EERE News

	A weekly newsletter from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). The EERE Network News is also available on the Web at: www.eere.energy.gov/news/enn.cfm May 16, 2007 News and Events President Bush Acts to Cut GHG Emissions from Vehicles and Engines DOE Awards $11.2 Million for Hydrogen Research DOE Issues Proposed Rules for Clean Energy Loan Guarantees IBM Launches a Billion-Dollar Efficiency Effort for Data Centers New Hampshire Enacts a Renewable Requirement with Solar Set-Asides Texas to Provide Two-Thirds of U.S. Wind Growth this Year Energy Connections Thirty-One States and One Tribe Join New Climate Registry
	News and Events President Bush Acts to Cut GHG Emissions from Vehicles and Engines President Bush announced the new policy in the Rose Garden, flanked by (left to right) Energy Deputy Secretary Clay Sell, Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, and Agricultural Secretary Mike Johanns. Credit: Joyce Boghosian, White House President Bush on Monday directed DOE, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the U.S. Department of Transportation to take the first steps toward regulations that would cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from motor vehicles. The President issued an executive order setting a new policy for the three agencies to work together to protect the environment from GHGs emitted by engines and to do so in a manner consistent with sound science, public safety, economic growth, and an analysis of costs and benefits. The order directs the three federal agencies to prepare regulations for motor vehicles, non-road vehicles, and non-road engines that achieve this policy to the maximum extent permitted by law and considered practical by the three agencies. The order also directs the agencies to consult with the Secretary of Agriculture whenever a regulatory action will have a significant effect on crops related to the production of renewable fuels, such as ethanol or biodiesel. See the executive order. In announcing the new policy, President Bush said it was spurred by a Supreme Court ruling that the EPA must take action under the Clean Air Act to regulate GHG emissions from motor vehicles. In a meeting with leaders from the four agencies, the President asked the agencies to start with his "20-in-10" goal of reducing gasoline use by 20 percent over the next 10 years. President Bush set the end of 2008 as a deadline for the new regulations, and also called on Congress to support the regulations with appropriate legislation. See the President's statement and a related fact sheet. DOE Awards $11.2 Million for Hydrogen Research DOE announced on Tuesday its selection of 13 projects to be awarded $11.2 million for research in hydrogen production, storage, and conversion technologies. Seven of the projects will focus on novel materials for hydrogen storage, including complex metal hydrides and nanostructured materials, which have structural features on the scale of a billionth of a meter, or nanometer. The remaining six projects are aimed at developing nanoscale catalysts for hydrogen storage; hydrogen production from water, biomass, or coal; and the conversion of hydrogen to electricity in fuel cells. The awardees include nine universities and four of DOE's national laboratories: Argonne, Brookhaven, Oak Ridge, and Pacific Northwest. DOE's Office of Science selected the new projects through a merit-reviewed, competitive solicitation process and plans to fund additional projects in fiscal year 2008. See the DOE press release and the DOE Hydrogen Program Web site. DOE Issues Proposed Rules for Clean Energy Loan Guarantees DOE issued proposed rules last week for its Loan Guarantee program, which will help spur investment in projects that employ new, clean energy technologies. By providing the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, loan guarantees will enable DOE to share some of the financial risks of projects that employ new technologies and that avoid, reduce, or sequester air pollutants and greenhouse gases. Projects must employ new or significantly improved technologies as compared to commercial technologies in service in the United States at the time the loan guarantee agreement is executed. Under the Fiscal Year (FY) 2007 Continuing Resolution, Congress provided DOE with authority to issue guarantees for up to $4 billion in loans. DOE seeks a broad portfolio of large and small projects from a wide variety of technologies. DOE requested guarantees for up to $9 billion in loans in its FY 2008 budget request, including $4 billion in loans for projects that promote biofuels and clean transportation fuels and $1 billion in loans for projects using new technologies for electric transmission facilities or renewable power generation systems. Projects seeking loan guarantees will undergo the disciplined and rigorous reviews necessary to take proper account of the potential risks of a project. Ultimately, the issuance of the loan guarantees will depend on the merits and benefits of particular project proposals and their compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements. The DOE's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) will be open to public comment for 45 days once it is published in the Federal Register. See the DOE press release and the NOPR (PDF 1.8 MB). Download Adobe Reader. IBM Launches a Billion-Dollar Efficiency Effort for Data Centers IBM is devoting significant resources toward cutting energy use in data centers, the workhorses of the Internet. IBM announced last week that it is redirecting $1 billion per year across its businesses in an effort to dramatically increase the level of energy efficiency in information technologies. Big Blue's "Project Big Green" targets corporate data centers and includes a global "green team" of more than 850 architects of energy efficiency from across the company. According to IBM, an average 25,000-square-foot data center should be able to achieve a 42 percent energy savings. IBM currently runs data centers on six continents that encompass more than eight million square feet of floor space. Within the next three years, IBM expects to double the computing capacity of its data centers without increasing their power consumption. See the IBM press release. IBM also presented a dramatic example of what it can achieve in a company's data centers. The company is working with the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) to consolidate nearly 300 Unix servers onto 6 IBM servers, cutting energy use by 80 percent while boosting the utilization of the servers by a factor of eight. PG&E will install water cooling systems on the servers to reduce the need for air conditioning in the data centers. IBM is offering financing to help data center owners make such a transition and is also