Hillary Clinton: US should lead on clean energy

[DonViejo]

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday called for the U.S. to become what she called the world’s 21st-century clean energy superpower.

In remarks Thursday at the annual National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, Clinton credited northern Nevada’s selection for a $5 billion Tesla automobile battery plant to work in recent years for the state to become a leader in solar, wind and geothermal energy projects.

She also cited an expert comparing the importance of the Tesla plant to the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River.

Clinton’s speech to a standing-room crowd of more than 800 marked her return to the Las Vegas Strip hotel where a 36-year-old Phoenix woman was arrested in April after throwing a shoe but missing Clinton on stage.

###



Read more: http://www.salon.com/2014/09/05/hillary_clinton_us_should_lead_on_clean_energy/

[djean111]

1. I am assuming Hillary does not think nuclear plants are "clean energy"?

On the other hand, this is campaign lather. And if she is not running, who cares what she thinks.

[stonecutter357]

5. Nuclear power is not 'clean energy'.

[darkangel218]

13. +1

[Trillo]

15. It depends on who is talking.

There are potentially two sources of nuclear power. Fission is used in all current nuclear power plants. Fusion is the reaction that exists in stars, including the sun, and remains impractical for use on Earth, as fusion reactors are not yet available.[146]

Conventional fission power is sometimes referred to as sustainable because it is considered to be one of the cleanest energy sources as for pollution, but this is controversial politically due to concerns about peak uranium, radioactive waste disposal, and the risks of a severe accident. As for waste, the government is currently working on technological and safe steps to recycle the uranium.[147]

Fission nuclear power has the potential to significantly expand its sustainability from a fuel and waste perspective, such as by the use of breeder reactors; however, significant challenges exist in expanding the role of nuclear power in such a manner.[148]

Nuclear fission has four inherent liabilities - radiation, risk of accident, waste, and risk of proliferation of nuclear weapons, and is not likely to have a significant role, due to the vast availability of wind power and solar power.[149][150]

[immoderate]

29. Fusion is not yet on the menu.

It will be nice if the Skunkworks generator works when the prototype performs, expected in 2017. Until then "nuclear" means "fission."

--imm

[bananas]

36. No, fission is dirty, dangerous, and expensive, no matter who is talking. nt

[randys1]

26. First response was an anti Hillary response? Wow, I just dont know what to think anymore

[djean111]

30. If Hillary is running, then you should think that perhaps some Democrats do not want her as the

candidate. If she is not running, then her opinion on stuff like this is irrelevant.
The OP is about Hillary, really, not about "clean" energy. If it had been posted in the Hillary group, there would not have been any anti-Hillary responses, methinks.
And hey! Any time anyone posts something about Elizabeth Warren, who is actually a government employee, the rush to remind us all the Warren is not running is comical.

[randys1]

31. I just dont know who is who anymore. If you are anti Hillary in the extreme BUT

will say that IF she wins the nomination you will break your neck getting to the polls to vote for her while holding your nose, then we have no disagreement.

I am so liberal you cant believe it, I am the guy who thinks allowing ownership of real property (land, real property is the legal name for land) is insane.

I am the one who thinks the government (a good, honest government) should control cost and access for electricity, fuel, internet, cell service (all things you must have to survive in this modern day) and that allowing for profit companies to get involved is also insane.

I am the one who cant believe there are ANY for profit hospitals other than the ones dedicated to rich people who want private rooms and so on...

And I will do everything in my power to get her elected, IF she is the nominee.

[djean111]

33. We agree on a lot of things!

I do not want Hillary as the candidate. Better to mention it now, n'est-ce pas? And to mention it often.
Candidates vying for the nom are fair game, no exceptions.

[marble falls]

2. How does she figure that Keystone would promote clean energy?

http://uspolitics.about.com/od/CampaignsElections/a/Hillary-Clinton-On-The-Keystone-Xl-Pipeline.htm

Criticism of Clinton

Environmentalists and opponents of the pipeline have been critical of Clinton because of her political ties to TransCanada, the company that is planning to build Keystone XL. The company’s top lobbyist, Paul Elliott, served as the national deputy director for Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign.

Environmental activists have claimed that several other lobbyists with ties to Clinton and President Barack Obama have worked to win approval for the pipeline. Published reports have also accused Clinton’s State Department of having a “cozy” relationship with TransCanada.

The State department publicly defended itself against claims that Clinton’s past association with Elliott represented a conflict of interest in the environmental and legal reviews of the Keystone XL pipeline.

