By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’” Ecologist Kenneth Watt made that statement on the inaugural Earth Day in 1970. The “peak oil” warning has been going on long before that, but here we are ten years after Watt’s deadline and we’re globally consuming 85 million barrels of oil …
Because that’s what they’re doing in Sweden: The city of Stockholm shoots thousands of wild rabbits spread across the green spaces of the Swedish capital and sends their bodies to be burned as heating fuel, a practice which has enraged animal rights groups. City official Mats Freij said Stockholm killed 6,000 wild rabbits last year and has culled 3,000 so far this year, but said a subcontractor decided to use the cadavers as fuel. “One should put this in the perspective that we (humans) are actually cremated ourselves and that …
It’s easy to forget that the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill is not just about cap and trade. There are a number of other problematic provisions buried in the 1,427 pages of legislation. Cap and trade should receive the most attention because it’s the most economically devastating part of the bill, but Waxman-Markey also includes a renewable electricity standard that mandates 6 percent of the nation’s electricity come from renewable sources, chiefly wind energy but also others like biomass and solar, by 2012. The mandate increases each year until it reaches 25 …
In an attempt to win over the public, manufacturers and garner more Congressional support, House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman reduced the short-term stringency of greenhouse gas emission cuts as well as reduced the impossible goals for a renewable portfolio standard. The concessions, as reported by CQPolitics and the New York Times Greenwire, include: • 17% carbon cuts by 2020 (instead of 20%), but later reductions do not change • Allowances o 35% of allowances to local electric distribution companies o Trade-intensive industries, including pulp, paper, …
25 by 2025. That’s the target proposal for a federally mandated renewable portfolio standard RPS (also called renewable electricity standard RES) in which the federal government would mandate to have 25 percent of the nation’s electricity from renewable energy by 2025 – primarily wind, solar and hydro. During the Congressional hearings last week, Congressman G. K. Butterfield (D-NC) told Chairman Henry Waxman, “Not only is [a 25% mandate] impractical, it is impossible.” By creating a federal renewable portfolio standard, the government is essentially forcing costlier, less reliable energy on the …
Republicans and Democrats alike are voicing their concerns over the Clean Energy and Security Act that includes a renewable portfolio standard, federal spending for clean energy technology, and above all else, a cap-and-tax program that would attempt to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Introduced by Chairman Henry Waxman (D–CA) of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Chairman Edward Markey (D–MA) of the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee, the bill would have devastating long-term economic effects, which in turn, is causing Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle to …
Instead of a bunch of small, bad energy bills, why not have one, large bad energy bill? That seems to be the sentiment coming from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Cap-and-trade. A National Renewable Portfolio Standard. A New Smart Grid. Throw it all in there. Pelosi told reporters yesterday on Capitol Hill: I would like to see one bill, which is the energy bill, with the cap and trade and the grid piece. I think having it as one bill shows the — I don’t want to say the …