offering to help dispose of old servers. See the IBM press releases on the PG&E effort and IBM's data center upgrading services. While aiming to cut energy use at large-scale data centers, IBM is also working to improve energy efficiency at the much smaller scale of computer chips. In early May, the company announced the first-ever application of self-assembling nanotechnology to the manufacture of computer chips. The technique surrounds the chip's copper wires with insulating pockets of vacuum just 20 nanometers, or billionths of a meter, in diameter. The manufacturing process involves pouring a mix of chemicals onto a silicon wafer with the wired chip pattern on it, baking it, and then removing the carbon silicate glass to leave behind the nanoscale vacuum pockets. The vacuum insulation allows the chips to consume 15 percent less energy than conventional computer chips. IBM has pioneered the process at its manufacturing line in East Fishkill, New York, and plans to fully incorporate it in IBM's chips in 2009. See the IBM press release. New Hampshire Enacts a Renewable Requirement with Solar Set-Asides New Hampshire Governor John Lynch signed the Renewable Energy Act into law last week, thereby establishing a minimum requirement for new renewable power generation in the state. The new law requires electric utilities to draw on solar power for 0.3 percent of their electricity needs by 2014 and to draw on other new renewable energy facilities for 6 percent of their electricity needs in 2015, increasing to 16 percent of their power needs by 2025. To meet the requirement, the utilities can buy renewable energy credits from facilities using wind power, geothermal power, ocean energy, biomass, methane gas, and any solar power in excess of the 0.3 percent solar power requirement. Incremental capacity additions to or significant refurbishments of existing hydropower and biomass facilities can also be included, as can offsets from the use of solar water heating to displace electric water heating. The law also requires utilities to draw on existing renewable facilities for 7.5 percent of their electrical supply, but the state already generates 20 percent of its retail electricity supply from hydropower, landfill gas, and biomass power plants. See the governor's press release and the full text of the act. A number of other states are also taking action relating to clean energy. On April 9th, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson signed a bill requiring 5 percent biodiesel in all diesel fuel sold in the state by 2012, as well as a bill creating a number of clean energy tax credits. In mid-April, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter issued an executive order to cut energy consumption by 20 percent in state facilities by 2012, while also renaming the Office of Energy Management and Conservation as the Governor's Energy Office. In late April, North Dakota Governor John Hoeven signed a number of bills that completed his $42 million renewable energy plan, which emphasizes biomass and biofuels but also includes incentives for wind, solar, and geothermal energy technologies and grants for a wide range of energy technologies. On May 3rd, Washington Governor Christine Gregoire signed a bill to cut the state's greenhouse gas emissions and signed several bills to encourage the use of biofuels. On May 4th, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels signed an ethanol production tax credit bill, House Enrolled Act 1722, while Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty signed an omnibus bill that includes $1.4 million for biofuels and biomass research. See the press releases from Governor Richardson (PDF 26 KB), Governor Ritter, Governor Hoeven, Governor Gregoire, and Governor Pawlenty, as well as Indiana Act 1722. Download Adobe Reader. Texas to Provide Two-Thirds of U.S. Wind Growth this Year The installed wind power capacity in the United States is on track to increase by more than 3,000 megawatts (MW) this year, with two-thirds of that growth occurring in Texas, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). The trade group's first-quarter market report, released last week, notes that new wind projects in Hawaii, Maine, Oklahoma, and Texas have already added more than 100 MW of new wind power thus far this year. More than 1,000 MW of new wind capacity are under construction in Texas, including a 240.8-MW addition to the Sweetwater wind plant, a 232.5-MW addition to the Buffalo Gap wind plant, and the 200-MW Lone Star wind plant. Each megawatt of wind capacity will produce enough electricity over the course of a year to equal the power needs of 250 to 300 average U.S. homes. See the AWEA press release.
	Energy Connections Thirty-One States and One Tribe Join New Climate Registry A total of 31 states and one tribe have joined The Climate Registry, a newly launched effort to measure, track, verify, and publicly report greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The new Registry will support voluntary, market-based, and regulatory GHG emissions reporting programs and provides consistency and transparency across borders and throughout all sectors of the economy. With many states taking actions to cut GHG emissions, the Registry will help to identify whether one state's actions are actually resulting in increased GHG emissions in neighboring states. The initial participants in the Registry include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and the Campo Kumeyaay Nation, which is located in southern California. See the press release, a map of participating states, and other information on The Climate Registry Web site. Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department is offering a nation-level perspective by releasing a draft of the Fourth Climate Action Report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The report shows that the country is on track to achieve President Bush's goal of reducing greenhouse gas intensity (the amount of GHG emissions per unit of gross domestic product) by 18 percent from 2002 to 2012. Over that same period, actual GHG emissions are projected to increase by 11 percent. The report estimates that in 2004, U.S. GHG emissions were at 7,074.4 teragrams of carbon dioxide equivalent, an increase of 15.8 percent from 1990 levels. By 2012, GHG emissions are projected to increase to more than 7,709 teragrams of carbon dioxide equivalent, which will be 26 percent above 1990 levels. The State Department is accepting public comments on the draft report until noon on Friday, May 18th. See the State Department press release and the draft report.
	This newsletter is funded by DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) and is also available on the EERE Web site. You can subscribe to the EERE Network News using our simple online form