"The Department is considering this permit application on its merits," the State department said in a written statement in 2010. "The Department is not, and will not, be influenced by prior relationships that current government officials have had."
Clinton’s Public Statements on the Pipeline

During a 2010 speaking engagement, Clinton appeared to be supportive of the pipeline from Canada and told an audience that her Department of State was “inclined to" give TransCanada approval for its project.

This is what Clinton said about the Keystone XL pipeline in response to a question at the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco event:

"So as I say, we've not yet signed off on it. But we are inclined to do so and we are for several reasons — going back to one of your original questions — we're either going to be dependent on dirty oil from the Gulf or dirty oil from Canada. And until we can get our act together as a country and figure out that clean, renewable energy is in both our economic interests and the interests of our planet, I mean, I don't think it will come as a surprise to anyone how deeply disappointed the President and I are about our inability to get the kind of legislation through the Senate that the United States was seeking."

[mahina]

18. +1

[joshcryer]

20. Energy independence.

The roadmap is to use up our resources.

[randys1]

27. And it would infuriate me if she or Obama approve of this Keystone...the only thing I would dislike

more would be ANY republican who did it (all of them would) because with them they also bring such lovely things as WOMAN hating and so on.

[marble falls]

41. I just don't think Hilliary breaks the DC hack mold. I want Elizabeth Warren.

[stonecutter357]

42. She had my vote locked up. Until now. Sorry, cant go for IDF propaganda.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/28/elizabeth-warren-defends-_n_5733164.html
The Israeli military has the right to attack Palestinian hospitals and schools in self defense if Hamas has put rocket launchers next to them, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said last week at a local town hall, according to the Cape Cod Times.

[marble falls]

43. Have you seen this too?......

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/09/05/elizabeth-warren-when-it-counted-most-hillary-sided-with-the-vultures/

Elizabeth Warren: When it counted most, Hillary sided with the vultures
By Arturo Garcia
Friday, September 5, 2014 17:48 EDT
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) 090514


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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Moyers and Company host Bill Moyers sparred on Friday after Moyers replayed comments Warren made 10 years ago regarding Hillary Clinton and her policy shift on a bankruptcy bill that Warren opposed.

“Isn’t it time to get real ideologically?” Moyers asked. “The neoliberal movement of the last 30 years has run itself into the ground. And you know as well as I do, it still, nonetheless, has a hold on establishment Democrats. To be frank, Mrs. Clinton, for all the admiration and respect she commands for her years in public life, is the embodiment of that establishment, that movement. Do you think the neoliberal wing of the Democratic Party can put the country back on a path away from corporate and plutocratic control?”

“The way I see this is that we change as a people,” Warren replied. “The issues that face us are more visible than they were before the 2008 crash.”

In a 2004 interview, the two discussed a meeting between Warren and Clinton, then First Lady, toward the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency regarding a bill that would have made it harder for consumers to file for bankruptcy from credit card debts. Following the meeting, President Clinton killed the bill with a pocket veto, at his wife’s urging.

“Mrs. Clinton took credit for that veto, and she rightly should,” Warren said at the time. “She turned around a whole administration on the subject of bankruptcy.”

But after being elected to the Senate, Hillary Clinton voted for the bill when it was re-introduced.

“As Senator Clinton, the pressures are very different,” Warren told Moyers in the 2004 interview, adding, “She has taken money from the groups, and more to the point, she worries about them as a constituency.”

On Friday, Moyers asked Warren how people can trust their legislators are more likely to “pay more attention to the donors.”

“I think this is one of the hardest questions in democracy, the hardest questions that we face as a country right now,” Warren said. “The government runs for those who can make their voices heard. And they mostly make their voices heard through their lobbyists, through their campaign contributions. And that means over and over and over the tilt is in favor of the rich and the powerful.”

Every rule that gets written just has, you know, just a little more, a little twist, a little opening, a little loophole for those who’ve already made it big. And it’s taken the legs out from underneath our middle class, our working families, it’s taking hope away from our next generation. This is the problem we’ve got to solve and we’ve got to solve it now.

The full interview, as posted online, can be seen below.

[BlueEye]

3. Natural Gas routinely fits the definition of "clean energy"

According to the people who make said definitions.

[joshcryer]

21. Yes, it is seen as a transition source.

Even by the experts.

Unfortunately.

[stonecutter357]

4. K&R

[riversedge]

6. Yes, we should!

[coldbeer]

7. No need for petroleum ....

Where will our military go? Something is in the wind?

[Deadbeat Republicans]

8. "selling access" — not their expertise.

~ Elizabeth Warren

[The2ndWheel]

9. The Hoover Dam is not without its environmental issues

Unfortunately I think that because we've come to call something clean energy, that we think we can use it without any downside. It's clean! We have to hope that's true, but we still live in physical reality, where nothing comes without a cost.

