But... how would the corporations make money?

The truth about renewable energy: Inexpensive, reliable, and inexhaustible

Renewable energy actually reduces electricity prices for businesses and consumers. 

Infrastructure to connect renewable energy is a great investment. 

Integrating variable renewable resources is easier and cheaper than we thought.

Why has integrating so much wind so fast been relatively painless? 

Geographic diversity: The wind blows at different times in different places across MISO’s 12-state footprint, smoothing out the variation at any single location. 

Better forecasting tools make it easier to accurately predict wind-turbine output. 

Transmission expansions and upgrades are being approved and constructed, giving operators greater flexibility to manage all resources and consumers more choices and competition. 

Grid operators around the country and the globe are gaining experience and learning from each other as they successfully integrate ever larger amounts of renewable energy into their systems.

America has far more than enough renewable energy resources to meet its entire electric demand.

Why can't we do stuff like this?

Bjarke Ingels designs incinerator that doubles as ski slope in Copenhagen
Architect's latest project to transform an incinerator in heart of Copenhagen shows the playful side of sustainability

And it's about time!

Stand with the President for a clean-energy future

The next generation will not be held hostage to energy sources from the last century. The American people are ready for clean energy.
Add your name as a strong supporter of comprehensive energy and climate reform:
I stand with President Obama to pave the way for a clean-energy future that:
• Combats climate change;
• Creates a new economy powered by green jobs; and
• Ends our dependence on foreign oil.

Ken Salazar wears a white hat!

And takes head on Big Oil:

When president-elect Barack Obama nominated Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar to head the Department of Interior at the end of 2008, some voices in the conservation community wondered whether the moderate Democrat with ties to ranching and other traditional western industries was the best choice to chart a new direction in managing one-fifth of the nation’s land. But immediately after taking office, Salazar quickly moved to dispel many of those worries with a series of directives that forcefully demonstrated that the Bush era had ended, particularly on policies related to energy development on federal lands:

— He suspended 77 controversial oil and gas leases in Utah, some of them near national parks and national monuments.

– Understanding that renewable energy projects create more jobs than fossil fuels development, he directed his agencies to make the development of renewable energy a priority.

– He withdrew the Bush administration’s industry-friendly research and development leases for oil shale development in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

– He launched a department-wide effort to ensure that federal land management decisions respond effectively to climate change.

And, saying “There’s a new sheriff in town,” he began to clean up the scandal-plagued Minerals Management Service, the Interior agency that oversees royalty collections from oil and gas companies operating on federal land and offshore.

Exactly.

It's hard to make yourself heard

When they're rolling around on top of the mountain of dollar bills, huh, Georgie?

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Saudi Arabian leaders made clear Friday they see no reason to increase oil production until their customers demand it, apparently rebuffing President Bush amid soaring U.S. gasoline prices.

During Bush's second personal appeal this year to King Abdullah, Saudi officials stuck to their position that they are already meeting demand, the president's national security adviser told reporters.

"What they're saying to us is ... Saudi Arabia does not have customers that are making requests for oil that they are not able to satisfy," Stephen Hadley said on a day when oil prices topped $127 a barrel, a record high.

The Saudi oil minister, Ali al-Naimi, said there was no need to increase production now. "Supply and demand are in balance today," he told a news conference. "How much does Saudi Arabia need to do to satisfy people who are questioning our oil practices and policies?"

I don't think you need a translator to help you understand what was just said, Georgie. What's Saudi for 'hell, no'?

Fat lot of good your kissing and hand-holding did.



Or maybe ... that request was for the benefit of the Merkin folks and you really are happy with the state of things?



It all makes sense now...

Update 5/17: Distributorcap of Distributorcap NY reminds me that the Saudis agreed to a small increase. But Bush tells us we still need to drill in Anwar and not to get our hopes up:

SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt (AP) -- President Bush said Saturday that the Saudis' modest increase in oil production "doesn't solve our problem," and that the United States must act itself to help bring down soaring gas prices.

"We've got to do more at home," the president said on the lush lawn of a resort overlooking the Red Sea in Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt.

Speaking after a private meeting with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, he mentioned moves that have long been part of his agenda but stymied in Congress, such as developing alternate fuels, improving conservation and expanding domestic exploration.

Bush said he told Saudi King Abdullah during talks Friday that the kingdom should be concerned that high energy prices are hurting some of its biggest customers, including the United States.

He asked Abdullah for an injection of oil supply to help ease the pain. "High energy prices are going to cause countries like mine to accelerate our move to alternative energy," he said he told the king.

But Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi said Friday it had decided a week before Bush's visit to raise production by 300,000 barrels a day to 9.45 million barrels a day and didn't see any need to do more. Energy analysts called the boost a token -- it represents just 3 percent of the total -- and it was seen as a rebuff, if a gentle one, of Bush by Abdullah.

One way we are working right now to control our energy needs, Georgie, is to get a Democratic candidate into office while we get you and Dick Cheney OUT of office.

Americans get a reminder of President Bush’s failed energy policies every time they gas up their cars. The average gallon of regular gas cost only $1.44 when Bush took office on January 20, 2001, and diesel cost just $1.53 per gallon. Yet today, gasoline and diesel fuel prices are at all-time highs, with gas prices at $3.60 per gallon and diesel prices at $4.17 per gallon.

Update 5/18: Speaking of appeasers, Watertiger of Dependable Renegade found this appropriate cartoon:

When no elected official wants to listen

It's time to take on the problems on our own and force change. Global warming, environment, stopping waste, teaching respect for the earth, we can start at home and start now. Governments will have to change with us or be overthrown.

The Guardian has an environment page which tells in great detail things people can do to save the earth.

The National Geographic has Going Green.

The European Union has a site.

The Yahoo Directory lists a plethora of sites. (I love the word plethora....)

Not to mention the pile of shredded feathers

As birds are blenderized out of the air...

Wind turbines continue to multiply the world over. But as they grow bigger and bigger, the number of dangerous accidents is climbing. How safe is wind energy?

[snip]
After the industry's recent boom years, wind power providers and experts are now concerned. The facilities may not be as reliable and durable as producers claim. Indeed, with thousands of mishaps, breakdowns and accidents having been reported in recent years, the difficulties seem to be mounting. Gearboxes hiding inside the casings perched on top of the towering masts have short shelf lives, often crapping out before even five years is up. In some cases, fractures form along the rotors, or even in the foundation, after only limited operation. Short circuits or overheated propellers have been known to cause fires. All this despite manufacturers' promises that the turbines would last at least 20 years.

Actually bird deaths are being reduced as the machinery gets better. But don't get me started on hang gliders and remote control airplanes....

Any chemist could have told you flat out

That ethanol is a ridiculous energy source. It is too small a hydrocarbon to produce much heat. The energy expended to till, fertilize, grow, harvest, take to the factory, change into ethanol, drive the ethanol to the gas refineries and then to the distributors will always be more than what we gain from using ethanol. They've even opened a coal-run plant to make ethanol. It's letting the farmers get some quick cash, but that's about it:

Ethanol fuel made from corn may be being "dangerously oversold" as a green energy solution according to a new review of biofuels.

The report concludes that the rapidly growing and heavily subsidised corn ethanol industry in the US will cause significant environmental damage without significantly reducing the country's dependence on fossil fuels.

"There are smarter solutions than rushing straight to corn-based ethanol," says Scott Cullen of the Network for New Energy Choices (NNEC) and a co-author of the study. "It's just one piece of a more complex puzzle."

The report analyses hundreds of previous studies, and was compiled by the environmental advocacy groups Food and Water Watch, NNEC and the Vermont Law School Institute for Energy and the Environment. The study was released as the US Congress debates key agriculture and energy laws that will determine biofuel policy for years to come.
[snip]
Yet, even if all corn grown in the US was used for fuel, it would only offset 15% of the country's gasoline use, according to the study. The same reduction could be achieved by a 3.5-mile-per-gallon increase in fuel efficiency standards for all cars and light trucks, according a federal figures cited in the report.

And using corn-derived ethanol does not necessarily even reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A number of recent studies have attempted to assess the total carbon footprint – from the field to the tailpipe – of the biofuel. Conclusions vary widely from being worse than gasoline to being about the same.
[snip]
"Corn-based ethanol hasn't been pursued because this is the best solution, it's been because this has been what's been pushed the hardest," Cullen says. The recent survey notes that Archer Daniels Midland, the largest US ethanol producer, received $10 billion in federal subsidies between 1980 and 1997.

But Brian Jennings, of the trade group, the American Coalition for Ethanol, disagrees. "We can release papers until we are blue in the face about what is theoretically going to be the best alternative to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and to reduce carbon emissions," he says. "But, from a practical standpoint, we have to start somewhere, and corn-based ethanol is the most viable alternative fuel on the planet today."

The current Farm Bill, which provides $16.5 billion in federal agricultural subsidies each year, will expire in September 2007. Proposals for a new Farm Bill are likely to include significant subsidies for the continued development of both corn-based ethanol and cellulosic ethanol.

