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www.senate.gov/legislativ...ote_cfm.cfm
An Act to move the United States toward greater energy independence and security, to increase the production of clean renewable fuels, to protect consumers, to increase the efficiency of products, buildings, and vehicles, to promote research on and deploy greenhouse gas capture and storage options, and to improve the energy performance of the Federal Government, and for other purposes.
An Act to move the United States toward greater energy independence and security, to increase the production of clean renewable fuels, to protect consumers, to increase the efficiency of products, buildings, and vehicles, to promote research on and deploy greenhouse gas capture and storage options, and to improve the energy performance of the Federal Government, and for other purposes.
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Re: energy independence
Tue, August 19, 2008 - 1:28 PMWe don't need no stinking efficiency. Renewable fuels are for girly men. "Drill, drill, drill". -
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Re: energy independence
Tue, August 19, 2008 - 1:28 PM"pocket":
www.youtube.com/watch -
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Re: energy independence
Tue, August 19, 2008 - 1:30 PM -
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Re: energy independence
Tue, August 19, 2008 - 1:31 PMAugust 13, 2008
www.nytimes.com
Op-Ed Columnist
Eight Strikes and You’re Out
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
John McCain recently tried to underscore his seriousness about pushing through a new energy policy, with a strong focus on more drilling for oil, by telling a motorcycle convention that Congress needed to come back from vacation immediately and do something about America’s energy crisis. “Tell them to come back and get to work!” McCain bellowed.
Sorry, but I can’t let that one go by. McCain knows why.
It was only five days earlier, on July 30, that the Senate was voting for the eighth time in the past year on a broad, vitally important bill — S. 3335 — that would have extended the investment tax credits for installing solar energy and the production tax credits for building wind turbines and other energy-efficiency systems.
Both the wind and solar industries depend on these credits — which expire in December — to scale their businesses and become competitive with coal, oil and natural gas. Unlike offshore drilling, these credits could have an immediate impact on America’s energy profile.
Senator McCain did not show up for the crucial vote on July 30, and the renewable energy bill was defeated for the eighth time. In fact, John McCain has a perfect record on this renewable energy legislation. He has missed all eight votes over the last year — which effectively counts as a no vote each time. Once, he was even in the Senate and wouldn’t leave his office to vote.
“McCain did not show up on any votes,” said Scott Sklar, president of The Stella Group, which tracks clean-technology legislation. Despite that, McCain’s campaign commercial running during the Olympics shows a bunch of spinning wind turbines — the very wind turbines that he would not cast a vote to subsidize, even though he supports big subsidies for nuclear power.
Barack Obama did not vote on July 30 either — which is equally inexcusable in my book — but he did vote on three previous occasions in favor of the solar and wind credits.
The fact that Congress has failed eight times to renew them is largely because of a hard core of Republican senators who either don’t want to give Democrats such a victory in an election year or simply don’t believe in renewable energy.
What impact does this have? In the solar industry today there is a rush to finish any project that would be up and running by Dec. 31 — when the credits expire — and most everything beyond that is now on hold. Consider the Solana concentrated solar power plant, 70 miles southwest of Phoenix in McCain’s home state. It is the biggest proposed concentrating solar energy project ever. The farsighted local utility is ready to buy its power.
But because of the Senate’s refusal to extend the solar tax credits, “we cannot get our bank financing,” said Fred Morse, a senior adviser for the American operations of Abengoa Solar, which is building the project. “Without the credits, the numbers don’t work.” Some 2,000 construction jobs are on hold.
Roger Efird is president of Suntech America — a major Chinese-owned solar panel maker that actually wants to build a new factory in America. They’ve been scouting the country for sites, and several governors have been courting them. But Efird told me that when the solar credits failed to pass the Senate, his boss told him: “Don’t set up any more meetings with governors. It makes absolutely no sense to do this if we don’t have stability in the incentive programs.”
One of the biggest canards peddled by Big Oil is that, “Sure, we’ll need wind and solar energy, but it’s just not cost effective yet.” They’ve been saying that for 30 years. What these tax credits are designed to do is to stimulate investments by many players in solar and wind so these technologies can quickly move down the learning curve and become competitive with coal and oil — which is why some people are trying to block them.
