January 16, 2009
In its final months the Bush Administration has issued a slew of last minute environmental rule changes, many of which have already gone into effect and could be hard to reverse. READ MORE
Archive for News
Obama Says We Can Repower America
On Tuesday, Al Gore met with President-elect Obama to talk about solving the climate crisis.
President-elect Obama said:
“…we have the opportunity now to create jobs all across this country, in all 50 states, to repower America, to redesign how we use energy, to think about how we are increasing efficiency, to make our economy stronger, make us more safe, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and make us competitive for decades to come, even as we’re saving the planet.”
See the Video HERE.
Gore has outlined a five-step plan to achieve his goal of generating 100 percent of the U.S.’s electricity from renewable sources in 10 years. Though Obama hasn’t agreed to Gore’s lofty goal, he has committed, in varying degrees, to implementing Gore’s recommendations.
Read More HERE.
Jump-Starting a Green Ecomnomy With Solar Utilities.
President-elect Obama wants to create 5 million new “Green Energy” jobs. The sooner the better, but how? What incentive or government program will create these jobs? Which sector of green energy will be targeted for job growth? Further, and importantly as unemployment rises, how soon will these new jobs appear in the help wanted section?
The economy needs jobs as soon as possible. If Obama wants to use green energy as an engine of growth, how can he jump start it to get it running?
Who Really benefits from Prop 7 & 10
While creating renewable energy is a top priority in our counrty and in the stae of California, these 2 props go at it in a bad way. These 2 propositions stand to cost billions of tax payers dollars, put smaller companies out of business, and ultimatley raise energy rates for consumers. And both are supported by out of state billionairs.
No on California’s Proposition 7
Flawed Ballot Initiative Would Undermine Renewable Energy in California.
From the Union of Concerned Scientists. Read more…
Props. 7 & 10 aren’t good green Initiatives
TWO measures on the Nov. 4 California ballot – Propositions 7 and 10 – purport to push California in a green direction. But both are financed by wealthy men with an agenda, and neither makes the best environmental sense for California. We urge voters to reject both.
Los Angelas Daily News. Read More…
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Ike Hobbles US’ Biggest Biodiesel Producer
Texas biodiesel producer GreenHunter Energy says that hurricane damage to it’s gulf coast refinery — currently the largest in the nation — will take it out of production for 6 to 8 weeks.
The GreenHunter facility is capable of producing 100 million gallons of biodiesel per year (Mgy) using a combination of animal fats and vegetable oils. Prior to Hurricane Ike, they had been ramping up production and last Friday announced that they had achieved a 65 Mgy output. It’s unclear how the hurricane damage will affect their time frame for reaching full capacity.
According to a press release, damages at the facility were mostly due to floodwater — which crested the 100-year flood plain — and not the wind damage that had been expected. According to Bruce Baughman, Senior Vice President of Technology and Engineering:
“So far in our assessment of this disaster, we have concluded that fortunately, damage to major process equipment is minimal. We have discovered damage to smaller reagent tanks, intermediate tanks and their interconnecting piping and pumps, as well as damage to the foundations of smaller tanks. Given the sheer volume of water and the extreme flood levels that we faced, our initial assessment is that we sustained overall minor to moderate impact to the Renewable Fuels Campus from Hurricane Ike.”
Apparently structural losses included damage to some office space, reagent tanks and foundations, as well as two bulk storage tanks. The company had evacuated all employees prior to Ike’s landfall so there were no injuries reported.
Written by Nick Chambers www.theriseofbiodiesel.com
California Adopts Green Building Code
California always seems to be the leader when it comes to adopting new green plans. After all we are all a bunch of wacked out environmental nuts jobs over here, at least thats what everyone thinks. I just say were trying to do a little good in the world. Now whats wrong with that?
Heres what Governor Schwarzenegger had to say in his press release:
“By adopting this first-in-the-nation statewide green building code, California is again leading the way to fight climate change and protect the environment. This is literally a groundbreaking move to ensure that when we break ground on all new buildings in the Golden State we are promoting green building and energy efficient new technologies. Cars and buildings are two of the leading users of energy – we’re already addressing cars, and these new building standards will ensure that California remains at the forefront of reducing our carbon footprint and conserving valuable natural resources while also protecting our economy. We have already committed to making our state-owned buildings more green and energy efficient and this statewide code will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve energy efficiency and conserve water in all new buildings.
“With today’s action, California continues to lead the nation and I commend the hard work of the Building Standards Commission to adopt the first-in-the-nation statewide green building standards.”
Not to say its all bad. But in the forseeable future I see a whole load of mess with zoning issues. That means in SC county it will take 15 years for things to get built instead of 10. (YEA!) Lets spend more time and waste more money debating over minute issues and getting nothing done! Cause thats how to government works!
Its not that I’m at all against building green, as you should know I think everything should be that way. I just see a headache as the government steps in. All of a sudden what we “should” be doing becomes what we “are forced to do” , closely followed by mass confusion about what we are “allowed” to do, and then everyone complaining, debating, and getting nothing done. I guess we shall see what happens.
