Clean Energy: 9 Million More Barrels Each Day than Drilling

The more I look, the more oil savings I find. My latest investigation continues to cast serious doubt on the advice of drilling advocates by turning up 11 times more oil in 2030 than we could extract from the Arctic Refuge and protected areas of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). It turns out that we don't have to look far for more oil; we must simply improve the way we use energy today. Over the next two decades, we could save nearly 10 million of barrels of oil each day (mbd) by seeking out efficiency opportunities throughout our economy. For comparison, the U.S. currently imports about 10 ...Original article link

Green is the New Black

This article was was written by Alex Steffen in April 2006. We're republishing it here as part of our month-long editorial retrospective.Green is the new black. No buzz-phrase better sums up both the excitement many of us feel about the blooming environmental and social consciousness around us and the essential hollowness of the answers being promoted by many newly-minted eco-pundits.The flood of environmental magazine cover stories, documentaries and advertisements has pushed us over a public-opinion threshold, which is great. But the solutions being touted by many of our new-found allies are...Original article link

Economic Security: Will the Third Oil Shock be the Charm?

Your Energy and Economic Independence: What You Really Pay for Oil.The cost to the U.S. economy over the past 25 years of over reliance on OPEC oil, including the cost of price shocks, is estimated at $4 trillion, and a price shock in 2005 would cost the U.S. economy half a trillion dollars. Oak Ridge National Laboratory, October 2, 1996 Labor Day 2008 gave me some time to reflect on our country's economic independence. On July 4th we had just celebrated how our country won its quest for economic independence and personal freedoms. Do we really have economic independence today and what freedom...Original article link

Hurricane hits Cuba, thousands evacuated

Hurricane Ike tore across Cuba with 100-mph winds Monday, sending 50-foot waves that crashed over buildings and forcing the evacuation of 900,000 people. Forecasters predicted the storm could pick up pace over the Gulf of Mexico as it heads towards landfall along the U.S. Gulf Coast. full story

Turning Black into Green

For too much of the lengthy debate over expanded access to oil & gas resources, participants on both sides have sought to pit renewable energy against conventional energy. There is nothing at all mutually-exclusive in our need to increase US energy supplies from both of these sources, and an op-ed in today's Washington Post suggests a way explicitly to align them to the ultimate benefit of companies, the country, and of the environment. The concept involved is not new, but it is significant to see it coming from two Congressmen, one a Democrat and the other a Republican. Taken together with th...Original article link

Bad Juice III: Biofuels Really Are Bad for Food Prices

The Journal's Bob Davis reports:In July, the Guardian newspaper breathlessly reported that a leaked copy of a World Bank report blamed biofuels for 75% of the steep increase in food prices. What made the report even juicier was that the report was supposedly suppressed by the World Bank, headed by former Bush administration Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick. The blogosphere went to town on the story.A little reporting showed there wasnt a lot of there, there, as Gertrude Stein might have remarked. I spoke to the reports author, Donald Mitchell, who said the April report was a draft and...Original article link

Sustainable Biofuels: Hows 'bout a shot of tequila with that ethanol, sir?

With energy and now food prices rising fast, first generation biofuels have again come under attack from scientists, skeptics and policy makers. But are all biofuel feedstocks created equal? And should they all be lumped together and farmers and industry chastised for and discouraged from investing in them?Certainly there are those who think not. Greenbiz reported this week on initial progress towards developing an environmentally, socially and economically sound standard for biofuel production. The Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels, a coalition of farmers, businesses, governments and no...Original article link

Texas Breeze: Landowners Call Wind Turbines Ugly; Court Says Too Bad

Among all the other hurdles facing renewable energy, from economics to technology, will the real bogeyman be aesthetics?Clean-energy revolution or eyesore? (FPL)For now, wind powers triumphant march in the U.S. can count on another legal smackdown of NIMBYism, after a Texas appeals court yesterday dismissed a suit by landowners upset with a big wind farm built by FPL Energy. Landowners decried the turbines noise and their spoiled sunsetswhich the court agreed was a pitybut the appeals court couldnt find grounds to rule against the power company.Since the early days of wind power, turbine noise...Original article link

Ring Road: What Happens to China's Environment After the Olympics?

This Sunday, the closing ceremony of the Summer Olympics will bring an end to the 2008 Gamesand to the sudden spotlight on Chinas environmental somersaults during the green olympics. The question is: Will Beijing see Olympic aftershocks on the environmental front, the same way Seoul did after 1988 on the political front?Back to work, you (AP)Theres a lot standing in the way, even if the United Nations hopes the green push continues. When those pesky marathoners with face masks leave, forbidden cars will return to the Forbidden City. Factories closed all summer will reopen, and presumably will ...Original article link

AEP demands 45% rate increase for Ohio what all America can look forward to under McCain

