Recently in Energy Industry Category

Sierra Club is concerned - the Obama Whitehouse has given the Clinton State Department permission to allow import of "dirty" oil from shale deposits in Canada.

Well, I don't know if the Sierra Club folks have actually gone up there to see what's going on, but here's an Oil Drum blogger who did.

I asked the Sierra Clubber who emailed the press release whether it wouldn't be better to pump our own domestic sources of oil rather than get it from Canada - something Sierra Club and others are also pushing against. Also wondering if it wouldn't be greener too, considering our own EPA would have oversight over the whole process. Haven't heard back from her.

We're going to need some sort of petroleum resources for the next couple decades as we make the shift to renewables. It looks like Obama and Clinton get that. Will the greens who elected them?

American Insurance Group, even after a $180,000,000,000 taxpayer funded bailout, has dumped its climate change program. Treehugger says it was a risk/reward decision. Former AIG Environmental CEO says the program was annoying clients. Two former VPs say the program - including lobbying efforts - is dead, while a current AIG spokesman says climate related products and services are "still available." Treehugger observes:

It's kind of ironic, really--the company that had a hand in creating a global recession by making unsustainable investments was on the brink of making some of the most important, most sustainable investments of all.

Not ironic at all, my green friends. Important and sustainable rarely mean profitable when government is regulating the investments.

UPDATE: On the other hand, Wal-Mart (aka "not bailed out") is taking a stab at making green profitable:

What's interesting about the way Wal-Mart is going about this program, however, is that it hopes to provide an accurate rating on each project. I suspect lots of products that currently call themselves green won't fare so well when put to the Wal-Mart test.

Yep.

Solar and wind are useless unless they're connected to the grid. Where do we put 6,000 miles of transmission lines for all these new sites? The folks running things now are suing the folks who came up with Plan A. I doubt lawsuits will get us Plan B either.

And power tourist Julianne Couch clears security, dons a dosimeter and takes us inside a nuclear plant in far east Nebraska.

Cold Fusion Reactor

High Altitude Wind Power

Solar in the Sahara

Alaska's Untapped Hydrates

The House barely passed the "Cap & Trade" legislation. What will happen if the Senate also passes it? From Heritage Foundation:

• Compared to no cap and trade, real GDP losses increase an additional $2 trillion, from $7.4 trillion under the original draft to $9.6 trillion under the new draft;

• Compared to no cap and trade, average unemployment increases an additional 261,000 jobs, from 844,000 lost jobs under the original draft to 1,105,000 lost jobs under the new draft; and

• Peak-year unemployment losses rise by 500,000 jobs, from 2 million under the original draft to 2.5 million under the new draft.

By 2035 the bill will:

•Reduce aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) by $9.4 trillion;
•Destroy 1,145,000 jobs on average, with peak years seeing unemployment rise by over 2,479,000 jobs;
•Raise electricity rates 90 percent after adjusting for inflation;
•Raise inflation-adjusted gasoline prices by 58 percent;
•Raise residential natural gas prices by 55 percent;
•Raise an average family's annual energy bill by $1,241; and
•Result in an increase of $28,728 in additional federal debt per person, again after adjusting for inflation

Change we can believe in. -D

The burning of fossil fuels is responsible for just 3.27% of the carbon dioxide that enters the atmosphere each year.

Learn more at Families for PA Coal. Actually, we've been burning coal fairly clean for awhile now. It's the extracting of coal that can cause issues. -D

Heritage/Morning Bell:

Two competing solar power companies, Ausra and BrightSource Energy, recently filed plans to build plants in the California desert. Both firms’ plans affected wildlife habitat. But only Ausra’s plans were hit with complaints demanding expensive and cumbersome environmental studies. The reason? Ausra had rejected demands that it use only union workers to build its solar farm, while BrightSource pledged to hire labor-friendly contractors.

Not encouraging.