EcoRide Bike-a-thon The Ecology Center's annual EcoRide bike-a-thon is June 24 at Hudson Mills Metropark. Join us for a family-friendly fundraiser with food, music, prizes, and more. Choose from 3.5, 10, 25, 50, and 100 mile routes. You can now register and collect pledges for the EcoRide online! Create your own fundraising webpage Email your friends for support Track your fundraising progress Start a team Earn an extra raffle ticket by registering online Check us out online For details, visit: http://www.gifttool.com/athon/AthonDetails?ID=1267&AID=75 To Register Now: https://www.gifttool.com/athon/SignUpMode?ID=1267&AID=75 To sponsor a rider: https://www.gifttool.com/athon/SearchParticipants?ID=1267&AID=75

The Ecology Center works for a safe and healthy environment where people live, work, and play. Help the Ecology Center continue protecting your health: http://www.ecocenter.org/actionmembership.shtml

Job posting: Environmental Assistance Coordinator -- WI DNR

Posted on behalf of Mark McDermid at Wisconsin DNR. Please direct all questions to Mark.McDermid@Wisconsin.gov.

Laura B.

ENVIRONMENTAL ASSISTANCE COORDINATOR
STATEWIDE

HIRING ORGANIZATION: Department of Natural Resources (DNR); First Vacancy: Part-Time; Division of Air and Waste; Bureau of Cooperative Environmental Assistance; Madison. The employment register established from this recruitment may be used to fill other full and part-time vacancies which may occur during the next 6-12 months statewide.

SALARY: Starting pay is between $25.358 and $27.802 per hour depending on training and experience, plus excellent benefits. A six-month permissive probation is required. Environmental Assistance Coordinators are in pay range 03 and pay schedule 07. A criminal background check may be conducted on applicants prior to selection.

JOB DUTIES: Plan, consult and research activities designed to promote the state’s economic growth while fostering environmental protection. This is a highly trained specialist in a particular business sector and is viewed as the state’s expert on matters affecting that sector. Work is performed independently in that their assistance and proposals are regarded as expert. Work is subject to review by others in the profession, and superiors in the department, on overall policy and economic and environmental points of view. Provide consultation to department supervisors, the governor, legislators, and business and local leaders. Planning projects are broad in that they affect industries on a statewide basis, or broad industrial groupings on a regional basis. Determine initiatives, areas of research and assistance. Make recommendations based upon reports or analyses which are in-depth studies of a problem. Promote and develop partnerships and other state-of-the-art non-regulatory approaches to the environmental performance, working both within and outside of the department.

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS: Business and management principles and practices; skill to evaluate local, regional, state and national economic and environmental trends combined with the skill to develop projects to respond to these trends; skill to analyze economic and environmental factors as they relate design decisions, business operations and administrative requirements; skill to effectively meet with business representatives and demonstrate the benefits of process and systems changes; skill to communicate with the public, including differentiation of technical terms from lay terms; problem solving skills, including defining the problem and developing strategies for decision making.

APPLICATION INFORMATION: If you wish to apply for this position you will be required to complete an online exam. Your responses are considered an examination and will be used to determine the eligibility for this vacancy. Applying is a 6 step process.

Step 1: Create an account or enable your existing account if you have applied for State jobs in the past (If you already have an account you should log in to the system and skip to Step 2). Search for Job Announcement 0700941and go into the announcement.

Step 2: Preview and print the exam now, prepare your responses to the exam, and then return to apply after your responses have been prepared.

Step 3: Search for and open the job announcement. Click on the “Apply Now” button at the top or bottom of the screen. Review the information in the “My Job Application”, make any necessary updates and click on “Submit Personal Information.”

Step 4: Complete the information on the Employment Information and Preferences screen. This must be completed to apply for this recruitment. Once complete click the “Update Employment Preferences”.

Step 5: At the “Application Detail” screen click on the “View Exam Option” button, and then the “Take Exam” button on the next screen.

Step 6: When you have completed the exam click the “Save and Finalize” button. At the next screen click “Finalize”. NOTE: If you do not click Save and Continue or Save and Finalize within 20 minutes, WiscJobs will time out and your answers will be lost. We encourage you to prepare your answers in a Word document and then copy and paste. This will speed up your time in the exam and prevent lost answers.

The deadline to apply is Friday, May 18, 2007. If you have any questions or are having any problems with the exam, please call Curt Awve at (608) 266-8120. Application materials will be evaluated and those qualified will be invited to participate in the next step of the selection process.

---
Laura L. Barnes, Librarian (v) (217) 333-8957
Illinois Waste Management & Research Center (f) (217) 333-8944
One East Hazelwood Drive, Champaign IL 61820 e-mail:lbarnes@wmrc.uiuc.edu
Visit us on the web at http://www.wmrc.uiuc.edu/library/* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * roundtable is hosted by the Great Lakes Information Network: http://www.great-lakes.net To unsubscribe from this list: send mail to majordomo@great-lakes.net with the command 'unsubscribe roundtable' in the body of your message. No quotes or subject line are required. About : http://www.great-lakes.net/lists/roundtable/roundtable.info This list is managed by the Great Lakes Regional Pollution Prevention Roundtable (http://www.glrppr.org), part of the P2Rx national network of regional P2 information centers (http://www.p2rx.org ). * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I recently ran across the idea of Urban Farming - see http://www.urbanfarming.org - and here is what I wrote for their newsletter:

I am mainly concerned with Gary, Indiana here. Chicago is already doing many rooftop gardens and urban farming would be a natural there. Mayor daley is pushing to make Chicago the greenest city anywhere if he can.

