Green Jobs – Myth or Engine for Growth?
Open Salon is a social content site where users like you can blog about issues they care about. It is a community website that introduces blog writers to a wider audience. Open Salon [www.opensalon.com] Sundance Channel is excited to partner with Open Salon and Lexus as we solicit your ideas around sustainability and how technological [...]
Read More »Obama Would ‘Save the Planet’ By Repowering America
CHICAGO, Illinois, December 10, 2008 (ENS) – President-elect Barack Obama signaled that he is ready to tackle the climate crisis immediately upon taking office, following a meeting Tuesday with former Vice President Al Gore and Vice President-elect Joe Biden. “All three of us are in agreement that the time for delay is over, the time [...]
Read More »Democrats in Control: Climate, Clean Energy Top Legislative Agenda
WASHINGTON, DC, November 21, 2008 (ENS) – The order of business in the incoming 111th Congress is beginning to take shape. When lawmakers convene on January 6, 2009, Democrats will be firmly in control of both houses, although today the outcome of several elections is still unclear. When Democratic President-elect Barack Obama takes office on [...]
Read More »High Environmental Hopes Riding on Obama’s Green Promises
WASHINGTON, DC, November 5, 2008 (ENS) – Congratulations to President-elect Barack Obama and his team with messages of hope and pledges of support rolled in today from environmental and sustainable business groups across the political spectrum. The Sierra Club said in a statement, “If the Obama administration is as smartly, deliberately, and thoughtfully run as [...]
Read More »Congress Allows Offshore Oil Drilling Ban to Expire
WASHINGTON, DC, September 30, 2008 (ENS) – President George W. Bush today signed a consolidated appropriations bill that funds government operations through March 2009, including disaster relief. The measure also lifts a long-standing legislative ban on offshore oil and gas leasing cherished by conservationists. Earlier this year, President Bush lifted an executive moratorium on oil [...]
Read More »Western States, Provinces Set Climate Emissions Trading Program
SACRAMENTO, California, September 23, 2008 (ENS) – The Western Climate Initiative governments today announced the design of their new regional market-based cap-and-trade program. The emissions trading program is intended to reduce climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. The program recommendations met with support from environmental groups and criticism from [...]
Read More »Texas Biofuels Waiver Request Shot Down
WASHINGTON DC, August 7, 2008 (ENS) – The Bush administration today denied a request by Texas to cut the U.S. biofuels mandate in half, rejecting the claim that the massive increase in corn-based ethanol is causing economic harm to the state’s livestock industry and raising food prices. Few stakeholders were surprised by the decision, but [...]
Read More »Where Was Offshore Oil Drilling Ten Years Ago?
As is sadly the case in politics, philosophy and generally any intellectual sphere of human activity, there is a tendency to think of things in extremes. Today we are considering the two widely divergent positions of Democrats and Republicans when it comes to what to do about the high price of oil. Are these extreme [...]
Read More »Pennsylvania Bets on Biofuels
HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania, July 18, 2008 (ENS) – Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell signed two pieces of legislation last week that will help spur the development of homegrown biofuels in Pennsylvania and establish new requirements that every gallon of gasoline and diesel fuel contain a percentage of ethanol and biodiesel. “Pennsylvanians are struggling with higher fuels costs,” [...]
Read More »Energy Department Selects Four Companies for Cellulosic Ethanol Funding
WASHINGTON, DC, February 29, 2008 (ENS) – The U.S. Department of Energy, DOE, has decided to invest up to $33.8 million for four projects that will develop improved enzyme systems to convert cellulosic material such as switchgrass and paper pulp into sugars suitable for production of biofuels. The funding will cover Fiscal Years 2008-2011 in [...]
Read More »Western Governors Agree to Develop Alternative Transport Fuels
WASHINGTON, DC, February 27, 2008 (ENS) – Western governors have agreed to take action within their states and also as a region to speed the development and use of alternative fuels, improve vehicle fuel efficiency and reduce dependence on foreign oil. A resolution adopted by the Western Governors’ Association Saturday incorporates many recommendations contained in [...]
Read More »Safeway Converts U.S. Trucking Fleet to Biodiesel
PLEASANTON, California, January 21, 2008 (ENS) – Safeway Inc. announced Friday that it has converted its entire U.S. truck fleet to cleaner-burning biodiesel fuel. The company will use B20, a blend of 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent diesel, in its fleet of more than 1,000 trucks. Biodiesel is made from renewable resources such as [...]
Read More »Butter From Pennsylvania Farm Show Sculpture to Run Tractors
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pennsylvania, January 9, 2008 (ENS) – After the Pennsylvania Farm Show ends on Saturday, about 900 pounds of butter used in the event’s famous butter sculpture will be scraped off its frame by Penn State farm operations workers, stored in barrels and brought back to the University and State College Area High School [...]
Read More »Spin Cycle: Don’t Believe Everything You Read About Ethanol from Corn
After taking in some of the number and pros and cons about ethanol, it’s pretty clear that ethanol born from corn is not a particularly viable solution for an alternative to an oil-based economy; it just takes too many resources and has consequences too far-reaching, in terms of negative environmental and economic impact, to be [...]
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