CleanTechnica

FERC is close to approving the Tres Amigas high-voltage interconnection hub project in Clovis, New Mexico, designed to be the first step in a renewable energy transmission superhighway.

But five groups are filing against the project. The largest, Occidental Petroleum; is asking FERC to dump the project.

Occidental Petroleum’s main argument is that it would put local power companies selling higher-priced power to consumers at a disadvantage. They couldn’t compete with marketers buying at lower prices and routing their power through Tres Amigas.
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Well, telling us something we should have learned in high school, a new study by researchers from the University of California shows why it is so difficult for the US to move forward on critical environmental issues.

The basics of it is that there is a severe misrepresentation of rural interests in the US political system. When you get into the details, you see how unbalanced this actually is and how this results in the US being an environmental laggard in the global community.

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Obama said just the other day that “the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy,” and I got into a little discussion about the rivalry between Obama and the President of China, Hu Jintao, on this topic.

I thought I would leave that issue for awhile to cover other stories, but then this landed at my feet and I couldn’t resist. China’s upcoming Big Clean Energy plans are HUGE and are likely to dwarf what are currently the largest wind power and solar power projects in the world.

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That’s right, the US government is “the single largest energy consumer in the U.S. economy.” In 2008 alone, it spent $24.5 billion on electricity and fuel.

This 28% reduction target Obama is ordering is equivalent to $8-11 billion in avoided energy costs. Additionally, it is far beyond the 17% reduction Obama has pledged to the international community for the US as whole, making the US government a leader by example on this issue.

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Hollywood, as a whole, is one of the most powerful entities (can I call it that?) in the world. Some of its biggest stars are getting involved in the politics of climate and clean energy now.

A great new video on the web featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, Felicity Huffman, Forest Whitaker, Ed Norton, Justin Long, and others nails the key points of climate and energy legislation with the most popular language.

One of the stars even decides to drop his pants because of the heat (climate change).

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Business leaders from a diverse range of sectors and interests have called on Obama and Congress to make clean energy legislation a reality this year. Together, they have written a letter to Obama and Congress urging them to realize that we are very quickly being left behind by Asia, Europe and others on the technologies and jobs of the future.

The “We Can Lead” companies include eBay, Starbucks, Nike, Timberland, Hewlett-Packard, Gap Inc., Virgin America, Exelon, PG&E, and dozens of others.

Why are they behind climate and energy legislation? Among other reasons (i.e. we need it to address human-induced, super fast, catastrophic climate change), these businesses make the point that it would create 1.7 million new jobs in the US.

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Both United States and European Union are considering to limit United Nations role in international climate negotiations as the results of the Copenhagen meeting and the discussions which preceded the summit. But they must ensure that with concentrated negotiations must also consider the scientific facts which call for an urgent action to reduce carbon emissions.

The UN ‘Drag’

European Union would push for climate negotiations through the G20 which comprises of developed and advanced developing countries who are the centre of the controversial Copenhagen Accord. Many experts feel that the core issues, which would eventually determine the succes or success of the implementation of the next climate treaty, like trade issues, transfer of clean technology, financial assistance etc. should be discussed at smaller and more concentrated forums like the G20. Read the rest of this entry »

We know that dozens of billions of US dollars go to imported oil every month (nearly $1 billion a day). We know that some of that must go to unstable, unsafe countries.

A new report by the Center for American Progress titled “Oil Dependence is a Dangerous Habit” shows exactly how much oil we are getting from several such countries, and the results leave you wondering how safe we actually are and how serious we are about fighting terrorism and hostile political regimes.

The ironic thing to me, is that the companies so gung-ho about being patriotic and so critical of almost all clean energy efforts are the same companies who are giving so much money (see the graphs below) to these unstable countries.

Ten of the countries who we import a lot of oil from are also on the State Department’s Travel Warning list: Algeria, Chad, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.

Some leading importers may not be on the prestigious Travel Warning list, but show very anti-American foreign and energy policies as well.

Venezuela, one of our top five oil providers, is quite anti-American, if this Washington Post article is any indications of how the country thinks of us.

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India has been a bit of a wild card on climate change and clean tech issues. Like China (but not to the same extent), India made the Copenhagen climate negotiations more of a challenge, reluctant to commit to internationally binding targets and international transparency. One day they weren’t willing, then they might be, then they weren’t again. Then, they finally committed to cutting their carbon intensity 20-25% by 2020.

But without a stong, legally-binding, widely-accepted agreement, we are all left wondering what they (and others) will actually do.

Now, we are actually seeing India steam forward. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, following Copenhagen, said, “There is no escaping the truth that the nations of the world have to move to a low-greenhouse-gas-emissions and energy-efficient-development path.” He said that India “must not lag behind” in low-carbon technologies. Jairam Ramesh, Indian environment minister, followed this up by saying that India would go ahead with its carbon intensity reduction plans (above) even despite the lack of a strong agreement. “We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do,” he said.

And just this week, India announced it is launching its “National Solar Mission” which includes creating enough solar power that it could power about 20 million US houses.

It has more going on this month, too.
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Email may be the norm of the day for expressing your opinion on political issues, but the phone still has its place. The organization 1Sky is hosting a national call-in day to the Senate — TODAY — to help push for good clean energy and climate legislation.

The national call-in event has already been picked up by the New York Times, so hopefully it will be quite successful.

We’ve got quite a few readers on this site, and I think that most of you are strong advocates of clean energy and good climate legislation. You can help 1Sky and the world by making this day one for Senators to remember.

1Sky provides you with a very quick and easy system for calling using their toll-free number. You call your Senators for free, don’t even have to find their phone numbers, and have a little guide with some talking points, or you are free to us your own.

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