From Change.org

The Clean Energy Economy Is Already Booming

Without much attention from policymakers, or funding from the public trough, a low-carbon economy has already taken off in the United States.  The jobs being created nationwide in clean energy are helping to bolster the nation’s environmental sustainability and cut greenhouse gas emissions — and expanding at a faster rate than the U.S. economy overall.

Research by The Pew Charitable Trusts, published in a new report titled “The Clean Energy Economy,” found that:

• Between 1998 and 2007, jobs in clean energy grew at a faster rate than overall jobs.
• By 2007, more than 68,200 businesses across all 50 states and the District of Columbia accounted for about 770,000 jobs.
• Jobs in clean energy, both white-collar and blue-collar, grew at a rate of 9.1 percent, while total jobs grew at a rate of 3.7 percent.
• Clean tech has not been immune to the economic meltdown, but it’s proving to be an especially resilient sector: Although venture capital investment in clean tech dropped by 48 percent in the first three months of 2009 (compared to the same period in 2008), investment across the board was down 61 percent during the same period.
• Employment in clean energy covers a broad swath of blue-collar and white-collar jobs, including plumbers, machinists, scientists, engineers, bankers and marketing consultants.  Annual incomes ranging from around $21,000 to $111,000.

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The Business Logic of Sustainability

If an oil-intensive company can do it, anyone can do it…

Despite the satellite having been completed at a cost of $100M, NASA mysteriously decided to mothball it, and refused any offers by other agencies and other countries to launch it and manage it. Obviously, this would be a very inconvenient scientific tool for the Bush administration and their energy industry friends.

Now looks like Congress is going to force NASAкомпютри втора употреба to provide some answers and move forward with it.

Airbus hopes these attention-grabbing efforts will jump-start competition and collaboration for continued development of alternative fuels. “Testing today will support future second generation bio-fuels,” said the company’s press release. “Fuel and energy are key challenges aviation is facing and for which technology and international research collaboration open up new horizons,” said Airbus President and CEO Tom Enders. Enders cited “cross industry and cross border collaboration” as the key to an “eco-efficient enterprise.”

At a time when the aviation industry is already under great pressure over the impact of aircraft emissions, Airbus’ record-making flight will no doubt spark an alternative-fuel fire.

The biggest obstacle is the cost: 420 billion dollars over 40 years.  But then again it is not that much when you consider that the war in Iraq has already cost more than that in less than 5 years, and the subsidies to the oil industry, depending on whose figures you use, are somewhere between $10B and $35B a year.

Things get even better if you start counting the savings from reduced energy prices (oil prices will keep climbing), the savings from not needing to build expensive nuclear plants and “clean” coal plants with CO2 sequestration, the savings from using much more efficient electrical motors (90% vs 20-25% for internal combustion engines), the reduction in the need to refine and distribute petroleum-based fuels, the savings from returning crop lands to food production, and the lower cost of health care and clean-up activities from reduced pollution.

They also talk of the creation of 3 million jobs to create and support these new industries.

Sounds like a winning solution to me!

By Dan Shapley, The Daily Green

Forget building new nuclear power plants or trying to outfit every American coal plant with expensive technology that can capture carbon emissions.

Through relatively painless steps, the United States could cut its emissions of carbon dioxide — the leading greenhouse gas fueling global warming — by somewhere between 28% and 50% by 2030, and save money in the process.

“The United States could reduce greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 by 3.0 to 4.5 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent using tested approaches and high-potential emerging technologies,” a new analysis concludes. “These reductions would involve pursuing a wide array of abatement options with marginal costs less than $50 per ton, with the average net cost to the economy being far lower if the nation can capture sizable gains from energy efficiency. Achieving these reductions at the lowest cost to the economy, however, will require strong, coordinated, economy-wide action that begins in the near future.”

That’s according to a report by McKinsey & Co., a management consulting firm, detailed in USA Today, the New York Times, Newsday and other newspapers today. Significantly, those who paid for the study weren’t just environmental groups, but also big for-profit utilities and companies.

The report echoed some of the plans proposed by Democratic presidential candidates, including the rejiggering of energy markets so that there is a financial incentive for power companies to improve the efficiency of their clients, encouraging new energy-efficient building standards and putting a price on carbon pollution. But it also undercut the notion that carbon sequestration and other dramatic changes to industry or power generation would pay big dividends. Overall, the report said, the collective actions by individuals to reduce their energy consumption had the greatest potential, and at the lowest cost.

New DeSmogBlog contributor Mitchell Anderson will write a multi-part investigative report over the next few months. You can find the first article here.

By David Biello , Scientific American

Read the story here.

An 18-member panel led by MIT prepared the 400-plus page study, titled “The Future of Geothermal Energy” (PDF, 14.1 MB). Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, it is the first study in some 30 years to take a new look at geothermal, an energy resource that has been largely ignored.

The goal of the study was to assess the feasibility, potential environmental impacts and economic viability of using enhanced geothermal system (EGS) technology to greatly increase the fraction of the U.S. geothermal resource that could be recovered commercially.

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RICHARD BLACKWELL

Globe and Mail, January 2nd, 2007.

Canada’s wind power business could face a tough year in 2007, with increasing doubts about this green energy source promising to buffet the industry.

While a record amount of wind power is likely to come on-stream next year, with close to a dozen projects across the country set to be commissioned, questions about the safety of the turbines and the reliability of the power they generate are blowing across the landscape.

The controversy comes as the industry is blossoming: According to numbers compiled by the Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA), projects generating close to 1,000 megawatts of wind power are scheduled to be completed in 2007.

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