Tag: China

Elusive Goal of Greening U.S. Energy

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE, Dec 2, 2009

The Great Green Hope for lifting America’s economy is not looking so robust.

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Growth in clean energy industries and in green jobs has been considerably slower and bumpier than anticipated, industry experts say.

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Last week, the Gamesa wind turbine plant in western Pennsylvania announced it was laying off nearly half its 280 workers. Last month, General Electric said it would close a solar panel factory in Delaware

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There are myriad reasons why green jobs have grown more slowly than hoped. The clean energy component of the $787 billion stimulus package has only recently started to kick in. Energy experts say that banks, which have been reluctant to lend generally, have been especially loath to lend for alternative energy projects.

And renewable-energy companies are hesitating to invest in new plants and equipment before Congress enacts new environmental mandates, like cap and trade, to limit carbon emissions.

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We’re diving deep into “geek world” today with a story that combines economic hardball, the periodic table of the elements, and a barely noticed provision of the Defense Authorization Act that seeks to break a monopoly which today gives China near-absolute control over the materials that make cell phones, electric cars, wind turbines, and pretty much every other tool of modern life possible.

If we successfully break the monopoly, we’ll be able to create millions of new manufacturing jobs in this country-and if we don’t, somebody else owns the 21st Century.

Ironically, the global warming we’re trying to fight with new green technologies might be an ally in our efforts to make those very same green technologies happen.

There’s a revolution in industrial processing going on, rare earths are at the center of it all…and in today’s story, the revolution will be televised.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    World leaders representing nearly two-thirds of world economic output massively watered-down their public commitment to lowering greenhouse gasses last night, in what may be a grim portent for next month’s climate change talks in Copenhagen.

timesonline.co.uk

Bold text added by the diarist

    If a picture is worth a thousand words, this on should suffice in explaining the urgency of our species phlight to act NOW, not later, and not pragmatically.

    It is both ironic and sad that as climate change reform is watered down, the sea levels will rise even more.

    More sobering reality below the fold.

When a courageous speaker of truth emerges from the forest of lies that is modern media, the risk is ever present that censorship, suppression, or worse could occur. Sadly, that is the case today. Glenn Beck produced an episode of his program that continued his valiant search for communists burrowing into the woodwork of America like subversive termites eating away at the foundation of our national home. However, this episode has mysteriously disappeared. Fortunately, I have acquired a transcript (h/t Esquire) of the “Lost Episode” that reveals perhaps the most insidious enemy of freedom yet unveiled by Beck.

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“Climate change is happening now. It’s not just happening in the Arctic regions, but it’s beginning to show up in our own backyards.”

Americans are now seeing a changing climate across the country, according to Thomas Karl, director of the National Climatic Data Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and a principal author of “The United States Global Change Research Report“.

The question now is not if climate change will happen, but how much of a change do we want to allow and how quickly will those changes come?  “Our destiny is really in our hands,” Karl explained. “The size of those impacts is significantly smaller with appropriate controls.”