...Green News...

Pickens New Energy Summit

Three of the political leaders who will help determine the future of U.S. energy policy -- and two guys who clearly want to influence it -- spoke to reporters Wednesday in advance of a major energy summit in Washington, D.C., next week where each will speak.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, and Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar joined Center for American Progress President John Podesta and energy tycoon T. Boone Pickens to hype up the "National Clean Energy Project: Building the New Economy" summit, set to take place on Monday, Feb. 23. "Monday is going to be a good day for America," said Reid, who called for this event as a follow-up to the conference he hosted in Nevada last August.

Comment Here

Would You Downsize if You Could?

Wouldn't it be great if we were not so restricted?
Here we are in the US.. land of the free..
There are so many codes, restrictions, size limits etc. We want to downsize.. but often hear sorry, 1000 sf minimum size home.
It is too bad, considering the state of the economy, that these codes are not being re-examined. Bigger is not always better. We are wasting resources and space.
Lets be totally honest with one another. Who really needs 3000 sq ft?
I know that many families feel they need space.. well, you do, just not what you think. All we really need is a space to sleep, cook, shower and rest. I am sure we could all do with much less space.
Many of those attempting to downsize are facing hurdles of structure size restrictions.
We could live comfortably in a 500 sq ft structure, but local governments feel the minimum size we need is 1500 sq ft. hmmm
Think of it this way.. if building a home of 1500 sq ft cost you 100k, cut it in half to 750 sqft and your have 50k.. right? That is much more affordable. That would bring many people back to realizing the American dream. "Owning your own home". I realize the cost in this article may not be accurate, however, common sense will tell you, if you can have the same thing in less space, with less cost.. we save more than just $$. We save our resources too.
Lets get our state and local lawmakers to make some changes .
We want to downsize to help the economy and ourselves. Ask your officials to consider lifting restrictions on home sizes.

Pickens Plan Comes to Town

Green News

SWEETWATER, Texas -- Get ready, America, T. Boone Pickens is coming to your living room.

The legendary Texas oilman, corporate raider, shareholder-rights crusader, philanthropist and deep-pocketed moneyman for conservative politicians and causes, wants to drive the USA's political and economic agenda.

"We're paying $700 billion a year for foreign oil. It's breaking us as a nation, and I want to elevate that question to the presidential debate, to make it the No.1 issue of the campaign this year," Pickens says.

Today, Pickens will take the wraps off what he's calling the Pickens Plan for cutting the USA's demand for foreign oil by more than a third in less than a decade. To promote it, he is bankrolling what his aides say will be the biggest public policy ad campaign ever. The website, www.pickensplan.com , now live.

Jay Rosser, Pickens' ever-present public relations man, promises that Pickens' face will be seen on Americans' televisions this fall almost as frequently as John McCain's and Barack Obama's.

"Neither presidential candidate is talking about solving the oil problem. So we're going to make 'em talk about it," Pickens says.

"Nixon said in 1970 that we were importing 20% of our oil and that by 1980 it would be 0%. That didn't happen," Pickens says. "It went to 42% in 1991 with the Gulf War. It's just under 70% now. Where do you think we're going to be in 10 years when our economy is busted and we're importing 80% of our oil?"

Finding solutions to other major issues, including health care, are important, he concedes. But "If you don't solve the energy problem, it's going to break us before we even get to solving health care and some of these other important issues." And it has to be done with the same sense of urgency that President Eisenhower had when he pushed the rapid development of the interstate highway system during the Cold War.

Of course, Pickens also has a particular solution in mind.

Wind. And natural gas.

Last week, Pickens loaded up his $60 million, top-of-the-line Gulfstream G550 corporate jet with reporters and a few associates from his Dallas-based BP Capital energy hedge fund and related companies and flew here to illustrate just how big -- and achievable -- his vision is.

There's not much to Sweetwater except for wild grasses, scraggy mesquite trees and rattlesnakes (Sweetwater hosts its famous Rattlesnake Roundup each spring). The gently rolling terrain and vegetation make it ideal for raising cattle, which is what its first settlers did in the 19th century, and what their descendants do today. A regional oil boom in the 1950s and 1960s poured money into the area's economy, as have two oil revivals since: one in the 1980s and one now.

But the exciting new industry in town is wind energy. You can drive for 150 miles along Interstate 20 and never be out of sight of a giant wind turbine, claims Sweetwater Mayor Greg Wortham, who does double duty as executive director of the West Texas Wind Energy Consortium.

Were it a country all by itself, Nolan County, Texas, would rank sixth on the list of wind-energy-producing nations, says Wortham. Year-round wind conditions, the terrain, low land prices and a small population make it an ideal location for wind farms. It already produces more wind-generated electricity in a year than all of California. And the business is growing so fast that he struggles to define it by numbers. By year's end, there'll be more than 1,500 turbines in Nolan County, representing a $5 billion investment. In the multicounty Rolling Plains region, there are already 2,000 operating turbines.

Add those operating further west, the Permian Basin region around Midland and Odessa, and the entire area has more than 3,000 turbines operating, producing about 6,000 megawatts of electricity -- about equal to the power produced by two to three nuclear power plants.