As Richard K. Lester, an energy-innovation expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, notes, “The best chance we have — perhaps the only chance” of addressing the combined challenges of energy supply and demand, climate change and energy security “is to accelerate the introduction of new technologies for energy supply and use and deploy them on a very large scale.”
This, he argues, will take more than a Manhattan Project. It will require a fundamental reshaping by government of the prices and regulations and research-and-development budgets that shape the energy market. Without taxing fossil fuels so they become more expensive and giving subsidies to renewable fuels so they become more competitive — and changing regulations so more people and companies have an interest in energy efficiency — we will not get innovation in clean power at the scale we need.
That is what this election should be focusing on. Everything else is just bogus rhetoric designed by cynical candidates who think Americans are so stupid — so bloody stupid — that if you just show them wind turbines in your Olympics ad they’ll actually think you showed up and voted for such renewable power — when you didn’t. -
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Re: energy independence
Fri, August 22, 2008 - 12:00 AMgreat thread. Is there any reason you keep stacking them one on top of the other instead of inside of one thread so that they
don't add up to much of anything unless one uses a search engine?
IE; whats wrong with the idea of creating one single topical thread and pouring all of everything into that,
rather than hundreds or thousands of threads which are really all the same thread masquerading under the false pretense of slightly different details?
As a point of organization? -
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Re: energy independence
Fri, August 22, 2008 - 12:08 AMtribe's software and its lack of pagination makes that pretty annoying. after 120 or so posts i stop reading a tribe thread. -
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Re: energy independence
Fri, August 22, 2008 - 12:28 AMuhm, just retire them every 100.
Still better than 20 threads 5 posts each.
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Re: energy independence
Fri, August 22, 2008 - 12:47 AMwhats better is what people do....software isn't right or wrong the people using it give it meaning and determine what it should be used for.
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Re: energy independence
Fri, August 22, 2008 - 7:38 AMWithout reading the actual language of the bill it is impossible to have an informed opinion about whether the bill was even remotely worthy, or whether it was just a facade to hide tons of pork or what.
So all the nice language in the title really means absolutely nothing. You gotta have the actual bill as it was presented for a vote. -
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Re: energy independence
Fri, August 22, 2008 - 8:00 AMAnd the bought and paid for suits that practice politrix had absolutely no problem with gutting, fileting, and stuffing down the garbage disposal, California's Electric Car law.
I suspect they're up to their usual wall papering tricks and the ceos keep laughing.
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Re: energy independence
Fri, August 22, 2008 - 2:18 PMfrwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-b...oc.cgi
excerpt:
SEC. 102. AVERAGE FUEL ECONOMY STANDARDS FOR AUTOMOBILES AND CERTAIN OTHER VEHICLES.
(a) Increased Standards- Section 32902 of title 49, United States Code, is amended--
(1) in subsection (a)--
(A) by striking `Non-Passenger Automobiles- ' and inserting `Prescription of Standards by Regulation- ';
(B) by striking `(except passenger automobiles)' in subsection (a); and
(C) by striking the last sentence;
(2) by striking subsection (b) and inserting the following:
`(b) Standards for Automobiles and Certain Other Vehicles-
`(1) IN GENERAL- The Secretary of Transportation, after consultation with the Secretary of Energy and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, shall prescribe separate average fuel economy standards for--
`(A) passenger automobiles manufactured by manufacturers in each model year beginning with model year 2011 in accordance with this subsection;
`(B) non-passenger automobiles manufactured by manufacturers in each model year beginning with model year 2011 in accordance with this subsection; and
`(C) work trucks and commercial medium-duty or heavy-duty on-highway vehicles in accordance with subsection (k).
`(2) FUEL ECONOMY STANDARDS FOR AUTOMOBILES-
`(A) AUTOMOBILE FUEL ECONOMY AVERAGE FOR MODEL YEARS 2011 THROUGH 2020- The Secretary shall prescribe a separate average fuel economy standard for passenger automobiles and a separate average fuel economy standard for non-passenger automobiles for each model year beginning with model year 2011 to achieve a combined fuel economy average for model year 2020 of at least 35 miles per gallon for the total fleet of passenger and non-passenger automobiles manufactured for sale in the United States for that model year.
