Over 50 Percent of New Power Came From Renewable Sources in 2009
wind energy is becoming more efficient. With wind energy, bigger is better for energy return. Energy return increases with the square of rotor diameter. If the rotor is twice as big, it produces four times the power. Turbine size has been increasing for many years, which is the key reason for the steep rise in EROEI.
Global investments in renewables top non-renewable investments for 2nd year in a row.
July 15th 2010
More than 50 percent of the newly installed power capacity in the U.S. and globally, came from renewable energy sources, according to a new report, released July 15th 2010, by the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century, a United Nations-backed organization. The Renewables 2010 Status Report provides a comprehensive breakdown of the the movements, trends and innovations globally in renewable energy.
The year 2009 was unprecedented in the history of renewable energy, despite the headwinds posed by the global financial crisis, lower oil prices, and slow progress with climate policy. Indeed, as other economic sectors declined around the world, existing renewable capacity continued to grow at rates close to those in previous years, including grid-connected solar PV (53 %), wind power (32 %), solar hot water/heating (21 %), geothermal power (4 %), and hydropower (3 %).
For the second year in a row, in both the United States and Europe, more renewable power capacity was added than conventional power capacity (coal, gas, nuclear). Renewables accounted for 60 % of newly installed power capacity in Europe in 2009, and nearly 20 % of annual power production.
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Clean-up Continues as BP Flow of Oil in Gulf Remains Halted
COLLEEN LONG, HARRY R. WEBER Associated Press Writers - 3:29 p.m. EDT, July 16, 2010
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — BP said its capped-off well appeared to be holding steady Friday as a white-knuckle waiting period ticked by with engineers watching pressure gauges for signs of a leak.
Results monitored from control rooms on ships at sea and hundreds of miles away at the company's U.S. headquarters in Houston showed the oil staying inside the cap, rather than escaping through any undiscovered breaches, BP PLC vice president Kent Wells said on a morning conference call.
Four underwater robots scoured the sea floor but had also found no signs of new leaks, he said.
BP and government scientists huddled Friday afternoon to discuss the first 24 hours of pressure readings as they sought to determine whether they can keep the gusher sealed off or have to release some of the flow and funnel it up to vessels on the surface.
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Calif. Sues Fannie, Freddie Over Solar Energy Financing
By JAMES R. RIFFEL, CNS - July 14, 2010
The state of California is suing federal mortgage lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for blocking implementation of a program that helps property owners to install solar energy systems, it was announced today at a San Diego news conference.
State Attorney General Jerry Brown also announced that he sent a letter to President Barack Obama, asking the nation's chief justice to intervene so that the problem might be solved without litigation.
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Report bolsters White House energy agenda
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a steady severe loss of jobs month after month during the last year of the Bush Administration and has reported a steady improvement, month after month since Obama took over.
By Katherine McIntire Peters - July 14, 2010
A report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers measuring the effects of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act through the second quarter of 2010 found the $787 billion economic stimulus package created or saved between 2.5 million and 3.6 million jobs. "The results, ... are strong enough and clear enough that we are confident that the basic conclusions are solid." Vice President Joe Biden: "The economic initiatives we took are working."
Additionally, the report said spending and tax incentives in clean energy had generated the largest co-investment from the private sector, noting, "A federal contribution of $46 billion will support more than $150 billion in total investments in energy efficiency, renewable generation, research and other areas of the transformation to a clean energy future."
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California’s climate-change law
update July 6th 2010 PG&E Joins Opposition to Proposition 23
SAN FRANCISCO, July 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) today announced that it will join other California business, civic, labor and environmental organizations in opposing Proposition 23, a new state ballot initiative that would suspend California's landmark Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006.
California's New Energy Divide
A new ballot initiative threatens to suspend the Golden State's climate-change law.
Saturday, July 3, 2010 by Ronald Brownstein
In 2006, the Democratic Legislature passed, and Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed, a pioneering law mandating ambitious reductions in the emission of carbon dioxide and other gases linked to global climate change. That law is scheduled to take effect in 2012.
But last week, an alliance of business and conservative groups qualified an initiative for the November ballot to suspend the law until state unemployment drops below 5.5 percent for four consecutive quarters -- a standard that California has met only three times in the past three decades. Outside of those three instances, California unemployment hasn't dipped below 5.5 percent in any other quarter since 1980. That record suggests that the initiative aims more to inter the greenhouse-gas law than to defer it.
