The Time For A Comprehensive Climate Bill Is Now

Amidst the terrible tragedy in the Gulf and the (so far) failed attempts at stopping the flow of oil, some good things have happened. Unfortunately there have been idiotic governmental decisions as well, so the good points cannot overshadow the fact that we do not a have a holistic way of trying to shape our environment for the better. What we need is a climate bill that will make sure we protect our environment and at the same time meet our demand for energy. Not only does it have to be done now, it has to be done like any other proactive piece of legislation, in spite of Republican attempts to kill it outright.

From RawStory:

Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) announced on Friday that they would press ahead next week with an energy and climate change bill despite losing the support of Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC).

Graham had called on his colleagues earlier on Friday to freeze their efforts on the legislation, citing a feud over immigration and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

"I believe it would be wise to pause the process and reassess where we stand," Graham said, pouring cold water on predictions that he would eventually support the bill.

According to Graham's failed logic, because our lack of a bill to address energy and the environment helped to cause this disaster (e.g.) we must now not do anything for an undetermined amount of time. Of course, Republicans love to block everything from this to all of that and energy concerns in the 21st century are certainly within that range. Democrats in Congress must follow Senator Kerry and yes, Senator Lieberman (he's not 100% bad) so that we do not set ourselves up for another Exxon Valdez, BP spill, Three Mile Island or any other named man-made disaster you can think of.

Disastrous Oil Slick Must Stir A Mighty Wind

For anyone trying to minimize the effects of the spill British Petroleum and Halliburton are responsible for, try this one on for size. Or this. Or that. Seriously, it's huge.

Now imagine that instead of having these impossible events occurring every few years (actually every month or so), we could fuel our planet from the wind that naturally blows across the surface of the ocean. A meteorlogist can explain it better than I, but basically at the coasts the temperatures differ between a moderate ocean and a warmer or cooler landmass, which propagates wind. The question is, why do some of us scream "Drill, Baby, Drill!" when we could have something much better.

From The NY Times:

The United States does not have a single offshore wind turbine, though there are more than 800 off the coast of nine European countries. So what do the wind gauges outside New York Harbor tell us?

“There is a lot of power out there,” said Brian A. Colle, a professor at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at Stony Brook University. “We are in a pretty nice location for the winter and for the warm seasons.”

The city and Long Island are now speaking to manufacturers and developers about building a wind park in the ocean about 13 miles from Rockaway, producing enough energy to power 250,000 homes.

This tragic event might just contain a silver lining to jump start an off-shore wind industry in America. The problem up until now is that the oil industry has dominated and the federal government has done next to nothing for decades to change our nation's energy equation. Critics will contend, and rightly so, that wind is erratic and never blows at a consistent rate, even in the best locations. However, with a system advocated for within the article referenced above that places turbines up and down the coast, the wind will be harnessed on a level that has never been seen before. On top of that, oil boosters conveniently leave out the fact that the price of oil is far greater than what the New York Stock Exchange claims it to be. Not only will there tab in the tens of billions for this one oil spill, but the U.S. taxpayer pays in more ways than they are generally aware.

The reality is, it is time for a new direction and President Obama should switch gears by letting go of trying to love oil and wholeheartedly embrace renewable energy.....bipartisanship be damned.

NY Leading The Wind Power Revolution In The U.S.

Wind power has been around for centuries, from small family farms in the Midwest to the windmills of Holland. Despite our knowledge of this clean, renewable energy source, our society still heavily relies on fossil fuels like coal and toxic nuclear material. However, things are slowly changing for the better. Even in America, with global warming deniers running rampant, change is happening. And I'm proud to say that the State of New York is leading the way.

From SET Energy:

SET’s home state of New York is moving to become a leader in offshore wind power. Both the New York Power Authority (NYPA) and the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) have offshore wind farms they are pursuing. The NYPA project would be the first major freshwater wind farm in the world. And the LIPA project could end up as the biggest proposed offshore wind farm in the US.

New York Needs to Accelerate its Renewable Deployment

New York has one of the highest renewable shares of electricity at ~21.5%, largely due to the hydroelectric plant at Niagara Falls (only Washington and Oregon currently have higher renewable shares, also mainly due to hydro). New York aims to get 45% of its electricity from renewables by 2015, a goal that will take tremendous deployment to achieve. In fact, renewable capacity of ~10 GW is necessary to reach 45% at current generation levels. Achieving such a high capacity by 2015 would translate into average annual deployment of 1.5 GW.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, NY recently became one of only eight states with over 1 GW of wind power capacity. All of the existing wind capacity in NY and the rest of the country is land-based. Now, state leaders have their sites on offshore wind helping NY reach several GW capacity by 2015.

