Water Embodied in Bioethanol in
the United States
Y I - W E N C H I U , † B R I A N W A L S E T H , ‡ A N D
S A N G W O N S U H * , ‡
Water Resources Science and Department of Bioproducts and
Biosystems Engineering, University of Minnesota, 1390 Eckles
Avenue, St. Paul, Minnesota 55108
Received November 3, 2008. Revised manuscript received
February 13, 2009. Accepted February 17, 2009.
http://pubs.acs.org/stoken/presspac/pres
Prior studies have estimated that a liter of bioethanol requires 263-784 L of water from corn farm to fuel pump, but these estimates have failed to account for the widely varied regional irrigation practices. By using regional time-series agricultural and ethanol production data in the U.S., this paper estimates the state-level field-to-pump water requirement of bioethanol across the nation. The results indicate that bioethanol’s water requirements can range from 5 to 2138 L per liter of ethanol depending on regional irrigation practices. The results also show that as the ethanol industry expands to areas that apply more irrigated water than others, consumptive water appropriation by bioethanol in the U.S. has increased 246% from 1.9 to 6.1 trillion liters between 2005 and 2008, whereas U.S. bioethanol production has increased only 133% from 15 to 34 billion liters during the same period. The results highlight the need to take regional specifics into account when implementing biofuel mandates.
By Fredreka Schouten, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — More than 40% of President Obama's top-level fundraisers have secured posts in his administration, from key executive branch jobs to diplomatic postings in countries such as France, Spain and the Bahamas, a USA TODAY analysis finds.
Twenty of the 47 fundraisers that Obama's campaign identified as collecting more than $500,000 have been named to government positions, the analysis found.
Overall, about 600 individuals and couples raised money from their friends, family members and business associates to help fund Obama's presidential campaign. USA TODAY's analysis found that 54 have been named to government positions, ranging from Cabinet and White House posts to advisory roles, such as serving on the economic recovery board charged with helping guide the country out of recession.
Nearly a year after he was elected on a pledge to change business-as-usual in Washington, Obama also has taken a cue from his predecessors and appointed fundraisers to coveted ambassadorships, drawing protests from groups representing career diplomats. A separate analysis by the American Foreign Service Association, the diplomats' union, found that more than half of the ambassadors named by Obama so far are political appointees, said Susan Johnson, president of the association. An appointment is considered political if it does not go to a career diplomat in the State Department.
That's a rate higher than any president in more than four decades, the group's data show, although that could change as the White House fills more openings. Traditionally about 30% of top diplomatic jobs go to political appointees, and roughly 70% to veteran State Department employees. Ambassadors earn $153,200 to $162,900 annually.
"It is time to end the spoils system and the de facto sale of ambassadorships," Johnson said. "The United States is best served by having experienced, knowledgeable and trained career officers fill all positions in our diplomatic service."
The administration is "well aware of the historical target of career vs. non-career ambassadors, and we will be right on that target," said White House spokesman Thomas Vietor. He said the first round of diplomatic jobs traditionally go to political appointees because those are the first available when a president takes office.
Vietor said Obama also made it clear early on that he would "nominate extremely qualified individuals who didn't necessarily come up through the ranks of the State Department but want to serve their country."
Among the top Obama fundraisers with jobs: former technology executive Julius Genachowski as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and Nicole Avant, a music industry executive who is the top envoy in the Bahamas. Neither granted interview requests.
Those not in the administration benefited in other ways, including attending invitation-only White House bashes, such as a St. Patrick's Day gala.
Fundraiser David Gail, a Dallas lawyer that the campaign identified as raising between $100,000 and $200,000, joined dignitaries in July for an East Room country music concert featuring Alison Krauss and Charley Pride. He said he greeted Obama after the event but doesn't have special access to the president, who was elected on a pledge to change business-as-usual in Washington.
"I've seen people who have been included on conference calls or events who were very involved at the grass-roots level," Gail said.
"Contributing doesn't guarantee a visit to the White House," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday, "nor does it preclude it."
Others not on the campaign's list of official bundlers also have reaped rewards.
Sacramento developer Eleni Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis, a fundraiser in Hillary Rodham Clinton's unsuccessful presidential campaign, was nominated this month by Obama to serve as ambassador to Hungary. Clinton is now secretary of state.
Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis did not respond to interview requests, and her office referred calls to the White House.
It's too early to tell how big a role Obama's fundraisers will play. On the ambassador front alone, nearly 100 top positions remain unfilled, according to the American Foreign Service Association's tally.
Ronald Neumann, president of the American Academy of Diplomacy, wants Obama to limit political appointees to about 10% of diplomatic jobs. "The direction is not good," he said of Obama's appointments to date, "but you cannot definitively say what the picture will be for the whole administration."
FROM FUNDRAISER TO STAFFER
President Obama has named 54 fundraisers to government positions. Here's a look at who they are and how much they raised. The campaign reported fundraising in broad ranges only.
