different devices in your home. It also provides suggestions on how to lower energy consumption. It can also provide updates about government subsidies and newly developed energy saving appliances. Its interface is designed on a Windows XP back-end and the 11.2 inch OLED display is quite stylish too.

Though it is still a concept at this stage, Intel believes that such energy management systems are not far in the future and they can help in a great way by providing real-time energy usage patterns to regulate consumption.
[engadget]

When I was 9 years old I desperately wanted to be a paleontologist, but sadly, daydreams of unearthing dinosaurs led to no significant fossil finds in my backyard. So I must confess unending respect for Matthew Berger, who, at age 9, quite by accident made a stunning scientific find. In the journal Science this week, Matthew’s father paleoanthropologist Lee Berger describes the fossils of a brand-new hominid species that they turned up in South Africa: Australopithecus sediba, which dates back to between 1.78 and 1.95 million years and could offer new hints about that era of human evolution.

Matthew was chasing his dog near a site where his father had long hunted for fossils when he tripped over the find. The bones belong to a pre-teenage boy and a woman estimated to be in her late 20s or early 30s; the individuals died at about the same time, and before their remains had fully decomposed, they were entombed in an avalanche of sediment and nearly perfectly preserved deep in the Malapa cave north of Johannesburg, South Africa [TIME]. As a result, Lee Berger says, the bones are in an astonishing state for their nearly 2-million-year age.

While such a find was bound to bring out the “missing link” cliches, we don’t know for sure where Australopithecus sediba would belong on the evolutionary tree with respect to us. “There’s no compelling evidence that this newly proposed species was ancestral to Homo,” remarks Bernard Wood of George Washington University in Washington, D.C. [Science News]. These bones date to a time when the genus Australopithecus was beginning to give way to Homo, our own. The New York Times reports, however, that while Berger’s team places its find within Australopithecus, not all anthropologists are sure it can be so easily classified.

For instance, the Australopithecus sediba arms are long like an ape’s, suggesting these hominids were competent tree climbers. But the hands are smaller, like ours. The boy’s skull is small, like Australopithecus. But his nose and cheekbones more closely resemble Homo. “They are a fascinating mosaic of features,” said Rick Potts, director of the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Institution. “It reminds us of the combining and recombining of characteristics, the tinkering and experimentation, that go on in evolution” [The New York Times]. Donald Johanson, the discoverer of Lucy (which is classified under Australopithecus), praised the find but says Berger’s interpretation is way off. He think the fossil is a variety of Homo.

The debate over these bones will go on and on. But while Lee Berger reaps his kudos, there’s one person who’s not receiving due respect: Matthew. In an insult to 9-year-old scientists everywhere, Science reportedly shot down Lee Berger’s request to list his son as a co-author. But the younger Berger is still left with good stories to tell. On Aug. 15, 2008, when Matthew called his father to look at the bones he had found, Dr. Berger began cursing wildly as he neared his son. The boy mistook his father’s profanity for anger…. “I couldn’t believe it,” Dr. Berger giddily recalled. “I took the rock, and I turned it” and “sticking out of the back of the rock was a mandible with a tooth, a canine, sticking out. And I almost died,” he said, adding “What are the odds?” [The New York Times].

Related Content:
DISCOVER: Meet the Ancestors (The Hall of Human Origins exhibit review)
DISCOVER: Was Lucy a Brutal Brawler?
DISCOVER: Sunset on the Savanna
80beats: 1.5 Million Years Ago, Homo Erectus Walked a Lot Like Us
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Image: Brett Eloff

by Paul Gipe

The
Los Angeles Business Council released a hard-hitting
report on the future of solar photovoltaics in southern California at its annual sustainability summit on Tuesday.

The blockbuster report could have profound repercussions on
renewable energy policy not only in Los Angeles, but also in California. In
unusually clear and concise language, the report, written by the University of
California at Los Angeles (UCLA), cuts through the myths and misrepresentations
about feed-in tariffs and squarely concludes that if Los Angeles, and by
extension California, want to meet their renewable energy targets, there’s no
choice but to move to a system of multi-tiered feed-in tariffs.

In true Southern California fashion, the report was introduced to a glittering,
high-powered gathering at the hilltop Getty Museum overlooking the Los Angeles basin and the
gleaming towers of downtown. The L.A. Business council’s event was a
“who’s who” of influential business, community, and political leaders
from across the region, including Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, gubernatorial candidate Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown Jr., and Mary Nichols, chair of
the California Air Resources Board.

The report, “Designing an Effective Feed-in Tariff for Greater Los Angeles,”
gores several sacred cows, such as the California Solar Initiative, the federal
investment tax credit, and a so-called feed-in tariff proposed by Los Angeles’
Department of Water and Power (LADWP).

Authors J.R. DeShazo and Ryan Matulka at the Luskin Center for Innovation in
UCLA’s School of Public Affairs and the L.A. Business Council now find
themselves in the maelstrom of volatile state and local politics in an election
year.

In an ironic twist that was not lost on observers, California has not had an
effective renewable energy policy since Jerry Brown left the Governor’s office
more than two decades ago.

