Alternative Energy, Energy Independence and Global Warming Reduction

  WHAT WE CAN DO A series on how each of us can conserve energy.
   #12:  Lives of a Cell    
Why We're Here:
The Need for an Alternative Energy Future

PlanetWatch.org works to increase public awareness of clean alternative energy solutions that will reduce reliance on an unpredictable and hostile world. That's as urgent as mitigating global warming. Failure to achieve independence will damage our lives sooner than failure to slow climate change. Success in the former will do as much to achieve the latter as any program that focuses on the latter alone.

Our In-Depth Background Reports:
solar energy
Dazzlingly Promising (Still)

The most powerful energy source of all — our Sun — offers the tantalizing solution to mankind's energy needs. Costs remain stubbornly high, but demand is soaring, even causing a worldwide shortage of processed silicon. The potential is vast, as this article makes clear.

wind power
Reaping the Whirlwind

In Jeremiahthe whirlwind"goeth forth with a fury" and will "fall with pain upon the head of the wicked". But that was then. Now, wind stands to bring great benefit to mankind. Tapping this clean and limitless gift of nature has become the fastest growing alternative to fossil fuels. One has to ask, what were we thinking all these years of neglect?

energy dependence
Living on the Razor's Edge - I

The prospect of alternative energy development leading to energy independence makes for a comforting view of the future. But we tend to ignore the perils of our dependence — right here, right now. Part I of a series looks at our hazardous reliance on a troublesome world.

energy dependence
Living on the Razor's Edge - II

The countries that sell us their oil and what they make with the manufacturing jobs we've exported have long sent our money back to Washington as loans to prop up our government. Now, with interest rates low, and our economy weakened by the mortgage crisis, they are buying huge dollops of American companies.

energy alternatives
Beyond Fossil Fuels

Over the last few months, we've seen an explosion in public interest and business investment in substitutes for fossil fuels. This authoritative article, by an editorial board member of the New York Times (and a founder of PlanetWatch.org), offers a survey of what is happening and what holds promise. Photo: rapeseed in bloom

CORN ethanol
Given Politics and Pork, Will We Switch to the Right Ethanol?

Midwest farmers are chasing corn-based ethanol, it has limitations as a fuel, its production releases greenhouse gasses and it has potentially negative implications for American agriculture and global food production.

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WHAT'S INSIDE ?
For recent articles and an index to other pages, click here.

Reducing the Dollar Exodus:

We're Stuck With Using Oil, So How About Shale?

While presidential candidates have sparred over whether to lift the moratorium on drilling offshore in Florida and California, or in ANWR, there has not been much public discussion or proposals to convert rich deposits of oil shale in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Although the technology is still unproved and these Western states are sensitive to environmental concerns, the potential oil reserves locked up in shale may far surpass the proven oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.
     According to one estimate, U.S. oil shale reserves total 1.5 trillion barrels of oil. This is more than five times Saudi Arabia’s known reserves. Since neither drilling offshore nor in Alaska will solve the immediate problems of oil supply and price, these sources,
      Click to continue

Opportunity Knocks:

Another Stimulus Package, But Stimulating What?

While not many of us have billions to invest, billionaires like Warren Buffet are making large investments in blue chip firms, not only helping them with an infusion of capital but also receiving the most favorable terms. Whether you are interested in stocks or real estate, there are some great opportunities for investors who have money to spare, though no one knows when the market for equities or property will bottom out.
     The verdict is also not out on how the current financial crisis will affect government and private efforts to become more energy efficient and independent through the development of new and cleaner domestic sources of energy and the reduction of overall energy consumption and carbon emissions. From the business perspective, the major motivation for going green is reducing operating costs and having a reliable supply of energy. The public interest is served by a cleaner environment, cheaper domestic sources of energy, the elimination of our dependency on
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Trying to Keep it Simple:

HOW TO RESDISTRIBUTE ENERGY WEALTH

At PlanetWatch, we try to help members understand climate change and energy efficiency and security issues and to simplify the multitude of remedial measures proposed, often very passionately, by various interest groups. Not only do most commentators have an "axe to grind", but also, in an effort to add credibility, they often pack their proposals with technical terms and reams of statistics. This can be confusing and often drives audiences to "tune out".

First, a few overarching beliefs to which we subscribe:
     1. Curbing our excessive appetite for fossil fuels will not happen by selecting and implementing a few programs from among many; instead we will need to adopt virtually all the changes we hear and read about in order to get a good outcome.
     2. We need not suffer reduced standards of living in order to achieve good results. Long, hot showers can still be enjoyed. Transportation can still be by private car when public transport does not satisfy. Air travel will still be available, albeit at higher cost. Houses will still be warm in winter and cool in summer. But, if we do not substitute renewable and non-polluting energy sources for those we now employ, we will not succeed. And it is going to take a lot of invention, investment, and systemic change. Government involvement must be greater than in the past.
     3. There is plenty of energy available, but most of it is in a form that will require us to modify our ways of using it.
     4. Bridging the gap between the present and the future will require us to conserve energy almost instinctively; most thoughtful experts believe we can save nearly half the energy we now consume by adopting a mindset which recognizes that treating energy as nearly free no longer makes any sense, if it ever did. If the cost is high, that will come naturally. If not, it might require fiat.
     With that as backdrop, here is a framework for thinking about the problem coherently. Click to continue

PlanetWatch Editor on Short List for Transportation Secretary

Editor Mort Downey, who regularly contributes political and legislative analysis to these pages (most recently here), is a former deputy secretary of the Transportation Department, and is now on the short list for that department's top job in the Obama Administration (click here and scroll to "Transportation Secretary").
    The Washington Post reported, "Word is some seriously heavy hitters have been recruited to focus on plans for various agencies. Mortimer L. Downey, who served as No. 2 in the Department of Transportation for eight years under Clinton, is expected to take a lead role in transition planning for the department".
    The short list may have grown shorter. Just announced: Mort has been named the head of the 15-person transtiion team for the DoT, charged to evaluate the department's readiness to implement new Administration initiatives.

