image credit: Duke Energy (Flickr CC)

Despite the well-publicized bankruptcy of California-based solar panel manufacturer Solyndra, solar power is a growth industry in the United States and is set to boom, according to the US National Solar Job Census.

The new survey shows that job growth in the United States’ solar energy sector grew by 6.8% over a one-year period ending in August, compared to less than 1% for over-all job growth in the US.

The industry believes that solar jobs will grow by another 24% over the next year. A quarter of American jobs in the solar power industry are currently located in the State of California.

From the Los Angeles Times:

In August, California had an estimated 25,575 solar-related jobs out of 100,237 for all 50 states, according to the National Solar Jobs Census 2011. The census is scheduled for release Monday by the Solar Foundation, a research and education organization in Washington.

Another sunny state, with plenty of space and rooftops, perfect for solar power generation, is Texas. Yet the traditional oil state has not yet exploited its solar capabilities, generating just 1% of its power from the sun.

But solar energy in Texas is set to change.

From the Star-Telegram:

[…] industry professionals and advocates of renewable energy say that Texas potentially could become the No. 1 generator of solar power in the U.S. within several years, thanks to its size, wide-open spaces, sunshine and a large, fast-growing population that will need more electricity.

And if you think solar power stations are just for the developed world, think again. Check out this report on how the West African nation of Mozambique is planning three solar energy plants, with the aim of supplying power for 50,000 people.

photo: United States Marine Corps Official Page (Flickr CC)

It may sound illogical to produce biofuels in the Middle East, a region generally associated with oil. It may sound even stranger to ship biofuel all the way from the US to the Afghanistan in order to power the vehicles of the US military.

Well this is geopolitics, don’t try to make simple sense of it.

Afghanistan, though neighbors with some big oil producers in the Persian Gulf, does not have a fossil fuel industry. It does, however, have a big opium and heroin economy.

A recent study proposes that a biofuel industry in Afghanistan, with the US military as the main consumer, could at once replace poppy farming among locals and attacks on military fuel convoys. It would have the added benefit of meeting the military’s environmental program targets.

From a CNN report:

Whether Afghanistan’s opium production — estimated to be worth $2.8bn in 2009, and employing 1.6 million people, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime — could be switched to biofuel production is another question.

A biofuel production plant where safflower, grown by farmers who formerly grew poppies for Afghanistan’s illegal narcotics trade, could also provide a domestic fuel source for Afghanis after the eventual withdrawal of coalition forces.

Obviously, there are a lot of uncertainties in that scenario, but the US’s domestic biofuel industry is also growing with help of a new contract with the military.

They’re also already shipping it from the States to the Gulf.

San Francisco-based Solazyme produces biodiesel from algae and has just signed deal with the US Navy to provide 150,000 gallons (568,000 liters) more than their previous 20,000-gallon contract.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, has laid out ambitious goals for the Navy to get half of all its energy needs for its 3,700 aircraft, 290 battle ships and thousands of buildings from non-fossil-fuel sources within 10 years.

Read more on this development in the Miami Herald.

Biodiesel to the rescue?

In the keynote address at the 2010 Symposium on Thermal and Catalytic Sciences for Biofuels and Biobased Products, Biofuels Digest publisher Jim Lane, outlined his vision of a so-called ‘clean war’:

The major concerns with fossil fuels are their limited nature and the damage they do the environment, Lane said, but the United States’ reliance on fossil fuels could also be costing soldiers their lives. Lane said it costs $418 per gallon to transport fuel to supply the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan, and 10 percent of all the military casualties there have involved delivery of fossil fuels.

–Ames Tribune

Read more on this story here.

photo by EnergyTomorrow (Flickr Creative Commons)

Due in part to the popularity of the environmental documentary film Gasland, the practice of natural gas extraction using hydraulic fracturing, alternately known as ‘fracking’ or ‘fracing’, has been the subject of much debate.

The process of hydraulic fracturing involves drilling into shale reservoirs and creating fractures by pumping in water. The principle environmental concerns regarding fracking are the contamination of wells and aquifers with chemicals used in the drilling process, air quality issues and the mismanagement of solid waste.