The California initiative has been bankrolled primarily by two Texas oil companies (Valero and Tesoro). But California groups representing manufacturers and small businesses are also behind it. "The last thing a small-business owner needs now is a new and onerous mandate," insists John Kabateck, executive director for the state's National Federation of Independent Business. If California votes to shelve its climate law, the outcome could intimidate politicians around the country and set back prospects of national action on climate change for many years.
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Japan Offering Prostitutes to Sway Whaling Votes
Japan Offered Prostitutes to International Whaling Commission members to Sway Whaling Votes
The Sunday Times, London. - June 13, 2010
June 14 2010 - AOL NEWS - Dana Kennedy
Japanese officials filmed bribing six small nations with offers of cash and call girls in return for their votes in favor of slaughtering whales, in a British newspaper investigation: The Times, London.
Japan denies the accusations, but The Sunday Times reported that two of its journalists filmed government officials from six countries admitting they were bribed by Japan to vote with the pro-whalers.
News of the sting comes as Japan seeks to overturn a 24-year moratorium on commercial whaling at the meeting of the International Whaling Commission next week in Agadir, Morocco.
"I don't think the international legal community has come up with a term yet to describe this blatant, purchasing of small country governments by Japan. I mean, that has to go down in legal history as being at the high end of public sector extortion."
-- Former Dominica Minister of Fisheries, Atherton Martin, reported on ABC TV, 18 July 2005
California PG&E spending over $46 million to stop competition
California PG&E trying to monopolize energy production and squeeze out competition across the entire state.
By Erin Milnes; June 5, 2010
If passed, Proposition 16 will amend the California constitution to require two-thirds voter approval before a local government can establish a community choice aggregator, or CCA, an energy-supply approach a bit like a buying co-op, in which municipalities group together to purchase electricity wholesale. The two-thirds "super majority" requirement would make it harder – some say nearly impossible – for communities to leave their incumbent private utility and compete in the electricity market.
Michael R. Peevey, president of the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates the state's three large private utility companies, and himself a former president of Southern California Edison Co., has been quoted as saying Proposition 16 embodies a "blatant misuse" of the election process. He presented that view as his own and not the official position of the commission, which is not commenting on the measure. In an opinion article published in the San Jose Mercury News, Mr. Peevey said, "Pure and simple, Proposition 16 is a clever, brazen, buzzword-driven effort by one company to manipulate the California Constitution to protect its current monopoly."
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Small-Scale, more efficient, Urban Wind Turbines
Virtually silent, fully enclosed, Tesla - bladeless wind turbines on the way
High efficiency wind turbine based on jet engine technology
Schooling fish inspire new approach to wind farming - to 10 times more efficient
Reno and Boston Put Wind Turbines on City Hall Roofs
Jun 3, 2010, By Russell Nichols, Staff Writer
From the roof of Reno's City Hall, two 1.5 kilowatt wind turbines designed with special hoops to reduce noise
This week, Reno became one of the first cities in the nation to install windmills on a city hall roof. Two years in the making, this project marks the latest stage in Reno's ongoing effort to plant small-scale turbines throughout the city to produce energy and save money, said Jason Geddes, the city's environmental services administrator. The city has already installed a turbine at the sewage plant and one at a park. In total, nine urban turbines are slated to go up, so city officials can test how they perform in various environments.
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Deep Water Horizon Oil spill, no prevention, clean-up workers getting sick
BERNARD LAGAN, May 31, 2010
In the US, which assumes no engineering challenge is beyond conquer - nor does it lack the private capital to achieve it - the brackish rouge beneath the waves that is slowly strangling the Louisiana shore not only stains the sea and the sands, that creeping black is also gutting confidence, upturning myths and ruining reputations.
When Americans learned at the weekend that British Petroleum (BP) - which drilled the hole in the seabed nearly two kilometres under the sea - had attempted to seal it 16 times since Thursday by forcing shredded rope, plastics, old tyres and even golf balls into the failed, four-story high blow-out preventer, the crudity of the assault seemed strangely out of step with our times.
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Oil Spill focuses our attention on foreign oil
By T. Boone Pickens - 05-20-2010
Without minimizing the environmental issues involved in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, let's focus on the economics of the situation. This accident has not disrupted the 19 million barrels of oil we used every day in April - 12.3 million of which was imported oil. In the weeks since the accident, crude oil prices have actually dropped about $15 per barrel - which shows there are much broader forces at work in pricing crude than even a spill like this one.
We should not allow this accident to divert our attention away from our continuing dependence on foreign oil - especially oil from OPEC nations. We are importing nearly two-thirds of our oil requirements, and 70 percent of that is used as gasoline to fuel our 250 million SUVs, cars, and light trucks; and as diesel to power our 8 million heavy trucks.
