News Roundup
Powered By Coal. Video from CBS 60 minutes.
Length 12:32. Video with focus on the enormous US coal consumption. Features Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy, NASA’s James Hansen, and UC Berkeley Professor Dan Kammen. Despite acknowledging that climate change is a problem, Rogers defends Duke Energy’s two new coal energy plants.
On Tuesday, five potato farmers rang the bell of the New York Stock Exchange, kicking off a marketing campaign that is trying to position the nation’s best-selling brand of potato chips as local food.
Academic article on China’s increasing transportation and related issues. Argues for a ‘road charge’ to mitigate congestion.
From the abstract: “Urban car transportation is a cause of climate change but is also associated with additional burdens such as traffic congestion and air pollution. Studies of external costs and potential impacts of travel demand management help to define policy instruments that mitigate the damaging impact of transportation. …We show that a road charge could not only address congestion but also has environmental benefits.”
NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. climate change legislation is unlikely to pass this year due to concerns about the recession and contention over the implementation of the program, according to energy and carbon market experts.
via U.S. climate bill unlikely to pass this year: experts | Reuters.
PHOTOVOLTAIC cells are already a familiar sight on rooftops. But one day, miniature cells may also be found in more unconventional places: power-generating windows, car sunroofs or even awnings.
via Miniaturizing Solar Technology With Flexible Photovoltaic Cells – NYTimes.com.
OSLO (Reuters) – A planned new U.N. climate pact is shaping up to be a mildly tougher version of the existing Kyoto Protocol rather than a bold treaty to save what U.S. President Barack Obama has called a “planet in peril.”
via New U.N. climate deal: not much bolder than Kyoto? | Green Business | Reuters.
‘WASHINGTON Reuters – The Obama administration said Thursday it wanted to officially terminate the Yucca Mountain nuclear storage waste site..’
via Obama budget seeks end to Yucca nuclear waste dump | Green Business | Reuters.
New rules have been passed in the San Francisco Bay Area that will require businesses to pay fees for the amount of carbon dioxide they emit.
via BBC NEWS | Americas | US city to charge polluting firms.
Video of Professor Dan Kammen speaking before the Copenhagen Climate Congress (March 11, 2009), where he argues that it is more important that some mechanism of carbon cost is quickly implemented than for the world to loose more time debating over which cost mechanism is best (cap and trade, cap and dividend, or a carbon tax).
BEIJING, May 4 (Xinhua) — China plans to finish 100 gigawatts of wind power capacity by 2020 and expand its renewable energy consumption to 40 percent of the energy market by 2050.
via China to have 100 GW wind power energy capacity by 2020_English_Xinhua.