Tag Archives: Energy Crisis

Obama energy and environment plan

From www.change.gov, retrieved on Thursday, November 20, 2008:

The energy challenges our country faces are severe and have gone unaddressed for far too long. Our addiction to foreign oil doesn’t just undermine our national security and wreak havoc on our environment — it cripples our economy and strains the budgets of working families all across America. Barack Obama and Joe Biden have a comprehensive plan to invest in alternative and renewable energy, end our addiction to foreign oil, address the global climate crisis and create millions of new jobs.

Click here to read the whole page, and find links to other elements of the plan.

Not everyone is happy that oil prices are dropping …

From the San Francisco Chronicle on Monday, October 27, 2008:

Not everyone likes seeing oil prices plunge.

This decade’s historic high prices for oil and natural gas have stoked the rise of renewable power and alternative fuels. As fossil fuel prices smashed record after record, options like ethanol, hybrid electric cars, solar power and wind looked better and better.

Now oil costs less than half what it did this summer. Ditto natural gas. If prices keep dropping and stay down, future fuels like cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel will have a harder time competing. So will solar and wind power projects, which compete against power plants that burn natural gas. Public interest in alternative energy may dwindle as well.

Click here to read the whole article.

Wood heat rising in popularity

From the Christian Science Monitor on Monday, October 21, 2008:

Both traditional and pellet-burning wood stoves are in high demand as cold weather begins to grip the northern United States and Canada. Sales of wood stoves are up 55 percent so far this year over last, according to industry figures. And sales of wood pellet stoves are even hotter: up 135 percent over the same period last year.

But as people polish their stoves and admire their woodpiles, environmentalists and health officials are expressing concern that burning wood in old or poorly designed stoves could add significantly to air pollution. And although wood represents a local and renewable fuel source, its credentials as a “carbon neutral” fuel – not adding to global warming – are hazy at best.

Click here to read the whole article.

PORTAL Keeps the Energy Doors Open

BY: CCHRC Staff
Energy Focus: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner October 16th, 2008, Section A3

Last week in this column we discussed the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation (AHFC) Energy Rebate program, created late last spring to help homeowners make their homes more energy efficient.

This week, we’ll discuss how to make the right decisions about your home, what resources are available to help you arrange for and understand your energy ratings, and how to undertake energy efficiency changes. Continue reading →

Regional climate control plans growing

From the Chicago Tribune on Tuesday, October 14, 2008:

NEW YORK—In what are likely to be blueprints for a national effort to fight climate change, clusters of states on the East and West Coasts and in the Midwest are setting up marketplaces for electric utilities and other companies to buy and sell credits to emit carbon dioxide and other gases responsible for global warming.

Building on a voluntary market system pioneered in Chicago, 10 Northeastern states recently launched what they are billing as the biggest, most coordinated effort yet in the U.S. to take on climate change by mandating that electric utilities take part in an emissions-allowance trading program.

But an alliance of seven Western states and four Canadian provinces could surpass their efforts with a more ambitious trading system they unveiled last month. It encompasses industry as well as utilities, with a goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent in 12 years.

Click here to read the whole article.

Open letter to the future farmer-in-chief

From the New York Times on Thursday, October 9, 2008:

Dear Mr. President-Elect,

It may surprise you to learn that among the issues that will occupy much of your time in the coming years is one you barely mentioned during the campaign: food. Food policy is not something American presidents have had to give much thought to, at least since the Nixon administration — the last time high food prices presented a serious political peril. Since then, federal policies to promote maximum production of the commodity crops (corn, soybeans, wheat and rice) from which most of our supermarket foods are derived have succeeded impressively in keeping prices low and food more or less off the national political agenda. But with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close. 

Click here to read the whole article.

House introduces climate change bill

On Tuesday, October 7, 2008, the Representatives John Dingell (D-Mi.) and Rick Boucher (D-Va.) introduced draft legislation that would reduce U.S.-produced greenhouse gases 80% by 2050.

The draft legislation, which was unveiled Tuesday and will be refined in coming months for introduction next year, would begin slowly, capping emissions of heat-trapping gases released by transportation and power plants first, then moving to other sectors of the economy. The money earned from auctioning off some of the permits would be redirected to energy efficiency and clean technologies. In later years, all permits would be sold with the proceeds going back to the taxpayer, unless Congress reauthorizes the bill. 

“Politically, scientifically, legally, and morally, the question has been settled: regulation of greenhouse gases in the United States is coming,” wrote House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., and energy and air quality subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, D-Va. in a letter explaining the 461-page draft, which has been in the works for two years and was the subject of more than two dozen hearings.

Click here to read the article in the Chicago Tribune from Wednesday, October 8, 2008.

Click here to read the proposed legislation.

New solar photovoltaic system could collect more energy

From nytimes.com, posted on Monday, September 29, 2008:

One of the limitations of solar photovoltaic systems is that, at the current state of the technology, no more than a quarter of the energy from the sun is converted to electric current. Most of the rest of the energy is lost as waste heat.

But Vinod Khosla, the founder of Sun Microsystems and now a technology entrepreneur and alternative-energy venture capitalist, says he’s found a solution that doubles or even triples the energy yield — a gargantuan leap in a field where engineers exult over the most incremental gains.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Renewable energy still stymied in Congress

From the New York Times on Tuesday, September 30, 2008:

… But while renewable energy has become a hot political buzzword, Congress has thus far failed to extend tax credits that wind, solar and other clean-energy companies say they need to stay in business.

As it stands, the tax credits currently in place expire at the end of this year.

The big-picture reason, says Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, is that renewable energy credits keep getting legislatively shackled to more controversial issues.

Click here to read the whole article.

Alaska energy rebate program very popular

From the Anchorage Daily News on Tuesday, September 30, 2008:

With a fresh infusion of $60 million into the state’s Home Energy Rebate Program, thousands of Alaska homeowners are clamoring to receive home-improvement rebate checks worth as much as $10,000, creating an unprecedented backlog and leaving many people frustrated and stressed with the process to get a piece of the big state giveaway.

In response, the state’s Alaska Housing Finance Corp. has hired more staff and plans to step in to help with the scramble, while local contractors continue to work overtime.

Click here to read the whole article.