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Energy Net

Fuel fears have US over a barrel | theage.com.au - 0 views

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    REFINED, distilled and then burnt, petrol's explosive power propels the world's largest economy. But its soaring price is punching holes in the US engine - and the rest of US are anything but immune. The globe's thirstiest energy consumer is reeling from high petrol prices, with a barrel of oil hitting $US137 ($145) on Thursday's markets. Even if there is still division about whether the high point of global production - "peak oil" - has been reached, most analysts agree that cheap oil is finished.
Energy Net

BBC NEWS | US global dominance 'set to wane' - 0 views

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    US economic, military and political dominance is likely to decline over the next two decades, according to a new US intelligence report on global trends. The National Intelligence Council (NIC) predicts China, India and RUSsia will increasingly challenge US influence. It also says the dollar may no longer be the world's major currency, and food and water shortages will fuel conflict.
Energy Net

An Alternative to the Auto Bailout | CommonDreams.org - 0 views

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    As the Big Three US automakers ramp up their pressure on Congress to cough up $25 billion in bailout money, the absence of a long term vision for economic recovery has never been more clear. The outgoing BUSh administration and Congress are careening from bailout proposal to bailout proposal, putting hundreds of billions into the hands of the same people that created this toxic economic brew. Naomi Klein has recently detailed the horrifying parallels between the "free-fraud" zone created by the BUSh administration in Iraq and the Treasury Department's handling of the bank bailout (http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2008/10/bailout-profiteers). As tempting as it is to offer bailout money to the US automakers in return for fleet-wide mileage reductions, changes in the mix of their fleets to include more hybrids and electric vehicles, and to support labor, it would be the wrong thing to do under current conditions. Imports from foreign automakers have backed up in American ports over the last few months and now represent roughly double the normal inventory, so the difficulties faced by automakers are not limited to US firms. US automakers, however, have additional problems becaUSe their fleets are dominated by too-large, fuel-inefficient models. That fleet makeup cannot be quickly changed.
Energy Net

ZNet - Solar & Wind Power - 0 views

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    Most climate experts accept that, in order to avoid catastrophic effects of global warming, greenhouse gas emissions (mostly CO2) must be cut by 60-80% by 2050 (though the figure may need to be a 95% cut in the us). The belief that replacing fossil fuels with solar and wind technology can accomplish this reduction tends to overlook several factors: 1. Corporations bombard the world with the message that everyone should consume like Americans do; 2. Corporations tell those in the us that they should ape after the playthings of the rich; 3. Population is growing; 4. Market economics force pathological expansion; and, 5. Solar and wind comprise a minute fraction of current energy. Let's combine these to get an idea of how much solar and wind would need to expand to replace coal, oil, nukes and gas by 2050. First, the us consumes about 25% of the world's energy while having only 5% of the world's population. For the rest of the world to consume at the rate of the us would require global production to increase by a factor of 6.33.
Energy Net

Alternative Energy and Fuel News: ENN - 0 views

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    The US renewable energy sector is capable of meeting President-elect Barack Obama's pledge to double US production within three years, but the ongoing financial crisis will challenge the indUStry in 2009, analysts and indUStry experts said. Currently, renewable energy sources comprise 7% of the US energy supply, according to the US Energy Information Administration. In a speech last week, Obama reiterated his pledge to make development of the sector a major part of his economic stimulUS package.
Energy Net

Informing consumers about energy efficiency: viral communication - 0 views

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    Informing individuals about the resource use and environmental consequences of their energy consumption can be surprisingly difficult. Do you ever read the little flyers that your utility or your energy retailer puts in your bill? Nope, I don't either. But in general we're pretty clueless about our energy consumption, because we do not have timely information that shows us how much we're using, and how much we're spending, so we have little incentive to go out and find information about energy efficiency. Even my students, undergrads and MBAs at one of the best universities in the world, don't generally realize that, for example, 90% of the energy used in an incandescent light bulb produces waste heat, not lumens. In part the challenge is that it's an information push, and it's an information push in an over-informed world. Consumers rarely go out looking for ways to save energy (although $4 gas and possible recession have increased that information pull!).
Energy Net

Everything You Know About Water Conservation Is Wrong | Environmental Policy | DISCOVER Magazine - 0 views

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    I've been mindful of the amount of water I use when making a pot of coffee ever since learning that one-third of the tap water used for drinking in North America is actually used to brew our daily cups of joe-and that if each of us avoided wasting just one cupful of coffee a day, we could save enough water over the course of a year to provide two gallons to every one of the more than 1.1 billion people who don't have access to freshwater at all.
Energy Net

Letters: Renewables winning the energy race | Environment | The Guardian - 0 views

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    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.
Energy Net

