January, 2011 | ModeShift

Afraid of the Wind

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 28, 2011March 3, 20111

Earlier this month, on a snowy afternoon, the newly renovated Garden Theater held the largest crowd I’ve ever seen indoors in the small Lake Michigan coastal town of Frankfort, with the exception of girls and boys basketball games. On tap that day was a polemical documentary film, “Windfall.” Two groups of citizen activists held the screening to build civic momentum in opposition to a good-sized utility-scale windfarm proposed for Benzie and Manistee counties. Afterwards the …

Obama’s 80 Percent Clean Energy Goal: Who’s He Kidding?

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 26, 2011January 27, 20110

Arguably the central provision of President Obama’s State of the Union address last night was the proposal to generate 80 percent of the nation’s electricity from clean energy sources by 2035 — including nuclear energy and CCS coal technology. Getting there will take a miracle, the same sort of pie in the sky thinking that allowed our president to also present the daft notion ofÂ giving 80 percent of Americans access to high speed rail …

Memo to Hu and Obama: Water and Energy Choke Points Merit Time at the China-U.S. Summit

by Keith SchneiderJanuary 18, 2011January 26, 20110

Washingtonâ€™s foreign policy community is all aflutter anticipating the meaning and outcome of Chinese President Hu Jintaoâ€™s three-day summit with U.S. President Barack Obama, which starts today. But while the two heads of state focus on resolving what pries them apart, both nations share a dangerous confrontation within their borders over energy demand and water supplyâ€”offering a matchless opportunity for new kinds of cooperation on policy, technology, business, and trade. The collision between rising energy …