With offshore sites, brand new freshwater wind farms and the great Niagara backing the rest of the renewables up, New York is leading the way. However, merely having a great waterfall isn't going to win the day. Groups like NYPIRG have fought hard to mandate renewable energy standards and the power of dedicated people behind them has led to successes such as that 45% minimum required by 2015. It just goes to show that when people get together to create change, dedication to that cause eventually makes things happen.

The Power Of The Wind

I still remember when my Mom or Grandma would drive us out from Los Angeles to Palm Springs. It was a long ride for an impatient kid such as myself, but I loved to see the windmills as we got close to our destination. Watching the giant turbines spin around and around added a degree of activity to the deserts and the mountains along the Interstate. They were all by themselves out there, but I had no idea how many people it took to build or maintain them. Now in 2009, the workforce dedicated to the industry is better than ever.

From The Green Wombat:

Wind industry jobs jumped to 85,000 in 2008, a 70% increase from the previous year, according to a report released Tuesday from the American Wind Energy Association. In contrast, the coal industry employs about 81,000 workers. (Those figures are from a 2007 U.S. Department of Energy report but coal employment has remained steady in recent years though it’s down by nearly 50% since 1986.) Wind industry employment includes 13,000 manufacturing jobs concentrated in regions of the country hard hit by the deindustrialization of the past two decades.

The big spike in wind jobs was a result of a record-setting 50% increase in installed wind capacity, with 8,358 megawatts coming online in 2008 (enough to power some 2 million homes). That’s a third of the nation’s total 25,170 megawatts of wind power generation. Wind farms generating more than 4,000 megawatts of electricity were completed in the last three months of 2008 alone.

Another sign that wind power is no longer a niche green energy play: Wind accounted for 42% of all new electricity generation installed last year in the U.S. Power, literally, is shifting from the east to west, to the wind belt of the Midwest, west Texas and the West Coast. Texas continues to lead the country, with 7,116 megawatts of wind capacity but Iowa in 2008 overtook California for the No. 2 spot, with 2,790 megawatts of wind generation. Other new wind powers include Oregon, Minnesota, Colorado and Washington state.

Although wind power only accounts for a small percentage of our total energy usage, the increasing numbers (both in jobs and percentage of new energy) portends a promising future. There are so many prime areas still out there to be utilized by the growing industry and as a result, more green jobs. We still have a long way to go, but the bigger wind power gets, the harder it will be to stop it's emergence and eventual dominance (in conjunction with solar and geothermal power) over fossil fuels.

This Is Not The Time To Slow Wind Power Down

The "free market" aggravates me sometimes. O.K., well most of the time would be more accurate. Specifically with clean energy and our responsibility to the planet, the market is showing itself again that self-interest in making a profit isn't good enough to transform our outdated petro-economy into a healthy, green one. Coal and oil are making a comeback worldwide due to lowered prices and new wind farms in our state are running into roadblocks.

From Newsday:

The nationwide financial crisis has put the brakes on a wind farm under construction in northern New York and another developer has aborted possible projects in eastern and central New York after trouble securing land. And wind energy companies are now being asked to abide by a code of ethics by Attorney General Andrew Cuomo _ the upshot of his investigation into allegations of corrupt practices by developers.

Wind is still alive in New York and new turbines are still being planned for blustery parts of the state. But the last few tumultuous months have been tough for the industry nationwide and New York in particular.

"Obviously, it doesn't make it easy for the wind industry, like every other industry, to get financing," said Carol Murphy, executive director of Alliance for Clean Energy New York, which represents renewable energy companies. "But I have not heard of any of my members who've run into a brick wall ... There are still a lot of hedge funds and folks who are investing in green energy."

There is still certainly interest in wind power and not all projects are coming to a halt. Newsday's article goes into detail about a few, though they also note the problems with others. Demand simply hasn't been great enough to make the transformation of our economy feasible. The wind power plants are more of a token to environmentalism than true change. The market is going to go for the most cost-efficient energy and with a slumping economy, fossil fuels are making a comeback. The only problem is, the Earth doesn't care about supply and demand.