The Cost of Energy» Graph of the week: The US transportation gap - 0 views

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    You can quote numbers all day about how much oil the US USes and for which purposes, but few things drive the point home like the graph below. This shows US oil consumption for jUSt transportation (broken out by mode), with a line plot of domestic production, revealing a humongoUS gap and explaining why so many peak oil adherents are so freaked out.
Energy Net

BBC News - US senators unveil climate change bill - 0 views

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    "US senators have unveiled details of a long-awaited bill on climate change - a key plank of President Barack Obama's domestic agenda. Senator John Kerry revealed that the bill proposes cutting US carbon emissions by 17% by 2020. He said he was aiming for the US to be the world's "clean-energy leader". The bill also includes provisions for relaxing rules on offshore oil-drilling - highly controversial in the wake of the huge Gulf of Mexico oil spill. "
Energy Net

AFP: US Senate Republicans skip open of climate change talks - 0 views

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    Republicans on a key US Senate committee were absent Tuesday as debate opened on a Democratic proposal for sweeping climate change legislation. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee opened its critical debate on the plan at 9:00 am (1400 GMT) without its Republican members, despite last-ditch efforts to avert an opposition boycott from Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, who chairs the committee. Republican Senator George Voinovich did show up soon after the meeting opened, but only to deliver a statement opposing the measure. Supporters of the climate change legislation are pUShing hard to pass it ahead of December's make-or-break global summit in Denmark. In a statement, the Republicans said they would oppose the bill until they had a "comprehensive analysis" of the economic impact of the legislation from the federal watchdog agency, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
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    Republicans on a key US Senate committee were absent Tuesday as debate opened on a Democratic proposal for sweeping climate change legislation. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee opened its critical debate on the plan at 9:00 am (1400 GMT) without its Republican members, despite last-ditch efforts to avert an opposition boycott from Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, who chairs the committee. Republican Senator George Voinovich did show up soon after the meeting opened, but only to deliver a statement opposing the measure. Supporters of the climate change legislation are pUShing hard to pass it ahead of December's make-or-break global summit in Denmark. In a statement, the Republicans said they would oppose the bill until they had a "comprehensive analysis" of the economic impact of the legislation from the federal watchdog agency, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Energy Net

Light Bulbs To Get Nutrition-Style Labels Next Year : TreeHugger - 0 views

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    "Late last year we reported that the US Federal Trade Commission proposed a new label for compact fluorescent lightbulbs that would show vital statistics like mercury content and the light output in terms of lumens rather than watts, which would make the brightness of CFLs, LEDs and other lighting technology more comparable among consumers. Well word has jUSt hit that the new system has been approved and we'll soon see nutrition-facts-style labels on our lights. EarthTechling gave US a heads up about the new label, pointing US to the announcement from the FTC. The FTC states, "Under direction from Congress to re-examine the current labels, the FTC is announcing a final rule that will require the new labels on light bulb packages. For the first time, the label on the front of the package will emphasize the bulbs' brightness as measured in lumens, rather than a measurement of watts. The new front-of-package labels also will include the estimated yearly energy cost for the particular type of bulb.""
Energy Net

2008 Energy Roundup - 0 views

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    Here is a list of energy news items that the WattzOn team found most interesting in 2008: * CO2 is officially a pollutant (maybe) - In a ruling by the Environmental Appeals Board (a panel within the EPA), it was decided that the EPA has no valid reason to not limit CO2 emissions from coal plants. Confusingly, the EPA has recently overruled itself by stating that officials cannot consider greenhouse gas outputs in judging applications to build new coal-fired power plants. So, it's back up in the "air." * We need to be at 350 PPM of CO2 - James Hansen of Columbia University, and NASA's head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, published a landmark paper: "Target Atmospheric CO2: Where Should Humanity Aim?" in which he argues for an atmospheric CO2 concentration of 350 parts per million (PPM) for humanity to be safe on this planet. As some background, pre-industrial Earth had a CO2 concentration of around 275 PPM, and for years policy makers have set a target regulatory goal of 550 PM - twice that number. More recently, 450 PPM has been proposed as a better goal by the EU and a few others. Unfortunately, recent evidence has shown that the Arctic sea is melting at an alarming rate and a giant ice sheet in Greenland is starting to slide into the ocean. This is the reality with the world today at 383 PPM. Hansen points out that this means we set overly lax targets and proposes the 350 PPM goal with tons of paleo-climatic data to back him up. We need to bring the CO2 in our atmosphere back down to this concentration. * Energy scientists primed to enter government - us President-Elect Obama has nominated Steven Chu to be the Secretary of Energy, and named John Holdren as the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology / Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy / Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. As the President-Elect puts it, "Today, more than
Energy Net