Some of the report’s key findings:

California’s share of worldwide solar PV is
    continuing to decline.
Driven by aggressive feed-in tariff policies, other
    jurisdictions around the world are increasing their use of solar energy,
    developing their local economies, and capturing the world’s solar market
    at a faster rate than California.
45 countries now have feed-in tariff policies.
In California at the end of 2009 the installed cost
    of solar PV varied widely from $4,630/kWAC for large industrial
    systems to $8,440/kWAC for residential systems.
Tax-based subsidies are a barrier to solar ownership
    for public and non-profit agencies.
Without federal and state subsidies, solar PV cannot
    pay for itself even in sunny Southern California with current tariffs.

But that was just a warm-up for insightful critiques of several state and
national policies that purport to support development of solar PV.

UCLA on recent California feed-in tariff policy

The
tariffs in AB 1969, the first of many so-called “feed-in tariff”
bills that have passed in California, are based on the value of the
electricity, not on the cost of generation, and, thus, are not high enough to
be effective. Solar developers have not used the “feed-in tariff” as
a result.

Similarly, AB 920, another of the “feed-in tariff” bills “will
not fundamentally change the nature of net-metering incentives” in the
state.

SB 32, the most recent of the state’s “feed-in tariff” bills, amended
the determination of “value” by including environmental and
transmission benefits. However, the UCLA report suggests that SB 32 will add
only $0.02 to $0.04 per kilowatt-hour to the price.

UCLA is quick to dismiss the California Public Utility Commission’s proposed
Renewable Auction Mechanism by noting that “in-basin solar is not likely
to win contracts under the RAM mechanism.”

UCLA on federal tax credits

The
disadvantage of federal tax credits is that owners “must owe taxes in
order to realize the benefits. Public agencies and non-profit entities cannot
directly receive this benefit. With the onset of the financial crisis, fewer
commercial entities owed enough income taxes to monetize this credit.”

UCLA on California’s RPS

“California’s
state RPS program has helped create opportunities for professional developers
to sell solar power to the utilities, but it has not significantly expanded the
opportunities for in-basin solar.”

Probably the report’s most far-reaching and certainly most controversial
conclusion is that “California’s current policies … do not maximize the
opportunities for solar energy generation within the state and the Los Angeles
basin.”

UCLA on SMUD

UCLA’s
report summarizes the much ballyhooed Sacramento Municipal Utility District’s
so-called feed-in tariff by noting simply that SMUD’s “program is not
intended to support an industry, incentivize widespread adoption of solar, or
create access to the electricity supply markets.”

UCLA on LADWP

LADWP’s
proposed feed-in tariff program is intended to procure no more than 25 MW, an
embarrassingly paltry amount for a city the size of Los Angeles that bills
itself a leader in renewable energy. Worse, says UCLA, the LADWP’s tariffs will
not even pay back a solar system’s initial cost. The tariffs must be increased
by a factor of two to four before they become attractive. In short, “this
proposal will not induce any additional in-basin solar for Los Angeles.”

UCLA concludes

“There
is a disconnection between Los Angeles’ aggressive solar goals and its
policies. Although the region maintains some of North America’s most ambitious
renewable energy and economic development goals, the current solar policy
framework does not facilitate any significant in-basin solar contribution to
these goals …

“California’s existing and proposed FIT programs are not effective for
inducing extensive in-basin solar for Los Angeles. These programs lack a
cost-based tariff structure that facilitates participation from
non-professional solar owners and owners of small projects. … Under the
near-term market conditions, neither California nor Los Angeles will experience
widespread solar participation with value-based tariffs …

” … Other FIT programs have proven that tariffs must be cost-based and
differentiated for solar participation. …

” … cost-based tariffs are the only proven tariff structure to
incentivize solar energy. However, the increased costs of the solar technology
will impact ratepayers more profoundly than other, less costly technologies.
Conversely, the cost-based tariff structure may incentivize many small solar
projects and create greater opportunities for local employment.”

The test

The test now for UCLA and the L.A. Business
Council is to design a solar PV feed-in tariff program that not only will work
in practice but also will survive California’s contentious political
environment. It will be a measure of the Business Council’s political acumen as
well as its muscle if it can move a program successfully through the fractious
city council and get it implemented by a recalcitrant LADWP.

If the Business Council fails, Los Angeles, and California too, will continue
to fall further behind other jurisdictions in renewable energy development and
the job creation it entails.

Related Links:

St. Louis votes for better transit, despite Tea Party campaign

A lesson from California’s bad ballot measure

Filling our short-term fossil-fuel needs

Bruce Bartlett adds this on the speculation about Tim Geithner and Larry Summers:

Keep in mind that one reason for creation of the NEC in the first place was to give Bob Rubin someplace nice to hang his hat while waiting for Lloyd Bentsen to move on after being given Treasury to protect Bill Clinton’s right flank. Keep in mind also that Geithner is widely viewed as being under Larry’s protection. Without that it is quite possible that Tim would be gone already, given the generally poor grades he has gotten from across the political spectrum. Finally, remember that the appointment as NEC director does not require Senate confirmation, which may be an attractive quality in this political environment.