The spread of fracking for shale gas in the United States has already partially revolutionized the natural gas industry there and the process has both advocates and detractors. But what about in the rest of the world? With much of Europe’s gas being imported from Russia and oil getting a particularly bad rap due to the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, might European nations turn to hydraulic fracturing to access gas from shale deposits? Some think so.

Others are less convinced, such as Katinka Barysch from the Centre for European Reform – a London-based pro-European integration think tank – see laws, infrastructure, economic conditions and other factors as hindrances to fracking taking off on the continent:

A couple of wells in Hungary have been abandoned as unpromising. In southern Sweden, environmental concerns may make gas extraction impossible irrespective of whether the geology proves suitable. In Poland, the country considered most promising, not a single well has been drilled so far.

However, Poland seems to be poised to start fracking. Read more about plans for hydraulic fracking in Poland in this Forbes article.

For more on the unfolding fracking controversy in the United States, see the following Al Jazeera English video report.

Gas exploitation angers residents

Graham Land

Additional resources:

Scientific American – What the Frack? Natural Gas from Subterranean Shale Promises U.S. Energy Independence–With Environmental Costs

Economist – Gas or hot air?

Economist – Oil companies dash for gas

photo by dsearls (source: Flickr Creative Commons)

The history of oil drilling and oil spilling in the United States is riddled with disasters, political decisions as reactions to those disasters and then subsequent resumptions of drilling. The US has drilled deeper and further offshore as drilling technology has developed. Unfortunately, cleanup technology has not likewise progressed.

Proper offshore oil drilling in the US began after the Second World War. Previously, ocean drilling was carried out on wharfs, the longest of which stretched 1,200 ft (400 meters) into the Pacific. By 1949 there were 44 exploratory oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico. By the 1950s oil production had become a huge generator of wealth for oil companies and the second largest source of government revenue after income taxes.

1969′s Santa Barbara Oil Spill inspired new regulations on drilling, spilling, polluting and other environmental concerns. All the while drilling technology improved by leaps and bounds into the 1980s and the number of wells in the Gulf of Mexico skyrocketed.

From the Oceana website:

Then in 1990, President George H.W. Bush issued an executive moratorium on oil and gas leasing in those same regions, which was extended by President Bill Clinton until 2012. For more than 25 years, U.S. waters were protected, until 2008 when President George W. Bush lifted the executive moratorium. At the same time, fueled by rising gas prices and a challenging election year, cries of “drill baby drill” convinced Congress to allow the moratorium to lapse as well.

As oil companies have developed amazing technology, including advanced robotics, to assist in deeper, more treacherous marine conditions, advances in safety and oil spill cleanup have more or less stayed stagnant.

Check out these segments from the Rachel Maddow Show in which Rachel explores the history of oil spills in US waters, shifting political policies and the widening gap between drilling technology and cleanup technology.

Rachel Maddow: Oil spill science left behind

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Rachel Maddow: B.P., slick but not that slick

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

For more on the history of offshore oil drilling in the United States, see ‘History of Offshore’ from the National Ocean Industries Association.

by Graham Land

Additional resources:

Washington Post photo essay – Oil spills throughout history

photo by Pierre J. (source: Flickr Creative Commons)

The United States and France have a strange rivalry. American revolutionaries were helped by France and in turn inspired French republicans. One hundred years later, France gave the Statue of Liberty to the US as a centennial gift. Things soured after the World Wars and years of hegemonic struggle vis-à-vis Anglo vs. Franco cultural-linguistic dominance.

Huh?

In other words, to quote the Dandy Warhols: ‘a long time ago, we used to be friends’.

Nowadays anything the French do seems to raise hackles on the back of many red-blooded American necks, at the very least for ‘red state’ Americans. On the other hand, wine-drinking, cheese-eating, NPR-listening liberal do-gooders love French stuff. On the other side of the pool, France can’t get enough of Schwarzenegger films, hip-hop and McDonald’s – yet the French seemed to embody the anti-American sentiment of Europe during the Bush years, as opposed to the UK’s ‘New Labour lapdog syndrome’.

Let’s briefly compare the energy and environmental circumstances of the two erstwhile allies. The United States is a big oil nation – in case you didn’t know – while the French are big on nuclear power (see France’s energy stats from 2004 here).