Gary, however, has been devastated with the loss of the steel mills and heavy industry and still hasn't recovered at all. Property prices are depressed in the area and have remained so even through the recent real estate pressure cooker in the rest of the nation. Gary's youth are facing extreme difficulty finding decent jobs close to home, and so are working age adults in Gary.

Urban farming could actually transform Gary's whole economy if it really caught on there. It would be operating in a near-vacuum with a lot of out of work people with nothing better to do having time on their hands and probably a lot of unused urban/suburban space to work with.
I think if your organization could make a successful visionary pitch to the city government in Gary, it could be a real win-win-win situation for the local politicos, the urban farming movement as a whole, and most of all, for the residents of Gary.

I was reading about urban farming in E - The Environmental Magazine, and reading about Gary in the Chicago Tribune. Suddenly a picture of a revitalized post-industrial city with a flourishing URBAN & SUBURBAN agrarian economy struck me as quite possible. Especially considering that Gary is in close proximity to Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Indianapolis, and Madison, WI. (Madison is extremely progressive with lots of farmers' markets and community garden plots, this would hit there very well also.)

This has real possibilities - I am going to post it on my blog. the Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy & Hydrogen Journal at http://www.whizzyrds.com/Windblog.html -

I really hope your organization can take this idea and give it a little bit of push some how.

Dan Stafford

Ok, I just moved all my blogs over to the new Blogger system, let's see how this goes....

It seems there's never enough of me to go around - sometimes I am thinner than paper but I am also losing weight - on purpose, which is a good thing. At some point I will pick this up regularly again, but right now the universe has me picking up pieces so I can build a better puzzle. I expect to be back in a few months, stronger and hopefully wiser. Meanwhile, check out the latest on the new world-wide science panel report on global warming. What a house of cards we've all built, hmm?

Dan

  Report has 'smoking gun' on climate

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer Mon Jan 22, 8:50 PM ET

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070123/ap_on_sc/warming_climate_report

WASHINGTON - Human-caused global warming is here -- visible in the air,
water and melting ice -- and is destined to get much worse in the
future, an authoritative global scientific report will warn next week.

"The smoking gun is definitely lying on the table as we speak," said top
U.S. climate scientist Jerry Mahlman, who reviewed all 1,600 pages of
the first segment of a giant four-part report. "The evidence ... is
compelling."

* Andrew Weaver, a Canadian climate scientist and study co-author, went 
even further: "This isn't a smoking gun; climate is a batallion of 
intergalactic smoking missiles." *

The first phase of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is
being released in Paris next week. This segment, written by more than
600 scientists and reviewed by another 600 experts and edited by
bureaucrats from 154 countries, includes "a significantly expanded
discussion of observation on the climate," said co-chair Susan Solomon,
a senior scientist for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration. She and other scientists held a telephone briefing on
the report Monday.

That report will feature an "explosion of new data" on observations of
current global warming, Solomon said.

Solomon and others wouldn't go into specifics about what the report
says. They said that the 12-page summary for policymakers will be edited
in secret word-by-word by governments officials for several days next
week and released to the public on Feb. 2. The rest of that first report
from scientists will come out months later.

The full report will be issued in four phases over the year, as was the
case with the last IPCC report, issued in 2001.

Global warming is "happening now, it's very obvious," said Mahlman, a
former director of NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab who lives in
Boulder, Colo. "When you look at the temperature of the Earth, it's
pretty much a no-brainer."

Look for an "iconic statement" -- a simple but strong and unequivocal
summary -- on how global warming is now occurring, said one of the
authors, Kevin Trenberth, director of climate analysis at the National
Center for Atmospheric Research, also in Boulder.

The February report will have "much stronger evidence now of human
actions on the change in climate that's taken place," Rajendra K.
Pachauri told the AP in November. Pachauri, an Indian climatologist, is
the head of the international climate change panel.

An early version of the ever-changing draft report said "observations of
coherent warming in the global atmosphere, in the ocean, and in snow and
ice now provide stronger joint evidence of warming."

And the early draft adds: "An increasing body of evidence suggests a
discernible human influence on other aspects of climate including sea
ice, heat waves and other extremes, circulation, storm tracks and
precipitation."

The world's global average temperature has risen about 1.2 degrees
Fahrenheit from 1901 to 2005. The two warmest years on record for the
world were 2005 and 1998. Last year was the hottest year on record for
the United States.

The report will draw on already published peer-review science. Some
recent scientific studies show that temperatures are the hottest in
thousands of years, especially during the last 30 years; ice sheets in
Greenland in the past couple years have shown a dramatic melting; and
sea levels are rising and doing so at a faster rate in the past decade.

Also, the second part of the international climate panel's report -- to
be released in April -- will for the first time feature a blockbuster
chapter on how global warming is already changing health, species,
engineering and food production, said

NASA  scientist
Cynthia Rosenzweig, author of that chapter.

As confident as scientists are about the global warming effects that
they've already documented, they are as gloomy about the future and even
hotter weather and higher sea level rises. Predictions for the future of
global warming in the report are based on 19 computer models, about
twice as many as in the past, Solomon said.

In 2001, the panel said the world's average temperature would increase
somewhere between 2.5 and 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit and the sea level
would rise between 4 and 35 inches by the year 2100. The 2007 report
will likely have a smaller range of numbers for both predictions,
Pachauri and other scientists said.