Jordan Ballor:

The lesson state officials ought to learn is one about fostering an economic environment that promotes diversification and sustainability through creative liberty, rather than being tied to any one (however hopeful) sector of the economy.

This lesson also has something to teach us about how to truly promote sustainable business. The jobs that are most usually called “green,” like the places that manufacture wind turbines or solar cells, are a tiny part of the economic picture. Instead of “green” jobs, we ought to focus on “greening” jobs, changing the way we do jobs that already exist.

Yep. There's a lot of low hanging fruit out there that is rotting on the tree.

fails its own energy audit. Our country's in the very best of hands.

UPDATE: 'Obama Energy Futurist', call your office...

Senator Alexander made a call to return to the promise of nuclear energy:

Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander called Wednesday for doubling the number of nuclear reactors nationwide, a potentially $700 billion proposal that calls for building 100 more over 20 years.

Obama's administration is considering a cap-and-trade program designed to reduce greenhouse gases and to require larger quantities of carbon-free energy production.

The country's 104 commercial nuclear reactors produce 20 percent of the nation's electricity, while most of its energy comes from carbon-producing coal.

Of course, the enviro-radical end of the eco-concerned quickly turned on the scare tactics:

Steve Smith, director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, called Alexander's proposal "reckless."

"Nuclear power is a problem, not a solution," Smith said. "New nuclear reactors are expensive, create significant water use and thermal pollution risks to our communities and produce radioactive waste that after 50 years we still have no long-term solution for."

Actually, had we built all of the reactors we originally planned decades ago, we wouldn't be having an energy crisis. Nuclear energy has been proved safe. Other countries use it even more extensively. New reactors are even safer, produce less waste (much of which is recyclable), than the older generations. We do have places to store waste, people like you, Steve, won't let us.

Alexander said he also backs renewable energy sources, notably solar power and biomass fuels, yet called those still too expensive and inefficient.

Exactly. We need diversity.

"Today there is a huge energy gap between the renewable electricity we would like to have and the reliable, low-cost electricity we must have," he said.

There are a number of reactors waiting approval or already approved. It's time to end the scare tactics and the pretend-to-care-politicians and really solve our energy problems. -D

Ten ethanol production plants have filed bankruptcy in 2009 (and we're only half way through this year). Many of these were subsidized with your tax dollars.

This is what happens when the government forces something into the market before it's mature, cost-effective and even demanded by consumers.

As the corn prices skyrocketed and gas prices sank, no one wanted ethanol. I'm sure the realization that ethanol usually takes more energy to be produced than gas, and usually burns less efficient, didn't help either. This is what you get for letting politicians dictate economics and energy policy. Ethanol has a place in our energy system, but let us figure it out.

Read more here.  -D

Update your green business portfolio with today's lowdown from Cleantech Blog, which includes this:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce just released a study performed by Charles River Associates estimating 3 million jobs to lost in the U.S. by 2030 as a result of climate change legislation. Last year, the Chamber commissioned a similar study announcing a similar doom-and-gloom result. I’m not saying there won’t be job losses as a result of cap-and-trade – there certainly will – but I don’t think it’s going to be apocalyptic either....

Yey!  Something associated with climate change that isn't apocalyptic.

(Until it's his job of course.)

UPDATE: From a RIIPL email today:

The Waxman-Markey Bill is The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES) and it has 4 goals: promote renewable sources of energy (including a new Smart Grid which is necessary to transmit clean, renewable energy to population centers), enact energy efficiency measures that will save consumers money, put limits on planet-warming emissions from large-scale industries; and create millions of new American jobs in clean energy technology.

Are these folks looking at the same bill?  Heh.  Healthy political debate's indeed a good thing...

How much of the debate on global warming is already tainted by money in the system? Great question that IDPI debates on four different posts entitled "Ethics and Lobbying."  The first one is here, with links to the others at the top-right of each post. 

Scroll down for more on lobbyists from yours truly earlier this week.