Withheld report was requested and funded by Congress.

^{[1]   Photo © J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue}

ROCHELLE, ILLINOIS, AUGUST 2010: The Illinois River Energy biofuels plant in Rochelle releases plumes of steam at sunrise. The ethanol plant processes over 40 million bushels of corn into 115 million gallons of fuel grade ethanol annually. The plant is one of hundreds around the country transforming corn into ethanol. It takes nearly 1,000 gallons of water to produce a gallon of ethanol from irrigated corn: four gallons from unirrigated corn.

By Keith Schneider  Circle of Blue Posted On September 7, 2010 @ 9:58 pm

Original source: http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2010/world/energy-department-blocks-disclosure-of-road-map-to-relieve-critical-u-s-energy-water-choke-points/

A far-reaching federal program of research and analysis, funded by Congress and designed to help the nation anticipate and temper the mounting conflict between rising energy demand and diminishing supplies of fresh water, has been brought to a standstill by the Department of Energy, according to government researchers involved in the project.

^[2]

The research program, known as the National Energy-Water Roadmap and ordered up by Congress as part of the 2005 Energy Security Act, was meant to provide lawmakers and the executive branch two studies of the impending collision between energy and water, and what to do about it.

The first, completed by a team of federal scientists in December 2006 and made public a month later, described the serious consequences the nation is already encountering as the United States encourages more energy production, the second largest user of water, but gives scant consideration to water supplies, which are in retreat in most regions of the country.

Meanwhile the second and final report that Congress commissioned, a comprehensive research agenda to better understand the nation’s energy-water choke points and begin developing real world solutions, has been held out of public view for more than four years.

22 Rewrites

Michael Hightower, an energy systems analyst at Sandia National Laboratories and a co-author of the report, said the first draft of the study on research needs was delivered to the Energy Department in July 2006. Energy Department reviewers have since called for 22 rewrites, the last of which was delivered in May 2009, Hightower said.

Since then the five-member team that co-authored the study has not had any communication about the report with the two primary reviewers, Samuel F. Baldwin, chief technology officer in the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and Nicholas B. Woodward in the DOE Office of Science.

“I don’t know why they are holding up the report,” said Hightower in an interview with Circle of Blue. “I can only conclude we don’t know how to write or they don’t like the report. I think we have done a nice job in collecting the data. Maybe the quality is in question.”

Neither Baldwin nor Woodward responded to email messages from Circle of Blue. Ebony Meeks, an assistant press secretary, offered this explanation by email and did not respond to follow-up questions: “When developing a comprehensive technological road map it is imperative that all the data is thoroughly reviewed for accuracy and concurred upon by the multiple participating programs. We plan to release the road map as soon as possible.”

The Energy Department’s decision to prevent the report’s public release could also prove embarrassing. Read more

Posted By Dr. Peter Gleick On September 8, 2010 @ 6:05 am

Original source: http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2010/world/north-america/peter-gleick-californias-next-one-million-acre-feet-of-water/?utm_source=Circle+of+Blue+WaterNews+%26+Alerts&utm_campaign=7be68f3fdc-Weekly_Water_News_September_8_2010&utm_medium=email

This is a key time for California water: we are coming off of three years of serious drought and growing political conflict over water allocations. The Legislature passed a comprehensive water bill last November. A major water bond was proposed to fund a wide range of interventions, but has now been tabled for at least two years and could be greatly altered or even scrapped altogether. New reviews from around the state are calling for prompt efforts to use infrastructure, markets, and institutional reform to address the state’s water crisis. All parties agree that the state will need a diverse portfolio of solutions for our diverse and complex water problems.

^[1]

But the argument that we must do everything at once — conservation, new dams, seawater desalination plants, replumbing the Delta, some of this or that — is disingenuous, and wrong. We must do the most critical and effective things first, from a technical, political, and economic perspective.

And the most effective thing, hands down, is improving water-use efficiency. The Pacific Institute has just released a new analysis that recommends a set of specific actions that can annually save a million acre-feet ^[2] of water quickly and at a lower economic and ecological cost than developing new supplies. These water savings are split 30/70 between the urban and agricultural sectors. Read more

August 2/9, 2010

Articles

Green Energy: A Special Issue

How we can break our addiction to oil. With contributions from Michael T. Klare, Christian Parenti, Mark Hertsgaard and Christine MacDonald.

