Category Archives: schemes

Fred Singer – He has been making up science since he said cigarettes wouldn’t kill you

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Of course he has been in favor of bad air for 50 years…so at least he is badly consistent….

Oh it’s Jam Band Friday and I am going to do something a little different….today i bring you the Grammy Picks by State Journal Register writers Rhys Saunders, Brian Mackey and Brian Murphy. Caution – most of these songs I have never heard – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAwjZLztd28&feature=related

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7JthgTMHDU )

He lies about the atmosphere, he also lies about his credentials

http://www.desmogblog.com/people/fred-singer

18 November 09

Fred Singer, lacking nobility, still claims the Prize

Climate skeptics are, not surprisingly, hitting the European speaking circuit in the weeks leading up to the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen. But what is surprising is that notorious global warming denier S. Fred Singer was described at a skeptic conference today as a Nobel prize winner, a flat out lie.

According to a Belgian journalist who alerted DeSmog to Singer’s appearance today at a skeptic conference in the European Parliament building, Singer was described in event materials as:

“a reviewer of IPCC reports, he shares the 2007 Nobel peace prize with Al Gore and 2000 others.”

The idea that Fred Singer shares any part in the IPCC/Gore Nobel prize is laughable, of course.  Other than Mr. Gore, the Nobel committee recognized only the IPCC authors, and they all received framed Nobel certificates.  If Singer can produce a framed Nobel, I’ll produce my Olympic gold medal (Singer must eat cereal too, I sure enjoy the prizes inside, although I’ve never seen a Nobel peace prize before).

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXG0YMv5Fvk )

Last week at the Copenhagen climate summit, we saw Christopher Monckton, the head of the delegation for the oil industry-friendly Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), accuse young climate change activists of being “Nazis” and the “Hitler youth.”

Another member of Monckton’s Copendenier delegation is a gentleman by the name of S. Fred Singer, who is well known to our team at the DeSmogBlog.

Readers might say why are you picking on this guy? You did not post much extra stuff about a lot of the earlier people?  The answer is that he is that he is the only one purporting to be a scientist…and he is from that bastion of lying and cheat…George Mason University. God typing that made me feel unclean.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-grandia/copendenier-fred-singer-o_b_390152.html

In fact, we once received a letter from Singer’s lawyer threatening to sue us after we reported that Singer once did work for the cigarette lobby. We never heard back from Singer after we sent along all the research behind our claim.

Like Monkcton, Singer has an “expert” opinion on many subjects. Not coincidentally, many of these expert opinions greatly assist the work of various industries looking to avoid being saddled with expensive health and environmental regulations.

Our research team recently came across a 1996 Washington Times article by Singer, titled Anthology of 1995’s Environmental Myths [pdf]. In the article, Singer outlines “five topics that demonstrate distortion or misuse of science in shaping policies.”

The five are: global warming, the hole in the ozone, second-hand tobacco smoke, the “Radon scare” and toxic substances in our food.

Take a read of Singer’s article and ask yourself this: what would our planet and people be like today if we had listened to Singer’s advice 13 years ago? Then ask yourself: why would anyone in their right mind trust his supposedly “expert” opinion – or the opinions of those in his delegation – here at the Copenhagen climate talks.

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1Xr-JFLxik )

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m1EFMoRFvY )

But the real deal is this:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers/13

The Hack Scientist
Fred Singer
Retired physicist, University of Virginia

A former mouthpiece for the tobacco industry, the 85-year-old Singer is the granddaddy of fake “science” designed to debunk global warming. The retired physicist — who also tried to downplay the danger of the hole in the ozone layer — is still wheeled out as an authority by big polluters determined to kill climate legislation. For years, Singer steadfastly denied that the world is heating up: Citing satellite data that has since been discredited, he even made the unhinged claim that “the climate has been cooling just slightly.” Last year, Singer served as a lead author of “Climate Change Reconsidered” — an 880-page report by the right-wing Heartland Institute that was laughably presented as a counterweight to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world’s scientific authority on global warming. Singer concludes that the unchecked growth of climate-cooking pollution is “unequivocally good news.” Why? Because “rising CO2 levels increase plant growth and make plants more resistant to drought and pests.” Small wonder that Heartland’s climate work has long been funded by the likes of Exxon and reactionary energy barons like Charles Koch and Richard Mellon Scaife.

