Offshore Drilling is a Non-Issue

A picture is worth 1,000 words... From architecture2030

A Message from Al Gore: Call Your Representative

I need your help. Will you make a call?

Congress will consider energy legislation this week. Of course, the oil industry is pushing its "drill, drill" slogan with all its might -- and some are hoping to use this for political advantage.

Meanwhile, tax credits for investments in solar and wind power have not been extended, and the growing renewables business that just made America the largest producer of wind power in the world, is on the verge of shutting down huge planned projects all over the country.

Billions in private investment, thousands of megawatts of new, clean energy, and more than 100,000 new jobs expected for 2009 will be lost.

We face a stark choice: subsidize old, dirty energy or invest in new, clean energy. This should be easy, but the influence of the oil lobby is deep -- they've already spent more than $100 million in lobbying and advertising this year. Please call your members of Congress now and tell them to pass legislation that will Repower America.

Click here to find out how to call.

Washington is being diverted by all the political noise around "drill, drill" away from what really will make a difference -- building a new, clean energy future. Projects in the pipeline that will power millions of homes will be canceled, setting us back for years, if Congress doesn't do the right thing now. Congress needs to hear from all of us.

Thank you so much,

Al Gore

www.wecansolveit.org

National speed limit pushed as gas saver

An influential Republican senator suggested Thursday that Congress might want to consider reimposing a national speed limit to save gasoline and possibly ease fuel prices.

Sen. John Warner, R-Virginia, asked Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to look into what speed limit would provide optimum gasoline efficiency given current technology. He said he wants to know if the administration might support efforts in Congress to require a lower speed limit.

Congress in 1974 set a national 55 mph speed limit because of energy shortages caused by the Arab oil embargo. The speed limit was repealed in 1995 when crude oil dipped to $17 a barrel and gasoline cost $1.10 a gallon.

As motorists headed on trips for this Fourth of July weekend, gasoline averaged $4.10 a gallon nationwide, with oil hovering around $145 a barrel.

Warner cited studies that showed the 55 mph speed limit saved 167,000 barrels of oil a day, or 2 percent of the country's highway fuel consumption, while avoiding up to 4,000 traffic deaths a year.

"Given the significant increase in the number of vehicles on America's highway system from 1974 to 2008, one could assume that the amount of fuel that could be conserved today is far greater," Warner wrote Bodman.

Warner asked the department to determine at what speeds vehicles would be most fuel efficient, how much fuel savings would be achieved, and whether it would be reasonable to assume there would be a reduction in prices at the pump if the speed limit were lowered.

From CNN.

Truth or Consequences: $4+ for a Gallon of Gas Should be Mandatory?

Imagine for a minute, just a minute, that someone running for president was able to actually tell the truth, the real truth, to the American people about what would be the best — I mean really the best — energy policy for the long-term economic health and security of our country. I realize this is a fantasy, but play along with me for a minute. What would this mythical, totally imaginary, truth-telling candidate say?

For starters, he or she would explain that there is no short-term fix for gasoline prices. Prices are what they are as a result of rising global oil demand from India, China and a rapidly growing Middle East on top of our own increasing consumption, a shortage of “sweet” crude that is used for the diesel fuel that Europe is highly dependent upon and our own neglect of effective energy policy for 30 years.

No, our mythical candidate would say the long-term answer is to go exactly the other way: guarantee people a high price of gasoline — forever.

This candidate would note that $4-a-gallon gasoline is really starting to impact driving behavior and buying behavior in way that $3-a-gallon gas did not. The first time we got such a strong price signal, after the 1973 oil shock, we responded as a country by demanding and producing more fuel-efficient cars. But as soon as oil prices started falling in the late 1980s and early 1990s, we let Detroit get us readdicted to gas guzzlers, and the price steadily crept back up to where it is today.

We must not make that mistake again. Therefore, what our mythical candidate would be proposing, argues the energy economist Philip Verleger Jr., is a “price floor” for gasoline: $4 a gallon for regular unleaded, which is still half the going rate in Europe today. Washington would declare that it would never let the price fall below that level. If it does, it would increase the federal gasoline tax on a monthly basis to make up the difference between the pump price and the market price.

More on the NY Times.

U.S. Can Boost Clean Wind Power for 2 Cents a Day per Household

May 17, 2008 | A stunning new report just issued by the Bush administration finds that for under 2 cents a day per household, Americans could get 300 gigawatts of wind by 2030. That would:

• Reduce carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation by 25 percent in 2030.
• Reduce natural gas use by 11 percent.
• Reduce cumulative water consumption associated with electricity generation by 4 trillion gallons by 2030.
• Support roughly 500,000 jobs in the U.S.

The report doesn't mention that this would require adopting policies the Bush administration opposes. But that's what elections are for.

Wind power is coming of age. In 2007, some 20,000 megawatts of wind were installed globally, enough to power 6 million homes. Sadly, most wind power manufacturers are no longer American, thanks to decades of funding cuts by conservatives. Still, new wind is poised to be a bigger contributor to U.S. (and global) electricity generation than new nuclear power in the coming decades. As I have written earlier, concentrated solar power could be an even bigger power source, and it can even share power lines with wind.

That means we can realistically envision an electric grid built around renewables: electricity with no greenhouse gas emissions, no fuel cost (and no future price volatility) and no radioactive waste. But while it is poised to happen, and other governments are working hard to claim market share, America will need a bold president to ensure leadership in these major job-creating industries of the 21st century.

Read more from Salon.

What Is The Real Cost Of Bottled Water?

As John McCain and Hillary Clinton tell Americans tales of a gas tax holiday to relieve us of a whole 20 cents per gallon this summer (we’re paying more than four dollars anyway) it’s probably worth discussing one of the other reasons that gas is so darn expensive…

Of course, the reason is demand. Although developing countries such as China and India take the blame, there are other forces at work. Bottled water for example, which despite being past its peak, consumes roughly 17 million barrels of oil every year, not including transportation. The worst part of it is that that’s not even half the problem.

In addition to the 17 million barrels of oil (equivalent to just under the GDP of the Cayman Islands at today’s prices) used in production, bottled water consumes gallons and gallons of water.

Three gallons of the wet stuff is required to produce one gallon of what you will happily pay a dollar for, largely because of the length and complexity of the various “purification” processes and the evaporation loss that takes place while the water is in the plant. This is quite an ugly statistic, when juxtaposed to the fact that less than one percent of the water on our planet is both accessible and potable.

Besides the extravagant amount of oil used to make the bottles and large volumes of water used in the bottling process, there are of course, several other considerations. Firstly, there are the transport costs - by the time you transport every bottle by rail or truck and keep it cool, you may as well have filled it one-fourth of the way with oil. Let’s also not forget the operating costs of the factories themselves and the profit the bottled water companies have to make for their shareholders.Therefore, purely from an economic standpoint, if you only drink bottled water, you’re a mug.

Read on environmentalgraffiti.com.