The future is bleak, scientists said.

"We have barely started down this path," said chapter co-author Richard
Alley of Penn State University.

___

AP Special Correspondent Charles J. Hanley contributed to this report.

___

On the Net:

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: http://www.ipcc.ch/

**Breaking News**
Ten Major U.S. Companies Join Environmental Defense and Others to Endorse Mandatory Limits on America's Global Warming Pollution.
Watch press conference live this morning on CSPAN at 11:30am Eastern.

Dear Daniel,

Major U.S. businesses support national global warming action.

Read more.

I want to share with you some exciting and truly historic news on our campaign to stop global warming.

This morning, ten major U.S. businesses and four national environmental organizations issued a joint report, A Call to Action (pdf file), calling on the federal government to quickly pass strong national legislation to cut global warming pollution.

You can watch the press conference live this morning on CSPAN at 11:30am Eastern. You will also be able to watch it online at CSPAN.org.

The companies involved in today's announcement are well-known Fortune 500 corporations: Alcoa, BP America, Caterpillar, Duke Energy, DuPont, Florida Power and Light, General Electric, Lehman Brothers, Pacific Gas & Electric, and PNM Resources.

They have joined Environmental Defense, the World Resources Institute, Pew Center on Global Climate Change, and Natural Resources Defense Council to form an unprecedented alliance — the United States Climate Action Partnership (US-CAP).

In today's announcement, the partners pledged to work together to support six recommendations for national action:

1. Account for the global dimensions of climate change – the U.S. government should become more involved in international agreements to fight global warming;
2. Recognize the importance of technology – the cost-effective deployment of existing energy efficient technologies should be a priority;
3. Be environmentally effective – establish a mandatory cap that guarantees emissions will be cut and other measures to facilitate reaching the needed targets;
4. Create economic opportunity and advantage – a climate protection program must use the power of the market to establish clear targets and timeframes;
5. Be fair – global warming solutions must account for the disproportionate impact of both global warming and emissions reductions on some economic sectors, geographic regions, and income groups; and
6. Encourage early action – prior to the effective date of mandatory pollution limits, every reasonable effort should be made to reduce emissions.

This unique cooperation of business and environmental leaders sends a clear signal to Congress: legislative action to cut America's global warming pollution is urgently needed.

Environmental Defense is thrilled to have played a role in building this unprecedented partnership and will look to take full advantage of the added momentum this brings to our efforts to pass meaningful global warming legislation this year.

For more on this announcement, go to our website.

Our work to fight global warming is made possible through the support of our dedicated members and online activists. I cannot thank you enough for your tremendous support.

I look forward to working with you as the 110th Congress begins to debate global warming and moves to enact the mandatory caps we need to cut emissions. This will be the test of this Congress on the top environmental priority of our generation.

Sincerely,

Fred Krupp
President

---

New Warnings on Climate Change
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/20/world/20climate.html?em&ex=1169614800&en=8d1b5ef00f2da641&ei=5087%0A

"The language is far from final," said Kevin E. Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who is a lead author of one section. "You can't say what the I.P.C.C. says until it actually says it."

"Jerry Mahlman, an emeritus researcher at the same center who was a reviewer of the report's single-spaced, 1,644-page summary of climate science, said that most of the leaks were from people eager to find elements that were the scariest or most reassuring."

MIT designs 'invisible,' floating wind turbines
Professor schooled in oil exploration structures has designed a platform to hold turbines dozens of miles offshore.
Image: Envisioning a floating turbine

