Fuel cells: distant dream, but burning with promise
| Learning how to go green. Students spent a year learning about global warming, endangered species and the ecosystem and then they found out what they could do to help. |
| Fuel cells: distant dream, but burning with promise Some day, fuel cells may power your car and exhaust only water and perhaps carbon dioxide. More efficient and cleaner than an internal combustion engine, their emissions will be much lower. They may also run your home without the energy loss of power lines, or even power your laptop or cell phone. But not today or even tomorrow. |
| Nissan To Build Electric Cars Nissan Motor Co. announced Tuesday it will mass produce electric cars within the next five years, according to NPR.Zero-emission electric cars will be available in two years for government fleets in the U.S. and Japan, Nissan Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn told NPR. By 2012, the cars will be in mass production. |
| Changing climate could alter biology of diseases. For 10,000 years the people, plants, animals and microbes of planet Earth have experienced an unusually long period of climate stability. This is ending as rising levels of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, disrupt sensitive interrelationships forged among these life forms in the dependable environments of the past. |
| Experts disagree on global warming’s affect on hurricanes. When Chris Landsea talks about global warming and its potential effect on storms, he thinks of his family. |
| Ambitious Climate Policy Is Affordable Ignoring climate change is the most costly and dangerous course for our economy (see last week’s climate fact). But how much will it cost us to tackle the problem? The United States can enjoy robust economic growth over the next several decades while making ambitious reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. If we put a cap-and-trade policy in place soon, we can achieve substantial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions without significant adverse consequences to the economy. And in the long run, the coming low-carbon economy can provide the foundation for sustained American economic growth and prosperity.1 That’s the conclusion of a new survey that synthesizes findings from several peer-reviewed and state-of-the-art economic studies2 on the impacts of capping greenhouse gas emissions on the U.S. economy. While these individual studies vary in their assumptions, they do agree on two things:  Fig. 1. Five peer-reviewed economic studies predict U.S. GDP will roughly double by 2030 (solid lines), even with strong climate legislation (dashed lines). Full-size graphFig. 2. The impact of climate policy (dark tip of each bar) on total U.S. GDP in 2030 (the entire bar) is small in each of the five. Full-size graph
The 0.58% difference in GDP is so small, it’s like two cars taking different routes from New York to Los Angeles and guessing that one will get there at noon on the third day and the other will get there at 12:35. That it is well within the margin of error of these models.Don’t forget that these forecasts ignore the much bigger economic cost of the impacts of climate change if we don’t take effective action. And that delay both greatly increases the cost of making the necessary emissions reductions and puts the U.S. further behind the rest of the world in the race to invent and produce the next generation of energy technologies.Climate policy is affordable. It’s time to cap emissions. 1 Keohane, Nathaniel and Peter Goldmark. "What Will it Cost to Protect Ourselves from Global Warming?" Environmental Defense Fund 2008.2 Models analyzed were from the Energy Information Agency (EIA), Research Triangle Institute (RTI), Harvard (the IGEM model), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Pacific Northwest National Laboratories (PNNL).
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| Ten Senators to Watch on Global Warming The Senate is scheduled to debate and vote on landmark global warming legislation during the first week of June.Will the Senate seize this historic opportunity and begin to solve the global warming crisis?These ten Senators reflect the debate that’s playing out right now.Some are swing votes. Others are leaders whose management skills will be put to the test.Their work with Senate colleagues over the next month could make the difference in our efforts to pass meaningful global warming legislation this year.  Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) – Has introduced legislation in the past that would limit global warming pollution from power plants; as a member of the Senate Republican leadership the question will be - does he help the Republican caucus move to a more responsible position?  Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) – A moderate Democrat with good environmental ratings from the League of Conservation Voters; represents state with one of the largest per-capita manufacturing industries in the country; he will look to balance economic and manufacturing interests in the bill.  Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) – Chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee; has his own competing global warming legislation with Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA); is looked to by many moderate Democrats, particularly those with coal mining interests, as a leader on issue.  Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) – Senior Senator from South Carolina, a state vulnerable to hurricanes and coastal flooding; is one of Senator John McCain’s strongest allies in the Senate; supports nuclear power and will try to boost support for nuclear energy in the bill.  Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) – Freshman Senator from a state that is a traditional political bellwether for the country; has said that global warming is a serious threat and has promoted investments in alternative energy; her senior Senator, Kit Bond, is one of the Senate leading opponents against action to reduce global warming emissions; will look for ways to best balance her state’s rural and low-income interests in the bill.  Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) – As Senate Majority Leader, he has scheduled floor time in early June to debate the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act; his leadership will be critical in bridging the differences between members.  Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO) – First-term Senator from a state vulnerable to droughts and wildfires that could be made far worse by global warming; Colorado has abundant solar and wind energy resources, but also large coal and other fossil fuel reserves; Salazar has praised Colorado Governor Bill Ritter’s Climate Action Plan, which adopts aggressive greenhouse reduction goals; will be looking at various technology incentives and opportunities for agriculture in the bill to make sure that they work for Colorado.  Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR) – Second-term Senator from a state renowned for its natural beauty and diverse geography; Oregon is part of the Western Climate Initiative to establish a regional approach to reducing global warming pollution; he continues to question the science behind global warming. Will he decide to represent the citizens of his state and join the call for real action?  Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) – Fifth-term moderate Republican Senator from a political swing state with manufacturing and coal interests; has his own global warming legislation with Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM); if Senator Bingaman and Senator Specter will both work with constructively with Senators Lieberman and Warner on key areas of interest, it will send a strong signal to other undecided votes.  Senator John Sununu (R-NH) – First-term Senator from a state with big outdoor recreation and skiing industries that could be vulnerable to global warming; in 2005, New Hampshire joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative of nine Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states to limit global warming pollution; while Senator Sununu has supported a bill that would limit emissions from powerplants, he voted no on a comprehensive cap-and-trade bill in 2003; despite strong support for addressing climate change in the state, he has yet to endorse the Climate Security Act. Take Action »Forward this list »Leave a Comment » |
| Take Action to Support Global Warming Action Global warming is the most serious environmental threat facing the planet today.We need Congress to pass a strong bill to cap and reduce America’s global warming pollution.The Senate has scheduled a vote on the Climate Security Act in early June.You can help us seize this historic opportunity to pass a strong bill.Take these three steps today:
Thank you for your support. Together, we can make history by passing a strong global warming bill this year. |
| Scuderi Split-Cycle Hybrid Engine The Scuderi Group will be presenting a scale plastic model of their highly anticipated split-cycle air-hybrid engine during this week’s Engine Expo 2008 in Germany. The company plans to display a demonstration model of the valve train at the show. The computer models that the Scuderi Group are using to develop the Air-Hybrid Engine [.] |