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The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) just issued its must-read report on U.S. Carbon Dioxide Emissions in 2009. It turns out energy-related CO2 emissions have dropped faster than EIA had expected just a few months ago (see my September post, "EIA stunner: By year's end, we'll be 8.5% below 2005 levels of CO2 - halfway to climate bill's 2020 target"). Surely this country could reduce CO2 emissions a little more than 7% in 10 years and meet the modest target set out in the Senate climate bill, which appears likely to be introduced next week. It really isn't bloody hard (see Game changer part 2: Unconventional gas makes the 2020 Waxman-Markey target so damn easy and cheap to meet).

The meetings, to be held in Washington in April and in La Maddalena, Italy, in July, will seek to resolve longstanding issues that have blocked the development of an international climate treaty. The participants, who include Chinese and Indian representatives, will also try to create "concrete initiatives and joint ventures that increase the supply of clean energy while cutting greenhouse gas emissions,"� according to a White House news release. The talks, called the Major Economies Meetings on Energy Security and Climate Change, echo in name and goals an initiative begun in the last two years of the Bush administration.

The state of New Hampshire's Climate Change Policy Task Force this week released the New Hampshire Climate Action Plan and announced the creation of a public/private partnership that will oversee and guide the plan's implementation. "Here in New Hampshire, we already recognize that climate change poses serious risks to the health of our citizens, to our quality of life and to our economic future." -- New Hampshire Governor John Lynch The plan sets a long-term goal of achieving an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by the year 2050. Renewable energy measures in the plan include setting a goal of ensuring that 25 percent of the state's energy comes from renewable sources by 2025, upgrading the state's grid and encouraging the use of waste-to-energy projects.

Climate change. Energy independence. Air pollution. There are countless arguments for moving beyond fossil fuels for our energy needs. Unfortunately, there are just as many hurdles that must be cleared before we can feasibly count on other sources to supplant oil, coal and natural gas, which currently provide the lion's share of U.S. electricity generation and transportation fuels.

I was going to write about Tom Paine. The upcoming 200th anniversary of his death on June 9 certainly needs to be acknowledged, but if the people of Cumberland County can pull together to prevent the despoiling of their God-given land, they will do more to honor Tom's memory than my feeble words, so I'll defer for now. When coal burns, most of it turns into gas (carbon dioxide), but heavier minerals are left behind in the ash. Therefore, coal ash contains concentrated amounts of toxic metals such as mercury, lead, arsenic and heavy radioactive elements. As I said in an earlier column, Wake Forest University found Emory River arsenic measurements hundreds of time higher than allowable levels after the TVA ash spill. Radioactivity in the ash is over 50 percent above allowable levels in uranium mining waste.

The US Chamber of Commerce on Thursday launched a campaign to promote "green projects" it said could proceed if only environmental groups, local governments and others would stop opposing sponsors' efforts to obtain sites and permits for the ventures. At a news conference at the chamber's Washington headquarters, officials said permitting and siting disputes, activist opposition and other "green tape" has killed or delayed "thousands" of coal, ethanol, natural gas, nuclear, transmission and wind projects.

A GOP senator from the nation's leading coal-producing state contends Democrats will increase energy costs and make the U.S. more dependent on foreign oil if they focus solely on alternative energy. In the party's weekly radio and Internet address Saturday, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said Republicans support a more comprehensive energy plan that would increase funding for energy research, develop U.S. oil and gas resources and promote clean coal and nuclear power.

President Barack Obama announced plans on Tuesday for a national fuel-economy and greenhouse-gas standard that would significantly increase mileage requirements for cars and trucks by 2016. Obama called it "an historic agreement to help America break its dependence on oil, reduce harmful pollution and begin the transition to a clean energy economy." The new requirements mark the first time there has been a nationwide standard for emissions of greenhouse gases. They require an average mileage standard of 39 miles per gallon for cars and 30 mpg for trucks by 2016 - a jump from the current average for all vehicles of 25 miles per gallon.

President Barack Obama took aim at climate-warming greenhouse gases on Tuesday and ordered the struggling auto industry to make more fuel-efficient cars under tough new national standards to cut emissions and increase gas mileage. Obama said the standards, announced at a White House ceremony attended by auto industry and union leaders, would reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil and give five years of cost certainty to an industry battling to survive. "The status quo is no longer acceptable," Obama said in an announcement that will pressure carmakers to transform and modernize the industry to produce more efficient vehicles.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee is expected to pass legislation this week that would overhaul U.S. energy and global warming policy, assuming Democrats can stay united in the face of hundreds of GOP amendments. Unveiled Friday, H.R. 2454 (pdf) includes items long sought by environmentalists, including a cap-and-trade program to curb greenhouse gas emissions and a nationwide renewable electricity standard. The 932-page bill, also comes with the support of President Obama, who applauded the "historic agreement" after weeks of intense negotiations among Democrats representing vastly different regions and economic sectors.

If I am travelling down an "irrational" road to renewables, as Richard Phillips implies (Letters, 11 September), then I am not alone. Last year, solar PV generation capacity grew by 70% around the world, wind power by 29% and solar hot water increased by 15%. By 2008, renewables represented more than 50% of total added generation capacity in both the US and Europe, ie more new renewables capacity was installed than new capacity for gas, coal, oil, and nuclear combined; with no emissions, no wastes and no security issues to worry about - and no worries about fuel running out, or increasing in price. It's true the energy available from some renewable sources, like wind, varies over time, but we already have to have backup capacity for other plants (including for nuclear plants), which is also used to deal with the daily energy demand peaks. With variable renewables on the grid, these backup plants have to be used a bit more often, adding a small extra cost and, if they are fossil-fuelled, reducing the amount of emissions saved very slightly. But hydro can also be used as backup, and increasingly, so can other types of non-variable renewable source, including biomass and geothermal energy.