RAISED MORE THAN $500,0000
Nicole Avant Ambassador to the Bahamas
Matthew Barzun Ambassador to Sweden
Don Beyer Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein
Jeff Bleich Ambassador to Australia**
Richard Danzig Member, Defense Policy Board
William Eacho Ambassador to Austria
Julius Genachowski Chairman of Federal Communications Commission
Donald Gips Ambassador to South Africa
Howard Gutman Ambassador to Belgium
Scott Harris General Counsel, Department of Energy
William Kennard Ambassador to the European Union**
Bruce Oreck Ambassador to Finland
Spencer Overton Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General
Thomas Perrelli Associate Attorney General
Abigail Pollack Member, Commission to Study the Potential Creation of a National Museum of the American Latino
Charles Rivkin Ambassador to France and Monaco
John Roos Ambassador of Japan
Francisco Sanchez Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade
Alan Solomont Ambassador to Spain and Andorra**
Cynthia Stroum Ambassador to Luxembourg**
RAISED BETWEEN $200,000 and $500,000
A. Marisa Chun Deputy associate attorney general
Gregory Craig White House counsel
Norman Eisen Special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform
Michael Froman Deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs
Mark Gallogly Member, Economic Recovery Advisory Board
Max Holtzman Senior adviser to the Agriculture secretary
James Hudson Director, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Jeh Johnson General counsel, Department of Defense
Samuel Kaplan Ambassador to Morocco
Nicole Lamb-Hale Deputy general counsel, Commerce Department
Andres Lopez Member, Commission to Study the Potential Creation of a National Museum of the American Latino
Cindy Moelis Director, Commission on White House Fellows
William Orrick Counselor to the assistant attorney general
John Phillips Chairman, Commission on White House Fellows
Penny Pritzker*** Member, Economic Recovery Advisory Board
Bob Rivkin General counsel, Transportation Department
Desiree Rogers White House social secretary
Louis Susman Ambassador to the United Kingdom
Robert Sussman Senior policy counsel, Environmental Protection Agency
Christina Tchen Director, White House Office of Public Engagement
Barry White Ambassador to Norway
RAISED BETWEEN $100,000 and $200,000
Preeta Bansal General counsel, Office of Management and Budget
Laurie Fulton Ambassador to Denmark
Fred Hochberg President, Export-Import Bank of the United States
Valerie Jarrett Senior adviser to the president
Kevin Jennings Assistant deputy secretary of Education
Steven Rattner Treasury Department adviser
Miriam Sapiro Deputy U.S. trade representative**
Vinai Thummalapally Ambassador to Belize
RAISED BETWEEN $50,000 and $100,000
Eric Holder Attorney general
David Jacobson Ambassador to Canada
Ronald Kirk U.S. trade representative
Rocco Landesman Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts
Susan Rice Ambassador to the United Nations
** Nominated, not yet confirmed by Senate
*** National finance chairwoman
Sources: Obama campaign, Public Citizen; White House; USA TODAY research
Contributing: Andrew Seaman
(hopefully her lack of acting skills won't interfere with any rau'ness.)
that i missed them in sf and santa cruz on the current tour makes me sad.
Cheer up, honey, I hope you can
There is something wrong with me
My mind is filled with silvery stars
Honey, kisses, clouds of fog
Shoulders shrugging off
Cheer up, honey, I hope you can
There is something wrong with me
My mind is filled with radio cures
Electronic surgical words
Picking apples for kings and queens of things I have never seen
Oh, distance has no way of making love understandable
Cheer up, honey, I hope you can
There is something wrong with me
My mind is filled with silvery stars
Honey, kisses, clouds of fog
Picking apples for the kings and queens of things I've never seen
Oh, distance has no way of making love understandable
Oh, distance has no way of making love understandable
Oh, distance has no way of making love understandable
Oh, distance has no way of making love understandable
Oh, distance has no way of making love understandable
Cheer up honey, I hope you can...
late edit: the arrangement of "barracuda" approaches awesome
source: http://www.politico.com/livepulse/1009/F
WASHINGTON – Maneuvering to boost prospects for sweeping health care legislation, Senate Democrats hope first to win quick approval for a bill that grants doctors a $247 billion increase in Medicare fees over a decade but raises federal deficits in the process, officials said Wednesday.
By creating a two-bill approach, Democrats intend to claim the more comprehensive health care measure meets President Barack Obama's conditions — that it will neither add to deficits nor exceed $900 billion in costs over 10 years.
If approved and signed into law, the legislation would avert a 21 percent reduction in Medicare fees paid to doctors that is scheduled to take effect in January as well as additional cuts in future years.
Lawmakers frequently draft budgets that assume payment rates for doctors treating Medicare patients will fall rather than rise, part of a sleight of hand set of assumptions to make deficits appear smaller than they actually are. They then convene the following year and restore the money.
The disclosure of Senate Democrats' plans came as senior lawmakers sat down with White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and other top administration officials for the first time to draft a health care bill expected to be voted on in the full Senate beginning in about two weeks.
Two Senate committees have approved different versions of the legislation, requiring the unusual set of negotiations.
