Alternate Energy Blog

Whatever your take is on the recent health care reform package that Congress recently passed, the fact remains that the health care industry will only grow over the next several years.A With as many as 30 million more customers enrolling in health insurance plans, the need for health care practitioners and facilities like hospitals will only …

In a reversal of a long-standing ban on most offshore drilling, President Barack Obama is allowing oil drilling 50 miles off Virginia’s shorelines.

Honorable George Lemieux

Washington, DC

Dear Senator Lemieux,

Our dependence on the fossil fuels has finally caught up to us.  Sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides as well particulate matter and acid rain kept researchers busy trying to reduce those pollutants in the last century.  Now, carbon dioxide has become the most serious threat.  We should have started moving away from these unhealthy fossil fuels long ago.

Down here in Florida we had one of the coldest Januarys in a long time.  Some people said that made the global warming theory invalid.  But while it was cold here, the rest of the earth was experiencing the fourth warmest January in recorded history.  I don’t doubt we’ll see more of these regional weather extremes.  We need to act now to keep the greenhouse molecules out of the air.  These larger molecules like CO2 and methane can hold heat.  Humans have been discarding them into the atmosphere for only a short cosmologic time, but look at the problems they are creating in this short period.

People in Asia are on the verge of losing their prime sources of drinking water.  Glaciers that feed their rivers are melting away.  Even in the US, scientists say Glacier National Park may lose the glacier in several decades.  As the ocean absorbs some of this increasing CO2, it creates another problem by dissolving it into carbonic acid which can destroy shellfish and reef systems.  Florida’s Everglades and coastal areas will be vulnerable to salt water intrusion and even flooding.  We must stop the millions of tons of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere!  The results are adding up to catastrophe!

We have to cap these molecules or tax them.  Personally, I think people will respond faster if we tax them.  That will also be a fast way to engage all the other alternatives and get the new renewable energy businesses flourishing.  If carbon gets expensive people will use less of it.  They’ll start more carpooling and move more quickly into the carbon-neutral fuels like ethanol and biodiesel and start using public transportation more frequently.  I recently read the good news that GM is going to expand their flex-fuel fleet.  Electric cars, bikes and motor cycles are moving into the economy at a good pace.  But not as fast as wind generated and photovoltaic electricity.  These two clean energy industries are growing at 25-30 percent a year.  The climate in Florida is perfect to take advantage of biofuel and biomass energy production in addition to photovoltaics.  These industries provide only a fraction of our energy needs today.  But if we can sustain these fantastic growth rates it won’t be long before they are considered mainstream energy.

Thanks to the US government’s 30% tax credit and the Chinese and German governments’ national support systems, the increasing world production of photovoltaics is bringing down their price.  A kilowatt-hour of wind generated electricity is now about par with coal and about half the life-cycle cost of a kilowatt-hour of nuclear electricity.  It’s important to keep up the biodiesel and ethanol tax credits and the research grants for biomass energy.  Innovative financing methods have emerged in the private sector to help overcome the initial cost of renewable energy systems.  PACE, or property assessed clean energy, is even being discussed in the Florida legislature this year.  Some other states and municipalities are already using this method of creating tax districts that allow the purchasers of renewable energy systems to spread the cost out on their tax bills.

This is an exciting time for advocates of energy efficiency and clean energy but the momentum could slow or even shift in the wrong direction depending on what national leaders decide to do.  We’ve seen it happen before.  The nation is experiencing an historic transition in the ways people use energy and the kinds of energy we use.  Industries and individuals are ready to do the right thing.  We are ready to make the transition to a low-carbon society.  We are looking for leadership in Washington and consistency in policy.

Respectfully,

Sam Kendall

The Missouri Senate gave initial approval Tuesday to a bill allowing methane gas produced by animal waste to count toward the state’s renewable energy mandate for electricity providers.

An oil conglomerate has allegedly spent nearly 16.5 million on campaigns to discredit climate change and clean energy policies, according to a new report.

Constellation Energy today announced that its subsidiary, Constellation Energya s Projects & Services Group, has completed installation of a 1.2 megawatt solar and wind power system at the University of Toledoa s Scott Park Campus of Energy and Innovation in Toledo, Ohio.

Coal fuels much of Internet ‘cloud,’ Greenpeace says In this undated photo, Sun’s new Santa Clara Datacenter is shown.

Clean energy and ‘green’ jobs were a mantra for politicians across the developed world before the financial crisis struck, and the effects of the recession served only to intensify the rhetoric.

Calling it a compromise, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa urged the City Council today to approve an initial electricity rate hike of 0.8 cents per kilowatt hour starting next month, and to delay other increases until a ratepayer advocate is appointed and other conditions are met.

Alternative energy developers are looking at potential wind farm sites in Tippecanoe County.

Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown are pushing plans to get Lake Erie, the shallowest of the Great Lakes, at the forefront of offshore wind power development.

Laid-off workers pause Friday outside the main entrance to the BP Solar plant after learning their jobs had been eliminated.

Hundreds of jobs are to be created under an 80 million investment in a new wind turbine facility, it has been announced.

In this handout picture received from the European Commission, a displaced Sudanese man pushes his bike through Malou village in southern Sudan’s Lakes State on March 23.

In this handout picture received from the European Commission, a displaced Sudanese man pushes his bike through Malou village in southern Sudan’s Lakes State on March 23.