Posts tagged with ‘Energy’
Science and tech commentary from around the web: climate change health impacts, the bioethics of voting technology, evolution teaching tools, the wind in NYC, the Clean Air Interstate Rule, scivee.tv, and Green Chemistry in CA.
Corporations typically underestimate their carbon footprints by an average of 75 percent, according to a new study from Carnegie Mellon researchers. One of the major blind spots is in calculating the total greenhouse gas emissions from myriad supply chain inputs, as opposed to the direct emissions involved in primary operations.
The President and Congress can’t craft sound energy policy when the EIA mis-predicts oil prices by a factor of two.
While everybody is talking about energy these days, they’re not necessarily talking about the scientific opportunity so much as the business one. The moment is right for researchers to take up—with a sense of unshaking mission and purpose—the grand cause of a generation.
The Senate is slated to try once again to extend tax credits for solar and wind energy production. Without these tax credits, renewable energy industries will suffer.
Don’t look now, but we’re peering down yet another possible threat to Americans’ ability to drive their cars in a way that they can remotely afford—an active Atlantic hurricane season.
Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) told the attendees as a conference on scientific integrity that the “vigilant protection of the integrity of science” cannot relax after the November elections. But we need to be more vigilant about the science that informs national energy policy now.
Carbon fuels evolutionary systems and climate change—and the story of this element cuts across a wide swath of scientific fields, underscoring much of the research that’s changing the way we think about everyday life.
President Bush, along with members of Congress, is calling for offshore drilling as a remedy for high gas prices. But their arguments are simply the latest instance of federal policymaking that willfully ignores scientific evidence.
Why the economic side of the global warming debate needs a more balanced ledger.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration released new numbers this week on U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from energy sources, and it turns out that our surprising 1.3 percent emissions decrease in 2006 was, indeed, a fluke caused by a milder winter and summer.
Yesterday, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-NY) introduced H.R. 6049, the Energy and Tax Extenders Act of 2008. Among other extensions, the bill would renew the Research and Development Tax Credit for the 13th time since its inception in 1981. But extending the R&D tax credit for one more year is insufficient; it should be made permanent.
“The future is likely to be very similar to the past, regardless of who the President is,” said Dr. John Marburger, the President’s science advisor at the AAAS S&T Policy Forum last Thursday. He was talking about funding, but let’s hope things are very different for scientific integrity under the next administration.
Part 3 of coverage of Tuesday’s House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the Renewable Fuel Standard, with the perspectives of witnesses on biofuel production and rising food prices.
Part 2 of a break down of Tuesday’s House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the Renewable Fuel Standards, with a look at what witnesses had to say about the economic and environmental concerns.
Tuesday’s House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing pitted environmentalists, corn producers, oil refiners, grocery manufacturers, and renewable fuel advocates against one another in a contentious debate over the future of the Renewable Fuel Standard.
Science Progress tries to make sense of it all. First up, what’s right with the RFS and ways to make it better.
After last week’s industry-led field hearing in North Dakota on carbon capture and sequestration, a Monday briefing on CCS hosted by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee was a breath of fresh air, with representatives from the scientific community and the UK.
The Senate Subcommittee on Energy Oversight held a field hearing in Bismarck, North Dakota on Wednesday on carbon capture and sequestration technology. Two panels presented the current and projected future development of CCS technology, the outlook ranging from very cautious optimism to an almost cynical pessimism. But the lack of an objective scientific voice among those testifying was conspicuous.
Two new studies on the potential economic effects of the Lieberman Warner bill appeared late last week. Both are only based on the potential of current technologies, and both of them will prove to be totally wrong.
Controversy marred a Wednesday hearing on the Department of Energy’s FY2009 budget request for research and development when two DOE undersecretaries invited to testify decided at the last minute to skip the event.
As
The New York Times reviews the rising popularity of solar thermal power plants, Congress hears from an Arizona Public Service Company spokesperson about Solana, the world’s largest solar thermal plant to be built in Arizona. The output of ten planned solar thermal plants in Arizona, California, and Nevada could equal the output of three nuclear reactors, but they could be built in two years instead of ten or more.
The House Committee on Science and Technology’s Subcommittee on Energy and Environment will hold a hearing tomorrow to discuss President Bush’s Department of Energy research and development budget proposal for fiscal year 2009. The Center for American Progress has taken a closer look at the numbers and has offered a set of recommendations for the DOE and future Federal spending on alternative and renewable energy research.