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( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYaiGB7eYU8 )

Don’t worry Radon Gas won’t hurt you. What a scientist hahaha

( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSD4vsh1zDA )

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James Inhofe – Why does this man even deserve to be heard on Global Warming

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The quick answer is that he doesn’t deserve to be listen to. He has no background for it. But often that is the case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Inhofe

James Mountain “Jim” Inhofe (born November 17, 1934) is an American politician from Oklahoma. He is a member of the Republican Party and currently serves as the senior Senator from Oklahoma. A former the State Representative and Senator, Inhofe served eight years in the United States Congress before election to the Senate in 1994.

Inhofe is among the most vocal global warming skeptics in the US Congress and is also known for his general opposition to LGBT rights, his support for the state of Israel, and his legislative efforts to make English the national language of the United States.

Inhofe was born in Des Moines, Iowa and moved with his family to Tulsa, Oklahoma, when he was a child. He was a member of the Class of 1953 at Tulsa Central High School,[1] and served in the United States Army from 1957 to 1958.[2][3]

In 1959, Inhofe married Kay Kirkpatrick, with whom he has four children. Inhofe received a B.A. degree from the University of Tulsa in 1973, at the age of 38.In his business career, Inhofe was a real estate developer and became president of the Quaker Life Insurance Company; during this time, the company went into receivership. It was liquidated in 1986.[4]

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers/7

God’s Denier
Sen. James Inhofe
Republican, Oklahoma

As the former chairman and ranking Republican of the Senate environment committee, Inhofe is one of the GOP’s loudest and most influential voices on climate change. The senator from Oklahoma calls global warming “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people,” insists that carbon dioxide is not “a real pollutant,” and doesn’t worry about rising sea levels, because, if all else fails, “God’s still up there.”

Far from being marginalized, Inhofe continues to hold remarkable sway: In November, he organized fellow GOP members to boycott the environment committee’s debate on climate legislation. He also marshaled the ranking GOP members of all six committees with jurisdiction over climate change to write Sen. Barbara Boxer, warning her that proceeding without Republicans would “severely damage” prospects for the bill’s passage. The move helped cloud the bill’s future, diminishing America’s bargaining position at the Copenhagen climate negotiations. “We won, you lost,” Inhofe gloated to Boxer during a committee hearing. “Get a life.”

In December, the senator also vowed that a resurgent GOP would block the EPA from curbing carbon pollution: “After the 2010 election,” he said, “I guarantee we’ll have the votes to do it.”

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Good God and we still have 10 more to go. I do not know how much longer I can keep this up.

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Marc Morano – There is a name that few people will recognize

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I have been posting for the last 8 or 9 days about the article below and the related book Climate Killers. Please read them so you will know who the enemy is and what to do about it.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633532/as_the_world_burns/

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He is the master of the bad word. He sits around and thinks up phrases like Nature Nazis, Envirowussies, and the “fear promoting business”. He hides behind the skirts of his right wing masters. You never see him in public and if only he had a last name like Drudge….but he doesn’t…he sounds like a quarterback and looks like a pug.

Meet the 17 polluters and deniers who are derailing efforts to curb global warming in Tim Dickinson’s “The Climate Killers.”

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers/6 

The Drudge of Denial
Marc Morano
Founder, Climate Depot

Morano, who worked for Sen. James “Global Warming is a Hoax” Inhofe, left Congress last year to set up shop as the Matt Drudge of climate denial. Today he runs Climate Depot, a website whose sponsor is funded by oil heir Richard Mellon Scaife. A private version of a congressional blog that Morano ran for Inhofe, the site serves as a clearinghouse for climate kooks. “He’s a central cell of the climate-denial machine,” says Kert Davies, research director for Greenpeace. “He’s been very effective in delaying action on this crisis.”