Update: Phila of Bouphonia addresses the concerns Iowans have about the huge demand on water aquafiers that the ethanol business is having, besides being worried about field runoff and contamination.

Cheap solar cells

Developed by Korean scientists. Via Phila of Bouphonia:

A team of Korean researchers has developed a cutting-edge solar cell that might help reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

The discovery could make Korea a leader in the alternative energy industry as the research team plans to double the cell's efficiency and commercialize the technology by 2012.

The team's leader, Lee Kwang-hee of the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, said on Thursday, "Together with Prof. Alan Heeger at the University of California Santa Barbara, we have developed a plastic solar cell with 6.5 percent efficiency. That level of efficiency is sufficiently high for commercial products."

All energy sources pose a problem for us

And we certainly won't want the Bush administration, Halliburtons and the Exxons to be in charge.
Germany is facing the problem with nuclear waste:

...the report is sure to add fuel to an ongoing smoldering debate in Germany and across Europe about what to do with highly radioactive nuclear waste. On the one hand, activists hold up waste storage as one of the primary dangers represented by atomic power. After all, used up fuel rods and other waste remain "hot" for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years. How can one be sure today, many wonder, that facilities built today won't fall apart in 300,000 years?

On the other hand, scientists claim that most of the tricky scientific questions pertaining to long-term nuclear waste storage have been answered and that safe storage is possible. Now, they say, it is up to the politicians.

"Because there isn't a final storage facility, one could come to the conclusion that the problem hasn't been solved," Dr. Thomas Fanghaenel, director of the Institute for Transuranium Elements in Karlsruhe, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "That would be the wrong conclusion.... I think the political problems are the most difficult -- the 'not in my backyard' phenomenon and other socio-political problems."

Update: Chernobyl's radiation causes birth defects. How could it even be a question?

Radiation or relocation? A study of birds around Chernobyl suggests that nuclear fallout, rather than stress and deteriorating living conditions, may be responsible for human birth defects in the region.

People living around the site of the 1986 nuclear disaster in Ukraine have unusually high levels of physical abnormalities and birth defects. The International Atomic Energy Agency has suggested that the abnormalities are caused by the impact of relocation and stress on the population, and Timothy Mousseau, at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, wanted to put this to the test.

Mousseau and his colleagues examined 7700 barn swallows from Chernobyl and compared them with birds from elsewhere. They found that Chernobyl's swallows were more likely to have tumours, misshapen toes and feather deformities than swallows from uncontaminated parts of Europe (Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2007.0136).

"We don't fully understand the consequences of low doses of radiation," says Mousseau. "We should be more concerned about the human population."

Ethanol is bad for you:

Mark Jacobson at Stanford University in California, US, modelled emissions for cars expected to be on the road in 2020. An E85-fuelled fleet would cause 185 more pollution-related deaths per year than a petrol one across the US the model predicted - most of them in smoggy Los Angeles, California.

The findings run counter to the idea that ethanol is a cleaner-burning fuel. Cars running on gasoline emit a number of pollutants – including nitrogen dioxide and organic molecules like acetaldehyde – that react with sunlight to form ozone.

City killers

However, ethanol is an even bigger culprit. Along with many of the same pollutants as gasoline, a large amount of unburned ethanol gas escapes into the atmosphere. That vapour readily breaks down in sunlight to form acetaldehyde, which can send ozone levels soaring.

While ethanol-burning cars will emit fewer carcinogens such as benzene and butadiene, they will spew out 20 times as much acetaldehyde as those using conventional fuel, Jacobsen found.

Ozone is one of the main constituents of smog, which carries a number of health risks (see City deaths rise with ozone levels).

Out of a total fleet of over 240 million cars, trucks, and other vehicles in the US there are currently only about 6 million that can run on E85 fuel. But this is widely predicted to rise in coming years.

"There are so many people barking pretty loud about biofuels," Jacobsen says. "They've been pushing these things before the science is done. Now the question is: will people listen?"

However, the small potential increase in pollution-related deaths predicted in the study could be a risk worth taking for a renewable fuel, environmentalists may argue.

And, to the displeasure of the megacorporations, people are creating their own power sources:

Börnsen, a village in northern Germany, is spoiling energy giant E.on's business by creating its own electricity and natural gas supply. The idea could catch on elsewhere.

The chess board of global politics

Where nations are bet and lives are squandered, all for oil and greed, energy and power. Compare these headlines:

CNPC in Iraq looking for old oil deal

Gadhafi: U.S., U.K. use Iraq oil money

China pushes alternate-fuel vehicles

Turkey: Foreign firms want into Iraq oil

Key Iraq Sunni group warns against oil law

Iran: Russian nuclear plant payments made