[NorthCarolina]

10. Are we full in to campaign "weasel word mode" yet?

Third Way Handbook

CLEAN ENERGY:

During Campaign - don't be too specific. Use generic terms to give an impression you're talking exclusively about solar, wind, hydro, but key MAINLY on the word "CLEAN". You may even mention "solar" and "wind" to boost your "clean energy creds", but always, always do so using carefully crafted verbiage that can be debunked post election by our online minions using talking points like "you were only hearing what you wanted to hear", and "I understood [her] completely, of course she was talking about CLEAN coal during the campaign, pay attention next time", etc.

After Campaign (if elected) - Remember! America's bright future depends on "CLEAN Coal" and "CLEAN Nuclear Energy"

[sadoldgirl]

24. Right, and this is followed to the dot! n/t

[whereisjustice]

25. what you say is true, when we vote for a candidate based on electoral promises, we are called naive

yet, if we don't vote for a candidate because their promises smell like bullshit, we are called cynical.

If we blindly vote for the heir apparent, never ask questions, never highlight hypocrisy, and comply with all central directives as if we are in a brain dead coma, we are called geniuses.

[djean111]

35. Stated perfectly. But you are not supposed to mention that, I believe. Ssssshhhh.

[marble falls]

44. [phone]!

[randys1]

28. Which book or wording do the cons use? Is there a con who is against this? Who is running?

or thought of as running like any of these?

[link:|

[whereisjustice]

11. Her handlers told us it wasn't her place to speak out about US policy during Furgeson protests

but now she can't keep quiet about US policy?

After all, she isn't a candidate or anything.

That was the laughable argument put forward to explain her silent vigil over the raw and brutal injustice suffocating the nation.

Now we are back to listening to her non-threatening rhetorical platitudes aimed at keeping the rich comfortable with their entitlements.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

12. Tomorrow she announces her support for Columbus

Crossing the Atlantic pond in search of the Far East.

Sunday she will announce her support of Abe Lincoln in His war between the states.

But Monday is the biggie. She will consider thinking about the possibility of weighing the benefits on whether it would be prudent to raise the issue of talking about whether to bring to the table a uniform code of traffic control and whether all drivers should stay on their right side of an avenue or the left.

[Lean]

14. Sadly, The United States

doesn't "lead" on anything anymore. Except making war. We're good at that.

[joshcryer]

22. The USA is one of the only countries shuttering coal.

So you are objectively wrong.

[blkmusclmachine]

16. Talk is cheap. Everyone knows the US won't DO ANYTHING.

[mahina]

17. What is her position on puppies? What about apple pie?

We need to know.

[Enrique]

23. she's doing some polls on those issues

[freshwest]

19. I would love to see the USA lead on this and climate change. What a great example. Starve the Koch's

[joshcryer]

38. Unfortunately, it's empty rhetoric.

If the US is to help stop climate change we would ban coal exports, but we'll continue exporting coal, even as we shutter our own coal. Likewise, we'll expand out natural gas and start using shale oil.

[freshwest]

39. Perhaps, but you remind me of my Dad saying, 'Let's just give up and go out and eat some worms.'

Us internet warriors won't get the job done by accepting the status quo and rejecting any ideas otherwise. This is going to be a transition, unless we stay home and let the Koch's finish their agenda in November. At that point, we'll be going into a dark age that we have never seen before.

Bananas posts regularly on the progress the nation has made with alternative energy. Right now We The People are voting with our choices and other nations may some day do that, and any leadership from the USA will help. China is slated to take the solar route to relieve reliance on fossil fuels. Let's go toward with that.

Where I live we have the first electric utility in the nation to become greenhouse gas neutral, and the longest running energy conservation program in the country. Since it's community owned, no profits to go elsewhere, it is cheap. We are preparing for global warming in every possible way.

Our utility's fuel comes from these sources:

89.8% hydroelectric,

4.4% nuclear,

3.9% wind,

0.8% coal,

0.6% other (including biomass, natural gas, petroleum and waste), and 0.5% landfill gases.[8]

We are resisting the transport of the shale oil train cars here, and also on our waterways. We are constantly moving against coal. The whole world can get coal from other sources, they don't need ours, but it will be exported.

Better to help them wean off of the stuff, and only use it in emergencies. That is the example to be set, with assistance from us or China or whoever else is working for alternatives. Russia certainly is not, they are firmly entrenched as an exporter of fossil fuels. As are a number of other exporting nations.