Morano says climate scientists are in the “fear-promoting business” and accuses them of waging a “war on modern civilization.” But it’s Morano who trafficks in wild claims, routinely distorting the work of climate scholars and charging that “proponents of man-made global warming have been funded to the tune of $50 billion.” A former producer for Rush Limbaugh, Morano gained fame as one of the first to trumpet Swift-boat lies about John Kerry’s military record. Andrew Watson, a British climate professor who recently debated Morano on the BBC, said it best in a whispered aside at the end of the show: “What an asshole.”

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Should be Dan Morono, don’t you think? 

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Mary Landrieu – Finally a woman polluter wow that IS equallity

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My computer was attacked by a Trojan Horse dialer on Friday and life has sucked ever since. I am posting from the Riverton Library as we speak. This meant that I did not get to give my tribute to Martin Luther King as the founder of the environemental justice movement. So here are some sites to see:

http://taintedgreen.com/general/what-would-martin-luther-king-jr-say-to-us-about-the-environment/000509

or

http://ams.confex.com/ams/87ANNUAL/techprogram/paper_122177.htm 

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But we shall move on. We are going over the 17 greatest climate killers in the US as an example of whose behavior we have to change. This post is from 2 very important articles in of all places the Rolling Stone Magazine:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633532/as_the_world_burns/ 

Meet the 17 polluters and deniers who are derailing efforts to curb global warming in Tim Dickinson’s “The Climate Killers.”

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It is sad but true…I worked in Mary’s first campaign for the Senate. The sole reason I did was to make her the first woman elected to the Senate from Louisiana. This is how I am repaid. Just think her Brother Mitch Landrieu is probably the next Mayor of New Orleans. Wonder what they can do together?

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers/5

The Dirty Democrat
Sen. Mary Landrieu
Democrat, Louisiana

Landrieu — who boasts of being “the most fervent pro-drilling Democrat in the Senate” — has assured oil interests that she’ll be “putting the brakes” on current efforts to cap carbon pollution. Even though her home state will be savaged by climate change, Katrina-style, Landrieu routinely sides with her energy funders. In 2008, after providing the pivotal vote to preserve $12 billion in tax breaks for Big Oil, she received $272,000 from oil and gas interests — third among Democrats. Joined by other Democrats from key energy states — including Jim Webb of Virginia, Max Baucus of Montana, Evan Bayh of Indiana and Robert Byrd of West Virginia — Landrieu tried to kill climate legislation in the Senate by requiring that it be passed by a 60-vote supermajority. “Landrieu acts more to protect Big Oil than the future for the people of Louisiana,” says Tony Massaro of the League of Conservation Voters, which added Landrieu to its “Dirty Dozen” roster of pro-pollution politicians.

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Hope somebody drills her someday. 

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Jack Gerard – The Number 3 Climate Killer in the US

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We covered the Citizen Energy protest on this blog before because I went to the event they held in Springfield and was appalled. You will have to go back and look at my May posts or maybe June because I do not remember when they were. I took pictures…it was so bogus it would give astroturf a bad name. Most of the attendees were Republican and industry operatives or they were seniors bussed in from Southern Illinois. I mean like 6 big Greyhound style buses.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers/3

The Fake Protestor
Jack Gerard
President, American Petroleum

As head of the American Petroleum Institute, Gerard serves as the frontman for the nation’s oil and gas industry, including energy giants like Exxon, Shell, BP and Halliburton. Although API now claims to back the move to a “carbon-constrained economy,” Gerard has been working behind the scenes to scuttle climate legislation. According to an internal memo leaked in August, Gerard directed API’s nearly 400 member companies to mobilize their employees to attend “Energy Citizen” rallies in 20 states to protest a cap on carbon pollution. To ensure the success of the fake grass-roots protests, Gerard bragged that he had also enlisted a bevy of polluting allies — including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. “Please treat this information as sensitive,” Gerard cautioned in the memo. “We don’t want critics to know our game plan.”

This is not the first time that API has been at the center of a secretive campaign to derail carbon controls.
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Please read both environmental pieces in this issue of Rolling Stone online. They are great!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUxnpQFlsS4

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The Number 2 Polluter In The United States – Rupert Murdock

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I know he is an Australian bloke but he owns the media in the US…

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633532/as_the_world_burns/

Meet the 17 polluters and deniers who are derailing efforts to curb global warming in Tim Dickinson’s “The Climate Killers.”

