Green Options

Steven Chu, US Energy Secretary, announced at the start of the Solar Decathlon on DC’s National Mall on Friday that the Department of Energy (DOE) would be dishing out an additional $87 million in new funding for the development and rapid deployment of solar energy technologies.

This money is being given to 47 projects in a range of sub-fields and sectors.

Last year, 300 folks across North America turned in their car keys for a month as part of the 2008 Zipcar Low-Car Diet. And, in addition to cutting congestion, they also walked 85% more, biked 136% more and decreased their miles driven by 71%. Pretty impressive, eh? Starting July 15, a new crop of participants from all Zipcar cities worldwide* will begin the 2009 Low-Car Diet: one full month of living [...]

Both “clean coal” and carbon trading are lies. They are huge scams perpetrated by massive energy companies that are choking our planet. Over twelve thousand students converged on Washington D.C. to demand an end to polluting coal plants, and that the United States start to lead the world in creating truly sustainable clean energy and green jobs. Students filled the halls of Congress, lobbying their elected officials to fight global warming and demanding an end to polluting coal.

On March 2, Bill McKibben and Wendell Berry are asking for large civil disobedience at the Capitol Power Plant in Washington D.C. Why, cuz Clean Coal sucks!

Over 2,000 people are expected to risk arrest. And the protest comes on the heels of the upcoming grassroots action — Powershift 2009 — which will bring 10,000 young people to the capitol for two days of training and lobbying.

Last week, Famous DC was the first to report on New York’s recently elected congressman Eric Massa’s poorly-conceived environmental publicity stunt.  Massa’s plan was to drive from his congressional district in New York to Washington DC in a hydrogen fuel-cell powered car.  In other words:  an efficient, leisurely, and environmentally responsible drive across 300 miles of the American Northeast.

“What,” you may be asking, ”could possibly go wrong?”

Plenty.

More on why we should never, Never, NEVER elect public officials who are bad at math after the jump.

Global warming concerns, government policies, and money-saving efficiency benefits have spurred clean energy systems to spring up all over the world. But a giant wind farm in the middle-of-nowhere North Dakota doesn’t do much good if there aren’t transmission lines to connect the power with the more populated areas that need it.

Europeans are facing similar distribution and reliability issues with their burgeoning renewable energy growth, and some see a continent-wide grid as

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