Green Options

That’s right, the US government is “the single largest energy consumer in the U.S. economy.” In 2008 alone, it spent $24.5 billion on electricity and fuel.

This 28% reduction target Obama is ordering is equivalent to $8-11 billion in avoided energy costs. Additionally, it is far beyond the 17% reduction Obama has pledged to the international community for the US as whole, making the US government a leader by example on this issue.

Well, it has been a long time coming, but the US is finally putting some money into high-speed rail (HSR)!

Obama put a strong focus on this in his State of the Union speech last night — “From the first railroads to the interstate highway system, our nation has always been built to compete. There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains…. Tomorrow, I’ll visit Tampa, Florida, where workers will soon break ground on a new high-speed railroad funded by the Recovery Act. There are projects like that all across this country that will create jobs and help our nation move goods, services, and information.”

Now, the White House has just announced the 12 rail lines that will receive billions of dollars for HSR in the very near future. If these HSR projects come to fruition, the US may finally be level with Europe and China.

Will this be the start we need to transform our transportation system in the US?

FloDesign, an R&D start-up in the US that has created a wind turbine design based on jet engine technology, just secured $34.5 million to help begin commercial development of its turbines. Lars Andersen, former president of Vestas China, has also just been appointed as the company’s CEO.

FloDesign claims that its turbines are 3-4 times more efficient than traditional open-fan turbines. They have several other beneficial features as well that help economically, environmentally, and in other ways.

We know that dozens of billions of US dollars go to imported oil every month (nearly $1 billion a day). We know that some of that must go to unstable, unsafe countries.

A new report by the Center for American Progress titled “Oil Dependence is a Dangerous Habit” shows exactly how much oil we are getting from several such countries, and the results leave you wondering how safe we actually are and how serious we are about fighting terrorism and hostile political regimes.

The ironic thing to me, is that the companies so gung-ho about being patriotic and so critical of almost all clean energy efforts are the same companies who are giving so much money (see the graphs below) to these unstable countries.

Ten of the countries who we import a lot of oil from are also on the State Department’s Travel Warning list: Algeria, Chad, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.

Some leading importers may not be on the prestigious Travel Warning list, but show very anti-American foreign and energy policies as well.

Venezuela, one of our top five oil providers, is quite anti-American, if this Washington Post article is any indications of how the country thinks of us.

Transportation is one of the biggest parts of our lives, whether we think about it or not. How will 2010 help shape the future of transportation in the US? How should it do so?

And, more specifically, what is going on in government on this matter? With an expired (in September of 2009) and extended and extended and extended and extended (yes, four times) 6-year transportation bill, what is coming in 2010?

The following discussion goes into my own thoughts on some of the major issues with the help of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ (AASHTO’s) “Top Ten Transportation Topics” list and other stories.

4 million fewer vehicles. This is the first year there was such a large decline in automobile ownership since the US Department of Transportation (DOT) began modern recordkeeping in 1960.

How did this come about? What were the main causes?

A young American lady, Katie Spotz, has just started to row across the Atlantic Ocean on her own. Why? Katie, 22 years old, hopes to raise $30,000 for Blue Planet Run and give clean water to 1,000 people by doing this!

Katie just pushed off from Senegal yesterday and is on her way. She hopes to make the 2,500-mile journey in just over 100 days. The map above shows her progress up until now (updated every 20 minutes on her twitter page by Google Earth).

Apparently, she really will not see another human being for the entire trip (although she is sure to have bird visitors — her first one photographed in the picture below). She has not been rowing for long, but apparently she is not new to such adventures.

People in North Carolina and Virginia must have seen what’s going on in China with high-speed rail and decided they wanted some of that. They are now requesting over $5 billion in funding for high-speed rail.

Actually, as a former resident of both North Carolina and Virginia professionally and personally involved in this topic, I can say they have been working on this topic and wanting better rail for quite a long time.

Now, though, with the federal government pledging $8 billion in stimulus funding for high-speed rail, they may have their chance.

However, they are not the only ones who want this money!

A new climate bill proposal with bi-partisan and moderate-Democrat support changes a few critical features from previous proposals, but it still seems to keep to the aim. Supposedly, the (Cantwell-Collins) bill would achieve a 20% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2020 and an 83% reduction by 2050.

Not only that, but it would also give a monthly refund of about $100 to a family of four, refunding approximately 75% of all revenue to US residents.

Major power companies in Florida and New Mexico announced this week that they would start buying large amounts of energy from certain solar power producers soon.

In New Mexico, Southwestern Public Service Company (SPSC), a subsidiary of Xcel Energy, said that it would buy 50 MW of solar power from SunEdison. From the solar panels being installed on five 10-MW sites, the electricity generated will be able to power 10,000 homes.

In Florida, at practically the same time, Tampa Electric Company received approval from the Florida Public Service Commission to purchase solar power from Energy 5.0’s planned 25-MW plant in Polk County.

These solar power plants will be two of the biggest in the nation when completed. They are expected to offset carbon emissions by millions of tons.

To all of the people who had the goals and made the effort to bring positive change to the world in Copenhagen, here is one humungous thank you.

Everybody who worked on addressing this critical issue of human-accelerated and potentially catastrophic climate change deserves a hand of support right now, especially since what was agreed on in the final hour is quite a disappointment. Of course, some important movement was made, but some important targets and objectives were also completely missed, at least for now.

Everybody who made a sincere effort to protect the whole of humanity, countless species (perhaps 50% of those currently living), and a stable and supportive ecosystem, deserves a big thank you.

The results, some of which are summarized on the next page, may not match the great effort millions of people put in to bring positive climate change to the world (to reverse the current trends in greenhouse gas emissions and climate change). But for those who were struggling to bring a meaningful international agreement to the world, thank you.

For now, what have negotiators and world leaders achieved?