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633524/the_climate_killers/2

The Disinformer
Rupert Murdoch
CEO, News Corporation

In 2007, when the world’s most powerful media baron announced his newfound conviction that global warming “poses clear, catastrophic threats,” it seemed as though the truth about climate change might finally get the attention it deserves. Murdoch promised that not only would News Corp. itself become carbon-neutral by 2010, but that his media outlets would explain the urgent need for a cap on carbon emissions. Climate change, he pledged, would be addressed as a sober reality across the News Corp. empire, whether as a plot element on 24 or in a story on Fox News. “I don’t think there’s any question of my conviction on this issue,” Murdoch declared. “I’ve come to feel it very strongly.”

Since then, however, Murdoch and his media operations have become the nation’s leading source of disinformation about climate change. In October, Fox Business ran an extended segment on “The Carbon Myth,” inviting a hack scientist to “make the case” that more carbon pollution is actually “good for the environment.” The Wall Street Journal has continued to lie not only about the reality of global warming but about Obama’s efforts to prevent it, denouncing climate legislation as “likely to be the biggest tax in American history.”

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Read the whole article. It is pretty damning.

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Oh and I can’t resist, this is the best collection of envirovideos I have ever seen.

http://ecopolitology.org/2010/01/11/the-top-9-viral-videos-of-the-green-movement-1958-2010/

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Why The Energy Companies Lobbied Against Healthcare – To stave off Cap and Trade

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http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31633532/as_the_world_burns/

 

As the World Burns

How Big Oil and Big Coal mounted one of the most aggressive lobbying campaigns in history to block progress on global warming

JEFF GOODELLPosted Jan 06, 2010 8:15 AM

Meet the 17 polluters and deniers who are derailing efforts to curb global warming in Tim Dickinson’s “The Climate Killers.”

This was supposed to be the transformative moment on global warming, the tipping point when America proved to the world that capitalism has a conscience, that we take the fate of the planet seriously. According to the script, Congress would pass a landmark bill committing the U.S. to deep cuts in carbon emissions. President Obama would then arrive in Copenhagen for the international climate summit, armed with the moral and political capital he needed to challenge the rest of the world to do the same. After all, wasn’t this the kind of bold move the Norwegians were anticipating when they awarded Obama the Nobel Peace Prize?

As we now know, it didn’t work out that way. Obama arrived in Copenhagen last month without any legislation committing the U.S. to reduce carbon pollution. Instead of reaching agreement on how to stop cooking the planet, the summit devolved into bickering over who bears the most blame for turning up the heat. The world once again missed an opportunity to avert disaster — and the delay is likely to have deadly consequences. In recent years, we have moved from talking about the possibility of climate change to watching it unfold before our eyes. The Arctic is melting, wildfires are turning into infernos, warm-weather insects are devouring forests, droughts are getting longer and more lethal. And the more we learn about climate change, the more it becomes apparent how enormous the risks are. Just a few years ago, researchers estimated that sea levels would likely rise 17 inches by 2100. Now they believe it could be three feet or more — a cataclysmic shift that would doom many of the world’s cities, including London and New Orleans, and create tens of millions of climate refugees.

Our collective response to the emerging catastrophe verges on suicidal. World leaders have been talking about tackling climate change for nearly 20 years now — yet carbon emissions keep going up and up. “We are in a race against time,” says Rep. Jay Inslee, a Democrat from Washington who has fought for sharp reductions in planet-warming pollution. “Mother Nature isn’t sitting around waiting for us to get our political act together.” In fact, our failure to confront global warming is more than simply political incompetence. Over the past year, the corporations and special interests most responsible for climate change waged an all-out war to prevent Congress from cracking down on carbon pollution in time for Copenhagen. The oil and coal industries deployed an unprecedented army of lobbyists, spent millions on misleading studies and engaged in outright deception to derail climate legislation. “It was the most aggressive and corrupt lobbying campaign I’ve ever seen,” says Paul Begala, a veteran Democratic consultant.