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Energy saving work being sabotaged!
IMPORTANT UPDATE 
THE ORION PROJECT
May 13, 2010
For the past two years, The Orion Project has worked to raise funds to build a facility where we can bring scientists and inventors together in a peaceful type of Manhattan Project for energy - to develop new sources of energy that will get us off the fossil fuel economy. We have also worked to identify scientists and inventors capable of this work. For the past hundred years, scientists such as Nicola Tesla have worked on such devices. The fact that many have tried, and we are still using predominantly fossil fuels - the same fuels used in the 1800s - can be illustrated by our recent experience.
We reported last December that we had under contract a very talented scientist who wanted to work with us. Because he still is doing work for a private company that is linked to the Intelligence Community, he preferred working with his identity concealed. A side note is that he had agreed to work with us in the fall of 2008. At that time, he met with the Board of Directors and took a contract home to read and sign, but called us within three days saying that he was being deployed abroad for fifteen months. We heard nothing else from him until a year later - precisely after Dr. Greer publicly disclosed the energy briefing he had put together for President Obama.
He resurfaced and said that he wanted to work with us to develop new energy technologies. He met with the Board of Directors again. He assured us that he was cleared by his "shepherds" in the Intelligence Community to work with us to build advanced energy systems, but he was not allowed to work on advanced propulsion systems - that is, he could build systems to power our houses and businesses, but he would not be allowed to reproduce the advanced propulsion systems he has developed in the past.
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BP’s Slick Greenwashing
The petroleum giant tried to sell itself as a green industry leader. That was just an oily tactic.
By James Ridgeway | Tue May. 4, 2010 5:30 AM PDT 
For the last decade, BP has been busily engaged in a multi-million-dollar greenwashing campaign. Changing its name from British Petroleum to BP, the company adopted a new slogan, "Beyond Petroleum," and began a "rebranding" effort to depict itself as a public-spirited, environmentally sensitive, green energy enterprise, the very model of 21st century corporate responsibility.
It’s going to take more than a name change and a clever ad campaign to erase the image of oil spreading across the Gulf Coast [1] from BP’s offshore rig, and dead wildlife washing up onto beaches. Even as the company magnanimously agreed to cover the costs of cleaning up the mammoth spill, BP on Monday was still insisting that it wasn’t at fault [2]for the accident that caused it—instead blaming the offshore drilling contractor that operated the rig. So much for corporate accountability.
No Mine Safety; M.S.H.A. “riddled with loopholes”; 28 Dead.
April 15, 2010
Congrats to all the corporate thugs putting profits ahead of human safety,
President Obama on Thursday ordered a fresh round of coal mine inspections and a far-reaching review of mine safety, and said the federal government was partly to blame for the explosion that claimed 29 lives at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia this month.
"There’s still a lot that we don’t know," Mr. Obama said, during a brief appearance in the Rose Garden. "But we do know that this tragedy was triggered by a failure at the Upper Big Branch mine - a failure first and foremost of management, but also a failure of oversight and a failure of laws so riddled with loopholes that they allow unsafe conditions to continue."
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Florida House committee approves renewable energy bill
A House committee passed a sweeping renewables bill -- but not without criticism.
BY MARY ELLEN KLAS, Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau, Saturday, 04-10-2010
TALLAHASSEE -- A House committee gave approval Friday to a bill that uses tax breaks, government-backed loans and $400 million of electricity rate hikes in an attempt to spark a renewable energy revolution in Florida and drive down the use of dirty fossil fuels - but, not mandate that electric companies lower their fossil fuel consumption.
Environmentalists called it a good first step but lamented the absence of a renewable-energy standard that other states have used to force a clean-up of the way they produce power.
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Renewable Energy Now Growing Faster than Coal in China
April 10th, 2010
New official stats from China show that renewable energy capacity is growing faster than coal now.
By the end of 2010, hydro, nuclear and wind power should account for 26% of the country's electricity generation, providing about 250 GW of capacity. "Thermal power", largely coal-fired power stations, accounts for about 700 GW of capacity. However, 96 GW of the China's 178 GW of new power capacity will be from renewables in 2010, compared to 80 GW from thermal power. So, the tide may be changing.
A record 10,010 megawatts (10 gigawatts!) of new wind capacity was installed in the United States last year, accounting for 39 percent of new electrical generation, the American Wind Energy Association said in its annual report.
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contact Obama! 