Free Republic

HOUSTON -- Plans for what would have been the nation's largest offshore wind farm off South Texas have been canceled. The developer said the multibillion dollar project didn't make economic sense. John Calaway is chief development officer for Babcock & Brown Limited, an Australian investment bank. Calaway says the company last month notified Texas that it's giving up its 30-year lease on nearly 40,000 acres in the Gulf of Mexico off Padre Island. Calaway was CEO of Houston-based Superior Renewable Energy when the agreement was announced. Superior was acquired last summer by Babcock & Brown. Babcock is proceeding with an...

MILWAUKEE -- Someone has been submitting fictional reports of severe weather to the National Weather Service, causing unnecessary alerts and frightening people. The areas affected have included Milwaukee; La Crosse, Wis.; Chicago; and Lincoln, said Tom Schwein, chief of the National Weather Service's systems and facilities division for the central region in Kansas City, Mo. The person started sending reports in mid-April through an online form on the service's Web site. "We've been detecting a regular pattern of a person who has been submitting false severe weather reports that are constructed in a way that seem very realistic," Schwein said....

WASHINGTON -- Democrats in Congress say they plan to practice what they preach, by cleaning up the Capitol of its greenhouse gas emissions. The Capitol complex accounts for about 316,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions a year, equivalent to more than 57,000 cars. And about a third of that comes from the coal used at the Capitol Power Plant, the only coal-burning facility in the nation's capital. But any proposals to eliminate coal would meet with resistance from coal-state senators Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi also wants to...

A young girl is dead after a boating accident on Lake Travis Saturday. It happened just after 7:00 p.m. in Paradise Cove. Texas Parks and Wildlife says the girl and her father were traveling at a high rate of speed when their boat hit the wake from another boat. Their boat went airborne and came down hard enough to crack the hull. Both the girl and her father were thrown from the boat. She suffered head trauma. He has a broken leg. Both were taken to Brackenridge Hospital. She died from her injuries. The boat kept running at high speed...

Las Manitas restaurant will get the money needed to relocate, remodel and stay in downtown Austin. Austin City Council members voted Thursday to grant the owners, Cynthia and Lydia Perez, a $750,000 forgivable loan that does not have to be repaid if certain requirements are met for a set time period.Las Manitas has been at its current location on 211 Congress Avenue since 1981. Last September, Marriot announced a $185 million hotel complex will be built there. The project will add 1,000 hotel rooms, 600 jobs and is being called the largest hotel development in Austin history. The community rallied...

HOUSTON -- Texas hopes to get word this month on whether it has won a bid for a U.S. Energy Department wind turbine testing facility -- a prize the state's land commissioner says would boost Texas' position as the nation's leader in wind-generated energy. Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson said Texas bid on the project last year and is in the running with Massachusetts. The research and development facility will test wind turbine blades in excess of 200 feet long. Patterson said Texas has several pluses in its favor, including a site near Corpus Christi donated by BP PLC and a...

COLLEGE STATION – When the weather turns dry, Texans may start thinking about the best ways to avoid high water bills and still maintain their landscaping. Gray water may be one option, said Dr. Bruce Lesikar, Texas Cooperative Extension agricultural engineer. Gray water is the water that has passed through showers, sinks, bathtubs or washing machines, Lesikar said. It makes up about half of the water used in the home and normally passes into onsite wastewater treatment systems or city sewer systems. "The typical resident will have about 30 gallons per person per day," he said. Gray water is a...

HOUSTON -- If you think gasoline prices are high now, consider the eye-popping possibilities if another monster storm pummels the Gulf of Mexico this hurricane season. The petroleum industry has spent nearly two years trying to repair the damage from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. It's had to rebuild the complex web of platforms, pipelines and refineries in a region that produces roughly 25 percent of the nation's oil and 15 percent of its natural gas. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said this week it expects a busy hurricane season, forecasting 13 to 17 tropical storms -- up to 10...

The Bosch Group anticipates increasing sales of its common-rail diesel direct injection technology by nearly 18% to more than eight million systems in 2007, up from 6.8 million last year. Bosch alone has equipped more than 33 million passenger-car and commercial-vehicle engines with this technology since 1997. Ten years ago, Bosch was the first company to put a common-rail system for passenger cars on the market. The first vehicles to feature the technology were the Alfa Romeo 156 JTD and the Mercedes-Benz 220 CDI. In conjunction with turbocharging, the injection system has helped the diesel engine achieve a market breakthrough...

Mack Trucks has introduced a battery-operated anti-idling system to replace engine idling as a power source for heating and cooling and amenity loads for stationary trucks. The environmental and financial benefits of reducing idling are significant. The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates heavy-duty truck idling in the US consumes 960 million gallons of diesel fuel annually, and the average heavy-duty truck burns 0.8 gallons per hour. According to the EPA, truck idling results in annual emissions of 11 million tons of CO2, 180,000 tons of NOx and 5,000 tons of particulates. The Idle Free system uses a bank of high-efficiency...