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Top Energy Stories Of 2009 – The end of the Naughties

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Ok we are 14 hours away from the year 2010 so I am going to have to post several top 10 lists. It seems that everyone has to have one. Since that is the case I will use theirs. But first I have to say:

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Community Energy Systems is a nonprofit 501c3 organization chartered in Illinois in Sangamon County. As such we are dependent on public donations for our continued existence. We also use Adsense as a fundraiser. Please click on the ads that you see on this page, on our main page and on our Bulletin Board (Refrigerator Magnets) and you will be raising money for CES. We say a heartfelt THANK YOU to all who do.

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Our First top 10 is from the Energy Tribune but actually originates with:

Posted on Dec. 28, 2009

By Robert Rapier

http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=2768

The Top Ten Energy Stories of 2009 Ed. note: This item originally ran in Robert Rapier’s R-Squared Energy Blog.

Here are my choices for the Top 10 energy related stories of 2009. Previously I listed how I voted in Platt’s Top 10 poll, but my list is a bit different from theirs. I have a couple of stories here that they didn’t list, and I combined some topics. And don’t get too hung up on the relative rankings. You can make arguments that some stories should be higher than others, but I gave less consideration to whether 6 should be ahead of 7 (for example) than just making sure the important stories were listed.

  1. Volatility in the oil marketsMy top choice for this year is the same as my top choice from last year. While not as dramatic as last year’s action when oil prices ran from $100 to $147 and then collapsed back to $30, oil prices still more than doubled from where they began 2009. That happened without the benefit of an economic recovery, so I continue to wonder how long it will take to come out of recession when oil prices are at recession-inducing levels. Further, coming out of recession will spur demand, which will keep upward pressure on oil prices. That’s why I say we may be in The Long Recession.
  2. The year of natural gasThis could have easily been my top story, because there were so many natural gas-related stories this year. There were stories of shale gas in such abundance that it would make peak oil irrelevant, stories of shale gas skeptics, and stories of big companies making major investments into converting their fleets to natural gas.Whether the abundance ultimately pans out, the appearance of abundance is certainly helping to keep a lid on natural gas prices. By failing to keep up with rising oil prices, an unprecedented oil price/natural gas price ratio developed. If you look at prices on the NYMEX in the years ahead, the markets are anticipating that this ratio will continue to be high. And as I write this, you can pick up a natural gas contract in 2019 for under $5/MMBtu.
  3. U.S. demand for oil continues to declineAs crude oil prices skyrocketed in 2008, demand for crude oil and petroleum products fell from 20.7 million barrels per day in 2007 to 19.5 million bpd in 2008 (Source: EIA). Through September 2009, year-to-date demand is averaging 18.6 million bpd – the lowest level since 1997. Globally, demand was on a downward trend as well, but at a less dramatic pace partially due to demand growth in both China and India.

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Then there is Greentech Media:

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/top-ten-energy-storage-of-2009/

Top Ten Energy Storage of 2009

Electric vehicles boost lithium-ion batteries, DOE dollars for grid storage, ice-making air conditioners, and a smart grid to rule them all.

Energy storage – you can’t do electric vehicles without it, and it sure would make renewable solar and wind energy a lot more useful.

That’s the imperative behind 2009’s push into energy storage – from the fast-moving world of batteries for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles to the slower development of a variety of technologies for storing power on the electricity grid.

1. A123, Green Tech’s First IPO of 2009: A123 Systems broke the green tech IPO drought in September, when it debuted its shares to the public markets and was immediately rewarded with a doubling of their price. But the lithium-ion battery maker has since seen shares fall to close to their initial offering price of $13.50, perhaps linked to the scaling back of electric vehicle plans by customer Chrysler. A123 is also making batteries for grid energy storage, bridging two worlds that have until now been mostly separate.

2. The Government Boosts Vehicle Batteries” Next-generation batteries wouldn’t be where they are today without the billions of stimulus dollars the federal government has aimed at the sector. In August, the Department of Energy handed out $2.4 billion to such companies as EnerG2, A123 Systems, Johnson Controls, eTec, EnerDel, Saft and Chrysler and General Motors, most of it to build battery factories in the United States – a key goal of the grants, given Asia’s dominance in battery technology and manufacturing.

