Climate Climate & Energy

Blue dogs for energy efficiency

This group of 43 conservative and moderate Democrats from around the country have a new energy plan. Here's what they say about energy efficiency:

8. Energy Efficiency

• Energy efficient technologies and energy conservation are among the most important ways for the U.S. to reduce its energy consumption, benefiting both consumers and producers of energy.
• Blue Dogs support the furtherance of energy efficient technologies including green buildings, energy saving appliances, advanced lighting technology, and better fuel economy standards.

Blue Dogs support the promotion of energy efficient light bulbs, high-efficiency vehicles, advanced batteries, home appliances, and energy storage. The Coalition believes the federal government should lead the way by moving toward green buildings and energy efficient programs for all federal buildings as soon as possible. Private sector energy efficiency improvements to new and existing buildings -- both residential and commercial -- should also be encouraged. Fuel economy standards for automobiles and small engines should also result in energy savings.

We also support improving energy efficiency assistance to state and local governments and believe that state utility regulatory commissions should adopt federal standards to promote energy efficiency. The Department of Energy’s successful Energy Star program should also be expanded. Finally, Blue Dogs support tax incentives for consumers and businesses that are early adopters of energy efficient technologies.

Kudos to the blue dogs.

Vermont renewable energy festival looks to the future

News today that a quake has caused a fire at a nuke plant in Japan follows revelations of operator error that could have caused an accident at the 1,316 MW Krummel reactor in Germany, owned by Vattenfall Europe. When a fire broke out at that plant in late June, operators panicked and put the reactor on emergency shutdown, against their guidelines, and put the reactor at risk. Then Vattenfall tried to cover up what happened.

I learned of this at SolarFest this weekend in central Vermont, where thousands converged to learn and share ideas toward a safer and more sustainable energy future. Fellow vendors said that it was the best crowd for this perennial event they'd seen -- was it merely the "year of the climate" effect? Perhaps, but there was a real sense of determination shared by all the folks I spoke with about my organization's renewable energy plans. As Bill McKibben said so well from the main stage on Saturday, this event used to be about good things we should do. Now it's about all the things we must do.

Funny safety joke

Have you heard the one about the Japanese nuclear reactor that caught fire and leaked radioactive waste into the ocean?

Using molten salt to store solar energy

We've gone round and round on various ways to store energy from intermittent suppliers like solar and wind before ...

The always excellent Robert Rapier has this interesting squib on using molten salt to store thermal energy from solar in his R-Squared Energy Blog.*

(While you're there you should check out his terrific posts on ethanol and biodiesel. He is in the interesting position of being a real advocate who can't ignore how oversold they are.)

In which I clear everything up

Over the past couple of weeks, there’s been a strangely heated debate on this site about carbon offsets. In this post, I’ll speculate about why the concept is so charged, and argue that it doesn’t warrant all the heat. And then I will leave the subject behind, at least for now. Start here: why is […]

Contrary to what you might have heard

A new study by the Union of Concerned Scientists finds:

Increasing the average fuel economy of America’s new autos to 35 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2018 would save consumers $61 billion at the gas pump and increase U.S. employment by 241,000 jobs in the year 2020, including 23,900 in the auto industry ...

The study is available here.

According to the analysis, nearly $24 billion of the gasoline savings would become new revenue for automakers in 2020–paying for the improved technologies plus some profit ...

[P]utting fuel economy technology to work would also cut our oil addiction by 1.6 million barrels per day and reduce global warming pollution by more than 260 million metric tons, akin to taking nearly 40 million of today’s average cars and trucks off the road in 2020.

Second to Naan

A worried India takes steps toward national climate plan India — home to more than a billion people and a fast-expanding economy — is taking its first steps toward a climate-change plan. On Friday, at the kick-off meeting of the National Council on Climate Change, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave a preview of a “Green […]

Showing off sustainability slide shows from around the world

Al Gore's PowerPoint presentation (which was actually done in Keynote on a Mac) may be the most famous global-warming slide show, but it's one of probably millions. Scores of save-the-planet slide shows have been shown off in boardrooms and classrooms around the world. Here are some cooked up by people from around the globe.

Alas, the cute factor is conspicuously missing.

Edwardsian rhetoric

In this interview, John Edwards uses a line I’ve heard him use three or four times now, so it must be a stock part of his speeches: Our generation must be the one that says, "We must halt global warming." Um, no. Our generation must be the one that says, "Our generation must be the […]

Japan experiments with seaweed as biofuel

As birthplace of the Kyoto Protocol, Japan is one of the pioneering countries in climate change policy and research. In 1990, Japan pledged to reduce carbon emissions by 6 percent by 2012. One of their proposed stratagems for meeting this goal is to replace the 132 million gallons of gasoline that Japan car drivers use with a biofuel option.