At the Frontlines of the Global Transition
Next month Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is scheduled to rule on a proposal to build one of the most contentious clean energy projects in the country. It is a 420-megawatt offshore wind farm in Massachusetts called Cape Wind. Audra Parker, the young leader of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, has emerged as a local public interest celebrity as a result of her work to prevent developers from constructing 130 turbines five miles out in …
A few months ago I became a communications adviser working several hours per week with Traverse City Light & Power, a small municipal utility in my home region that has proposed to acquire 30 percent of its power by 2020 from local renewable resources. In pursuit of that goal TCL&P has purchased 10 mw of wind power from a windfarm in McBain, Michigan 50 miles south. It also purchased 2 mw of landfill gas generation …
The House of Representatives passed a sweeping climate and energy bill last Friday, the first time a U.S. chamber of Congress has passed a bill that sets mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions. The American Clean Energy & Security Act passed the House with a vote of 219-212; 211 Democrats and 8 Republicans supported the bill. In his weekly address a day after the vote, President Obama said the legislation was “historic†and would “open …
TOLEDO -This worn Lake Erie city is an unlikely launching point for Ohio’s new clean energy economy. Dark storefronts and empty homes in Toledo, like the missing teeth of a tired grin, scar the shrinking city of 295,000 that once declared itself the auto parts capital of the world. Tall grass grows in the cracked asphalt of empty parking lots by closed factories that once made steel and glass and manufactured parts that kept America …
MANISTEE, MI – Every half-century or so since its founding in 1841, this stubborn Lake Michigan port city, which cut hardwood for lake steamers in the 19th century and built parts for Detroit carmakers in the 20th, has endured the optimistic surge and demoralizing retreat of economic transition. Last month, on the kind of cold, wet, early spring day that makes residents question their allegiance to northern Michigan, Manistee latched onto what it believes is …
DETROIT – The old sound of Detroit’s automakers was an octane-stoked Vroom! The sound of Detroit’s future, say top auto industry executives, is an electric whirr. General Motors plans to introduce its breakthrough Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid electric vehicle in November 2010. Ford is already selling the 40-mile per gallon hybrid electric Fusion sedan and is preparing a plug-in model for introduction in 2012. Last December, Chrysler introduced three electric vehicles it is developing for the …
In mid-January, as the House of Representatives and the incoming Obama administration readied the nearly $800 billion economic stimulus bill, James K. Galbraith joined a 10-member delegation from the Apollo Alliance in Washington to make the case for a big investment in clean energy and green-collar jobs. On Tuesday, February 17, 2009, President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which contains $11 billion to build a state-of-the art national energy grid, $6 …
Last night, in his first address to a joint session of Congress, President Barack Obama commended Greensburg, Kansas, “a town that was completely destroyed by a tornado, but is being rebuilt by its residents as a global example of how clean energy can power an entire community, how it can bring jobs and businesses to a place where piles of bricks and rubble once lay.†America loves its small towns, and two presidents now have …
In signing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act today President Barack Obama ensured that $113.5 billion will be spent over the next two years on developing clean fuels, modernizing rail transit, pursuing energy efficiency, developing high-mileage electric vehicles, and scaling up electrical generating stations powered by the wind, sun, and heat of the earth. The magnitude of the clean energy investment – consistent with the sums spent to launch the Interstate Highway System in the …
Even in this era of costly crisis and even more expensive rescue, $112.9 billion is still a lot of money. That sum is what Congressional leaders and President-elect Barack Obama propose to spend over the next two years to build new transit lines, weatherize buildings, manufacture clean next-generation vehicles, develop wind and solar power, make state and federal vehicle fleets more energy efficient, and create new green-collar jobs. The details of the proposed stimulus package, …