The current massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico provides an opportune moment for a comparison between the two countries regarding energy and the environment. France 24 contrasts America’s infamous 1989 Exxon Valdez spill with France’s current plans to construct new offshore wind turbines:

In the short term, the slick killed 250,000 sea birds, 2800 otters and around 22 orcas. Today, at first glance, the shores look clean but scrap away the surface sands and the consequences of the accident can still be seen. Salmon stocks remain significantly lowered and commercial fishing of herring is still outlawed. Meanwhile off France’s oil free shores; ten sites have been picked to plant offshore windmills, part of new plans surrounding the renewable source of energy. The government has pledged to build at least 500 windmills every year.

Bit of cherry picking, for sure, but if the environment is a big laboratory – which is how energy and agricultural industries treat it – then can’t we at least learn from our successes and mistakes as well as those of our friends and rivals?

Check out the entire story from France 24, which includes a 9-minute video report and a feature on how to ‘make water’ with wind turbines.

I’m not saying we should put a giant wind turbine on Ellis Island in place of Lady Liberty – or in Paris in lieu of the Eiffel Tower, for that matter. But maybe if we saw wind power as something monumental rather than a necessary eyesore as many affluent Americans and Europeans see it, the future – and our transatlantic rivals – would perhaps look a little bit better as well.

by Graham Land

photo © Sam Stearman (source: Wikimedia Commons)

The 12 day CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) meetings begin on Saturday in the city of Doha, capital of the Arab emirate of Qatar. The talks will attempt to hammer out transnational policies concerning the management and protection of animal and plant species that are threatened with endangerment or extinction due to international commerce.

From the CITES website:

Annually, international wildlife trade is estimated to be worth billions of dollars and to include hundreds of millions of plant and animal specimens. The trade is diverse, ranging from live animals and plants to a vast array of wildlife products derived from them, including food products, exotic leather goods, wooden musical instruments, timber, tourist curios and medicines.

High on the list of species, amongst the subjects of polar bears, rhinos and African elephants, is the hot issue of bluefin tuna. From an article in the New York Times:

Conservationists want to ban international trade in bluefin tuna to allow stocks to regenerate. But Japan, which consumes well over half of the worldwide catch and where a single fish can fetch prices above $100,000, said Thursday that it would opt out of the ban if it was approved

The United States says it supports the ban, suggesting that some European Union countries have delayed efforts to protect the endangered fish.

African countries are at loggerheads over the issue of trading existing ivory stocks. Tanzania and Zambia would like a ban on trading ivory stockpiles to be relaxed, while Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo believe this would encourage poaching. The illegal trade in ivory from African elephants is driven by an ever-increasing demand in Asian countries like China and Japan. This has contributed to a decrease in the African elephant population by nearly two-thirds over the last 30 years.

Read more about the ivory trade here.

As is the case with intricate international negotiations, a bit of wheeling and dealing is to be expected:

In bargaining for support, Kenya and its allies have signaled to the European Union that they will support the ban on bluefin tuna fishing in exchange for support on extending the moratorium on trading ivory

–New York Times

Meanwhile, the United States will be fighting tooth and nail for the polar bear, the emblematic animal of climate change. From the Guardian:

At the annual meeting of the international body that regulates trade in animals, the US will push for a total ban on the sale and movement of polar bear products that are used for furs, rugs and taxidermy. Melting sea ice in the Arctic will kill thousands of bears in coming years, the US says, and continued commercial trade must not be allowed to make the situation worse. Other countries, including US neighbours and keen polar bear traders, Canada, disagree.

Let’s hope that the CITES meetings in Qatar are more successful than December’s climate talks in Copenhagen were.

by Graham Land

Additional resources:

Chinese medicine, ecology and endangered species

photo by species_snob (Flickr Creative Commons)

The Canadian province of Alberta is home to a particularly dirty kind of oil field: so called ‘Tar Sands’. The world’s largest source of bitumen – a heavy, black form of crude oil extracted by surface mining – is located in the northeastern portion of the province. Most of the oil mined from Canada’s tar sands is destined for refineries in the United States, but with American companies shying away from the oil sands due to environmental pressure and China moving in, things look to be changing. An article in the Guardian explains:

China’s growing investment in the tar sands is seen in Canada as a useful counter to waning demand for tar sands oil from the US, its biggest customer. The moves, which have largely gone unnoticed outside north America, could add further tension to efforts to try to reach a global action plan on climate change.

