April 19, 2024

Category: Green Economy

“Precedent Setting Achievement”

by Keith Schneider0

The director of the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor, and Economic Growth last week lauded Traverse City Light & Power for pursuing a renewable energy strategy that fits northwest Michigan’s reputation as a green region, and “complements all the assets and progressive trends this region represents”. Stanley “Skip” Pruss, who is one of Governor Jennifer Granholm’s closest advisors and a nationally known clean energy leader, also supported the utility’s proposal to generate a portion of …

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Opposition to Biomass Impedes Clean Energy Development

by Keith Schneider2

Mode Shift has reported the clean energy transition is being impeded by civic opposition to wind projects, solar projects, new transmission lines, and geothermal projects.  This post is the latest in the series and focuses on wood biomass. The Portland Oregonian, in an article in March, counted 18 states where wood biomass energy proposals are encountering stiff civic resistance. One of those states is Michigan, where a plan by Traverse City Light & Power to …

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Resistance to Solar Energy in California, Southwest

by Keith Schneider1

The Solar Energy Industries Association last week made public a national poll that found strong citizen support for adding the energy of the sun to the nation’s portfolio. The timing of the results was meant to coincide with the Federal government’s review of big solar thermal projects proposed on public lands in the West. The poll, though, masks another emerging clean energy trend in the desert. A good number of citizen activist groups are pushing …

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The Sun, the Wind, and the Promise of Ohio’s Clean Energy Development

by Keith Schneider1

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 …

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Can Electric Whirr Save The American Auto Industry?

by Keith Schneider0

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 …

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Carol Browner Needs Focus on The Stimulus

by Keith Schneider0

This afternoon Carol Browner appeared on the CNN Situation Room where she didn’t do nearly as good a job answering questions about clean energy and the stimulius as the President and the nation need her to. The stimulus contains more than $115 billion dollars in investment in energy efficiency, renewable energy development, transit, fit-it-first road repair, research and development, experimental projects on carbon sequestration, and manufacturing for next generation vehicles. The scale and comprehensive nature …

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With Right Grass, Biofuels Make Sense

by Keith Schneider2

“The beauty of switchgrass is how hearty it is and how fast it grows,” said Dr. Suleiman Bughrara, a plant breeder at Michigan State University. “One acre can yield 12 or 13 tons of grass. That can produce 500 gallons of ethanol. We have work to do. But that kind of production is possible, and pretty quickly.” Credit: Gary Howe Across Midwest labs race to break down cellulose EAST LANSING, MI – Amid row after …

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The Unfolding Clean Energy Economy

by Keith Schneider4

Last November Senator Hillary Clinton delivered a major policy speech in Iowa, during which she described her clean energy and jobs proposal. Three months later, in a speech in Seattle, Senator Barack Obama outlined his clean energy plan. Every week now, in many of their public appearances, both Democratic presidential candidates mention the millions of “green-collar jobs” they anticipate from an energy strategy that stresses clean renewable sources and moves the nation away from a …

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Casual Carpool Plus Transit, A S.F. Commute

by Keith Schneider2

SAN FRANCISCO — Since late March I’ve been living in a one-room cottage behind an old Craftsman-style home in Berkeley, and commuting to downtown San Francisco. It’s not your typical daily trip. But as gas prices rise, congestion mounts, and family incomes fall, it may well become a new kind of commuting norm in the United States. Of course it may not, too. This being San Francisco. And the weather is just unbelievably good most …

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The Dream Reborn, Onward to New Governing Coalition

by Keith Schneider0

Two weeks ago, at the Take Back America conference in Washington, Majora Carter took a moment to explain the motivation behind The Dream Reborn, a celebration this weekend in Memphis that honors the life and marks the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s death. “The work now is solutions-based,” said Carter, who founded and directs Sustainable South Bronx, a seven-year-old non-profit environmental and economic development organization in New York. “We’re applying our knowledge, …

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