Provisions in the Lieberman-Warner bill would allow companies to meet some of their emissions targets by purchasing “offset” credits from reductions in emissions not covered under cap-and-trade. But current offsets markets are unregulated and unreliable. Hayes explains how to regulate offsets that will enable verifiable emissions cuts.
NIH advisers call for an overhaul of the peer-review process; Craig Venter wants carbon dioxide to drive a new generation of fuels within 18 months; CDC advisers call for universal flu vaccinations for children over six.
Good news for large-scale solar power generation arrived yesterday with bad news for photovoltaic technology; we need names for the next administration’s science advisors; and Google launches a pilot program for electronic medical records.
The LA Times has several recent stories on the latest Los Angeles green energy initiatives and contention over a proposed cap-and-trade system for California emissions.
AAAS president critiques U.S. science and tech policy; researchers map human impacts on ocean ecosystems; new materials for carbon capture; harnessing the tides and waves for energy; biodefense watchdog shuts down.
Two new studies highlight the need for tight environmental standards for biofuels to help us solve global warming.
The Bush Administration will likely withdraw its $1.5 billion in support for the FutureGen coal-fired power plant in Illinois. The plant was to be the flagship demonstration project for carbon capture and sequestration technology, which would divert carbon emissions from coal combustion and bury them underground.
Yesterday, we noted the frequency with which President Bush has mentioned “energy” in previous State of the Union speeches. Last night’s address and included the word “energy” five times, but contained more doublespeak than leadership.
Europe revises biofuels standards, NSF Science and Engineering Indicators in global context, and sub-national regions lead the world in climate policy.
Is the NIH monitoring conflicts of interest?; EPA won’t explain itself on nixing state emissions caps; controversial framing of new MRSA study; new paths to energy-efficient electronics.
The Navy must turn off its sonar around whales; Britain readies for new nuclear power plant construction; Illinois will host the first commercial carbon capture and sequestration project; the OPEN Government Act of 2007.
The National Research Council of the National Academies convened a symposium Wednesday to explore approaches among “Future Directions in Research at the Intersection of the Physical and Life Sciences.” The intersections up for discussion ranged across the research spectrum: from synthetic biology to geoengineering to bioterrorism.
Senator John Kerry compares the decision to address carbon emissions with economic and policy reforms to Pascal’s Wager. “If we’re wrong,” he explained this morning at an event hosted by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, “we still have global development, clean air, a stronger economy here at home, healthier citizens, and no more addiction to the foreign oil that funds despots and terrorists.”
This history of the San Diego biotech cluster; stem cell grants in CA; simple wireless Internet access to low-income communities; DOE opens test reactor for university experiments.
NASA has a new face on the web; the NIH says gene therapy wasn’t the cause of death in a recent trial; open-source standards and net neutrality can improve global health; and more.
The Bush administration wants to push clean-technology exports without taking meaningful measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at home. That’s the wrong message to send on the eve of a major global summit on climate change next week in Indonesia.
The Center for American Progress today releases the first pieces of
Progressive Growth, its Economic Plan for the Next Administration, which includes a chapter on new energy solutions.
The InterAcademies Council report released Monday on sustainable energy options reiterates familiar suggestions for greening the planet’s energy future, but it also presents a compelling argument for applied scientific and technological research in pursuit of the common good.
Readers in the Washington D.C. area can head to the National Mall this afternoon at 2 p.m. to see the awards ceremony for the 2007 Solar Decathalon. The event brings together 20 teams of university students who compete to “design, build, and operate the most attractive, effective, and energy-efficient solar-powered house.”
In a markup session this morning, the House Science and Technology committee passed two bills focused expanding research on energy storage technologies.
Brazilian ethanol produced from sugar cane is a promising renewable energy technology. But land is finite and using it for energy means not using it for other human needs. Nowhere is this clearer than in the history of the Brazilian sugar cane industry.
The most recent issues of two monthly magazines, National Geographic and Wired, boast solid cover stories on biofuels - solid because they make clear the limitations of corn-derived ethanol and focus on the promise of celluloic ethanol - yet the covers themselves present two very different ways of shifting the conversation past corn ethanol and on to cellulose.