`(B) AUTOMOBILE FUEL ECONOMY AVERAGE FOR MODEL YEARS 2021 THROUGH 2030- For model years 2021 through 2030, the average fuel economy required to be attained by each fleet of passenger and non-passenger automobiles manufactured for sale in the United States shall be the maximum feasible average fuel economy standard for each fleet for that model year.
`(C) PROGRESS TOWARD STANDARD REQUIRED- In prescribing average fuel economy standards under subparagraph (A), the Secretary shall prescribe annual fuel economy standard increases that increase the applicable average fuel economy standard ratably beginning with model year 2011 and ending with model year 2020.
`(3) AUTHORITY OF THE SECRETARY- The Secretary shall--
`(A) prescribe by regulation separate average fuel economy standards for passenger and non-passenger automobiles based on 1 or more vehicle attributes related to fuel economy and express each standard in the form of a mathematical function; and
`(B) issue regulations under this title prescribing average fuel economy standards for at least 1, but not more than 5, model years.
`(4) MINIMUM STANDARD- In addition to any standard prescribed pursuant to paragraph (3), each manufacturer shall also meet the minimum standard for domestically manufactured passenger automobiles, which shall be the greater of--
`(A) 27.5 miles per gallon; or
`(B) 92 percent of the average fuel economy projected by the Secretary for the combined domestic and non-domestic passenger automobile fleets manufactured for sale in the United States by all manufacturers in the model year, which projection shall be published in the Federal Register when the standard for that model year is promulgated in accordance with this section.'; and
(3) in subsection (c)--
(A) by striking `(1) Subject to paragraph (2) of this subsection, the' and inserting `The'; and
(B) by striking paragraph (2).
(b) Fuel Economy Standard for Commercial Medium-Duty and Heavy-Duty On-Highway Vehicles and Work Trucks- Section 32902 of title 49, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:
`(k) Commercial Medium- and Heavy-Duty On-Highway Vehicles and Work Trucks-
`(1) STUDY- Not later than 1 year after the National Academy of Sciences publishes the results of its study under section 108 of the Ten-in-Ten Fuel Economy Act, the Secretary of Transportation, in consultation with the Secretary of Energy and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, shall examine the fuel efficiency of commercial medium- and heavy-duty on-highway vehicles and work trucks and determine--
`(A) the appropriate test procedures and methodologies for measuring the fuel efficiency of such vehicles and work trucks;
`(B) the appropriate metric for measuring and expressing commercial medium- and heavy-duty on-highway vehicle and work truck fuel efficiency performance, taking into consideration, among other things, the work performed by such on-highway vehicles and work trucks and types of operations in which they are used;
`(C) the range of factors, including, without limitation, design, functionality, use, duty cycle, infrastructure, and total overall energy consumption and operating costs that affect commercial medium- and heavy-duty on-highway vehicle and work truck fuel efficiency; and
`(D) such other factors and conditions that could have an impact on a program to improve commercial medium- and heavy-duty on-highway vehicle and work truck fuel efficiency.
`(2) RULEMAKING- Not later than 24 months after completion of the study required under paragraph (1), the Secretary, in consultation with the Secretary of Energy and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, by regulation, shall determine in a rulemaking proceeding how to implement a commercial medium- and heavy-duty on-highway vehicle and work truck fuel efficiency improvement program designed to achieve the maximum feasible improvement, and shall adopt and implement appropriate test methods, measurement metrics, fuel economy standards, and compliance and enforcement protocols that are appropriate, cost-effective, and technologically feasible for commercial medium- and heavy-duty on-highway vehicles and work trucks. The Secretary may prescribe separate standards for different classes of vehicles under this subsection.
`(3) LEAD-TIME; REGULATORY STABILITY- The commercial medium- and heavy-duty on-highway vehicle and work truck fuel economy standard adopted pursuant to this subsection shall provide not less than--
`(A) 4 full model years of regulatory lead-time; and
`(B) 3 full model years of regulatory stability.'.
