NewEnergyNews: DIVORCE IN SPANISH WIND

NewEnergyNews

Gleanings from the web and the world, condensed for convenience, illustrated for enlightenment, arranged for impact...

YESTERDAY

  • SUNDAY WORLD HEADLINE- JAPAN’S FLOATING WIND GETS A GO
  • SUNDAY WORLD HEADLINE- NEW ENERGY TO SAVE THE BRITS
  • SUNDAY WORLD HEADLINE- GERMAN SUN GOOD W/DROPPED F-I-T
  • SUNDAY WORLD HEADLINE- TURKEY STREAMLINES SOLAR POWER PLANT RULES

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    THE DAY BEFORE

  • Saturday Video: No Coal Chicago
  • Saturday Video: Big News From Crock Of The Week
  • Saturday Video: A James Hansen TED Talk On Climate Change

    • THE DAY BEFORE THE DAY BEFORE

  • TTTA Friday- DEMS BLOCK KEYSTONE WITH FILIBUSTER
  • TTTA Friday- WORLD NEW ENERGY LEAVING U.S. BEHIND
  • TTTA Friday- NEW ENERGY AND NAT GAS
  • TTTA Friday- CLIMATE CHANGING OCEANS

    • THE DAY BEFORE THAT

  • TODAY’S STUDY: A CAREFUL STUDY OF ONE STATE’S OCEAN WIND FROM NO. CAROLINA
  • QUICK NEWS, March 8: THE POINTLESSNESS OF OIL SHALE; BIG WIND GOES ONLINE IN OHIO; FIRST SOLAR IN TROUBLE AGAIN

    • AND THE DAY BEFORE THAT

  • TODAY’S STUDY: ANOTHER TRY FOR A CLEAN ENERGY STANDARD
  • QUICK NEWS, March 7: STATE OF THE SMART GRID; UNSUBSIDIZED NEW ENERGY, A THIRD OF NEW POWER TO 2035 -- EIA; GERMAN SUN PLAYER SOLD TO INDIA

    • THE LAST DAY UP HERE

  • TODAY’S STUDY: THE GROWING MOMENTUM DRIVING THE GREEN TRANSITION
  • QUICK NEWS, March 6: FEDS PUT $180 MIL INTO OCEAN WIND; SWISS SUN GIANT SOLD TO JAPAN; FEWER BUT BIGGER BLACKOUTS LAST YEAR

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    Anne B. Butterfield of Daily Camera and Huffington Post, is a biweekly contributor to NewEnergyNews

  • Taken for granted no more (February 5, 2012)
  • Anne Butterfield (Daily Camera via New EnergyNews)

    It's been an explosive week for women's reproductive health with two events reaching new depths of outrageousness and a third prompting pundits to call on a silent voting bloc to defend its practices on contraception.

    The biggest story of the week was the Susan G. Komen Foundation stripping Planned Parenthood of its grants for breast cancer screening on the stated reason of Planned Parenthood undergoing a Congressional investigation. Komen's new vice president, Karen Handel, is a known conservative political force who swore opposition to Planned Parenthood for its 3 percent of services going to abortion.

    Yet, before week's end we who were outraged at Komen and vocal about it saw a reversal of the decision. Komen announced that their new policy will sanction only those facing "criminal and conclusive investigations."

    If only Republicans advocating for smaller government would heed such pared down parameters. In five state houses Republicans have passed laws that should make critics of Obamacare blush: requirements for vaginal-probe sonograms on women on the day ahead of abortions. This is rationalized as an informed consent measure, though I for one have not seen this degree of intrusion before for my two lung surgeries, and a call to an abortion counselor (asking to be unnamed) revealed that the vast majority of abortions have no medical need of a vaginal ultrasound (as topical ultrasounds are routine). So this measure smacks of the long arm of the law reaching into a woman's most private place to deliver ideology, with the doctor also being used against medical tradition and practice. American women, ask: whose uterus do these small government folks think it is -- the woman's or the state's?

    Since this drama has reached Kafkaesque absurdity, state senator Janet Howell of Virginia attached a protest amendment to a sonogram bill moving through her state house, a measure requiring men also to undergo a bodily probe ahead of getting erectile dysfunction medication. Her amendment lost by an impressively small margin with 13 male senators in support.