Moving Energy Subsidies From Fossil Fuels To Renewables Could Quadruple Jobs

Right now billions in subsides are given to the oil companies from politicians who receive their campaign donations. Yet with a little long range planning, that money could be reinvested into clean energy and quadruple the jobs provided by the current pollution-driven scenario. Nothing good comes from oil, except for the continuation of our petro-economy that is slowly killing our environment and by extension, all of humanity and the biosphere too. So imagine, if you will, the possibilities of a green economy, full of green jobs.

From The NY Times:

Investing in clean energy could create four times as many jobs as investing in the oil industry, according to a report issued on Tuesday by the Sierra Club, United Steelworkers, the Blue Green Alliance, Natural Resources Defense Council and Audubon New York. And clean energy investment would result in about three times the number of good-paying jobs, those that pay at least $16 an hour, according to the report, which was written by the Center for American Progress and the Political Economy Research Institute.

Clean energy, to help deter the effects of global warming, could help reduce New Yorkers’ fears of rising temperatures and receding shorelines. The report encourages investment in six areas: retrofitting buildings to improve energy efficiency, expanding mass transit and freight rail, constructing “smart” electrical grid transmission systems, wind power, solar power and next-generation biofuels.

Such jobs are based on the proposed investment of $100 billion over two years, through a cap-and-trade program like those sponsored last year in Congress that would “drive private investments into clean energy and raise public revenue through carbon permit auctions.” And spending $26 billion on retrofitting, for example, could save $5 billion in energy costs a year, for a net savings after five years or so, according to the report.

Of course not all jobs include going out to remote locations and building giant wind farms. A large part of this budding industry can be found close to home, whether it is by installing small wind generators or simply making current buildings more energy-efficient. Changing the way we live in deference to the future of the planet may sound hard because of the massive scale of our economy. However, there is no better option and honestly, if it pays well to help save the world job by job then that just sweetens the pot.

Even A Spanish Wind Is Good For New York

Our federal government has been less than supportive when it comes to alternative energy in the last few years. Supplying our nation with those sources takes away from the profits of oil companies so George Bush naturally hampered efforts to reduce global warming. However, New York State wants to get things done and are willing to work with anyone to reduce our carbon footprint in the Empire State, even if the NYSPSC has to make a deal.

From The NY Times:

The Public Service Commission voted unanimously to allow Iberdrola S.A., a Spanish energy conglomerate, to acquire Energy East, a Maine-based utility with operations in five states.

Iberdrola said earlier this summer that it would invest at least $2 billion in wind turbines across upstate New York if the commission allowed it to acquire Energy East, subsidiaries of which supply electricity or natural gas to 1.7 million customers in the state.

The commission’s decision was the final hurdle for the $4.6 billion deal, which had been approved by federal and other state regulators, but spent a year under scrutiny by the commission’s staff, which recommended that it be blocked.

The deal gives Iberdola a considerable acquisition but New York benefits tremendously as well. Spain and Europe as a whole have encouraged wind and solar industries while the U.S. has remained relatively stagnant on the matter. I'd personally love to see American companies taking care of our clean energy needs, but for now this is the way to go.

Bloomberg Sees Windmills In The Big Apple

Speaking at the Las Vegas conference on alternative energy last night, Mayor Bloomberg envisioned a New York skyline that had wind turbines from the Hudson River to Jamaica Bay and beyond. Bloomberg is known as a man with big ideas and as the Times points out, ideas that have failed. However, except for some feelings of NIMBYism, wind power is not the same as congestion pricing or a West Side stadium.

From The NY Times:

Mr. Bloomberg said he would ask private companies and investors to study how windmills can be built across the city, with the aim of weaning it off the nation’s overtaxed power grid, which has produced several crippling blackouts in New York over the last decade.

Mr. Bloomberg did not specify which skyscrapers and bridges would be candidates for windmills, and city officials would need to work with property owners to identify the buildings that would best be able to hold the equipment.

But aides said that for offshore locations, the city was eyeing the generally windy coast off Queens, Brooklyn and Long Island for turbines that could generate 10 percent of the city’s electricity needs within 10 years.