Today, Secretary Steven Chu announced that the Department of Energy has closed on its loan offer of $5.9 billion to Ford Motor Company to transform factories across Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, and Ohio to produce more fuel efficient models. The loan is part of the Department's Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, which supports the development of innovative, advanced vehicle technologies to create thousands of clean energy jobs while helping reduce the nation's dangerous dependence on foreign oil. The loan for Ford Motor Company is the first to be finalized since the program was appropriated in the fall of 2008. This announcement builds on steps taken by the Obama Administration earlier this week to require an average fuel economy of 35.5 miles per gallon in the year 2016. That standard will reduce oil consumption by an estimated 1.8 billion barrels, prevent greenhouse gas emissions of approximately 950 million metric tons, and save consumers more than $3,000 in fuel costs. The funding announced today will help Ford meet those targets.

In the world of renewables, most of the attention is on the wind and the sun. Geothermal power just hasn't gotten the same respect. That could be changing, as both the Obama Administration and Silicon Valley are considering the heat under the ground as a potentially huge source of clean, domestic U.S. energy, but recent setbacks are calling into question how much geothermal can contribute. Given the potential benefits, we should be doubling our efforts to make geothermal a viable power source for the U.S. Some background: All thermal power plants use the same basic process. A heat source (burning coal or gas, uranium, concentrated solar energy) is used to turn water into steam, and the energy released turns a turbine that produces electricity. What sets geothermal apart is that the steam comes directly from the ground. Water percolates down through cracks in the ground and is heated to the boiling point by hot rocks underground (in some cases coming back up as a geyser - think Old Faithful), and the resulting steam is drawn up via a well to a turbine.

Legislation that would require greater use of renewable energy, make it easier to build power lines and allow oil and gas drilling near Florida's coast advanced Wednesday in the Senate. The Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted 15-8 to clear the measure, although both Democrats and Republicans - for different reasons - said they had concerns about the bill and hoped to make major changes on the Senate floor. The legislation's primary thrust is to expand the use of renewable sources of energy such as wind, solar and geothermal sources as well as deal with the growing concerns about the inadequacies of the nation's high-voltage power grid.

Climate change legislation before Congress would boost electricity prices by about 20 percent by 2030, although most of the increases wouldn't begin until after 2020, a government analysis concluded Tuesday. The Energy Information Administration said the ability to contain the cost to consumers depends largely on whether the country is successful in a "large scale" expansion of nuclear power and renewable energy sources that do not emit greenhouse gases and the deployment of carbon-capture technology at coal plants. Legislation, already approved by the House and expected to be taken up in the Senate later this year, would require carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions be cut by 17 percent over the next 11 years and by 83 percent by mid-century. Opponents of the bill have said such a shift would lead to soaring energy costs, especially for electricity.

"Just once, it would be nice if a president would level with Americans on energy. Barack Obama isn't that president. His speech the other night was about political damage control -- his own. It was full of misinformation and mythology. Obama held out a gleaming vision of an America that would convert to the "clean" energy of, presumably, wind, solar and biomass. It isn't going to happen for many, many decades, if ever. For starters, we won't soon end our "addiction to fossil fuels." Oil, coal and natural gas supply about 85 percent of America's energy needs. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects energy consumption to grow only an average of 0.5 percent annually from 2008 to 2035, but that's still a 14 percent cumulative increase. Fossil fuel usage would increase slightly in 2035 and its share would still account for 78 percent of the total. "

Georgia Power recently got some good news and bad news as it continues its push for new nuclear reactors in the state. The good news: Neither the Georgia Public Service Commission's public interest staff nor the state's biggest industrial customers oppose the new reactors outright. The bad news: Both the PSC staff and the industrial customers slammed the company's proposal to begin charging for the new reactors five years before they're complete. In filings late last week, the staff said it was recommending approval of the reactors subject to adoption of a number of financial limits.

Sarah Palin just helped clarify McCain's double-talk on global warming: He doesn't think the government should do anything to stop it. Voters who care about either global warming or clean energy have only one choice -- and it isn't McCain-Palin. It's time to stop trying to guess whether the latest McCain campaign gaffe revision on global warming means the Arizonan has walked away from his previous support for mandatory government control of greenhouse gases. He has.

We look to new leaders in Washington to invest in clean energy - like wind and solar - to get America moving forward and put Americans back to work. These investments will create millions of good-paying jobs in the hardest-hit construction and manufacturing sectors and create pathways out of poverty for the most affected communities. Fill out the form below to call on President-elect Obama and the 111th Congress to produce a plan to Repower, Refuel and Rebuild America.

When Barack Obama spoke in Albuquerque on Oct. 27, Nathan Newcomer, associate director of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, gave congressional candidate Martin Heinrich a gift for the presidential candidate. The gift was a book - "Otero Mesa: Preserving America's Wildest Grassland." It was not a book to go on Obama's coffee table but one Newcomer hoped might influence his energy policy.