Though legislation limiting carbon emissions in the United States is currently tied up in Congress, oil giant Shell is scaling back expansion plans in the tar sands and the Pentagon is cutting down its use of tar sands oil to comply with regulations requiring that government agencies source fuels that have less greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite predictions of fall in global demand for oil, other Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea and India are also joining China in investing in Canada’s oil sands.

Additional resources:

‘O No, Canada!’ – Alberta’s Oil Sands

photo by simplerich (source: Flickr Creative Commons)

Longer growing seasons and higher concentrations of CO2 may encourage faster growth rates in trees, according to a 22-year scientific study of mixed hardwoods in the eastern United States. During the study average temperatures increased by 0.3 degrees while the growing season was extended by 7.8 days. Furthermore, the CO2 concentration in the forest air went up 12%.

Higher concentrations of carbon dioxide and extended growing seasons could be favourable for agriculture in some parts of the world, mainly in the northern hemisphere. The study in Maryland suggests that the extra growth in trees could help to act as a more efficient carbon “sink”, which could offset the carbon dioxide being added to the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels.

–The Independent

These results were unexpected by scientists, but the conclusions – based on 250,000 measurements since 1987 carried out by the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) in Maryland – are drawn from exhaustive research.

That’s the good news concerning northern forests and global warming as reported in The Independent. But a similar story by the AFP gives a wider scenario, including some bad results the rising temperatures might bring.

If temperatures rise by four degrees Celsius, parts of the North American prairie will become too dry for waterfowl and other parts will have too few functional wetlands and nesting habitat to support historical levels of wetland species, W. Carter Johnson, one of the authors of the study, said.

–AFP

Another recently published study by the United States Geological Survey and South Dakota State University suggests that climate change may dry up many of North America’s wetlands. The study found that wetlands – important breeding grounds for duck, waterfowl and amphibians – are more vulnerable to climate change than previously believed.

by Graham Land

Additional resources:

How will rise in greenhouse gases impact forests?

Fresnel reflectors (source: wikimedia commons)

Having already made great strides in renewable energy production in the form of massive wind and photovoltaic solar panel projects, China is now building solar power plants of another type: concentrating solar power. Concentrating solar plants use large numbers of mirrors which generate electricity by capturing heat and producing steam. Europe and the United States have experienced a sudden and marked increase in plans for these types of plants during the last two years and now, according to an article in the ‘Energy and Environment’ section of the New York Times, China is getting in on the game.

Popular in California and the Southwestern United States, which has plenty of sun and water to run concentrating solar power stations, the technology may be less suited for cloudy, smoggy China, whose deserts are located far from the country’s main energy consumers. Nevertheless, China’s private sector is positive about the concentrating solar power and believes that the nation’s low cost of production could make the technology more economically viable.

‘Preparations are also under way for the construction of a 50-megawatt concentrating solar power plant in Gansu Province in northwestern China, said Min Deqing, a renewable energy consultant in Lanzhou, the provincial capital of Gansu.’

–New York Times

by Graham Land

Additional resources:

Concentrating solar power wiki

China enforces the use of renewable energy with new law

CNN: Video report on ‘China’s green plans’

Nantucket Sound, photo by real00 (source: Flickr Creative Commons)

What would be the United States’ first offshore wind farm project – dubbed Cape Wind – may be in jeopardy due to an announcement by the National Park Service last week. The NPS stated that the site of the proposed wind farm, in Massachusetts’ Nantucket Sound, should be eligible for protection by being included in the National Register of Historic Places. Two Native American tribes, the Aquinnah and the Mashpee Wampanoag, are opposed to the project due to traditional and spiritual reasons:

‘The turbines would be clearly visible to both Aquinnah and Mashpee people and would degrade their essential view of the rising sun for ceremonies and of the ocean view shed necessary for other rituals. The shoal itself where the turbines would be erected was once dry land and contains sacred burial sites and other cultural patrimony.’

–Indian Country Today

Yet an article from the Boston Globe claims:

‘Their objections to Cape Wind did not keep the Martha’s Vineyard Wampanoags from planning their own wind project just a few hundred yards from the Vineyard’s Gay Head Cliffs, which have won designation as a National Historic Landmark.’

