Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, has penned a modern classic in revolutionary thought. Titled Clean Energy, Common Sense, this book calls on us, as a nation, to rise to the challenge of climate change while there’s still time to act.
The U.S. Renewable Energy Group and Cielo Wind Power have entered into a joint venture agreement with China’s Shenyang Power Group to build a 600 megawatt wind farm across 36,000 acres in West Texas. This is the first time Chinese and U.S. entities have agreed to jointly develop a utility-scale wind power project.
The Obama administration is financing an expansion of the U.S. geothermal industry, investing $338 million in Recovery Act grant funding to support the exploration and development of new geothermal fields and research into advanced geothermal technologies. In addition, the grants will support the deployment and creative financing approaches for ground source heat pumps to heat and cool buildings.
President Barack Obama today announced the largest single energy grid modernization investment in U.S. history. The federal government has awarded $3.4 billion to 100 private companies, utilities, manufacturers, cities and other partners to fund technologies intended to move America towards what the President called “a smarter, stronger, and more secure electric grid.”
The California Public Utilities Commission says it wants to make energy efficiency a way of life in California, and on Thursday, the commisson put its money where its mouth is by approving the largest energy-efficiency program in American history.
One company has received more than half of $500 million in the first round of grants from a Recovery Act program that provides cash assistance to renewable energy production companies in place of earned tax credits.
First Solar, Inc. and Southern California Edison have agreed to build two large-scale solar power projects in Riverside and San Bernardino counties in Southern California that together will generate enough electricity to provide power to about 170,000 homes.
This is a continuation of part one and part two of our interview with Maude Barlow, Senior Advisor on Water to the President of the UN General Assembly.
Question 9: Why do you think most governments in the world are finding it very hard to create and enforce environmental protection laws for industrial corporations that operate under their jurisdiction?
Maude Barlow: Governments around the world (with some recent exceptions) have assumed that what is good for their corporations must be good for the general well-being of their society. While it is true that a healthy economy is important, it is not necessarily true that this wealth is best generated by large transnational corporations who move their production to low wage countries and “externalize” their costs by dumping their waste into the environment. Governments must break their ties – including as funding sources – with big business.