Gristmill
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DFHs take over, threaten Big Agribusiness
"Biofuel companies are worried about the impact California's low-carbon standard could have in that state and elsewhere."
Freaking hippies. If God had meant people to use land for growing food instead of fuel for cars, he wouldn't have created lobbyists.
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Movement for metro pollinators spreading
Let loose the bees! Like the surging movement for backyard chickens, bees also have urban anthropic allies, and Denver is the newest metropolis to allow beehives in town. Led by the intrepid Denver Urban Gardens (DUG) crew, bees will now be invited to pollinate mile-high metro-veggies, just like in Seattle, Minneapolis, and San Francisco.
Enjoy the ordinance's entertaining rules on how hives are to be kept at DUG's site, but consider that native bees are also to be encouraged.
Check out this article on Sacramento's Urban Bee Project, which tries to bolster biodiversity and urban pollination through the planting of vegetation favored by native bees, such as the cantankerous 'headbonker.' Me, I'd plant any damn thing if I thought something by that name might come bumbling by.
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Bingaman unveils draft of renewable energy standard
Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is passing around a discussion draft [PDF] of a renewable electricity standard (RES) bill that will be taken up by his committee this week. The bill would require 4 percent of U.S. electricity to come from renewable sources by 2011, scaling up to […]
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Announcing a new blog from veteran coalfield journalist Ken Ward
I dare say no one knows more about coal mining and its impact on communities, economies, industries, the environment, and the climate than Charleston Gazette reporter Ken Ward. He's been on the front lines for years, filing his award-winning reports from West Virginia and the coalfield region.
Now he's launched a new blog: Coal Tattoo. Bookmark it.
Here's a clip from his first post:
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Proposed renewable-energy bill is better than nothing
The following is a guest post from Tom Casten, chairman of Recycled Energy Development LLC.
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Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), chair of the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, along with Rep. Todd Platts (R-Pa.), has introduced legislation calling for 25 percent of U.S. electricity to come from clean energy by 2025. What will such legislation do to electricity costs?
Most pundits assume the current system is optimal, and thus claim that any mandate to change this "best of all possible worlds" will raise the price of delivered electricity. It is hilarious to think the protected and regulated electric system is optimal, but depressing to realize no one is laughing. Consider two questions:
- Do market forces drive electricity suppliers to lowest-delivered-cost solutions?
- What is the delivered cost of clean energy from various generation options?
What market forces? All electricity distribution systems and many generation plants enjoy monopoly protection. Subsidies abound. Profits are guaranteed. Old plants can legally emit up to 100 times the pollution of a new plant. A century of rules reward and protect yesterday's approaches and the resulting vested interests.
Congressman Markey has never seen current generation as optimal, and now that he chairs the relevant subcommittee, he proposes to mandate cleaner and, in our view, cheaper electricity generation. Yes, we said cheaper. Anyone interested in some facts?
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Greenpeace assesses the carbon footprint of Obama’s stimulus plan
The Obama administration’s original stimulus proposal would reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by at least 61 million tons per year, according to an analysis commissioned by Greenpeace from the consulting firm ICF International. (Here’s the summary report and highlights.) The report estimates that reductions resulting from the Obama plan would be equivalent to eliminating the emissions of […]
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Georgia legislator introduces bill that would restrict coal-fired power plants
If Georgia would consider restricting coal, maybe we are stumbling toward a new economic/energy paradigm?