The Times author Michael Barbaro goes on to talk about the problems of the plan, such as the price of setting up a turbine system, legalities of leasing federally-owned offshore land and that Bloomberg's term will be up at the end of next year. Yet as I stated from the top, this isn't congestion pricing or a stadium, we are talking about the long-term health of our planet and what the nation's preeminent city intends to about it. Bloomberg might not get it done by the end of 2009, but we as a city must make sure that we wean ourselves off of oil, coal and gas.

Despite Republican Opposition, U.S. Becomes Top Wind Power Producer

Countries across the world have realized the amazing potential in wind power, places like Holland have recognized it for centuries. Yet only recently has the U.S. begun to truly commit to investing in the raw power of the Earth's atmosphere. While oil men like T. Boone Pickens have ulterior motives in the wind business, many investors have good business sense with relatively pure hearts. So in the face of government knuckle-dragging, we have still forged ahead of everyone else on the planet.

From Celsias:

According to Environmental Finance , the U.S. is now the leader in wind energy generation with total installed wind power capacity currently at 19,549MW, up 2,726MW from the end of 2007. And although Germany has more installed generating capacity, the U.S. actually produces more electricity due to stronger winds. Further, "U.S. wind capacity is expected to increase 45% in 2008 although Congress' failure to extend the production tax credit (PTC) for the renewable energy industry threatens to derail further development, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA)."[...]

Despite all of this good news on wind, there is a grey lining:

The rapid growth of the wind energy industry, however, is being threatened by the inability of Congress to pass legislation to extend the PTC for renewable energy projects, he said. The PTC is set to expire at the end of 2008, and many projects are being rushed to completion by the end of this year, Swisher said [American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) executive director Randall Swisher].

Investment in new wind energy projects beyond 2008 has stalled due to the failure to extend the credits, Swisher said. "If there is a great deal of uncertainty in the market and in policies in the market, that investment capacity will be deployed elsewhere", he said. "It's just ludicrous that the Congress is letting this opportunity slip away." - Environmental Finance

The potential in our country, especially in the midwest and mountainous regions is incredible. Even with the limited amount of turbines we have installed, they outperform other sites on the planet. And although Congress has largely ignored alternative energy for decades, it is time for the coming 111th Congress to get it's act together and succeed where prior Republican majorities failed. I am convinced that we can power the planet with wind and solar technology alone. Pushing these budding industries along is the smartest....and most necessary thing we as Americans and ultimately as a planet must do in the early part of the 21st century.

John McCain Proves His Allegiance To Oil With Snub Of Wind Power

John McCain gives occasional lip service to clean and alternative energy, but when it comes to the specifics oil is his true love. McCain talks a good game about opposing earmarks and special interest money, but when push comes to shove, he delivers for the industry that writes him the big checks.

From TPM:

McCain recently opposed the big $300 billion farm bill, which itself is extremely popular throughout the upper midwest, describing the bill as "a $300 billion, bloated, pork-barrel-laden bill" because of subsidies for industries like ethanol.

But in a little-noticed development, the bill also contained a measure extending a tax break for developing wind power, which McCain specifically opposed. Obama backed it. According to Senator Tom Harkin, an Obama ally, the wind energy industry is employing close to 2,000 people, some concentrated in those key swing states. It's little local issues like these that can move votes in states where the voting is expected to be extremely close.

Making matters more difficult for McCain, Congressional Dems, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are edging towards supporting that recent bipartisan compromise energy bill that would open up some areas for drilling but repeal Big Oil's tax breaks.

McCain is counting on ExxonMobil and other oil giants' money. He won't let them down because in the end his friends are those that keep his campaign well-financed and the environment/good clean energy jobs be damned. Here we have yet another clear difference between who McCain is beholden to and who Obama is not.

Why T. Boone Pickens Really Supports Wind Power

When I saw T Boone Pickens ad to create wind power in the midwest, I was immediately suspicious. He made himself rich by being a corporate raider and an oil man. He's given millions to Republicans and efforts to attack the Democratic Party. Well Zaproot has the answer (along with two minutes of ads for green products at the end of the video) and as I thought, there was a selfish reason behind his supposed 'change of heart' after all.

Clean Energy From A Dump Can Be A Reality

Landfills are generally thought of as eyesores and the sources of horrific smells that coalesce from every piece of junk and scrap of garbage imaginable. Plenty of jokes have been made about Fresh Kills landfill at Staten Island's expense, there's even an ice cream flavor for the old landfill down there. For a while now, borough President James Molinaro wants to do something about it, and make the landfill into a wind farm, but for some reason there has been roadblocks thrown up in his path.