The Editors

Clean, Green, Safe and Smart

Why the United States needs a new national energy policy.

Michael T. Klare

The Big Green Buy

How Obama can use the government’s purchasing power to spark the clean-energy revolution.

Christian Parenti

Kicking the Oil Habit

Louisiana can’t go cold turkey: it can only wean itself off oil through an orderly transition.

Mark Hertsgaard

The Spill’s Silver Lining?

The BP disaster could be the catalyst for an invigorated environmental movement.

Christine MacDonald

Illustration: Tim O’Brien

• The BP Cover-Up
  • Trouble Down Below
  • The 15 Biggest Oil Spills
  • The Gulf’s Other Time Bombs
• What’s Good for BP
• BP’s Bad Breakup: How Toxic Is Corexit?
• BP’s Damage Control: A Timeline
• Plus More Articles by Julia Whitty
  • The Fate of the Ocean
  • Gone: Mass Extinction and the Hazards of Earth’s Vanishing Biodiversity
  • What Invasive Species Are Trying to Tell Us

Original source: http://motherjones.com/special-reports/2010/09/bp-oceans

by Jonathan Hiskes 23 Jul 2010 7:46 AM

http://www.grist.org/article/2010-07-23-state-and-epa-climate-action-become-key-as-senate-gives-up/

The Senate on Thursday officially gave up on trying to pass a climate bill in the foreseeable future — so what’s plan B? Leadership from states and federal agencies.

A mishmash of state plans and existing laws doesn’t sound like much. Climate experts have long preferred a national, economy-wide approach to cutting carbon pollution. But existing and announced state plans would do more good than you might assume.

Ten northeastern states already run a functional cap-and-trade system, and 11 Western states and Canadian provinces are planning to start their own, the Western Climate Initiative, in 2012. And the Environmental Protection Agency continues its own march toward regulating climate pollution — which the Supreme Court directed it to do.

So it’s pretty darn useful that the World Resources Institute has a new report out today that calculates what exactly states and federal agencies could accomplish in the absence of Congressional action. The WRI research group looked at current and in-the-works state programs, as well as existing law directing federal agencies to cut carbon emissions. They measured the impact of these combined activities against President Obama’s pledge in Copenhagen last year to cut emissions “in the range of 17 percent” below 2005 levels by 2020.

The top-line finding: States and federal agencies could keep us on track in the near-term — until about 2016 — but after that they would be insufficient. That’s the best-case scenario. Because there’s so much uncertainty about how state and federal agency plans will be executed, WRI mapped out “lackluster,” “middle-of-the-road,” and “go-getter” scenarios.

Here’s how each would perform compared to business as usual:  Read more

July 20, 2010

http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2010/07/nrdc-sees-looming-cal-water-sh.html

Virtually all of California faces the prospect of serious water shortages by mid-century due to climate change, the National Resources Defense Council declared today in a national report on water supply.

The NRDC report, prepared by Tetra Tech, says that water shortages loom for more than 1,100 counties, a third of all those in the 48 adjacent states. California is one of 14 states that face extreme or high risk of water shortages.

Dan Lashof, director of the NRDC climate center, said, “This analysis shows climate change will take a serious toll on water supplies throughout the country in the coming decades, with over one out of three U.S. counties facing greater risks of water shortages. Water shortages can strangle economic development and agricultural production and affected communities. As a result, cities and states will bear real and significant costs if Congress fails to take the steps necessary to slow down and reverse the warming trend.”

A new state water plan, enacted last year, is aimed in part at offsetting changes in water supply from climate change, but the centerpiece of the plan, an $11.1 billion bond issue, may be removed from the November ballot. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders are concerned that it may be rejected due to significant opposition, especially from environmental groups, and voter angst as the state’s recession continues.

The full NRDC report, which includes access to a map of California counties at risk, may be found here.

