Tag: energy

A critical Republican campaign strategy is working when it comes to framing for the November election. Despite actual facts, media reporting increasingly reports that there is no difference of import between John McSame McCain and Barack Obama when it comes to the arenas of energy and Global Warming. Take David Kesterbaum’s NPR report yesterday.

If you are trying to figure out whom to vote for in the upcoming presidential race, the issue of climate change may not be much help. This is one area where both leading candidates for president do not have a lot to disagree about.

Shallow, misinformed, and misleading reporting is about the most polite way to describe Kestenbaum’s report which focuses solely on selected sound-bytes rather than the substance of the two candidates’ positions.

There are fundamental differences between McSame’s and Obama’s positions and fundamental differences about the prospects for the future between President McSame and President Obama.  Differences that Kesterbaum reporting will leave you ignorant about.

Before entering the ballot box, you deserve to know. You have the right to know. Actually, you have the responsibility to know candidates’ positions on the critical issues before us and before the US. And, a new tool has emerged for doing so on critical energy and environmental issues.

Candid Answers provides a path for voters (for citizens) to query quickly candidates on five critical issues: Global Warming; Renewable Energy; Nuclear Power; Public Transportation; and Automobile Fuel Efficiency.  And, these queries, if they are made, will lead to a public record for candidates across the nation.

The We campaign has a new ad that will start airing Monday during the Olympics and I wanted to bring it here.

There’s been a lot of pressure lately to open up protected areas for oil drilling.

But common sense says drilling is not the answer. Switching is.

Switching to 100% clean, renewable electricity within 10 years.

More, after the fold.

Looks like we may have a paradigm shift underway. This might be the greatest discovery since making fire.

Google: MIT professor Daniel Nocera and light up! The links are starting to multiply.

August 4, 2008 (Computerworld)  Researchers at MIT say they have made an energy storage breakthrough that could transform solar power from an alternative energy source to a mainstream source. The university is calling the solar project a major advancement in energy research.

Sunlight has the greatest potential of any power source to solve the world’s energy problems, Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and a researcher on the project, said in a statement. In one hour, enough sunlight strikes the Earth to provide the entire planet’s energy needs for one year.

…snip…

“This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind,” Barber said in a statement. “The importance of their discovery cannot be overstated since it opens up the door for developing new technologies for energy production, thus reducing our dependence for fossil fuels and addressing the global climate change problem.”

…snip…

Taking a page from photosynthesis in plant life, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera’s lab, came up with a process (see video) to use the energy from the sun to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases, according to a report from MIT. Later, when it’s needed, the gases can be combined inside a fuel cell. That reconnection creates carbon-free electricity that can be used to power an office building, a home or even an electric car – whether the sun is shining or not.

Nocera noted that the process uses natural materials, is inexpensive to conduct and is easy to set up. “That’s why I know this is going to work. It’s so easy to implement,” he said.

“This is the nirvana of what we’ve been talking about for years,” said Nocera. “Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now, we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon.”

It gets way better, too…

This is big.

Great news for all of us who seek a Blue/Green Alliance!  The Teamsters today left the ANWR coalition, a group in favor of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  Jim Hoffa has just announced that the Teamsters are pulling out of the coalition supporting drilling in ANWR and are shifting their support to efforts to build coalitions with green groups to create a sustainable energy economy around sources like solar, wind and geothermal.

“We are not going to drill our way out of the energy problems we are facing-not here and not in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,” Hoffa told labor and environmental activists at an Oakland, Calif., summit on good jobs and clean air. “We must find a long-term approach that breaks our dependence on foreign oil by investing in the development of alternate energy sources like solar, wind and geothermal power.”

Hoffa Rejects ‘Drilling Our Way Out’ of Energy Crisis, Demands Long-Term Policy Solutions

More, after the fold.

(also on dkos and other places)