Someone like Roger Altman, former deputy Treasury secretary, might be a good replacement for Larry and, eventually, Tim. Knowing how badly Roger would like to be Treasury secretary, I’d start packing my bags if I were Tim and Roger became my de facto White House boss.

I think Jon Corzine may also have aspirations for being Treasury secretary, but considering how badly his term as governor of New Jersey went I suspect that considerable time will need to pass before he is politically viable again.

Me: I think all this is really premature. I think Geithner’s stock has skyrocketed and will only elevate further if the economy improves the way the WH thinks/hopes it will. Roger Altman, by the way, wants a VAT, like, yesterday.  And a BIG one.

The latest in a series of extraordinary episodes emerged Thursday from Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz’s controversial lawsuit to be declared eligible run for attorney general – with the release of  hours of videotape showing Bysiewicz under questioning from the state Republican Party’s attorney, admitting that she has rarely been in a courthouse and never tried a case.

Despite that significant concession during a three-day deposition, the camera showed Bysiewicz clearly determined to yield no ground on her overall claim: that she is qualified to serve as attorney general, no matter how little legal case work she has done, for the simple reason that she has been registered as an attorney and paid her annual lawyers’ fees for 24 years.

Bysiewicz remained composed, repeatedly asked for clarification of questions and made the GOP’s lawyer, Eliot Gersten, work for her answers. The drama in the proceeding came out of several flare-ups between Bysiewicz lawyer Wesley Horton and Gersten.
“I think this is getting to the border of harassment of the witness,” Horton broke in at one point during the first day of the proceeding, March 31.

Gersten fired back: “I’m telling you, stop it … because I think you’re harassing me and interrupting me, with all respect, so stop it.”

Bysiewicz and Gersten went back and forth doggedly, but calmly, as he picked away at her contention that she meets the state eligibility statute calling for the state attorney general to have accumulated 10 years’ “active practice” of law in Connecticut.

Bysiewicz has described her job of secretary of the state as, in effect, the chief of a public-service law firm – but Gersten tried to depict her as a figurehead who relies almost completely on other lawyers – either office subordinates, or several private lawyers who support her campaign and provide free advice – for legal research and written documents to which she puts her name.   

Bysiewicz and Gersten went back and forth doggedly, but calmly, as he picked away at her contention that she meets the state eligibility statute calling for the state attorney general to have accumulated 10 years’ “active practice” of law in Connecticut.

Bysiewicz has described her job of secretary of the state as, in effect, the chief of a public-service law firm – but Gersten tried to depict her as a figurehead who relies almost completely on other lawyers – either office subordinates, or several private lawyers who support her campaign and provide free advice – for legal research and written documents to which she puts her name.       

With anti-government sentiment growing among conservatives across the country, there is worry they may refuse to take part in the 2010 census. In doing so they risk losing congressional representation, which is assigned strictly by population. It’s something Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) understands all too well. Based on the 2000 Census, Utah missed picking up an additional seat on Capitol Hill by a count of roughly 800 people. “We’ve got to fill out the forms if we want to be represented,” warns Chaffetz. He also understands why some are hesitant to take part. “I have been one of the more critical people of the census, but it is one of the things that’s outlined in the Constitution,” Chaffetz says. Though he finds the process has flaws, Chaffetz urges conservatives to take part and adds, “We can work to improve the census later.”

Census Bureau Director Robert Groves has seen the hesitation as well. “I haven’t met many people who like to fill out forms,” Groves acknowledges. He also understands that the current political climate may impact participation. “There are folks who believe that the federal government is too big, that federal spending is out of control,” Groves says. However, he warns that by opting out of the 2010 Census citizens risk losing the ability to impact who represents them on Capitol Hill and how their tax dollars are spent. Groves says the Census Bureau is a “non-partisan statistical agency” that is independent of any political use of census data. “Our job is to count everyone in the country,” Groves says.

The Census Bureau has launched broad outreach efforts to a wide range of groups, including a focus on members of the lesbian/gay/bi-sexual/transgender community. A variety of ads and testimonials urge LGBT citizens to complete their forms, even going so far as recommending that same sex couples identify themselves as married if they like. One ad states: “For the first time, same sex married couples will be counted. This includes couples who may live where their relationship is not recognized.” A number of the testimonials also talk about using the 2010 Census to help achieve the political aims of the LGBT community, by making sure they garner maximum funding for programs they are most interested in. With that in mind, conservatives who opt out may wind up losing ground on issues they care most about. “It’s critical that Republicans and conservatives participate,” Chaffetz urges.

In Slate today, I take a look at the newly unveiled fossils of a strange new hominin, Australopithecus sediba. I try to separate the hype from the significance of this long-legged, long-armed, tiny-brained beast. My conclusion: let’s not turn this into another Darwinius affair!

Check it out.

[Photo by Brett Eloff courtesy of Lee Berger and University of Witwatersrand]