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Opponents of high-speed rail contend that it's a boondoggle because of its $68 billion pricetag. But a recent UC Berkeley study provides evidence that a California bullet train might be a good investment, particularly when it comes to reducing greenhouse gases and fighting climate change. The study, published recently in the journal Environmental Research Letters, was the result of two years of research by UC Berkeley civil and environmental engineering professor Arpad Horvath and Mikhail Chester, professor at Arizona State University's School of Sustainable Engineering and The Built Environment. The study analyzed the environmental sustainability of a high-speed rail network...

When is a job not a job? When it’s a job year. Although it sounds like a riddle told at an economic development convention, it has become a central point of an emerging debate about a ballot initiative that would increase the state’s renewable energy mandate from 10 percent to 25 percent. At the heart of the controversy is how a study, which was done under a contract between Michigan State University and the Michigan Environmental Council, described how it calculated the amount of jobs the 25 percent mandate would create if passed. The study said 74,495 “job years” would...

University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman has said her college needs to be a global leader when dealing with energy sustainability. Yet, Coleman's own university provided residence has the most expensive energy costs among state universities, both in total costs and cost per square feet, with a gas-electric-steam bill reaching nearly $30,000 in one year. When receiving a grant for "sustainablity fellows" from Dow Chemical last year to help people "live cleaner, greener and sustainably," Coleman said: "[This partnership] is broad and comprehensive as sustainablity itself, and frankly, I believe it is the only way to solve problems as...

A 2011 Wind Technologies Report released by the U.S. Department of Energy in August highlights how dependent wind energy is upon government subsidies. The report cites government aid as two of the three key factors that contributed to growth in the market in 2011. The continuation of state and federal incentives for wind energy and the ability to meet construction deadlines to qualify for a federal grant program were two of the factors. The report states that forecasts for 2013 and beyond span a wide range "depending in large measure on assumptions about the possible extension of federal incentives." The...

Despite the news and pictures from NASA's Mars rover Curiosity, America's once great space program is on life support because we no longer have a serious manned space exploration program....And the Obama Administration's unimaginative and amateurish vision for space exploration -- even if successful -- will not revive the dying program. It merely follows the disturbing pattern of the Solyndra scandal, funneling tax dollars to Obama donors and fundraisers. [SNIP] ....SpaceX collects tax dollars so that it can learn how to build and develop something that other companies were doing a generation ago. It is curious that SpaceX is now...

HARRISBURG, Pa. — The Green Party has succeeded in getting its national ticket on the Pennsylvania ballot. State elections officials on Thursday approved the substitution of Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala as the party's presidential and vice presidential candidates. Stein is a Harvard-educated physician who ran against Mitt Romney for Massachusetts governor in 2002 and Honkala is a longtime citizen activist in Philadelphia. Officials approved the party's nomination petitions earlier this month, but paperwork confirming that Stein and Honkala are the candidates was not finalized until Thursday.

Breaking news: The Fishwrap of Record has finally discovered that the Obama administration gives its Chicago corporate pals special access to power and regulatory favoritism. On Thursday, The Not-So-New York Times published an A1 story titled "Ties to Obama Aided in Access for Big Utility." Everyone, put on your shocked faces! "With energy an increasingly pivotal issue for the Obama White House," the Times intoned, "a review of Exelon's relationship with the administration shows how familiarity has helped foster access at the upper reaches of government and how, in some cases, the outcome has been favorable for Exelon." You mean...

WASHINGTON – A veteran Wall Street executive who performed an independent review that exonerated the Obama administration's program of loans to energy companies contributed $52,500 to re-elect President Barack Obama in the months since completing his work,

The California sea otter, whose luscious coat was so coveted by fur traders that the species was nearly wiped out, is holding steady in its west coast sanctum despite a record number of deaths, including an alarming uptick in shark attacks. .... The number of bite wounds found on the otters, almost all of which appear to be from great white sharks, were perplexing to scientists considering that only 339 of the toothy predators were recently counted in local waters, far fewer than researchers expected. In addition to the increase in adult otters, there were also more otter pups in...

We Can’t Wait: Obama Administration Announces Seven Major Renewable Energy Infrastructure Projects that Would Power 1.5 million Homes to be Expedited WASHINGTON, DC – Today, as a part of his We Can’t Wait initiative, President Obama announced that seven nationally and regionally significant solar and wind energy projects will be expedited, including projects in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Wyoming. Together, these job-creating infrastructure projects would produce nearly 5,000 megawatts (MW) of clean energy – enough to power approximately 1.5 million homes, and support the President’s all-of-the-above strategy to expand American made energy. As a part of a Presidential Executive Order...

After the second of two mysterious fires in a Karma sedan, the government-backed electric car-maker Fisker has initiated a voluntary recall of its luxury vehicles. In a statement, Fisker spokesman Roger Ormisher said that Fisker engineers and an independent fire expert had "identified the root cause" of a fire that swept through a Karma parked outside a Woodside, California grocery store on August 10. "The investigation located the ignition source to the left front of the Karma, forward of the wheel, where the low-temperature cooling fan is located," said the statement. "The final conclusion was that this sealed component had...