But spiritual traditions are seldom so pragmatic that one can simply assume that one site should have the same significance as another for an ethnic or religious group’s traditional practices. It may also partly be a case of the tribes knuckling down against what they understandably see as a continuation of hundreds of oppression by the United States government. An Indian Country Today article describes the tribes’ spokespersons as likening the federal government’s eventual decision to a test as to whether the Obama administration will take the rights of tribal nations seriously or if it will continue to be ‘business as usual’.

This is not the first time the Cape Wind Project has been opposed. Groups like Save Our Sound and NAWAG (the National Alliance of Wind Farm Action Groups) have attempted to block the construction of turbines around Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard – picturesque, wealthy vacation spots that value their pretty views. But Nantucket is also a very ‘green’ community and has given popular support to Cape Wind. A Mother Jones article suggests that the real backing for the opposition movement comes not from Native Americans or Massachusetts playboys, but from big oil and other ‘dirty energy’ interests:

‘At the forefront of the effort has been William Koch, who alone has spent more than a million to oppose the farm via a group called the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. […] Koch is the founder and president of the Oxbow Group, and has made his fortune off mining and marketing coal, natural gas, petroleum, and petroleum coke products.’

–Mother Jones

So against the sustainable energy Cape Wind project are Earth-revering Native American tribes, (now deceased) Senator and Democratic stalwart Ted Kennedy and some ultra rich right wing mega-polluters. Talk about a case of strange bedfellows, eh?

by Graham Land

anti wind farm protesters, photo by Phil LaCombe (source: Flickr Creative Commons)

New York Times – For Cape Cod Wind Farm, New Hurdle Is Spiritual

Wind turbines spoil views of rising seas and toxic sunsets

Hot, Flat, and Crowded (image source: wikimedia commons)

Rachel Maddow welcomes Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman to discuss the UN climate change conference which recently took place in Copenhagen, Denmark. ‘Too little trust’ is what Friedman saw at COP15, especially between the United States and China – with neither wanting to give an economic advantage to the other by cutting their emissions. He favors an American ‘Green revolution’ so the United States can be an economic leader in what is poised to eventually be a post fossil fuels world. Friedman also compares the inefficiency of the currently ultra-polarized political situation around environmental action in the United States with China’s one party autocracy.

Rachel Maddow: Thomas Friedman on Copenhagen

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

And here is short video about Thomas Friedman’s book Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution–And How It Can Renew America.

‘Tom Friedman addresses liberals and conservatives on environment’

by Graham Land

Additional resources:

thomaslfriedman.com

Thomas Friedman says Americans should embrace a fuel tax

photo by WWF_France (source: Flickr Creative Commons)

It has been expected from the start of the COP15 climate summit in Copenhagen that there would be a clash of interests between the developing world and the wealthy industrialized countries. The rich nations cause most of the pollution and the poor ones suffer the most from its effects. So they would like some recompense or – depending on which nation you ask – at least be able to industrialize and pollute their way into the developed countries club. As actor/comedian/columnist David Mitchell puts it in Sunday’s Observer ‘our long, unaffordable global lunch is coming to an end’, we’ve asked for the bill and want ‘the third world to pay an equal share even though they only had a soup.’

The industrialized nations ran up a huge tab and many – including some of worst offenders – think that they should therefore have to pay. However, the biggest of the rich polluters, the United States, does not. An article in the New York Times relates American negotiator at Copenhagen Todd Stern’s argument that ‘people were blissfully ignorant of the fact that emissions caused a greenhouse effect’. The old ‘it’s not my fault/I didn’t know’ defense.

Well played, United States.

Needless to say the developing world doesn’t like this attitude, so a bunch of them – led by African countries – put up a collective hand at the negotiations on Monday morning and told the UN to ‘talk to it’. They walked out. According to the London Times:

‘Developing countries want to maintain the Kyoto Protocol because it is the only legal instrument which requires rich countries to make emissions cuts. They fear that it will be replaced by a much weaker agreement under which rich countries would only make voluntary pledges on emissions and would not be held to account for failing to meet them.’

The walk out only lasted a few hours and according to BBC News, the African countries’ ‘key demand – separate talks on the Kyoto Protocol – was met’.

Well played, Africa, but just wait till Obama gets there.

Msnbc.com ¬– Protests put chill on climate talks

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

by Graham Land