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EnergyIn defining the broad category of Energy, we have confined our website to the most common terms used by the general public in discussing the environment and global warming issues: Fossil Fuels, Biofuels, Renewable Energy and Nuclear Energy. Though Americans account for only five percent of the world’s population, we consume 26 percent of the world’s energy.
Americans burn fossil fuels to generate electricity and power our automobiles, and in doing so we are the largest contributor to green house gases in the world. Alternative renewable and clean energy sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, tides, and biomass, and also the controversial nuclear energy, are being pursued for electricity generation, while cleaner biofuels are being developed to power our cars. However, these new technologies are not without controversy and have stimulated scientific debate about the real costs, the economics with and without tax incentives, the unforeseen impact on other parts of the environment, and the knock on effect on other parts of society such as food prices as the demand for grains for biofuels competes with the demand for food. |
Latest Energy Content  | | Fact: | | | | Published: | 7/20/2008 by American Wind Energy Association | | | Submitted by: | Shayon 4 days ago | | | Category: | Renewable Energy |
| Fact Details: Wind energy eeduces smog and eliminates a major source of acid rain; could reduce total US emissions of carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) by 1/3 and world emissions by 4%. | |
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|  | | Article Details: In the United States, “energy policy” essentially means one thing: oil policy. The New York Times reported today that the U.S. Congress is serious about producing a new energy policy after years of stalemates and inaction. But read carefully. All the talk about a new energy policy is driven by one thing: consumer anxiety about the high cost of gasoline (petrol). It is not unreasonable to assume that any energy policy will be a reactionary response to this concern versus a much-needed re-alignmen | |
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| | | | | Article: | | | | Published: | 5/30/2008 by New York Times (Matthew L. Wald) | | | Submitted by: | Frank K 52 days ago | | | Categories: | Energy & Fossil Fuels |
| Article Details: Coal is abundant and cheap, assuring that it will continue to be used. But the failure to start building, testing, tweaking and perfecting carbon capture and storage means that developing the technology may come too late to make coal compatible with limiting global warming. The Electric Power Research Institute, a utility consortium, estimated that it would take as long as 15 years to go from starting a pilot plant to proving the technology will work. | |
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|  | | Article Details: Convinced the planet's oil supply is dwindling and the world's economies are heading for a crash, some people around the country are moving onto homesteads, learning to live off their land, conserving fuel and, in some cases, stocking up on guns they expect to use to defend themselves and their supplies from desperate crowds of people who didn't prepare. | |
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|  | | Article Details: The US government on Wednesday declared the polar bear a threatened species under federal environmental protection laws, a ruling that may further limit efforts to develop US energy resources in Alaska. Advocates of increased US domestic energy development have long sought access to oil and gas reserves in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) on Alaska’s north coast. Environmentalists have opposed drilling in the refuge on grounds it would disrupt and endanger the wildlife that ANWR was cr | |
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|  | | Article: | | | | Published: | 4/24/2008 by The Nation (Mark Hertsgaard ) | | | Submitted by: | Frank K 52 days ago | | | Categories: | Energy & Fossil Fuels |
| Article Details: The arrival of $119 bbl crude and $4 gal gasoline are obvious signs that global oil production has or soon will peak. With global demand rising and supplies limited, higher, more volatile prices and shortages could provoke--to quote the title of the must-see peak oil documentary--the end of suburbia. The world's economy and, paradoxically, the fight against climate change could be in deep trouble. | |
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|  | | Article Details: In an effort to jump-start a "nuclear renaissance," the Bush Administration has pushed one package of subsidies after another. A program of federal loan guarantees amounting to $18.5 billion has sat waiting for utilities to build nukes. So why is the much-storied "nuclear renaissance" so slow to get rolling? In a nutshell, blame Warren Buffett, and the banks--they won't put up the cash. | |
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|  | | Article Details: Patrick Moore, one of the co-founders of Greenpeace, left abruptly, and, in a controversial reversal, has become an outspoken advocate of some of the environmental movement's most detested causes, chief among them nuclear energy. He states that "other than hydroelectric energy nuclear is the only technology besides fossil fuels available as a large-scale continuous power source, and I mean one you can rely on to be running 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Wind and solar energy are intermittent | |
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|  | | Article Details: The troubling tension between propelling prosperity and limiting climate risks is on full display this week. India’s Tata Power group just gained important financial backing from the International Finance Corporation, a branch of the World Bank for its planned $4 billion, 4-billion watt “Ultra Mega” coal-burning power plant complex in Gujarat state. The plant will emit about 23 million tons of carbon dioxide a year. | |
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|  | | Article Details: When the League of Conservation Voters (LCV) released its annual environmental rankings last month, McCain - whose campaign website declares him “a leader on the issue of global warming” - earned a zero for missing all of the group’s votes on key green issues. He was one of nine Republicans scoring the lowest possible rating. | |
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|  | | Article Details: Long considered an abundant, reliable and relatively cheap source of energy, coal is suddenly in short supply and high demand worldwide. An untimely confluence of bad weather, flawed energy policies, low stockpiles and voracious growth in Asia's appetite has driven international spot prices of coal up by 50 percent. Freight cars in Appalachia are brimming with coal for export. The boom in coal exports and prices has helped lower the trade deficit for the USA. | |
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|  | | Article Details: Finland is developing a broad mix of environmentally friendly, economically competitive energy sources. Nuclear energy is an important part of that effort. Not only has Finland begun to construct a new, modern 1,600-megawatt reactor, but it is successfully executing a cohesive, workable strategy to manage spent fuel. The United States has done neither. | |
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|  | | Article Details: Concerns about global warming and rising building costs are blocking construction of new coal-fired power plants in the United States and pushing utilities to turn to natural gas and renewable power instead. Utilities canceled or put on hold at least 45 coal plants in development last year. This is a sharp reversal from a year ago, when the industry had more than 150 such plants in development and signals the waning of a major US expansion into coal. | |
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|  | | Article Details: Semiconductor light emitting diodes (LEDs) are finally on the verge of having the capability to radically alter the entire lighting landscape with staggering improvements in both lighting efficiency and efficacy. LEDs have already achieved 100 lumens per watt, with 200 visible. Incandescent bulbs yield some 15 lumens a watt, CFLs about 80. LEDs last 50,000, and soon 100,000, hours. | |
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