NAPOLEON TWP., MI -- A man using a solder iron Monday afternoon to work on his vehicle accidentally caught the pole barn he was working in on fire, destroying it and its contents. Dick Atkins of Napoleon Township said he was working in a pole barn at his home on Cady Road on Monday trying to change a Buick into an electric vehicle. Capt. Nate Michael of the Napoleon Township Fire Department said Atkins told him the iron became hot in his hands, he threw it down and tried to kick it away. A fire started, and Atkins called 911....

Green energy firm sacks two-thirds of American workforce days after receiving $32 million government loan ust days after the Export-Import Bank approved a multi-million dollar federal loan guarantee to benefit a mostly foreign-based wind-energy outfit, the company pink-slipped more than 200 American workers. The Export-Import Bank, a federal agency that promotes and finances sales of U.S. exports to foreign buyers, approved a $32 million loan guarantee on Aug. 2 for a Brazilian firm to purchase wind turbines from LM Wind Power. According to its website, LM Wind Power is headquartered in Denmark. “Ex-Im Bank’s financing, which guarantees a Bank of...

Thanks to the ethanol mandate, more than 40 percent of the nation's corn crop now goes into the production of a useless fuel that hardly anyone would buy if the government didn't require it. That's up from just 17 percent in 2005, before the mandate went into effect. Only 36 percent of the corn crop now goes for feed, and 24 percent goes for food. Obama could solve this problem instantly by suspending the federal ethanol mandate -- something his EPA actually can do unilaterally and legally. Instead, Obama will buy up meat -- a move that meat producers say...

The Department of Energy announced the distribution of $43 million in funding for the development of energy storage technology that is “too risky for private-sector investment.” The Aug. 2 press release said the recipients were chosen through two programs of DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy – the Advanced Management and Protection of Energy Storage Devices (AMPED) and Small Business Innovation Research (STTR). “ARPA-E was launched in 2009 to seek out transformational, breakthrough technologies that are too risky for private-sector investment but have the potential to translate science into quantum leaps in energy technology, form the foundation for entirely new industries,...

Big business sees California's global-warming law as a job killer, a $1 billion tax that could force some of the state's heaviest industries to flee. ..state regulators, trying to ease the burden, are studying whether to give hardship breaks to dozens of companies. ....the state would dole out extra carbon credits – the precious allowances that will give industries the license to emit greenhouse gases starting in January.... could save companies millions of dollars. Like practically everything connected with..the Global Warming Solutions Act, the idea is controversial. ..."We're … concerned about the system being gamed," said Kathryn Phillips, director of...

This chapter looks at the Spanish company Abengoa that received more than $2.8 billion in loans and grants—making them the second largest recipient of the $16 billion doled out through the DOE 1705 loan guarantee program. From the introduction of this serialized book, the thumbnail says: Abengoa has two solar projects: Solana and Mojave Solar. Solana’s Fitch rating is BB+. Just before Christmas, 2010, the company received $1.45 billion from the DOE for a solar thermal plant, to use parabolic trough technology in Gila Bend, AZ. Mojave Solar’s rating was BB. Yet the company received $1.2 billion in September 2011...

Solyndra’s CEO labeled President Barack Obama’s administration “The Bank of Washington.” Chris Gronet offered the description in an internal email one year before the company collapsed in 2010, costing taxpayers roughly $500 million. “The Bank of Washington continues to help us!” he wrote in the October 2009 e-mail, which described several government programs and incentives. The email bolsters GOP claims that Obama’s support of green-tech companies amounted to “crony capitalism.” Several White House officials had close ties to green-tech companies, and many green-tech executives have donated to Obama’s political campaigns.

'Naturally', Obama's helping to pay for it The dangerous, unloved, taxpayer-subsidized debacle of a 'green' experiment known as the Chevy Volt is now being featured as the centerpiece of still more taxpayer-subsidized, anti-free-enterprise enviromento-social engineering: a low energy residential project touted as a new kind of 'Smart Community'. 'Pecan Street' is a project in Austin, Texas, and known unofficially as 'Chevy Volt Village' at GM and the US Energy Department, which now chipped-in $10.4M in taxpayer money in-addition to all the bailouts, grants, $7500-per-customer government retail subsidies and Soviet-style central-planning that made Government Motors' overpriced, plug-in-P.O.S. possible in the first place. GM is calling...

People who move to the country don't have a right to a quiet environment, according to the head of one of Michigan's major renewable energy advocacy groups. John Sarver, executive director of the Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association, made the statement in an email to colleagues in February 2011. It was one of numerous emails obtained through a Freedom Of Information Act request pertaining to wind turbine noise level issues in Michigan. The Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association supports the Michigan Energy, Michigan Jobs proposal, also called the 25/25 proposal. If passed, the proposal would require 25 percent of Michigan's...