GM hopes to make more money on smaller cars

The General, along with the rest of the American automakers, has a long established history of making the most profits from the largest vehicles. Small cars from the Detroit 3 have therefore fallen way behind the imports when it comes to desirability. GM Global Design Chief Ed Welburn went so far as to say, "In North America, we never did a good small car." Ouch. Instead, all the best designs come from overseas, which GM has plenty of experience in. "Today, we are able to draw on resources of design centers in Korea, Brazil and Europe who really know how to do small cars," says Welburn. Like the ones who designed the Aveo?

So, if the Cobalt and Aveo are not good small cars, at least they'd better be cheap, right? Sure, but expect that to change too as upcoming replacements for its aging small cars will be more expensive than current models. The Chevrolet Cruze, not expected in the U.S. for at least a few more years, will cost an extra few thousand dollars compared to the Cobalt. Hopefully by then, the Beat will be properly engineered for the American market as well.

So.. Who Really Killed the electric car?

Look who's Talking.. or should we say, Look who's NOT talking. Corruption... in oil, government and the auto industry. A few months ago, we urged you to say no to big oil. Well now you have it.. proof! The oil companies, it is suggested, not only killed the electric car[s] that have already been in production.. But the government backed up the whole disgusting mess. When California tried to implement mandatory plugin of 10% of cars having to be emission free, the Auto industry sued them. At Fist they complied, then they sued. Have you heard of the all Electric Car.. the EV1 ? .. I didn't think so. That my friends is exactly what the oil companies want.. Will Obama and McCain finally get to the bottom of this.. Bush talks hydrogen, yeah right, he's an oil man! Hydrogen is years away and a pollutant.. Bush backed up the oil companies.. I guess it's all about $$  watch the video for more .

Gore sets ambitious energy goal for next U.S. president to heed   WASHINGTON — Just as John F. Kennedy set his sights on the moon, Al Gore is challenging the U.S. to produce every kilowatt of electricity through wind, sun and other Earth-friendly energy sources within 10 years, an audacious goal he hopes the next president will embrace.

The Nobel Prize-winning former vice president said fellow Democrat Barack Obama and Republican rival John McCain are "way ahead" of most politicians in the fight against global climate change.

Rising fuel costs, climate change and the national security threats posed by U.S. dependence on foreign oil are conspiring to create "a new political environment" that Gore said will sustain bold and expensive steps to wean the nation off fossil fuels.

"I have never seen an opportunity for the country like the one that's emerging now," Gore told The Associated Press in an interview previewing a speech on global warming he planned to give Thursday in Washington.

Gore said he fully understands the magnitude of the challenge.

The Alliance for Climate Protection, a bipartisan group he leads, estimates the cost of transforming the U.S. to clean electricity sources at $1.5 trillion to $3 trillion over 30 years in public and private money. But he says it would cost about as much to build greenhouse gas-polluting coal plants to satisfy current demand.

"This is an investment that will pay itself back many times over," Gore said. "It's an expensive investment but not compared to the rising cost of continuing to invest in fossil fuels."

Called an alarmist by conservatives, Gore has made global warming his signature issue. He portrayed Thursday's speech as the latest and most important phase in his effort to build public opinion in favour of alternative fuels.

Gore knows politicians fear action unless voters are willing to sacrifice - and demand new fuels.

"I hope to contribute to a new political environment in this country that will allow the next president to do what I think the next president is going to think is the right thing to do," Gore said. "But the people have to play a part." He compared his challenge to Kennedy's pledge in May 1961 to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

Gore narrowly lost the presidential race in 2000 to then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush after a campaign in which his prescient views on climate change took a back seat to other issues. In the 2008 presidential race, both the Republican and Democrat candidates support action to curb the gases blamed for global warming.

While dismissing a suggestion that he pulled his punches eight years ago, Gore said his goal now is to "enlarge the political space" within which politicians can "deal with the climate challenge."

To meet his 10-year goal, Gore said nuclear energy output would continue at current levels while the U.S. dramatically increases its use of solar, wind, geothermal and clean coal energy. Huge investments must also be made in technologies that reduce energy waste and link existing power grids, he said.

Gore's proposal would represent a significant shift in where the U.S. gets its power. In 2005, the United States produced nearly 3.7 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, with coal providing slightly more than half of that energy, according to government statistics. Nuclear power accounted for 21 per cent, natural gas 15 per cent and renewable sources, including wind and solar, about 8.6 per cent.

Coal's share of electricity generation is only expected to grow come 2030, according to Energy Department forecasts, while renewable energy would still only provide 11 per cent of the nation's power.

Without action, the cost of oil will continue to rise as fast-growing China and India increase demand, Gore said. Sustained addiction to oil also will place the U.S. at the mercy of oil-producing governments, he said, and the globe would suffer irreparable harm.

Government experts recently predicted that, at the current rate and without an international treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, world energy demand will grow 50 per cent over the next two decades. The Energy Information Administration also said in its long-range forecast to 2030 that the world is not close to abandoning fossil fuels despite their role in global warming.

While electricity production is only part of the nation's energy and climate change problem, Gore said, "If we meet this challenge we will solve the rest of it."

COMMENT