ModeShift - Part 51

Energy Independence Is America’s Most Elusive Technological Pursuit

by Keith SchneiderJune 18, 2010June 21, 20100

In calling for a new “national mission” to achieve energy independence during his Oval Office address earlier this week, President Obama was clearly seeking inspiration from his predecessors, a number of whom actually achieved the big technological goals they’d pursued. At various inflection points in the nation’s history, presidents managed to cross the country with a unified rail line, developed the powerful bombs in the Manhattan Project that ended World War Two, and sent men …

What Obama Did Not Say: BP Gulf Disaster Is Biggest Cut In A Bleeding Earth

by Keith SchneiderJune 16, 2010June 16, 20100

Day 59. The morning after President Barack Obama called for a “national mission” in pursuit of a clean energy economy the BP blowout gushes oil into the Gulf at the new estimated rate of 60,000 barrels a day. And though the president said “we can’t afford not to change how we produce and use energy -â€“ because the long-term costs to our economy, our national security, and our environment are far greater,” the language lacked …

Flip: Keep Track of Gulf Disaster on SkyTruth

by Keith SchneiderJune 15, 20100

SkyTruth is an eight-year-old non-profit that uses satellite and aerial imagery to study landscapes. I’ve been keeping track of the Gulf Disaster with this organization’s state of the art remote sensing capabilities, all of it online and extremely useful. I’ve used SkyTruth’s work before in tracking big spills, and other disasters. Check it out. — Keith Schneider

Massachusetts Biomass Study Finds Caution and Some Optimism in Wood as Renewable Fuel

by Keith SchneiderJune 11, 2010September 9, 20101

After six months of evaluation, a Massachusetts research center said yesterday that the greenhouse gas-reducing benefits of replacing coal and natural gas with wood biomass for electrical generation are lower than previously thought. But the study by the Manomet Center for Conservation Science also found that specific wood biomass technologies, particularly state-of-the art wood biomass plants that generate combined heat and power, produce less than half of the CO2 emissions generated by a coal-fired power …

Most Important Climate and Energy Vote of Year Tests Senate Direction

by Keith SchneiderJune 8, 2010June 12, 20100

Late last year when Senator Lisa Murkowski announced she would vigorously oppose any effort to use the Clean Air Act to regulate carbon emissions, environmental leaders in Washington understood the significance of the Alaska Republican’s challenge. A loyal ally of fossil fuel developers, Senator Murkowski attracts more campaign financing from the oil and utility industries than all but two other Senate lawmakers, according to federal election records. The months-long skirnishing between Senator Murkowski and environmental …

Grassroots Resistance to Clean Energy Projects, A Colorado Example

by Keith SchneiderJune 4, 2010September 9, 20100

Kirk Johnson of the New York Times this morning published a interesting piece on how solar energy development in Colorado is being impeded by local resistance to new transmission lines. The many examples of how community or landowner or other resistance to clean energy projects has been well covered here on ModeShift. The trend represents another authentic risk to the nation’s ability to make a transition to a low carbon economy. There are oil companies …

Obama’s Pivot on Gulf Disaster to Commander in Chief

by Keith SchneiderJune 3, 2010June 3, 20100

On June 2, a day before BP announced it had sheared through a leaking pipe at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, one of the very few steps forward in the company’s 44-day campaign to staunch the worst oil disaster in American history, President Barack Obama finally stopped serving as the cleanup chief and became the commander in chief. During a speech at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Obama pressed the nation to join …

Oiled Dogs of May: Obama’s Gulf Crisis

by Keith SchneiderMay 30, 2010June 1, 20100

Day 40. Great gouts of oil still rush from the ruptured BP well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. A frustrated president visits the scene of the disaster to literally dab his finger at a tar ball washed up on the Louisiana beach. Television news, enlivened by easy-to-get pictures, sets its stand-ups in strategic positions, broadcasting the drama of competition between spreading pollution and technological limits to a nation that clucks about the …

Michigan: Where New U.S. Efficiency and Emissions Rules Really Count

by Keith SchneiderMay 26, 2010May 27, 20109

On Friday, May 21, President Obama gathered in the Rose Garden the chiefs of his transportation and environmental departments to take the next big step to leverage federal climate policy and clean energy investment to spur new job growth. The president directed Transportation Secretary Ray La Hood and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson to draw up new rules that make heavy trucks much more fuel-efficient and produce less global warming gases. “This standard will …

Obama Makes Progress on Climate But Environmental Community Divided

by Keith SchneiderMay 21, 2010May 21, 20100

President Obama on Friday directed the EPA and the Transportation Department to develop a national policy to increase fuel efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from medium and heavy-duty trucks in time for the 2014 model year. The action comes almost exactly one year (May 19, 2009) after President Obama set new fuel and emissions standards for new cars and light trucks sold in the United States beginning with the 2012 model year. The 2009 …