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Re: energy independence
Sat, August 23, 2008 - 2:52 AMwhats better is what people do
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No, entropic chaos isn't that great.
order and organization would be better.
bad habits don't equal mob intelligence.
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Re: energy independence
Mon, August 25, 2008 - 8:15 AMprom, its silly to tell people that they shouldn't use a communication tool like a discussion board X way. as long as they're communicating in what they feel is a decent manner who's to say what is a good habit?
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Re: energy independence
Sat, August 23, 2008 - 4:23 PMyes i realize this, cliff. thanks.
the title of the bill serves to inform you of the intent of the bill. -
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Re: energy independence
Sat, August 23, 2008 - 7:52 PMI like what Richard K. Lester is saying, let's do it!
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Energy independence
Mon, August 25, 2008 - 1:11 AMis within our grasp, the problem is we are too stupid to demand it, or attack the profiteering racket on the consumption side. -
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Re: Energy independence
Mon, August 25, 2008 - 8:40 AMhogwash. energy indendence is impossible given our current levels of energy overconsumption. -
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Re: Energy independence
Wed, August 27, 2008 - 2:02 AMprom, its silly to tell people that they shouldn't use a communication tool like a discussion board X way.
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Perhaps so. Its even sillier to stack threads in such a scattershot fashion such that theres no sense or organization to any of it,
and to make dozens of threads on the same topic rather than finish the thread which started it all.
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as long as they're communicating in what they feel is a decent manner who's to say what is a good habit?
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systems theorists.
Sociologists.
Anybody with an interest in seeing people solve problems rather than just masturbate their opinions. -
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Re: Energy independence
Wed, August 27, 2008 - 2:04 AMhogwash. energy indendence is impossible given our current levels of energy overconsumption.
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untrue, geothermal power could give us a system for under a trillion dollars which would not only make us energy independent but give us an enormous energy surplus we could sell.
www.ecofriend.org/entry/geo...ectricity/
thefraserdomain.typepad.com/ener....html
www.gordonmoyes.com/2007/01/...-nuclear/
www.answers.com/topic/geothermal-power
www.greentechmedia.com/articl...18.html
www.technologyreview.com/Energy/17236/
solveclimate.com/blog/2008...dant-cheap
www.altenergystocks.com/archiv...er.html
peakenergy.blogspot.com/2008/0...er.html
seekingalpha.com/article/7...ources-101
www.smu.edu/geothermal/2...2004NAmap.htm
www1.eere.energy.gov/geother...map.html
geoheat.oit.edu/images/usmap1.gif
pesn.com/2007/01/22/95..._2004_hj70.jpg
upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...p_US.png
thefraserdomain.typepad.com/ener...p.gif
www.utpb.edu/ceed/renewa...hermal_1.jpg
images.google.com/imgres
New Tectonic Source of Geothermal Energy?
volcan42.jpg Geochemists from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Arizona State University have discovered a new tool for identifying potential geothermal energy resources. The discovery came from comparing helium isotopes in samples gathered from wells, springs, and vents across the northern Basin and Range of western North America. High helium ratios are common in volcanic regions. When the investigators found high ratios in places far from volcanism, they knew that hot fluids must be permeating Earth's inner layers by other means. The samples collected on the surface gave the researchers a window into the structure of the rocks far below, with no need to drill.
"A good geothermal energy source has three basic requirements: a high thermal gradient—which means accessible hot rock—plus a rechargeable reservoir fluid, usually water, and finally, deep permeable pathways for the fluid to circulate through the hot rock," says Mack Kennedy. "We believe we have found a way to map and quantify zones of permeability deep in the lower crust that result not from volcanic activity but from tectonic activity, the movement of pieces of the Earth's crust."
Geothermal is considered by many to be the best renewable energy source besides solar. Accessible geothermal energy in the United States, excluding Alaska and Hawaii, is estimated at 90 quadrillion kilowatt-hours, 3,000 times more than the country's total annual energy consumption. Determining helium ratios from surface measurements is a practical way to locate promising sources.
Julia Whitty is Mother Jones' environmental correspondent. You can read from her new book, The Fragile Edge, and other writings, here.
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