PHOTO CREDIT: Dust billows as a farmer plows a dry field April 16, 2009, near Buttonwillow. (Photo by David McNew/ Getty Images)

Read more: http://blogs.sacbee.com/capitolalertlatest/2010/07/nrdc-sees-looming-cal-water-sh.html#ixzz0uHcOIRbI

By Steven Mufson     Sunday, July 18, 2010; B01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/16/AR2010071602721.html

Huey P. Long, the famous Louisiana populist, launched his political career by waging war on the big oil companies, especially what he called Standard Oil’s “invisible empire.”

“I would rather go down to a thousand impeachments than to admit that I am the governor of the state that does not dare to call the Standard Oil Company to account,” he declared in a 1929 campaign circular.

But the threat of a thousand impeachments notwithstanding, Long later built his own invisible oil empire: In 1934, while he was a senator, he and his political associates formed the Win or Lose Corp. The company — which had a reputation of never losing — bought up state mineral leases and resold them to oil companies at a healthy profit, while keeping a share for itself. Although Long died in 1935, his family and friends received royalties for decades.

This dividend came at a price for the rest of Louisiana. The oil leases Long and his associates sold were generally in wetlands; in the process of tapping the oil and gas below, oil companies built a sprawling network of roads and canals, leaving behind a trail of damaged marshes. Wildcat wells came to dot the state’s landscape, and refineries and port facilities followed. Today, thousands of wells have been drilled within three miles of the far-from-pristine shoreline.

But it was a price Louisianans went along with: Since oil was first discovered there, the state has produced 159.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 17.5 billion barrels of oil, according to the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources. That’s as much oil as the entire United States has produced over the past nine years.

Americans may be torn up by the BP oil spill and its destruction of the Gulf of Mexico’s natural habitat — and torn up we should be — but that habitat has not been pristine for decades. In many ways, Louisiana made its deal with the devil long ago.

And what a bad deal it was. Long before the oil spill, the state’s embrace of the petroleum industry cast it under what economists call “the resource curse”: the paradox that countries rich in minerals or petroleum tend to grow more slowly and have lower living standards than other nations. Simply put, Louisiana is the closest thing America has to a petro-state.   Read more

UC Berkeley Study Touts Economic Benefits of a Feed-In Tariff

Submitted by jseel on Wed, 07/07/2010 – 5:25pm

Analysis shows unparalleled job growth, tax benefits,
and investment potential of a comprehensive FIT achieving the 33% RPS

Berkeley – University of California, Berkeley announces today the results of a study examining the economic benefits of a comprehensive Feed-In Tariff (FIT). The analysis shows that enacting a robust FIT in California to achieve the state’s 33% Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) would create 3 times the number of jobs, over 2 billion in additional tax revenue, and stimulate tens of billions in new investment. Furthermore, the adoption of a comprehensive FIT will cost-effectively fulfill California’s 33%-by-2020 goal on schedule.

Headed by Distinguished Professor of Energy Dan Kammen of UC Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group, the analysis examined the economic benefits of a FIT deployed in California to facilitate the state’s effort to achieve the 33% RPS by 2020. A FIT is essentially a fixed price, long-term contract for a utility to buy electricity produced by renewable energy generators. The Berkeley study specifically examined a FIT that would be available to solar projects up to 20 megawatts (MW) in size.  Professor Kammen and his colleague Max Wei studied the impact of such a FIT on employment, tax revenue, and investment compared to current RPS scenarios being modeled by California regulatory agencies.   Read more

By Joshua Glenn    Sunday, July 11, 2010; B01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/09/AR2010070902861.html

BRILLIANT   The Evolution of Artificial Light By Jane Brox

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 360 pp. $25

Until the 18th century, night was an impenetrable abyss. Tallow candles, made of rendered animal fat, barely lightened the darkness. The workday was tied to the sun; once you could no longer see your work, labor stopped. Then tallow candles began to be replaced by whale spermaceti candles, which were twice as brilliant, and by lamps that burned cheap and abundant whale oil. Small wonder that this era was later dubbed the Age of Enlightenment.

Robert Louis Stevenson likened gaslight, which by the 1820s was supplied to London via several hundred miles of underground mains, to the work of Prometheus. A few decades later, around the time that Russia’s Paul Jablochkoff was making major improvements to the arc lamp — the first electric light — Ralph Waldo Emerson extolled electric lights for banishing the shadows created by “the flame of oil, which contented you before.” Artificial light, it seemed, was progress made visible.