Will the Economic Monsoon Doom Renewables?

Oil at $144 a barrel hurt Americans who had bought the wrong sort of vehicle and were paying $100 to fill the tank, but it had the virtue of jump-starting a flurry of innovation as ventures sought to produce fuel from everything from algae to wood chips to bacteria. The media came up with a diet of what editors call “gee whiz” stories almost daily about yet another start-up aiming to produce a 100 mile per gallon car or capture the desert sun to power yet another 100,000 homes.
     For a moment there, in spring and early summer, Americans even began driving  less. The sale of hybrid autos spiked while consumers fled from SUVs, with 32%  less moving off the lots than in 2007 when gasoline prices peaked.
     What’s to happen to that progress, now that worldwide economies have

swooned? Stock prices of green technology companies have plunged even further than other market segments; funding for energy start-ups has all but evaporated. Their prospects are now reeling from the financial meltdown, the credit squeeze and the drop to $2.11 a gallon gasoline that hurts the economics of alternative fuels. Natural gas, too, has settled at a price that makes wind uneconomical for generating electricity, and makes solar “unfathomably expensive” as one financial firm executive put it.
     With trillions going to banks and insurance companies, will the mix of subsidies, mandates and venture capital essential to launching a new energy economy simply dry up? A tally of all U.S. government interventions puts a far more unfathomable $5.1
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Energy Issues:
Where Will Barack Obama Take Us?

This article looked at the platforms of the two parties during the run-up to the election and found significant convergence in terms of where the nation needs to go, even though there were major differences as to how we should get there. Earlier PlanetWatch pieces have described the gridlock of the past two years, but perhaps there will be an opening in 2009 for some real progress.

    The agreement on need for action reflected a broadening public consensus about the depth of our problems, while the disagreement on the means was more closely connected to the traditional philosophy of government in each of the parties. The joined issues of climate and energy pose a real test of how government will progress in the next four years. President-Elect Obama will need to make peace within his own party and will likely need some Republican support to make up for losses on the Democratic extreme.
For Article and Comparative Tables, click here to continue.

The Overlooked Energy Source:

Bringing Geothermal Close to Home

We all look to renewable energy sources to help us cure ourselves of our addiction to foreign sources of fossil fuels. Such sources include hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, solar, ocean waves and geothermal. Much is written about each, but geothermal seems to get less attention than the rest, and what we do get usually refers to major projects to tap existing pools of superheated steam or efforts to create very large new man-made, single-location Click to continue

With All-Electric Cars, Israel, France Show
the Way

While our national search for energy independence is driven by multiple factors, the increasing cost of imported oil, the transfer of national wealth to unstable and unfriendly countries, the specter of peak oil and a concern about the effects of burning more fossil fuels, the state of Israel has even greater reason to seek alternative sources of energy.
     Spurred by the efforts of successful American-Israeli software developer Shai Agassi, the Israeli government has promised to support the development of an infrastructure to facilitate the use of all-electric cars throughout the country. While most of the focus in the automobile industry has been on hybrids, many agree that it is only an interim solution before new battery technology is available to power all-electric cars with adequate speed and range.
     While all-electric cars have been around more than a 100 years, other attempts to mass produce electric cars in today’s world have been limited by current battery technology. Agassi, however, realized that even with a limited range of 100 miles, most trips Click to continue

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Hybrids, Hydrogen, Electrics, and Now a Car Powered by Air

No joke. You'd fill a tank with compressed air, then send the car on its way, like letting go of a balloon.            Continue

Should We Drill Offshore? Good Idea or Bad?

When oil hit $144/bbl, suddenly it was the hot topic. We sorted out the confusion — the

conflicting arguments, the twisted facts, the political demagoguery — to see whether or not offshore drilling makes sense. Continue

Is There a Plug-in Hybrid in Your Future?

That figures from the auto industry, electric utilities, government and even the ubiquitous Tom Friedman met at a June conference says that hybrid-electrics are going to happen.            Continue

Where Does Nuclear Fit Into the Energy Future?

There are the usual negatives, but if we want to reduce emissions and energy dependence, nuclear needs to be back on the table.
Continue

A Nation Ill-Prepared for the Future?

Both Presidential candidates want to adopt a cap-and-trade system tp force down CO2

emissions.
     But will this lead to shortages before alternatives come on stream? Continue

How Politicians Keep Us Energy Dependent to Get Votes

Before asking for offshore rights, drill the 68 million acres you alreday have, said the Dems. But this article shows that politicians have kept some of the best acres off limits.
Continue