Mon Sep 18 15:56:00 PDT 2006 | Read full story

Tuesday, September 5, 2006
News of Note David Grey, the World Bank's water resources chief, warns that opposition to dams keeps poor nations poor and should be reevaluated. Read more here. Today's News Scientists Map Canyon Below Atlantic A four-year study using high-tech tools has produced maps of the Hudson Canyon that will allow scientists to study many things, including whether methane gas trapped in frozen sediment below the sea floor is escaping and exacerbating global warming. Soaring Natural Gas Prices Spur Widespread Drilling Companies have been drilling natural gas wells at historic rates across much of the Appalachian Basin, an area that includes swathes of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia. 'Chameleon' Schwarzenegger Shows Green in Campaign Last week, the Republican Schwarzenegger was decidedly "green," like the color of his campaign bus, as he struck a deal with the state legislature's Democratic majority to enact a law making California the first U.S. state to cap greenhouse-gas emissions. Author Sees Science, Religion Saving Environment Scientist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author E.O. Wilson is out to save life on Earth -- literally -- and as a secular humanist has decided to enlist people of religious faith in his mission. SKorea, Japan Begin Final Day of Talks on Maritime Borders South Korea and Japan began a final day of talks Tuesday on demarcating their maritime boundaries around islets at the center of a territorial dispute, amid dimming prospects for a breakthrough. Dutch Greenhouse Gas Emissions Now at 1990 Levels Greenhouse gas emissions in the Netherlands fell by around 2 percent in 2005 from a year earlier and were at approximately the same level they were in 1990, a government agency said Monday. >>>More articles at ENN.com Network Member News CCOF Appoints Certification Services Director By: California Certified Organic Farmers CCOF announces that Jake Lewin is the new Certification Services Director effective September 1, 2006. Lewin was hired for this position following an industry-wide search. He has been serving as Interim Certification Services Director since July of this year. National Wetlands Dialogue: Making Sense of Rapanos v. United States By: Environmental Law Institute Given the U.S. Supreme Court's recent failure in Rapanos v. United States to carve out a definitive rule on what constitutes jurisdictional wetlands, the current edition of the National Wetlands Newsletter® (September/October 2006) offers much-needed insight and analysis on the decision. This particular issue should prove quite valuable to environmental practitioners as they eagerly await guidance on the matter from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Latest research findings at UC Exotic/Invasive Pests and Diseases Research Workshop By: UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program Find out about the latest research on exotic invaders by joining the University of California Exotic/Invasive Pests and Diseases Research Program (EPDRP) Workshop, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Oct. 3, at UC Riverside, Riverside Extension Center, Room E. Island Ferries Take on Role of Research Vessels Collecting Data about Nantucket Sound By: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) biologist Scott Gallager and colleagues have installed a package of sensors on the 235-foot freight ferry Katama to measure water quality and to photograph plankton as the ferry crisscrosses the western side of Nantucket Sound year-round, several times daily. San Diego Declaration : Scientists Say Global Warming Limits Ability To Manage Wildland Fire By: Association for Fire Ecology Changes in climate will limit humans’ ability to manage wildland fire and apply prescribed fire across the landscape, according to the “San Diego Declaration on Climate Change and Fire Management,” released today by the Association for Fire Ecology, the world’s largest assembly of fire ecologists. Methods Enable Hawaii-based Longline Swordfish Fishery to Minimize Sea Turtle Interactions By: Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council Action is urgently needed to prevent the loss of leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles from the Pacific Ocean. Reducing bycatch of sea turtles in pelagic longline fisheries, in parallel with activities to reduce other anthropogenic mortality sources, may contribute to their recovery. Hurricane Damages Soar To New Levels By: Earth Policy Institute Damage from hurricanes is soaring off the charts, bankrupting insurance companies and depriving property owners of insurance in high-risk areas, reports Janet Larsen, Director of Research at Earth Policy Institute. During the 1960s, worldwide damage from windstorms with economic losses of $1 billion or more totaled just $4 billion. In the 1970s, the figure rose to $7 billion, and in the 1980s it topped $24 billion. Next came the 1990s, when losses from the 29 billion-dollar-plus storms soared to $113 billion. Between 2000 to 2005 hurricanes left a staggering bill of $273 billion. Woolly Bully is Sticky Nuisance: Find Out How to Control the Pest By: UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program Researchers have found a way for growers and homeowners to save money and time by knowing when and how much insecticide to apply to control the Asian hackberry woolly aphid. Conservation Groups Challenge Agency’s Refusal To Protect Recently Discovered Salamander By: Center for Biological Diversity A coalition of conservation groups filed suit in California state court on Thursday, challenging the Department of Fish and Game's (DFG's) failure to protect the recently discovered Scott Bar Salamander under California's endangered species law. Rather than herald the new species - a rare subset of a threatened species - DFG stripped the salamanders of protection, subjecting them to the immediate threat from logging operations. The Trust for Public Land Honored for Exceptional Work Using GIS Technology By: the Trust for Public Land This July The Trust for Public Land (TPL, www.tpl.org) was announced as a recipient of a 2006 "Special Achievement in GIS" Award for its outstanding use of geographic information system (GIS) technology. ESRI, the world leader in GIS software, presented the award at the Twenty-sixth Annual ESRI International User Conference in San Diego, California, before thousands of GIS professionals. Editor's Note : 'Network News' features press releases submitted directly by organizations in ENN's member network. This content is not specifically endorsed or supported by ENN and is not subject to ENN's editorial process.	CLICK HERE to sign online petitions that help the planet!
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Great Lakes Daily News: 05 September 2006
A collaborative project of the Great Lakes Information Network and the Great
Lakes Radio Consortium.

For links to these stories and more, visit http://www.great-lakes.net/news/


EPA rule raises pollution risk to waterways, critics say
----------------------------------------
A new rule permitting the transfer of water from one natural body of water to
another without a permit could result in more pollution in Wisconsin streams
and lakes. Source: Green Bay Press-Gazette (9/5)


Nearly 20 years later, Indiana marsh returns to life
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A 500-acre marsh has started to look like its former self after nearly 20 years
of work to restore the wetland amid the sand dunes near Lake Michigan. Source:
The Ft. Wayne News-Sentinel (9/5)


EDITORIAL: A new plan for the islands
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A new long-term management plan is being written to care for the Apostle Islands
National Lakeshore over the next 15 to 20 years, and visitors can let the park
service know what they think. Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (9/5)


Wetlands to slow or grow global warming?
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In northern Minnesota, a researcher says wetlands like bogs could be key to how
fast the climate changes worldwide. Source: Great Lakes Radio Consortium (9/4)


A mirage called Lake Michigan
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Lake Michigan might appear to be an ideal solution for all water shortage
problems, but money and geology can throw cold water on the dream. Source:
Arlington Heights Daily Herald (9/4)


Trees under the influence of ozone and CO2
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In northern Wisconsin, they're finding that gasses such as carbon dioxide and
ozone will change the makeup of what survives in a future forest. Source: Great
Lakes Radio Consortium (9/4)