    All's fair in love and war, so social conservatives are also feeling the pain, due to the Obama Administration's Department of Health and Human Services having stated that Catholic institutions serving and employing the public must adhere equally to rules of the Affordable Care Act granting women equal access to birth control with no co-pays.

    The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had asked for a conscience clause, complaining that they cannot be made to pay for birth control. Meanwhile 98 percent of sexually active Catholics are said by the Guttmacher Institute to use birth control, meaning that the laity and the clergy of the church have radically opposing views of how to populate a family and maintain women's health.

    Catholic leaders doth protest too much in squawking on behalf of their religious freedom, suggests Jon O'Brien of Catholics for Choice -- whose stand is that the conscience of women rules. The church has failed to convince Catholics in the pews, so the clergy should own that failure rather than attempt to control distribution channels that impute extra costs to insured women who are often not even Catholic.

    On the politics, Chris Matthews on "Hardball," said that Catholics like him are swing voters and Obama has blown his chance with them. However Jon O'Brien says his group and its allies "expended a huge amount of resources mobilizing the public on this pivotal issue" of no co-pay birth control. And with Joan Walsh of Salon advising fellow Catholics to "preach what they practice" and defend the president, we shall see if Catholics defend their widespread practices or remain hiding in the shadows.

    Crises are times for taking action when comfortable practices can no longer be taken for granted. Planned Parenthood was gifted with nearly a million dollars in 24 hours of the Komen news, and also won a reversal -- good. More importantly we all need to see that protecting women's health where it intersects with reproductive freedom (not to mention a sound doctor-patient relationship) is no longer a spectator sport. We need to be activists, because as the right wing dreams of personhood amendments, flirts with banning birth control, and legislates body probes, we see that the American Taliban wears a prim sweater vest and expensive suits, with hopes to attract million-dollar super PAC's.

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    Anne's previous NewEnergyNews columns:

  • Taken for granted no more (February 5, 2012)
  • The Republican clown car circus (January 6, 2012)
  • Twenty-Somethings of Colorado With Skin in the Game (November 22, 2011)
  • Occupy, Xcel, and the Mother of All Cliffs (October 31, 2011)
  • Boulder Can Own Its Power With Distributed Generation (June 7, 2011)
  • The Plunging Cost of Renewables and Boulder's Energy Future (April 19, 2011)
  • Paddling Down the River Denial (January 12, 2011)
  • The Fox (News) That Jumped the Shark (December 16, 2010)
  • Click here for an archive of Butterfield columns

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    Some details about NewEnergyNews and the man behind the curtain: Herman K. Trabish, La Crescenta, CA., Doctor with my hands, Author with my head, Student of New Energy with my heart

    email: herman@NewEnergyNews.net

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    Your intrepid reporter

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      A tip of the NewEnergyNews cap to Phillip Garcia for crucial assistance in the design implementation of this site. Thanks, Phillip.

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    Pay a visit to the HARRY BOYKOFF page at Basketball Reference, sponsored by NewEnergyNews and Oil In Their Blood.

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    • Sunday, July 31, 2011

    DIVORCE IN SPANISH WIND

    Iberdrola, Gamesa End Wind-Farm Accord Due to Weak Economy
    Will Kennedy and Tony Barrett, July 28, 2011 (Bloomberg News via SF Chronicle)

    "Iberdrola SA, the world's biggest renewable energy producer, and wind-turbine maker Gamesa Corporacion Tecnologica SA ended a strategic accord on wind-farm development because of the economic crisis.

    "Iberdrola and Gamesa, Europe's second-largest turbine maker, signed the agreement in 2009 that allowed for joint development and operation of wind parks and included options for Iberdrola to buy projects in Europe from Gamesa starting this month…"

    click to enlarge

    "…The end of the deal, due to global economic conditions and the companies' strategies, means those options are cancelled…

    "Gamesa…reported a 29 percent increase in first- half net income… Gamesa said first-half net income rose to 29 million euros ($41.4 million), while revenue rose 26 percent to 1.3 billion euros."

    posted by Herman K. Trabish @ 10:11 AM

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