DOE report paints bleak picture of our electric future - 0 views

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    There's a long tradition of using Fridays to release reports you'd rather not see attract attention, and the Department of Energy has used the last Friday of the Bush Administration to release a big one. Its Electricity Advisory Committee, composed primarily of power industry executives, has released a series of reports on the future of the us electric grid. These include focused looks at the potential for power storage and the smart grid, but it's the overall evaluation that's badly off the administration's message: the government needs to make a significant intervention in the power market, it's completely failed to do so for the past eight years (and longer), and conservation needs to be part of anything we do.
Energy Net

Tropical rain forests can fight climate change better than biofuel plantations | Entertainment and Showbiz! - 0 views

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    How important is it to eat organic? Is it a fad, a craze or is it a warning against chemical fertilizers and GMO crops, which will help protect the next generation? Organic farming is natural farming, that means no chemical fertilisers, no genetic modification for either food crops or feed crops. Commercial farming pushing demand for agricultural produce forced a shift towards chemical fertilisers and farming methods to maximise output, for maximum profit, unaware of the significantly unnatural processes being used can be harmful. At the consumer level organic produce is a relatively new phenomena. On the supermarket shelves we are finding products labelled 'organic', most of us think it means 'natural' or 'cruelty free'. When you buy organic you are buying a green product . That means methods such as green fertilisers, crop rotation and biological pest controls are used instead of toxic chemical fertilisers and genetically modified organisms which are harmful to the land. Organic farming composes about 2% of all farming on the planet.
Energy Net

Drill for Natural Gas, Pollute Water: Scientific American - 0 views

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    The natural gas industry refuses to reveal what is in the mixture of chemicals used to drill for the fossil fuel State regulators and Washington lawmakers though are increasingly impatient with voluntary measures and are seeking to toughen their oversight. In September U.S. Congresswoman Diana DeGette and Congressman John Salazar, from Colorado, and Congressman Maurice Hinchey, from New York, introduced a bill that would undo the exemptions in the 2005 Energy Policy Act. Wyoming, widely known for supporting energy development, has begun updating its regulations at a local level, as have parts of Texas. New Mexico has placed a one year moratorium on drilling around Santa Fe, after a survey found hundreds of cases of water contamination from unlined pits where fracking fluids and other drilling wastes are stored. "Every rule that we have improved . . . industry has taken us to court on," said Joanna Prukop, New Mexico's cabinet secretary for Energy Minerals and Natural Resources. "It's industry that is fighting us on every front as we try to improve our government enforcement, protection, and compliance… We wear Kevlar these days."
Energy Net

The Cost of Energy » Drifting into Carmageddon - 0 views

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    It's beginning to look a lot like Carmageddon. Are we there yet? Probably not, but recent events certainly seem to imply we've taken a big, random step in that direction lately. (Just to review: Carmageddon is a term I use to describe a state in the us auto industry where the offerings from car companies, particularly, but by no means exclusively, the Big Three, are ridiculously out of step with what the consumer need and want. This situation will also greatly impact those selling used vehicles, of course, with the resultant drop in resale values will leave many owners "buried alive, upside down" in their auto loans-their old, very undesirable vehicles will be worth less than they owe on them, making it ever harder for them switch to a much more fuel efficient vehicle. This situation will also mean that the relatively meager supply of highly fuel efficient cars won't be nearly enough to help consumers, so the price of those models will be bid up significantly in the form of higher resale values and dealer markups on new units.)
Energy Net

Life after oil | The Burlington Free Press - 0 views

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    Humanity is sitting on a railroad track, and a train is speeding toward us. The name of that train is global oil shortages. But, let's start at the beginning. Oil was discovered in 1859 in the United States. However, we did not appreciate its many uses, so production and consumption began slowly. During the years between World War I and World War II we learned of its many uses, but only in the last few decades have we built our dependency on oil. Now, all our clothes, food, transportation, construction depend on petrochemicals. As the oil production/consumption line has risen, the food production line has followed and also the global population line.
Energy Net

The Oil Drum | Happiness, economic growth, and oil prices - 0 views

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    US GDP per capita, and US median family income, in thoUSands of chained 2000 US dollars. (GDP from the BEA, median family income from Data 360, and population from the CensUS Bureau). Bottom: Percentage of persons who responded to the question "Taken all together, how would you say things are these days‐‐would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?" with each of the three options. (General Social Survey).
Energy Net

Special Focus on Bill Joy's Hi-Tech Warning - The Center for the Study of Technology and Society - 0 views

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    The same technologies that will let us cure diseases, expand the economy, and overcome everyday inconveniences can theoretically bring about catastrophes. Is the risk of apocalypse serious enough for us to relinquish the current pace of technological innovation?
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    The same technologies that will let us cure diseases, expand the economy, and overcome everyday inconveniences can theoretically bring about catastrophes. Is the risk of apocalypse serious enough for us to relinquish the current pace of technological innovation?
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