From The NY Times:

Mr. Molinaro noted that BQ Energy, which has worked upstate, is willing to develop the farm at no cost to the city. “The city needs to begin the land lease process now,” he wrote. He first began promoting the plan in August.

But the cooperation of the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation would be required, and has not been forthcoming. In the letter, Mr. Molinaro wrote that one official there he met with in December had a “lukewarm at best” reaction to the plan.

“She said she would have to study the issue, but has yet to get back to us,” he wrote.

The response from the new Governor has also been tepid as the Times notes. Common sense says that clean energy is a no-brainer, especially if BQ Energy wants to develop it at no cost. The project could power 5,000 homes and save New York millions in non-renewable energy costs (not to mention helping our environment). So Mr. Paterson and the folks at DEC.....why is this a problem??

Bigger Is Sometimes Better In Texas

Texans like to pride themselves on doing things "bigger and better" in the Lone Star state. Unfortunately having bigger cars, houses and other energy hogs are not so good. If you've ever been to Houston, Dallas, El Paso, San Antonio, etc. you'll definitely notice the large ranch homes and the ridiculous percentage of trucks driving on roads named after President Bush. It isn't all bad though, because it seems that the latest fad that is catching on has to do with clean, renewable energy.....the windy stuff.

From The NY Times:

Texas, once the oil capital of North America, is rapidly turning into the capital of wind power. After breakneck growth the last three years, Texas has reached the point that more than 3 percent of its electricity, enough to supply power to one million homes, comes from wind turbines.

Texans are even turning tapped-out oil fields into wind farms, and no less an oilman than Boone Pickens is getting into alternative energy.

“I have the same feelings about wind,” Mr. Pickens said in an interview, “as I had about the best oil field I ever found.” He is planning to build the biggest wind farm in the world, a $10 billion behemoth that could power a small city by itself.

That just goes to show you that the Texan spirit of trying to out do everyone can have a huge bonus for us all. The less Texas uses oil and coal power, the less we collectively use it, both nationally and globally. If only we all had that Texas spirit when it comes to wind, we might be able to change the world in a great way.

The Infinite Power Of The Earth

Earth is an amazing place. A huge rock that hurtles through space in an orbit 93 million miles from the sun, it provides life to countless species including our own. We are the only ones that require energy to power our way of life, and for the last couple hundred years we have used unsustainable fuels that have enabled tremendous progress at a devastating price to our planet.

Lately there has been a small but determined effort to get away from fossil fuels. Wind power and to some degree solar energy has begun to light up our homes and businesses, but there is so much more out there. In the last few years Verdant Energy has sought to place turbines in the East River to capture tidal energy though expectations have not been met. Regardless, Verdant is but one example of the drive for clean energy.

From The Washington Post:

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Oregon Iron Works has the feel of a World War II-era shipyard, with sparks flying from welders' torches and massive hydraulic presses flattening large sheets of metal. But this factory floor represents the cutting edge of American renewable-energy technology.

The plant is assembling a test buoy for Finavera Renewables, a Canadian company that hopes to harness ocean waves off the coast of Oregon to produce electricity for U.S. consumers. And Finavera is not Iron Works' only alternative-energy client: So many companies have approached it with ideas that it has created a "renewable-energy projects manager" to oversee them.

(snip)

Finavera's chief executive, Jason Bak, believes he knows how. The equipment his company designed, called AquaBuOY, aims to generate electricity from the vertical motion of waves. The buoy, anchored in an array two to three miles offshore, will convert the waves' motion into pressurized water using large, reinforced-rubber hose pumps. As the buoy goes up the peak of a wave and down into its trough, it forces a piston in the bottom of the buoy to stretch and contract the hose pumps, pushing water through. This drives a turbine that powers a generator producing electricity, which would be shipped to shore through an undersea transmission line.

More than two-thirds of Earth's surface is covered by water. Even with many shipping lanes ferrying goods around the world, there is plenty of room to harness energy from the ocean. Now of course there will be initial problems in getting these new ideas online and weaning ourselves off of oil and coal, but it is very possible. The key is to encourage companies like Finavera to do their important work by having our government and others push the market to stop the disease of oil addiction. Not only is it possible, it is essential.