By Lester R. Brown The great energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy is under way. As fossil fuel prices rise, as oil insecurity deepens, and as concerns about pollution and climate instability cast a shadow over the future of coal, a new world energy economy is emerging. The old energy economy, fueled by oil, coal, and natural gas, is being replaced with an economy powered by wind, solar, and geothermal energy. The Earth’s renewable energy resources are vast and available to be tapped through visionary initiatives. Our civilization needs to embrace renewable energy on a scale …

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Agency is launching a study to assess the cancer risk for people living near six nuclear power facilities. Seems like a good idea, sure.

From the Los Angeles Times:

The commission is acting out of growing concern that using uranium to produce electricity may be dangerous even without accidents at nuclear plants. In addition, recent epidemiological studies in Germany and France suggest that the children living near nuclear reactors are twice as likely to develop leukemia.

The U.S. study will be conducted by the National Academy of Sciences, which will also help the commission determine whether to extend the study to all 65 U.S. nuclear power plants and certain nuclear fuel sites.

The pilot study will investigate cancer rates in each census tract within a 30-mile radius of the nuclear facilities, and assess cancers in children younger than 15 whose mothers lived near a nuclear facility during pregnancy. About 1 million people live within five miles of operating nuclear plants in the United States, and more than 45 million live within 30 miles, nuclear regulatory officials said.

“Should we fail to act now on the climate front, the world will likely become so nasty and brutish that the possibility of rebirth, of achieving something new and beautiful, will simply vanish, and we will be left with nothing but the burden of climate chaos and societies’ endless responses to it.”                                                          America the Possible, p. 13  One thing I’ve learned over the 44 years that I’ve been a progressive activist and organizer is that I gain strength from seeing other people change and grow. In some cases these have been young people whose exposure to the truth about …

If you're in one of the larger solar markets in the country (California, New Jersey, etc) then "going solar" doesn't mean going it alone.  You can likely get a "zero money down" lease or some similar financing tool to reduce the upfront cost.  But is it worthwhile?  The following analysis, done for a friend in Ithaca, NY, provides some context. Solar Economics in Ithaca, NY Comparing solar ownership to a solar lease can be tricky.  The following analysis examines the value of owning a 5 kW solar PV system which can be used for comparison to a quote from a …

1988. That was the year of James Hansen's now famous congressional testimony on climate change. It was also the first year that climate change came up in the presidential debate cycle. Chicago Tribune reporter Jon Margolis asked Vice Presidential candidates Lloyd Bentsen and Dan Quayle about climate change and fossil fuels. Both agreed that it was time to act. Fast forward 24 years. Today, the science of climate change is incontrovertible, and crushing impacts like drought, wildfires, and flooding are now hitting American communities. And, yet, if Barack Obama and Mitt Romney don't discuss climate change tonight, it will be …

The Koch brothers don't like wind energy. This is because the wind is free, uncontainable, limitless. The Kochs prefer costly, contained, limited. Stuff they can dig up and put in a barrel and sell. People don't buy barrels of wind. So the Kochs try and kill it.

There was the time the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity held a protest to oppose kids flying kites. (This is a real thing that happened.) There is the thing about how Bill Koch (the less-popular third brother) is spending big bucks to stop an offshore wind project near his home in Massachusetts. And there's the thing with a Koch-backed group wanting to make a key support for the wind industry "toxic" to politicians.

That last one is new. From ThinkProgress:

The wind energy industry faces a lame duck fight in the House of Representatives over extending the expiring production tax credit. The tax credit has broad bipartisan support, and considering that 81 percent of U.S. wind projects are installed in Republican districts, GOP lawmakers have a good reason to support it.

But with Koch Industries and fossil fuel groups mobilizing to defeat the credit, its future after 2012 is uncertain. The American Energy Alliance, which has Koch ties, told Politico Pro this week that it aims to make the credit a toxic issue for House Republicans: ...

“Our goal is to make the PTC so toxic that it makes it impossible for John Boehner to sit at a table with Harry Reid and say, ‘Yeah, I can bend on this one,’” said Benjamin Cole, spokesman for the American Energy Alliance.

Sitting down to talk about his work to focus the climate-saving power of soil carbon, Peter Donovan starts off with a trick question. “What’s the major greenhouse gas?”  I fall right into it. “Carbon dioxide.” “No, it’s water vapor.” Of course, he’s right, and I know it.  I have answered the question I thought I heard – What is the human-emitted pollutant that is the largest source of climate change?  But in terms of actual gases in the atmosphere, good old H2O is hands down the greatest heat trapper. So what does this have to do with carbon in the …

Big dreams for renewable energy often goad people into imagining big wind projects, with hundreds of turbines.  But lots of smaller projects are just as likely to add up to big numbers. Counting wind projects from 1999-2010 (based on data from LBNL's excellent Wind Technologies Market report) the average size of an American wind project is 80 megawatts (MW).  The size of projects has risen in the past decade, from about 50-60 MW, but largely because the average turbine size in U.S. wind projects has nearly doubled to 1.79 MW in that time period. Interestingly, the most economical wind projects …

On October 18th, 1972, the Clean Water Act was passed by Congress on an overwhelming bipartisan vote. Now, forty years later, our rivers, lakes and bays are in far better condition and nobody is yearning for the days when the Cuyahoga River repeatedly caught on fire and Lake Erie was pronounced "dead." Yet, it's hard not to feel some nostalgia for an era when such a sweeping piece of legislation, which was viciously opposed by big polluting industries, could pass the House of Representatives on a vote of 366-11. The early 1970s were a time when politicians of both parties …

If there is a statistical correlation between dirty oil and dirty politics, we have yet to fully quantify it – but you can add this to the growing pile of anecdotal evidence that the dirtiest political players are responsible for some of the dirtiest energy on the planet. William Koch – the “other” Koch brother along with David and Charles – was recently sued by a former senior executive at his Oxbow Carbon & Minerals Inc. for false imprisonment.  The allegations are that Koch lured the former executive to his Colorado ranch and then held him against his will to intimidate him.  …