ModeShift - Part 36

Wind Energy Successes in Michigan

by Keith SchneiderAugust 21, 2012August 23, 20120

The farm fields and rolling hills near Ludington, Michigan, sport new decoration now: big wind turbines that take advantage of the gales of nearby Lake Michigan. Consumers Energy, Michigan’s statewide utility, is constructing the $235 million, 56-turbine, 100-megawatt Lake Winds Energy Park with Danish-designed Vestas equipment, some of which arrives in Mason County by rail. The winter white towers and turbine blades soar above orchards, forest, and cropland, powerful sentinels of Michigan’s capacity to reckon …

Climate Change, Water Levels Confound Great Lakes Shipping Companies

by Keith SchneiderAugust 17, 2012August 17, 20120

Over at Circle of Blue, we’ve spent much of the year reporting on the transition occurring in the Great Lakes as a result of changes in climate and energy markets. The newest article, on shifting water levels and the Great Lakes port and transport sectors, posted here today. On average, two big ships call every day at the docks of this Lake Erie city. The route to one of the busiest ports in the Great …

U.S. Energy Boom: Reprieve and A Reckoning, Says NYT’s Friedman and ModeShift’s Schneider

by Keith SchneiderAugust 8, 2012August 8, 20120

North Dakota is producing more than 600,000 barrels of oil daily, second most in the U.S. behind Texas. A tanker truck loads oil aboard a tanker train near Williston, ND. Photo by Keith Schneider Over the weekend Tom Friedman of the New York Times wrote a good piece, Get it Right on Gas, about the short-term promise and potentially long-term economic and environmental peril prompted by the U.S. energy boom. Friedman’s article made quite a …

Tracking Skinheads and the Violent White Right

by Keith SchneiderAugust 7, 2012June 18, 20140

When the police mug shot of Wade Page circulated on the Internet over the weekend, I was struck, again, by the unmistakable face of domestic white terrorism. Page, who led a skinhead rock band and was a drunk who washed out of the military and a truck driving job, killed six people in a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. I know that face. It’s the face of anguish, and hurt, and violence. I’d seen it almost …

Great Lakes Algae Blooms: Lake Erie Respite, Lake Superior Rises

by Keith SchneiderAugust 4, 2012September 8, 20250

Not far from where I live in Benzie County, Michigan lies a network of shaded forest trails that end on the broad sand beaches of Lake Michigan’s Platte River Bay. In the distance, the steep flanks of the Sleeping Bear Dune dive to the Great Lake. Across the Manitou Passage the green expanses of North and South Manitou Islands are like the broad backs of giant turtles floating in the water. On clear and sunny …

In New York Times, Louisville’s New Growth Sector

by Keith SchneiderJuly 25, 2012December 6, 20141

A new geography of economic growth is unfolding in places that few people anticipated even a decade ago. In my work on energy development, I’ve seen how the northern Great Plains quickly became a center of oil and gas development. The entire Great Plains has generated low unemployment numbers as a result of energy production and rising farm commodity prices. I’ve also followed the trend into the Ohio River Valley, which is among the …

In Hunt For China’s First Shale Gas Wells, An Encounter With The Police

by Keith SchneiderJune 19, 2012June 20, 20121

XINCHANGZHEN, China – The default position when confronted by the police, in the United States or anywhere else, is to follow directions and be respectful. So when two police officers in a white and blue van blocked our vehicle, then deliberately strolled over to the driver’s side window to ask for my passport and the national identification card of my translator, I reminded myself that they’re just cops. Do as they say. It was Thursday …

Bill, Monica, and Hillary: A Chinese Artist’s Homage

by Keith SchneiderJune 17, 2012June 20, 20120

CHENGDU, China — Peter Marsters, a colleague, friend, and Fulbright Fellow studying at Sichuan University, led me to the basement of the Shangri-La Hotel here the other night. “You have to see this painting of Bill Clinton and Monica,” he said. The back story is that a Chinese artist and friend of the hotel owner painted an homage to Bill, Monica, and one of America’s great political sex scandals. The hotel owner displays the painting …

TIC – This is China

by Keith SchneiderJune 17, 2012June 20, 20125

CHENGDU, China — There’s no place that I’ve been in China — and I’ve visited 13 provinces — where cell phone service isn’t excellent. Cell phones connect in deep mountain highway tunnels in Sichuan, in the dry mountainous valleys of Gansu, and in the subways of Beijing, Chengdu, and Shanghai. But the Internet? Awful everywhere. Slow. Blocked. Unreliable. How does a nation so intent on taking its place at the head of global leadership deliberately …

Chengdu’s Modern Beauty — Bustling, Not Bursting

by Keith SchneiderJune 13, 2012June 20, 20121

CHENGDU, China — Sichuan University, one of China’s best, held its graduation today. The campus, which is green and shady and is woven into this giant city’s central business district, much the way NYU’s campus is sewed into lower Manhattan, was abuzz with young energy. Not far away, the Fuann River (see pix below) flows through the city, contained in an engineered channel bordered on each side by river-length walkways, parks, and shade trees. At …