Wreck hunter seeks home for remnants of Titanic of its day
----------------------------------------
The shipwreck hunter who poured more than $200,000 and 20 years into locating
the luxury steamer Lady Elgin now finds himself in another battle: to win over
museums that aren't interested in a ship unless it is named Titanic. Source:
Chicago Tribune (9/3)


Great Lakes drain away
----------------------------------------
A decade of warm winters with sporadic snowfall has failed to refill the
snow-dependent Great Lakes, with falling water levels bringing the top ever
closer to the bottom in Lakes Michigan and Huron. Source: Chicago Tribune (9/3)


Wisconsin DNR: Eurasian water milfoil is found in Superior Bay
----------------------------------------
Eurasian water milfoil, a water weed that chokes out native plants and can clog
shallow areas, has been found in Superior Bay, the Wisconsin Department of
Natural Resources said. Source: Duluth News Tribune (9/2)


$50 Million Project
----------------------------------------
A small crowd of boaters gathered Friday along both sides of the Ashtabula River
to watch work crews unload a dredge into the water - - a major first step in
the three-year, $50 million project. Source: The Ashtabula Star Beacon (9/2)


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	A weekly newsletter from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). The EERE Network News is also available on the Web at: www.eere.energy.gov/news/enn.cfm September 06, 2006 News and Events New York Law Prohibits Shutout of Alternative Fuels First Residence Awarded Platinum LEED Rating USDA Awards $17.5 Million for Rural Development Biofuel Companies Use Alternative Energy for Production and Delivery Pennsylvania and Ski Resorts Commit to Renewable Energy DOE Conducts Energy Assessments in Texas and Indiana Energy Connections Utility Survey Says Shopkeepers Are Energy Hogs
	News and Events New York Law Prohibits Shutout of Alternative Fuels A new law in New York will make alternative fuels such as biodiesel and E85 (a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline) more readily available to consumers. New York Governor George Pataki on July 31st signed a law prohibiting the "exclusivity" contracts between fuel distributors and gas stations. These contracts limit service stations from purchasing or selling fuels from sources other than the main distributor. Because most major petroleum fuel distributors do not sell E85 or other alternative fuels in New York, service stations bound by these contracts were unable to offer renewable fuels to customers. The fuels covered under the new law include E85, biodiesel, hydrogen, and compressed natural gas. The law should help remove access barriers for the owners of the roughly 200,000 flex-fuel vehicles in New York State. Flex-fuel vehicles can run on either E85 or gasoline, but only a few stations in New York currently offer E85. To further improve access, the New York State Thruway Authority will install renewable fuel pumps at its 27 Thruway travel plazas, the first of which should be operating this fall. See the press releases from Governor Pataki on the exclusivity law and the Thruway plaza pump groundbreaking. First Residence Awarded Platinum LEED Rating This model home from LivingHomes has received the first Platinum rating for a residential building. Credit: LivingHomes The LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System has made green building practices in the commercial and government sectors more common, and the standards have proven valuable in residential construction. The pilot U.S. LEED for Homes, which the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) started in August 2005, provides guidelines for meeting efficiency and sustainability goals and uses a point system to rate buildings as Certified, Silver, Gold, or Platinum. In August, the first Platinum rating for a residential building was awarded to the homebuilder LivingHomes for its highly efficient model home, which the company touts as a "Zero Energy, Zero Water, Zero Waste, Zero Carbon, Zero Emissions residence." LivingHomes designs each of its houses to achieve at least a Silver LEED certification. See the press releases from LivingHomes and from the USGBC (PDF 148 KB) Download Adobe Reader. As energy costs rise, many consumers are turning to green-building practices to make their homes more energy-efficient, and builders are offering more efficient options. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) reported in August that its members are using more products that will improve the energy efficiency of homes and lower energy costs for consumers thinking of buying or remodeling a home. These products include renewable technologies such as solar water heaters; ENERGY STAR-rated appliances; and energy-efficient, low-emittance (Low-E) windows. The market is expanding to meet this demand, and the National Association of Home Builders predicts that prices will decrease as more products become available. See the NAHB press release. USDA Awards $17.5 Million for Rural Development The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced August 30th that $17.5 million in Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Program Grants have been awarded to 375 recipients in 36 states. Part of the 2002 Farm Bill, the grant program awards funding to agricultural producers, rural small business, U.S. citizens, and legal U.S. residents. Rural Development grant funds can be used to pay up to 25 percent of costs for eligible projects, which include wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, and hydrogen energy projects. Energique Inc., an herbal supplier in Woodbine, Iowa, will use its $31,444 grant for a geothermal heating and cooling system that will provide energy savings of up to 60 percent. Brubaker Farms in Pennsylvania will receive a $223,249 grant to install an anaerobic complete mix digester to produce energy from farm waste. States receiving funding are Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Wyoming. See the USDA press release. Biofuel Companies Use Alternative Energy for Production and Delivery Panda Ethanol announced on August 29th that it plans to build a fuel-efficient ethanol plant in Sherman County, Texas, that will be capable of producing 100 million gallons of ethanol each year. This new plant will use 1 billion pounds of cattle manure to generate the steam used in ethanol production. Construction of the plant will take approximately 18 months, but the completion date will depend on financing. The plant will be equal in size to Panda's Hereford plant, which