But, Jane Brox asks, at what cost? Though she celebrates human ingenuity and technical advances in “Brilliant,” her history of artificial light, Brox also presents damning evidence that in our millennia-long quest for ever more and brighter light, we’ve despoiled the natural world, abandoned our self-sufficiency and trained ourselves to sleep and dream less while working more. It’s time, Brox urges, to “think rationally about light and what it means to us.” Yes, the history of artificial light has its dark side, for those who aren’t too dazzled to detect it.  Read more

The Obama administration is trying to rein in suburban sprawl. But is it any match for 70 years of unsustainable development?

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_reverse_commute

Alyssa Katz | June 13, 2010

Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia may be in charge of a beautiful city, but he doesn’t have much to take to the bank. Last year Philly’s creditors put the city on a negative-ratings watch, following a borrowing spree that resulted in a couple of stadiums and a heap of bribes for a city treasurer who was hauled off in handcuffs. Last year, Philadelphia hiked taxes and squeezed pension funds to fill a quarter-billion-dollar budget gap.

But Philly does have a major asset: five forms of public transportation, from street cars to commuter rail, that knit the region together. During a recent convergence of real-estate developers, local government, and nonprofit leaders in the Center City district, Nutter bragged about the transportation system. “We have an infrastructure,” he noted, “that other cities are spending billions to replicate.” But first he bounded off the podium to shake the hand of “the lady here from HUD.”

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funnels roughly $160 million a year to Philadelphia, most of it to house low-income people in decent surroundings. But HUD’s priorities are quickly evolving, and Nutter is not the only mayor to notice. “I do some dumb things from time to time, but my mother didn’t raise a fool,” Nutter joked during the meeting. “Just keep those checks coming. We love you! What an agency — there’s nothing like it,” he said with a smile.

The subject of Nutter’s attentions was Shelley Poticha, a small woman with a big assignment. As director of HUD’s new Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities, Poticha is working to encourage a suburban nation to live in ways that make it feasible to walk, take public transit, and bike. Her goal is to make suburban sprawl a thing of the past by equipping local governments with the tools to build neighborhoods centered on public transit and walking.   Read more

Sacramento Business Journal – by Mark Harden Friday, July 2, 2010, 10:25am PDT

http://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2010/06/28/daily76.html?ana=e_du_pap

Site Selection magazine places California at No. 1 on its first-ever list of the nation’s top sustainable metro areas.

The ranking is aimed at green-minded businesses that might be shopping for a new home.

Washington and Oregon are No. 2 and 3 on the list.

Among metropolitan areas, the magazine ranks the San Francisco Bay area as No. 1 for sustainability, followed by the Portland, Ore., area and Denver. Sacramento did not crack the top 15. The only other California metro area in the top 15 is the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana area at No. 5.

Site Selection based its sustainability rankings on each metro area’s number of “green” industry projects as tracked by the Conway Data New Plant Database in 2008, 2009 and early 2010; the number and per-capita rate of “Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design,” or LEED, certified projects, signifying energy-efficient building design; and the local level of incentives for green projects, among other factors.

A list of the top sustainable nations is led by Canada, Brazil and China; the U.S. does not appear.

Click here for Site Selection’s full report.

http://www.physorg.com/news196699271.html

By JOEL KIRKLAND of ClimateWire June 25, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2010/06/25/25climatewire-mit-researchers-see-natural-gas-as-the-choic-68486.html

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are encouraging U.S. policymakers to consider the nation’s growing supply of natural gas as a short-term substitute for aging coal-fired power plants.

In the results of a two-year study, released today, the researchers said electric utilities and other sectors of the American economy will use more gas through 2050. Under a scenario that envisions a federal policy aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions to 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2050, researchers found a substantial role for natural gas.

“Because national energy use is substantially reduced, the share represented by gas is projected to rise from about 20 percent of the current national total to around 40 percent in 2040,” said the MIT researchers. When used to fire a power plant, gas emits about half of the carbon dioxide emissions as conventional coal plants.

The report asserts the impact of national policies that place an economic cost on greenhouse gas emissions would, first and foremost, be a reduction in energy use across the United States. It would flatten demand in the electricity sector.   Read more