Green Options

Why did George Bush classify the spy satellite images of Barrow Alaska? What is making the ice up there melt? Why did Obama declassify these images? ENN (Earth Nightly News) has the story…

The question of possible repurposing of civil nuclear technology has been a talking point in US policy on Iran, and that question specifically has been a bone of contention in the triangular posturing between the US, Iran and Russia.

Last Wednesday, the Senate passed the Energy and Water Appropriations Bill (H.R. 3183), appropriating $34.3 billion in energy spending for FY2010. Although the bill made good on Obama’s campaign promise to shut down Nevada’s Yucca Mountain nuclear waste facility and funds numerous Army Corps of Engineers’ water initiatives, the bill is shockingly silent with regard to Obama’s energy education program RE-ENERGYSE.

A recent article by TIME’s Bryan Walsh also calls attention to Congress’s stinginess with Obama’s Energy Secretary, Steven Chu’s proposed “energy innovation hubs,” to which the House appropriated $35 million of $280 million he suggested. This allotment is enough to pay for one hub, not the eight R&D centers called for in Chu’s proposal.

Glenn Beck you are a national icon, man. Wait, no, I mean national con-man. And a racist?!? I’m shocked!

This week, I’m headed to Red Rocks in Colorado, for four nights of music from Phish, at what is arguably one of the greatest outdoor music venues in the United States. And I will, at some point or another, be thinking about the New Deal.

Unless you spent last week celebrating Apollo 11’s fortieth anniversary cut off from the world in your backyard model of the lunar module, you are no doubt familiar with the story of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s arrest two weeks ago, the “race in America” sturm and drang that surrounded the story last week, and the headline-grabbing role President Obama stumbled into at the end of his prime time presser.

Energy didn’t get a sniff in last night’s Obama press conference. That wasn’t really a surprise given the way that health care has elbowed its way into the political spotlight. You can count climate change among the “priorities” now in the shadows.

The $3 billion in grants are designed to temporarily replace the production tax credit that has been a critical factor in the growth of renewable energy capacity in U.S.

The U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced today that up to $32 million dollars of Recovery Act funding will be used to expand the harvest of hydroelectric power. “There’s no one solution to the energy crisis, but hydro-power is clearly part of the solution and represents a major opportunity to create more clean energy jobs,” said Secretary Chu.

There’s an organic garden on Barack Obama’s lawn. The First Family eats local, organic, and seasonal food.

So why did the President’s scientific advisory team for last fall’s election include Sharon Long, a former member of Monsanto’s board of directors?

And why did Obama recently appoint Barbara Schaal, a plant geneticist with connections to Monsanto, to his Science and Technology Advisory Council?

Three more car companies received sizeable loans from the federal government yesterday, but don’t worry; it’s not another bailout. In fact, the$8 billion is just the start of a larger $25 billion project called the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program (ATVM for short) that was thought up back in 2007 and funded by Congress in late 2008 during the Bush administration. The project, overseen by the Department of Energy, is a federal grant and loan initiative bent on providing [...]