will be the largest biomass-fueled ethanol plant in the United States when it goes online in the second half of 2007. See the story about Panda's Hereford plant in the May 25, 2005 issue of EERE Network News and the press release from Panda Energy (PDF 126 KB). Download Adobe Reader. Panda uses manure to produce its ethanol, but SeQuential Biofuels is taking advantage of other renewable energies and energy-efficient technologies to distribute its alternative fuels. SeQuential Biofuels has opened a new fueling station in Eugene, Oregon, that offers biofuel blends approved for use in all gasoline and diesel vehicles. Among the station's design innovations are 244 solar panels that will provide 30 percent to 50 percent of its annual electricity and 4,800 plants installed in a "living roof" to control rainwater runoff and help cool the building. See the press release from SeQuential Biofuels. Pennsylvania and Ski Resorts Commit to Renewable Energy Pennsylvania has increased its purchase of electricity from renewable sources from 10 percent to 20 percent of the state's usage. The state has modified its agreement with Community Energy Inc. to purchase 200,000 MW of power per year—-of which 60 percent will come from hydroelectric sources, and 40 percent will come from wind power. This new agreement will make Pennsylvania the largest state purchaser of energy from renewable sources. The state is ranked 12th on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Top 25 Green Power Partners List. See the press release from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the EPA's list of Green Power Partners. Four ski resorts are joining Pennsylvania in making commitments to renewable energy. The owners of Crested Butte Mountain Resort in Colorado, Okemo Mountain Resort in Vermont, and Mount Sunapee Resort in New Hampshire have entered into an agreement with Gunnison County Electric Association to purchase 27 million kilowatt-hours in renewable energy certificates from Sterling Planet. Crystal Mountain in Michigan has also committed to wind energy and will power its chairlifts with wind power purchased from Cherryland Electric, with the goal of eventually powering the entire resort with renewable energy. These resorts follow on the heels of Vail Mountain Resorts, which recently announced that it would buy enough renewable energy certificates to provide 100 percent of its power. See the press releases from Crested Butte Mountain Resort and Crystal Mountain, as well as the Vail Mountain Resorts story from the August 9th issue of EERE Network News. DOE Conducts Energy Assessments in Texas and Indiana DOE announced on August 29th that it is conducting three-day Industrial Energy Saving Assessments at the Lone Star Steel facility in Lone Star, Texas, and at U.S. Steel's Gary Works facility in Gary, Indiana. Lone Star Steel produces steel tubes and pipes for energy, industrial, and automotive applications. The Gary Works facility operates facilities for steelmaking and finishing and has an annual raw steelmaking capacity of 7.5 million tons. DOE's free, three-day energy assessments are helping major manufacturing facilities identify energy-saving opportunities, primarily by focusing on steam and process heating systems used at the plants. See the DOE press releases on the assessments in Texas and Indiana, as well as the Web sites for Lone Star Steel and U.S. Steel's Gary Works facility. DOE's Energy Saving Teams have completed visits to 33 large federal facilities and are in the process of visiting 200 energy-intensive manufacturing facilities as part of the national "Easy Ways to Save Energy" campaign launched in October 2005. The first 113 industrial Energy Saving Assessments have identified $282 million per year in potential energy cost savings. If implemented, these energy-saving measures could reduce natural gas consumption by more than 31 trillion Btu per year, which is more than the amount used by 430,000 U.S. homes. See the "Easy Ways to Save Energy" Web site.
	Energy Connections Utility Survey Says Shopkeepers Are Energy Hogs The Energy Hog is energy efficiency's arch-villain. Credit: Tracy Locke DOE's Energy Hog Campaign may focus on teaching adults and children to save energy at home, but home isn't the only place people waste energy. Energy hogs can be found everywhere. The Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) released the results of a survey on August 24th that identified energy hogs in the Hamptons and other areas near Long Island: retail stores. The survey found that many stores are wasting 20 percent to 25 percent of the electricity they consume because the front doors are kept open on warm days, which allows the air-conditioned air to spill out. Although leaving the doors open may bring a few more customers in, it also increases utility bills and adds to the already-high power demand in the Long Island area. Electricity demand has increased 101 percent in the past eight years and reached a record high during the heat wave this August. Increased demand requires utilities to add infrastructure to keep up—-and those costs are passed on to consumers. LIPA is urging stores to keep their doors shut when air conditioners are running, and will start a campaign next summer called "Be Cool—Keep it Closed." The utility is also asking customers to watch for these energy hogs and request that they close their doors on hot days. See the LIPA press release and the Energy Hog Web site.
	This newsletter is funded by DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) and is also available on the EERE Web site. You can subscribe to the EERE Network News using our simple online form

Zero Waste and BioFuels
Scoop.co.nz (press release) - New Zealand
... improvements in technologies, tidal power and solar power will soon be joining wind power as the ... Another potential source of energy is the use of hydrogen. ...

The power of Popeye
The Herald - Glasgow,Scotland,UK
... is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen ... of electrons can then be harnessed to power small fuel ... fission, geothermal energy, marine energy and wind energy ...

'Just 4 appliances use up India's 22% power'
Rediff - India
... Hydel power, from dams, is about eight or 10 per cent ... Wind particularly, has started growing very successfully ... petrol or diesel to ethanol, or hydrogen cells, or ...
See all stories on this topic

Towards synergy in energy
Financial Express - Bombay,India
... will supplement, but not support, conventional power. ... development of hydro, solar, wind and biomass ... solar, bio-fuels, energy efficiency, hydrogen, gas hydrate ...