What happens when your utility is 68% dependent on coal?American Electric Power said Thursday it must raise electricity rates 45 percent for its nearly 1.5 million customers in Ohio over the next three years, to cover soaring coal prices and the cost of modernizing its systems to keep them reliable .AEP executives acknowledge that the increases will be tough on consumers already facing high gas and food prices during a slumping economy. The fact is that coal has doubled in cost in the last year alone, dramatically affecting AEP Ohio's costs, Joe Hamrock, AEP Ohio president and chief ope...Original article link

A Giant Leap For Clean Energy: Hydrogen Production Breakthrough from MIT

graphic of hydrogen bonds (in green) between oxygen (red) and hydrogen (white): FocusOne problem with wind and solar power is that for either to be able to provide a round-the-clock source of reliable power, you need some sort of back up power source. Or you need to have some way of storing the excess energy produced during the day for use at night or when the wind isn't blowing. Well, though it's a long way from being commercially deployed, a new development by MIT chemist Daniel Nocera may bring the holy grail of renewable energy storage a bit closer to hand. ... ...Original article link

Soybean Growers Help Dispel Ethanol, Biodiesel Myths

Battling the myths and misinformation that swirl around both ethanol and biodiesel seems to be a fulltime job these days. While some groups, such as the American Soybean Association and the Renewable Fuels Association, fight these battles daily, they could use a little help from the novices and those interested in the success of biofuels. That's why the ASA is giving them the tools to beat back those naysayers against the green fuels.The ASA has created the document called Myths and Realities Behind Rising Food Prices :Anyone who buys groceries or eats in a restaurant knows that food pr...Original article link

World Bank Report: Biofuels Have Contributed Almost Half of the Increase in Global Food Prices

The UK Guardian reports that a confidential World Bank report obtained by the newspaper concludes that biofuels have contributed to almost half of the global increase in food prices a much larger contribution to the price increases than estimated by many. Of the 140% increase since 2002 in the basket of food prices examined in the study, the report estimates that biofuels have been responsible for a 75% jump, while higher energy and fertilizer prices accounted for an increase of 15%.Among the conclusions of the report, according to the Guardian:Rapid income growth in developing countries (...Original article link

Biofuels Behind World Food Crisis - World Bank

Image by Flickr user Peter CasierBiofuels are responsible for a 75 percent increase in world food prices according to the findings of a World Bank report published in The Guardian newspaper on Friday. The bank said concern over climate change and increasing competition for cropland had prompted Europe and the US to encourage the use of biofuels, driving up the price of raw materials used in their production, such as wheat, soy, corn and palm oil. Notwithstanding this, a more likely explanation seems to be the rocketing price of crude oil which has shot up to almost $150 a barrel.Almost all ...Original article link

Beyond coal

By Sean Casten This article first appeared in Spark, and is reprinted here with their permission. It's somewhat long, and it's got numbers and graphs. It helps if you imagine Scarlett Johansson reading it. When it comes to power generation, coal isn't cheap. Both power plant and fuel costs are up by nearly 300%, and projected to rise farther1. Even before factoring in the risks of future greenhouse gas legislation, this has conspired to make a bet on coal-fired central station power equivalent to a bet on massive retail power price increases. Increasingly, this is a bet that neither e...Original article link

Brit's Eye View: Sustaining sustainability

By Ben TuxworthBen Tuxworth, communications director at Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe. ----- What will the recession mean for sustainability? With the U. ...

Wind Farm Tax Revenues More Than Pay For Incentives to Build Them: GE Study

In case anyone needs some economic arguments as to why the renewable energy incentives stalled in the Senate should go forward: A new study released by GE Energy Financial Services provides some solid evidence that it isn't just clean energy which is created by wind farms.... ...Original article link

California Dreaming: Can a Growing State Slash Emissions?

California says it can cut greenhouse-gas emissions and still have economic growth. Huh? Wasnt that what helped sink the Lieberman-Warner billthat the country faces a choice between curbing emissions on the one hand, or growing the economy on the other?An end to all that? (AP)So how does California plan to do it? Well, the Golden States environmental mavens arent exactly sure yet. The state presented today the draft of its big cap-and-trade program that would cut emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020. But it hasnt gotten around to doing either the economic or the environmental models of what t...Original article link

Renewable Fuel Standard Waiver Requested By Texas Governor

I'm sorry if this is getting repetitive for our regular readers: rising corn prices, biofuels pushing people into poverty, meat prices set to increase, does corn-ethanol really increase food prices?One more pub... ...Original article link

Ethanol promoters attack Big Oil, OPEC in Nashville

Filed under: Ethanol, Flex-FuelOh, the poor ethanol industry figures. Maligned for their reliance on corn, blamed for rising food prices and having to resort to subsidized fuel sales to attract attention, ethanol is an easy target these days.. Ethanol can't even get any love from the chickens. Last week, ethanol promoters gathered in Nashville to lash out at OPEC and Big Oil, and to figure out how ethanol will fare in the coming years. Around 4,000 people attended the 2008 Fuel Ethanol Workshop and Expo, according to organizers BBI. There is a lengthy video of the opening session now available...Original article link