3. Fuel Cells’ Waning Fortunes? What the federal government has given to batteries, it has taken away from a once-favored alternative – fuel cells. Technologies to convert hydrogen into electricity and water are clean, but they also require a massive infrastructure to deliver hydrogen – which is mostly made today by cracking natural gas – to millions of vehicles. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has said he will cut back drastically on DOE funding for vehicular fuel cell research, which he described as decades away from commercial viability. In the meantime, fuel cells soldier on in the stationary power generation market, and are finding niches in forklifts and other short-range heavy vehicles, as well as in military applications.

But wait? Panasonic has started to deliver fuel cells that burn natural gas to produce heat and electricity in Japan and Bloom Energy is expected to come out of its hidey hole soon to talk about devices that pretty much do the same thing for industrial customers. By exploiting heat and power, these fuel cells can be 80 plus percent efficient.

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What better way to end the new year but with the Department of Defense:

http://dodenergy.blogspot.com/2009/12/year-in-review-top-10-dod-energy-events.html

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Year in Review: Top 10 DOD Energy Events of 2009

Not sure if you’ll agree, but from my vantage point, this was the first year that merits a DOD Energy top ten. Folks who’ve been at this enterprise a long time, like Tom Morehouse and Chris DiPetto at OSD (and a small handful of others in the Services), have been doing energy grunt work without a heck of a lot of support or credit (that’s my take, not theirs). Over the past decade there have been isolated wins and signs of improvement, but nothing sustained.

But this year something changed, and I have to give credit to the increasing strength of the convoy connection. It’s finally shown everyone that being smart and proactive on energy issues isn’t the domain of Birkenstock wearing, granola eating, tree hugging peace-nicks. The clear (and easy to understand and communicate) link between fuel convoys and 1) causalities, 2) costs, and 3) mission degradation.

I’m sure I’m leaving a lot out (that’s a good thing). But without further adieu, here’s the list for the year, in no particular order:

  1. Gigantic Army solar installation off the ground at Fort Irwin in California’s Mojave Desert to advance conversation beyond Nellis. Score – Fort Irwin: 500+ Megawatts, Nellis AFB: 14 Megawatts
  2. Boeing’s high tech, super efficient 787 Dreamliner finally flew. Basis for future tanker/transport?
  3. Convoy lessons brought the concept of proactive energy planning fully out of its Birkenstock phase … for everyone.
  4. Energy audits in Afghanistan commence with Marines. It’s called MEAT, for Marine Energy Assessment Team, see here and here.
  5. Like DARPA to advance US space tech post Sputnik, ARPA-E‘s mission is to turbocharge US competitiveness in energy tech (ET).
  6. 3 of the 4 Services hold major confs exclsively on energy issues. The Navy version in particular generated a huge amount of great info

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HAPPY NEW YEAR

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What A Year For Energy And Related Fields – Cash for Clunkers, Caulk for Clunkers

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Everywhere you look there are things a poppin.

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/24280/page1/

The Year in Energy

Liquid batteries, giant lasers, and vast new reserves of natural gas highlight the fundamental energy advances of the past 12 months.

By Kevin Bullis

Monday, December 28, 2009

With many renewable energy companies facing hard financial times (“Weeding Out Solar Companies“), a lot of the big energy news this year was coming out of Washington, DC, with massive federal stimulus funding for batteries and renewable energy and programs such as Energy Frontier Research Centers and Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (“A Year of Stimulus for High Tech“).

Credit: Roy Ritchie

But there was still plenty of action outside the beltway, both in the United States and around the world. One of the most dramatic developments (“Natural Gas Changes the Energy Map“) was the rush to exploit a vast new resource; new drilling technologies have made it possible to economically recover natural gas from shale deposits scattered throughout the country, including in Texas and parts of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Advances in drilling technology have increased available natural gas by 39 percent, according to an estimate released in June. The relatively clean-burning fuel could cut greenhouse gas emissions by becoming a substitute for coal. Natural gas might even provide an alternative to petroleum in transportation, especially for buses and taxis–if only policymakers could take advantage of the new opportunity.

