August, 2010 | ModeShift

On Clean Energy and Climate, China and U.S. Move in Different Directions

by Keith SchneiderAugust 13, 20100

In the troubled climate action summer of 2010 it’s at least a little relief to know that some progress is occurring. The Department of Energy, in its latest assessment released this month of the American wind energy sector, reports that Texas is generating 2.29 gigawatts of energy from wind – equivalent to four good-sized coal plants.Â Four other states are generating more than 10 percent of their electricity from wind. They are Iowa (20%), South …

Responding to a Candidate on Traverse City Biomass Resistance

by Keith SchneiderAugust 12, 2010September 9, 20100

This morning I received an email message from Tom Mair, a Green Party candidate for the Grand Traverse (Michigan) Board of Commissioners, who wanted to know what I thought about the decision in June by Traverse City Light and Power to abandon its proposal to build a wood biomass plant. I served as communications and engagement consultant on the public hearings the utility held this winter. Tom’s message and my response follow: good afternoon Keith, …

How Big Was The BP Gulf Disaster? Really Big

by Keith SchneiderAugust 6, 20100

Late last month more than 1 million gallons of crude oil leaked into the Kalamazoo River in southern Michigan, the biggest oil accident in the Midwest ever. This has been the year of understanding the oil/water nexus, even if it’s seawater. This week the U.S. estimated that the BP Gulf blowout poured 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf. Even with the 800,000 barrels that BP said it collected and skimmed, the disaster is, …

Michigan’s Unsung Clean Energy Success

by Keith SchneiderAugust 5, 2010August 6, 20100

Given the dearth of new economic strategies that make sense and actually work, it’s appropriate to again take note of what’s happening here in my home state of Michigan around clean energy development. The more you think about it, the clearer the significance of what Governor Jennifer Granholm (with the president in pix above at July 15 groundbreaking of a new lithium-ion battery plant in West Michigan) has accomplished becomes clearer and clearer. In short, …

Wind Chill: Young and Old Greens At Odds Over Clean Energy Projects

by Keith SchneiderAugust 4, 2010September 9, 20100

Gabrielle Gurley, a writer for Commonwealth, the magazine of the think tank MassINC, has a rigorously balanced assessment in the most recent issue of the simmering dispute in American environmentalism about big clean energy projects. All across the country, including Massachusetts, where Gurley bases her reporting, grassroots environmentalists are fighting to block clean energy installations. In the battle between principle and pragmatism, the efforts by older green activists is producing a generational schism in the …

Michigan’s Building Boom in Electric Vehicle Battery Manufacturing

by Keith SchneiderAugust 4, 2010March 8, 20123

HOLLAND, Mich. â€” In February 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which among other things provided $2.4 billion to encourage development of a domestic industry to make lighter, more energy-dense lithium-ion batteries to power electric vehicles. Two weeks ago, on July 15, the president flew to this small city on the shore of Lake Michigan to attend the groundbreaking for a $303 million, 650,000 square-foot battery plant operated by Compact Power, …