Time will tell if our state's progressives will continue to hold sway, as we are being attacked relentlessly by money from outside the state, pushing the agenda of Tea Party Libertarians.

Fossil fuel companies including coal, regard Obama as their biggest enemy with good reason. We'll just have to keep on working on it.

[joshcryer]

40. I completely agree, but it's insurmountable, against US interests.

The US is on a roadmap to be renewable by 2050. Fully electric cars, fully energy independent (mostly renewables, but some fossils in the mix), self-driving, electric cars, for that matter. We'll still export whatever fossils we can.

The problem is that we need a grand bargain to get us off of fossil fuels, and that's simply unlikely, because the trajectory is to use them up as long as they are profitable. Unfortunately for developing countries that means that if they're going to stop using fossils, then they have to go to renewables and reject our fossil fuel exports (mostly coal). Only Mexico is on that path in the developing world and the UK, while it is against fossil fuels internally, will happily import fossil energy.

[Thinkingabout]

32. Why should there be complaining about the US taking the lead on green energy?

I would think this would be good for now and in the future. It will not happen overnight but it needs to speed up.

Hillary on energy issues:

100B per year by 2020 for climate change mitigation. (Jun 2014)
•Get tough with energy speculators and with OPEC cartel. (May 2008)
•Gas tax holiday, paid for by windfall oil tax. (May 2008)
•GovWatch: Gas tax holiday saves $8B; but that’s 64 cents/day. (May 2008)
•Investigate gas price manipulation; add windfall profits tax. (Apr 2008)
•FactCheck: Yes, FTC is investigating gas price manipulation. (Apr 2008)
•Cap-and-trade as president; compact fluorescents at home. (Apr 2008)
•$650 for help with energy bills to those who can’t afford it. (Jan 2008)
•FactCheck: Oil & gas giveaways stripped from final 2005 Bill. (Jan 2008)
•Investigate & move toward energy efficiency and conservation. (Oct 2007)
•Opposes Yucca Mountain; earthquake fault goes under it. (Sep 2007)
•Led delegation, with McCain, to see effects of polar warming. (Sep 2007)
•Invest in alternative energy; jobs that won’t be outsourced. (Aug 2007)
•End Big Oil tax break; $50 billion for strategic energy fund. (Jul 2007)
•Agnostic about nuclear power until waste & cost issue solved. (Jul 2007)
•FactCheck: There was no Big Oil tax break under Bush-Cheney. (Jul 2007)
•Energy Independence 2020: $50B for Strategic Energy Fund. (Jun 2007)
•Extensive funding into alternative energy. (Jun 2007)
•Will make big oil fund alternative energy research. (Feb 2007)
•$50B strategic energy fund from taxing oil companies. (Oct 2006)
•Remove energy dependence on countries who would harm us. (Jun 2006)
•Need to move toward energy efficiency and conservation. (Jan 2006)
•Supports oil reserve release & fund conservation. (Oct 2000)
Voting Record

•Ratify Kyoto; more mass transit. (Sep 2000)
•Voted YES on removing oil & gas exploration subsidies. (Jun 2007)
•Voted YES on making oil-producing and exporting cartels illegal. (Jun 2007)
•Voted YES on factoring global warming into federal project planning. (May 2007)
•Voted YES on disallowing an oil leasing program in Alaska's ANWR. (Nov 2005)
•Voted YES on $3.1B for emergency oil assistance for hurricane-hit areas. (Oct 2005)
•Voted YES on reducing oil usage by 40% by 2025 (instead of 5%). (Jun 2005)
•Voted YES on banning drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (Mar 2005)
•Voted NO on Bush Administration Energy Policy. (Jul 2003)
•Voted YES on targeting 100,000 hydrogen-powered vehicles by 2010. (Jun 2003)
•Voted YES on removing consideration of drilling ANWR from budget bill. (Mar 2003)
•Voted NO on drilling ANWR on national security grounds. (Apr 2002)
•Voted NO on terminating CAFE standards within 15 months. (Mar 2002)
•Supports tradable emissions permits for greenhouse gases. (Aug 2000)
•Keep efficient air conditioner rule to conserve energy. (Mar 2004)
•Establish greenhouse gas tradeable allowances. (Feb 2005)
•Require public notification when nuclear releases occur. (Mar 2006)
•Rated 100% by the CAF, indicating support for energy independence. (Dec 2006)
•Designate sensitive ANWR area as protected wilderness. (Nov 2007)
•Set goal of 25% renewable energy by 2025. (Jan 2007)
•Let states define stricter-than-federal emission standards. (Jan 2008)

[TBF]

34. This I can agree with. nt

[Skittles]

37. Carter tried to tell us that

yes indeed