Meanwhile a number of technologies promise to cut down on emissions from coal plants. Feeding heat from the sun into coal plants could at once increase the amount of power that can be generated from a given amount of coal and reduce the cost of solar power (“Mixing Solar with Coal to Cut Costs“). And technology for capturing carbon dioxide (“Scrubbing CO2 Cheaply“) and storing it (“An Ocean Trap for Carbon Dioxide“) is finally emerging from the lab and small-scale projects into larger demonstrations at power plants, even while researchers explore potentially cheaper carbon-capture techniques (“Using Rust to Capture CO2 from Coal Plants“).

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I hate to Post The Whole Thing, but it’s so good.

This year was also the year of the smart grid, as numerous test projects for improving the reliability of the grid and enabling the use of large amounts of renewable energy got underway (“Technology Overview: Intelligent Electricity“). The smart grid will be enabled by key advances, such as superconductors for high-energy transmission lines (“Superconductors to Wire a Smarter Grid“) and smart networks being developed by companies such as GE (“Q&A: Mark Little, Head of GE Global Research“).

Cellulosic ethanol–made from biomass such as grass rather than corn grain–moved closer to commercialization, with announcements of demonstration plant openings (“Commercializing Garbage to Ethanol“) and scientific breakthroughs that could make the process cheaper (“Cellulosic Ethanol on the Cheap“). But at the same time, a number of companies are moving beyond cellulosic ethanol to the production of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel from biomass–fuels that can be used much more readily in existing infrastructure and in existing vehicles. Exxon-Mobil announced substantial investments in algae-based fuels (“Big Oil Turns to Algae“). Remarkably, one startup declared its process–based on synthetic genomics and algae–could allow biofuels to replace all of transportation fuels without overwhelming farmland (“A Biofuel Process to Replace All Fossil Fuels“).

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So? It’s the end of the year – sue me…

Still, most people think biofuels will only supply a fraction of our transportation needs (“Briefing: Transportation“). To eliminate carbon emissions and drastically curtail petroleum consumption will require plug-in hybrids (“Driving the Volt“) and other electricity-powered vehicles (“Nissan’s Leaf: Charged with Information“). Advances that could double (or more) the energy capacity of batteries and lower their costs could one day make such vehicles affordable to the masses. These include new formulations such as lithium-sulfur batteries (“Revisiting Lithium-Sulfur Batteries“), metal-air batteries (“High-Energy Batteries Coming to Market“) such as lithium-air batteries (“IBM Invests in Battery Research“), and batteries that rely on nanowires and silicon (“More Energy in Batteries“). A novel concept for super-fast charge stations at bus stops could make electric buses practical (“Next Stop: Ultracapacitor Buses“).

Getting the electricity to charge these vehicles–without releasing vast amounts of carbon dioxide–could be made easier by a number of advances this year. A new liquid battery could cheaply store energy from wind turbines and solar panels for use when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing (“TR10: Liquid Battery“), making it practical to rely on large amounts of renewable electricity. Vast arrays of mirrors (“Solar Thermal Heats Up“) are being assembled in the desert to convert solar heat into electricity, and photovoltaic solar farms for converting light directly into electricity (“Chasing the Sun“) are getting a boost from the federal stimulus money. And researchers are finding ways to increase the efficiency of solar cells (“More Efficient, and Cheaper, Solar Cells“) and are discovering new photovoltaic materials to make solar power cheaper (“Mining Fool’s Gold for Solar“). And although progress on nuclear power is moving slowly, some advances on the horizon could help this low-carbon source replace fossil fuels (“TR10: Traveling-Wave Reactor“). Researchers even fired up the world’s largest laser system–one that’s the size of a football stadium–for experiments that could lead to a new form of fusion (“Igniting Fusion“).

Last, and almost certainly least, researchers have decided to look beyond the conventional sources of renewable energy–solar, wind, and waves–to hamsters. Researchers at Georgia Tech fitted the rodents with zinc-oxide nanowire jackets (“Harnessing Hamster Power with a Nanogenerator“), and watched as they generated an electrical current while scratching themselves and running on a wheel. See a video of the powerful hamsters here.