The bill to restore planned Medicare cuts for doctors was introduced without fanfare in the Senate on Tuesday and set aside for swift floor action next week, rather than sent to the Senate Finance Committee for hearings as would normally be the case.
"This is a bill that would permanently change the payment system for physicians to a fairer system," Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said as she introduced the bill.
Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the decision to move quickly and apart from the health care bill was made in consultation with the White House. House Democratic leaders were also involved in the discussions.
House Democrats, in particular, have grumbled about trying to adhere to Obama's price tag.
In the Senate, the immediate impact of a two-bill approach is to slice $10.7 billion from the cost of the health care bill that cleared the Finance Committee bill, money that could then be spent on other priorities.
A 60-vote Senate majority will be required to pass the measure, potentially placing Republican senators in a quandary.
If they oppose it, they may anger doctors who have made restoration of the planned payment cuts a top priority. If they support it, they may open themselves up to charges they helped raise deficits and facilitated passage of a health care bill that conservatives oppose vigorously.
Stabenow's office did not immediately return a call seeking additional information.
Nor did the American Medical Association, which represents doctors.
Manley said the measure does not need to be offset by spending cuts or higher taxes because "it does not increase spending. It simply restores a more honest picture of what future physician spending will actually be."
- Mood:
annoyed
On Sunday morning, he awoke abruptly, rose up and exclaimed, "It's going to be a good day!"
I think I can learn something from him about attitude.
Geithner aides made millions on Wall Street
By Tom Braithwaite in Washington
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f012c4b2-b8f6-1
Published: October 14 2009 20:49 | Last updated: October 14 2009 20:49
Obama administration officials now working on fixing and regulating the financial system were beneficiaries of several million dollars in pay from Wall Street and private equity companies, it has been revealed.
Financial disclosure forms show that prior to joining the government, Gene Sperling, a senior Treasury adviser, was paid $887,727 by Goldman Sachs and $158,000 for speeches to companies that included Stanford Group, the company run by Sir Allen Stanford, who has since been charged with fraud.
Mr Sperling’s compensation from Goldman was for work on a philanthropic project. His overall pay, including for his main job at the Council on Foreign Relations, totalled $2.2m in the 13 months to January.
The forms, which were first obtained by Bloomberg, showed that Matthew Kabaker, another adviser in the Treasury, earned $5.8m at Blackstone, the private equity firm, in the two years before joining the administration to work on plans to support banks and spur lending. Much of the compensation was in stock.
Lewis Alexander, another adviser, was chief economist to Citigroup before joining the administration; he was paid $2.4m in the last two years.
[...]
- Mood: annoyed
Love your products. They always work as expected.
Now please tell me what solvent (carcinogenic or not) that removes Super 77 from my skin. The bottle says to use soap & water, but we both know that doesn't work.
Love,
CharlieH0tel
- Location:campbell, ca
Isaac: I don't need you. And I don't need Daddy. I'm just going to leave.
Dad: Isaac, remember about knocking over the lights and that there would be consequences?
Isaac: We already talked about that.
Dad: (continues)
Isaac: I'm not listening.
Mom: If you don't pick up these toys, they are going up on the shelf.
Isaac: I. don't. care.
Christian, T.; Yuan Chen; Shih, R.; Sharma, R.; Hoover, C.; Marwah, M.; Shah, A.; Gmach, D.;
Sustainable Systems and Technology, 2009. ISSST '09. IEEE International Symposium on 18-20 May 2009 Page(s):1 - 6
Abstract:
Next generation data centers must be designed to meet service level agreements (SLAs) for application performance while reducing costs and environmental impact. Traditional design approaches are manually intensive and must integrate thousands of components at multiple granularities, often with conflicting goals. We propose an automated data center synthesizer to design sustainable data centers that meet SLA goals, minimize carbon emissions and embedded exergy, are optimally efficient and deliver significantly reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). The paper concludes with a use case study that employs the synthesizer process flow to design an optimal data center to deliver a set of services for a hypothetical city using state of the art sustainable technologies.
Full Text: PDF(444 KB) IEEE CNF
(Sorry, probably trapped behind the IEEE paywall.)
Watson, B.J.; Sharma, R.K.; Charles, S.K.; Shah, A.J.; Patel, C.D.; Marwah, M.; Hoover, C.E.; Christian, T.W.; Bash, C.E.;
Sustainable Systems and Technology, 2009. ISSST '09. IEEE International Symposium on 18-20 May 2009 Page(s):1 - 6
Abstract:
In this paper, we describe an integrated design and management approach to creating a sustainable IT ecosystem: a physical infrastructure where information technology has been seamlessly interwoven to improve environmental efficiency while achieving lower cost. Specifically, we describe five principles to achieve such integration: ecosystem-scale life-cycle design; scalable and configurable resource microgrids; pervasive sensing; knowledge discovery and visualization; and autonomous control. Application of the approach is demonstrated for the case study of an urban water infrastructure, and we find that the proposed approach could potentially enable reduction of life-cycle energy use by over 15%.
Full Text: PDF(444 KB) IEEE CNF
(Sorry, probably trapped behind the IEEE paywall.)
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