Susan Kraemer: Citizen Reporter

• To Congress: How to Build a Zero Carbon America

  Here's an idea for legislation to get more solar roofs up fast and cheaply, even during the current financial meltdown:
  
  
  How?
  
  Write a law saying that if homeowners want to put in a solar roof, then their utility MUST then forward their electricty bill payments to the solar company till the roof has been paid off by the homeowner, and the utility MUST accept the electrons being added to their grid from that customers roof.
  
  How would that work?
  
  1. You would be contacted to see if you would like to put up a solar roof. You would agree. Installation would be done. Your roof would begin sending electrcity to the grid.
  
  2. You would contact your ...read full post
  
  
  Comments (0)  |  January 20, 2009

• Let's Pay Detroit To Bring Their Gas Sipping Cars Home To The U.S.A.

  

  Who hasn't been enraged to read about how Ford and G.M. can make perfectly good little gas sippers in Europe, but just can't bring themselves to make a fuel efficient car for us back home?
  
  

  Well, now that they need some funding from us, here's an idea.
  
  Let's fund Detroit just to set up their efficient European car factories — back here, where they are really needed. Let's get some better gas mileage out of their money troubles.
  
  Apparently, it only costs $75 million ...read full post
  
  
  Comments (1)  |  January 14, 2009

• Utilities Suggest Huge Electric Vehicle Orders

  Utilities are among the groups now considering mass orders of electric vehicles from the U.S. automobile manufacturing sector, to help the auto companies make the biggest manufacturing realignment since since WWII.

  

  The exploratory discussions are being conducted at top levels and among firms like PG&E who see plug in hybrid and all electric vehicles as a solution to uneven grid loads. Utilities have invested a great deal of research using the vehicle to grid (V2G) capabilities of plugged in electric vehicles to stabilize the grid.

  The idea being considered would involve joining together to put in a ...read full post

  
  
  Comments (0)  |  January 6, 2009

• Energy Journalist Trapped in Effluent From Electric Power Station

  
  
  The journalist Stephen Lacey, who podcasts for REW, was caught in the discharge from an electric power station that he was writing about for his magazine.
  
  
  
  Oh, did I say trapped in effluent?
  
  What I meant to say was that the effluent from the power station is a tourist trap. Stephen was caught in a tourist trap.
  
  The power station effluent he was caught in was Iceland's Blue Lagoon. Lacey podcasts ...read full post
  
  
  Comments (0)  |  January 5, 2009

• Instead of a Bailout - Put Deposits On EVs and Plug-In Hybrids

  As the age of oil ends we have stopped buying the cars that Detroit makes; now they don't have money to adapt to build the more fuel efficient vehicles that we do need.

  

  As a result production of near-term solutions, such as the Chevy Volt; which had been on track for 2010 and which could have driven us out of the age of oil --is endangered.
  
  

  So - an interesting solution that CalCars founder Felix Kramer has proposed would be a way to generate $50 billion for the auto industry and just get us the low carbon driving options America needs, despite the footdragging;
  
  1. Put together 5 million deposits on EVs and PHEV orders at $10,000 each.
  ...read full post
  
  
  Comments (0)  |  December 15, 2008

• The Real Wall Street Bailout As Sea-Levels Rise

  

  A mere few centuries after they founded Nieuw Amsterdam , (a distant settlement that came to be known as New York City); the worlds leading experts in sea-level adaptations may see their former colony drowned. But could Dutch dykes ever save its Nieuw Amsterdam?
  
  Beginning with just over three feet of sea level rise, the impact on the US would be calamitous, having the potential to destabilize many highly populated areas of this country, according to a Coastal Impact Study published at Architecture 2030.
  
  The study challenges the notion that has been advanced by the media that only poor ...read full post

  
  
  Comments (2)  |  December 1, 2008

• Homo Sapiens Redesign: Homo Sustainabilius

  I just knew Mother Nature would figure something out! The 6 Billion of us is such a tight squeeze on this planet, with our unsustainable ways!

  
  
  Ecologists say that eventually climate change will shrink all species. They don't say so, but, well, wouldn't that include our own species?
  
  It turns out the degradation of environments around the world due to climate change is limiting food availability, and as the result, smaller animals are doing better now than larger ones that need more resources. Warmer temperatures limits species size.
  
  Bergmann's rule says that species size decreases as ...read full post

  
  
  Comments (2)  |  November 17, 2008

• Heartland State Funds A Post-Ethanol Economy

  A Midwestern state ferments a new brew with a $150 million investment in new bio energy technologies

  Wisconsin is a corn ethanol state, and the people of Wisconsin pay $19 billion a year out of state to get 70% of their electricity from coal. That's about to change.
  
  Governor Jim Doyle plans to invest $150 million over the next ten years to help switch the Midwest state over to home-grown renewable fuel and electricity, powered by the next generation of bio energy: beyond corn ethanol.
  
  His goal is for the state to get 25% of its fuel, and also 25% of its electricity from renewables by 2025. He told the Sierra Club (9/27/08...read full post
  
  
  Comments (0)  |  November 4, 2008

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