GE publicly unveiled a prototype hybrid road locomotive at its Ecomagination event in Los Angeles last week. (Earlier post.) The 4,000 hp locomotive uses a set sodium nickel chloride (Na-NiCl2) batteries to capture and store energy dissipated during dynamic braking as well as an on-board fuel optimizer system. GE’s work on the hybrid is one of the projects in the Department of Energy’s Heavy Vehicle Systems Optimization efforts, and is one component of a larger GE effort on heavy-duty hybrids that includes buses and very heavy-duty off-highway vehicles such as mine trucks. The energy stored in the locomotive batteries will...

Today marks ten years since a massive, devastating tornado struck the town of Jarrell in northern Williamson County. Twenty-seven people died on May 27, 1997 when the F-5 twister tore through a subdivision in this tiny town of 1,300 residents. Twelve of those killed were children. The Jarrell tornado was one of twenty-four twisters to hit Central Texas that day. Residents had adequate warning, but most who died in the worst-hit neighborhoods did not have underground storm shelters. Experts say that for those that sought refuge in their homes, even in an interior room, the monster tornado was simply "an...

There's a new technology in cars that could save gas and stop construction of new power plants – and Austin Energy is leading the field in its development. In 2003, Austin Energy deputy general manager Roger Duncan was asked by Mayor Will Wynn to find innovative ways to make Austin greener. At the time, AE was struggling over how to manage West Texas wind power. While it's clean energy, the wind doesn't keep to a schedule. Production often peaks at night, when demand is lowest. According to Duncan, the engineers realized that "the automobile battery is the perfect storage for...

You could tell by the sleek and stylish recycled-cardboard binder that housed the conference's program and materials that last week's Austin Clean Energy Venture Summit was no business-as-usual venture capital conference. Indeed, it showcased two revolutionary concepts: "clean tech," a burgeoning industry addressing a range of energy needs by tapping new, innovative technology to create products and services that compete favorably on price and performance while reducing environmental impacts, as well as "the utility of the future," a concept nurtured by Austin Energy that brings into harmony green building, an increasingly electrified transportation grid (think plug-in hybrid cars), and an...

Link to Hearing (Real Audio) Senate Homeland Security Subcmte. Hearing on Gulf Coast Housing Potential shortfalls in a Gulf Coast Housing program is the subject of a Senate Homeland Security subcmte. hearing. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) chairs this look at funding for the "Road Home" program, created by the State of Louisiana with White House assistance following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Shortfalls are estimated at more than $3 billion. 5/24/2007: WASHINGTON, DC:

Jerome Corsi, WorldNetDaily.com, Columnist rtsp://video.c-span.org/15days/wj052507_corsi.rm Jerome Corsi, WorldNetDaily.com, Columnist Jerome Corsi, WorldNetDaily.com, Columnist talks about continuity of federal government operations in case of a national emergency. Earlier this month, the White House issued a national security and homeland security directive, which grants the President new powers in the event of a catastrophic emergency and establishes a National Continuity Coordinator to be prepared for these situations. 5/25/2007: WASHINGTON, DC: 1 hr.

Link to Hearing (Real Audio) Hearing on California's Greenhouse Gas Waiver from the EPA Edmund "Jerry" Brown Jr., California's Atty. Gen., argues his state's case for a waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA has not yet made a decision on California's 2005 request to regulate greenhouse gases on new vehicles. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) chairs this hearing of Sen. Environment & Public Works Cmte. 5/22/2007: WASHINGTON, DC:

Link to Hearing (Real Audio) House Hearing on Gasoline Prices Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) chairs an Energy & Commerce, Oversight and Investigations Subcmte. on gasoline prices, oil company profits, and the American consumer. 5/22/2007: WASHINGTON, DC: 2 hr. 47 min.

Chertoff on C-SPANrtsp://video.c-span.org/project/im/im_wj052307_chertoff.rm Michael Chertoff, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Homeland Security Secretary talks about the Bush Administration’s work on the immigration bill being debated in the Senate this week and its details. Secretary Chertoff was a part of negotiations on the proposal between the Senate and the White House. 5/23/2007: WASHINGTON, DC: 33 min.

American Bar Association Address American Bar Association Address by Hans Blix Hans Blix, Weapon of Mass Destruction Commission Chairman, was a luncheon speaker at the annual spring meeting of the American Bar Association Section of International Law. His topics included weapons of mass destruction, the Bush administration, and Iraq. 5/4/2007: WASHINGTON, DC: 47 min.