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Kevin Bullis is a journalistic GOD

http://www.shinygun.com/story.php?id=128

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Alice In Greenland – Guest poster Jed Morey has his say

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I rarely have “guest posters”, mainly because nobody asks but also because I like to run my mouth. I forget how I found Jed’s Column but it makes so much sense in such a short space that I actually ASKED Jed if I could use it. How rare is that? So far that would be 2 people Jed and Dan Piraro soooo without further ado (I always wanted to say that…damn).

http://www.longislandpress.com/2009/12/09/alice-in-greenland/

Alice In Greenland

Written by Jed Morey on Dec 9th, 2009 and filed under Columns, Off The Reservation. You can follow any responses to this entry through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Want to take a trip down the environmental rabbit hole? Spark a discussion about climate change and watch human warming reach extremes far greater than any place on the globe.

To the right you have the laughable stance adopted by the conservative movement that humans are having no effect on climate and the atmosphere. At the other extreme are non-scientist policy makers and pundits holding “The End Is Near” signs on every street corner claiming that Iowa and Chad will be beachfront property by the end of next year.

Personally, I’m not qualified to discern which side is closer to representing the truth.

What I do know is that the debate should remain in scientific circles because I have yet to meet anyone qualified to entirely explain the variances in global temperatures. While world leaders are dithering in Copenhagen and arguing over hacked e-mails about tree rings versus thermometers, the public needs to close its ears to the noise produced on both sides of the global warming debate and focus on the tangible aspects of industrial pollution.

You don’t need to be an expert on carbon emissions or reference “parts per billion” to understand that we are seriously screwing up the planet. Public health has been compromised by the rise of industry. While there are several factors that contribute to the decline in public health, much of the discussion centers on energy production and sources because it’s the baseline driver of industry. So let’s look at it.

First of all, there is no such thing as clean coal. True, you can clean coal emissions, but the process of scrubbing coal to burn cleaner is just as much of an environmental disaster. There is no such thing as clean nuclear energy either, for that matter. True, the emissions are carbon neutral, but at some point every nuclear facility must dispose of the spent fuel used in production. The spent fuel must be stored somewhere and wherever that place is, it’s no place you want to be near.

Large wind farms in lakes and oceans are unrealistically expensive and remarkably inefficient. The Danes will tell you differently and espouse the virtues of wind power—just look at the marvel that is Copenhagen—but the fact remains that they are the largest manufacturers of wind turbines and have a vested economic interest in, shall we say, massaging the numbers. However, wind, solar and geothermal energy present viable options on a micro level and should be encouraged in every corner and backyard of the world. Individuals and small businesses need affordable access to clean energy solutions, not just municipalities.

Economically, there is no such thing as cheap oil anymore. Whether or not the Saudis or Venezuelans care to admit it, we have hit peak oil in the largest, most accessible oil fields around the world. Period. Are there places on Earth with large reserves of oil and natural gas? Yup. Is it easy to get to? Nope. Expensive to retrieve? Yup. Environmentally secure to extract? Nope.

As far as Cap and Trade is concerned—please. Giving large corporations and polluters the ability to buy their way out of cleaning their emissions is a lousy practice. Lisa Jackson from the EPA is on the right track by simply drawing a line in the sand and taking it out of the hands of Congress. The message from the Obama administration is clear: Clean it up. If Cap and Trade is allowed to continue one can only imagine Goldman Sachs creating a derivatives market that bundles pollution credits in with mortgages on homes with inefficient boilers and selling them to school boards in Greenland. No more government-backed securities bought by large corporations and sold on opaque markets, especially if they contain something as ethereal as carbon credits.

This is it folks. We have reached the tipping point. The only option heretofore is conservation.

If you wish to comment on “Off the Reservation,” send your message to jmorey@longislandpress.com.

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Can’t say it any better than that. By the way those who know me know I disagree with Jed about renewables, broadly stated, to replace fossil fuels but as he says “Cheap nope, time consuming Yup”. Thanks Jed.

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