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60 Minutes Clean Tech Report Hoopla

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by wjtracy, Jan 6, 2014.

  1. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    60 Minutes last night aired a piece suggesting Clean Tech is dead. 60-Minutes are getting plastered today by many including Joe Romm. The report started out OK, basically it was mostly an expose' about how poorly the biomass-to-fuels sector is doing, as typified by the start-up company Kior, trying to turn trees into gasoline and diesel. Unfortunately 60-Minutes basically then took a broad brush and painted most green technology as equivalent.

    The Cleantech Crash - 60 Minutes Videos - CBS News
     
    #1 wjtracy, Jan 6, 2014
  2. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web BMW i3 and Model 3

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    I half listened to it and you are right!

    I was half thinking this was another one of those 'exploding fuel tank' jobs or their earlier failed report from a nuts guy in Benghazi. Someone in CBS production of "60 Minutes" has lost credibility (or been captured by FOX.)

    Bob Wilson
     
    #2 bwilson4web, Jan 6, 2014
    drysider likes this.
  3. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    Didn't see it (of course) , but what is Kior's problem? You put any chunk of hydrocarbon (like a tree) into a catalytic 'cracker' and the joy juice flows out the other end. Or so I suppose.

    I think the guy doing algae (forgot his name) is on a better path though. Trees have to many other useful purposes. That we could discuss elsewhere ... :)
     
    #3 tochatihu, Jan 6, 2014
  4. ggood

    ggood Senior Member

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    Expert featured on “60 Minutes” says comments about cleantech’s successes were edited out - Salon.com

    I saw it. Typical unbalanced hatchet job. Gov't loans were bad waste of money, blah, blah, blah, ending with a wonderful xenophobic/nationalist scare based on the fact some Chinese company came in and bought several of the failed companies. When asked why, the Chinese CEO of course said because they were looking at the long term (duh). So, you are supposed to believe the entire program was bad and useless, but then at the end you are supposed to be scared and angry because a Chinese company bought some of the supposedly useless tech. If you listened closely and understood the real issues, there was at least some acknowledgment of the cracks in the CBS predetermined storyline.

    As others of said, it was an absurdly overbroad rant that didn't really put anything into proper perspective. Obviously, some of the loans were bad ideas, and the jobs benefits were always overstated, but that doesn't make all government investment in clean tech bad.
     
    #4 ggood, Jan 7, 2014
  5. wjtracy

    wjtracy Senior Member

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    Yes I saw the comments on Climate Progress. I was actually quite impressed with Robert Rapier's comments on the show...he thinks like me and I was glad to discover his work (energy book on Amazon etc). 60-Minutes shot themselves in the foot. They had a good story going about the problems with advanced biofuels, and then they went off the deep end and tried to incriminate all green tech. The old 60-Minutes were happier with a surgical strike on a specific detail.
     
    #5 wjtracy, Jan 7, 2014
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