California may have a reputation as the trendsetting state that has given the world a range of technologies, but the next frontier of innovation will likely be in cities, according to its new lieutenant governor.
Photo Courtesy Green Biz
"States are laboratories of democracy," said Gavin Newsom, "but cities are laboratories of innovation."
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But Newsom, who promoted mandatory composting in San Francisco and implemented the city's plastic bag ban, plans to use his bully pulpit to promote cleantech opportunities throughout the state -- an even off our coasts by tapping the ocean for energy.
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In an effort to make California a leader in electric cars, Newsom wants to install charging stations throughout California by utilizing the state's network of public rest stops in order to overcome consumer fears about EV driving ranges. He also wants to get the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program back on track to give homeowners and businesses a financing option for solar panels.
A final push from the lieutenant governor will focus on retrofitting the state's existing buildings, a two-pronged approach to improve energy efficiency and address California's high unemployment rate. Citing 2009 research, Newsom explained that a $1 billion investment in coal would yield 890 jobs, compared to 1,000-1,500 jobs in nuclear, 1,900 jobs in solar, and 3,300 jobs in wind.
Hello, this is Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger with another California Report.
This week, I was in San Diego for the groundbreaking of a new transmission line, the Sunrise Powerlink.
This line will carry 1,000 megawatts of clean energy from the Imperial Valley to San Diego—enough to power 650,000 homes....
In just the last year we have approved 5,000 megawatts of renewable projects like wind, solar and geothermal.
Many are in areas with vast open space like the Mojave Desert and Imperial Valley.
The challenge is moving that power to where people live and work. Because you can have all the power in the world out in the desert, but if you can’t bring it in, you have nothing.For that, of course, we need transmission lines. Right now only one transmission line connects the Imperial Valley to San Diego. And it is near capacity.
That line is tired. It’s exhausted. It cannot handle anymore.
That is why this week’s groundbreaking is so important. Not only will the Sunrise Powerlink carry enough renewable energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by one million tons a year, but it will also create thousands of jobs at a time that we need those jobs the most.
This all sounds great, doesn’t it?
Great for our economy, great for jobs and great for our environment.
As I’ve always said, you can protect both the environment and the economy.
But you will be surprised to learn that it took five years to get this transmission line through the permitting process.
There were obstacles at every turn.
There is no reason for that.
It is inexcusable that it takes five years to build a transmission line, or 10 years to build an extra lane on the freeway, or 20 years to build a new airport runway.
In China, those things get built in four years.
You see, infrastructure is so important.
We have a growing population so, therefore, we have to upgrade our infrastructure.
So it is very important for environmentalists, businesses, Democrats and Republicans, for everyone to get together and get the permitting done quicker...
[Leilani, "Carbon Free Girl," is a Race Car Driver who competes at NASCAR]
After spending a week in Venice, Louisiana getting an up close view of the BP gulf coast oil spill disaster, talking with locals whose livelihoods are over, and seeing dead wildlife, I am trying my best to look at the positive side. Keep in mind that I just got off the phone with one of my boat captains in Louisiana and he told me he saw six dead dolphins and ten dead turtles in the past few days. So the idea of looking on "the bright side" is nearly impossible, and most days I fail, but I think it is human nature in the face of a catastrophe. The only positive thing that can possibly come from this -- the largest environmental disaster in American history --is if it causes us to change the way we are living on this Earth.
When Dale Earnhardt Sr. died on the last lap of the Daytona 500 in 2001, it devastated NASCAR. He was their biggest star and a hero to most of their audience. The one positive thing that came from his death is that racing took a good hard look at safety and they made some really big changes. After his death, all drivers were required to wear full face helmets (Earnhardt wore an open face helmet) as well as a HANS device, a head and neck restraint system. SAFER barriers, or soft walls, were installed in the speedways so that when we crashed, the racetrack wall would help absorb some of the impact. It cost millions of dollars, but it has also likely saved many lives.
I have since had wrecks at nearly 200mph (one impact was so intense it put a crack through my motor) and I have walked away with nothing but bruises and a sore back. I don't know for sure that I would have walked away from those crashes if many years earlier, Earnhardt hadn't passed away and changed the safety rules of racing. His death marked a permanent change to the way motor sports safety was conducted, NASCAR drew a line in the sand and never looked back. That fateful moment made racing safer for all drivers that have strapped themselves into a race car since, including myself.
Perhaps one day we will look back at this oil spill and think "If the Gulf Coast oil spill hadn't happened, we wouldn't have kick started our clean energy economy back in 2010. We wouldn't have made such great strides with solar pv and thermal technology, geothermal energy, wind and tidal turbines, green buildings, hydrogen fuel cell and electric cars, alternative fuels like cellulosic ethanol and algae based biodiesel, and we might not have passed the American Power Act." Perhaps we would look back and incredulously say "Imagine if the gulf coast oil spill hadn't happened, we might actually still be running our country on dirty fossil fuels and spending billions of dollars buying oil from foreign countries! Wouldn't that be awful?!"
Charles Darwin once said, "It is not the strongest of the species that survives. Nor is it the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change."
And so our time has come -- this is the 11th hour. We either change the way we are living on the planet orrelegate ourselves to eventually having our planet covered with oily water, polluted air, dead coral reefs, and cattle pastures where there were once rain forests. I hope that this disaster will wake us up and make those in charge realize that now is the time for us to turn over a new leaf. To check ourselves into rehab to get off our addiction to fossil fuels and start a new sober life with clean, renewable energy.
I am a race car driver; my career is currently based around an internal combustion engine, and yet even I can see the importance of energy independence and the move towards the use of clean, renewable energy.
We are at a crossroads and I hope we take the right turn -- or maybe it's a left? Let's take a step -- or even better, a leap -- in the right direction. Let's pass the American Power Act and start putting a real effort into capturing clean energy from the wind, the sun, and the ocean. Let's put Americans to work building our new green energy economy. We've been talking about it for years, the technology is already here -- all we have to do now is to make it happen.
What in the world are we waiting for? Millions of gallons of oil to spill into the Gulf of Mexico?
My greatest hope in the wake of this ongoing tragedy is that this is our clean energy wake up call. My biggest fear? That we won't answer.
Deepwater Horizon Accident Foreshadows a Potential Disaster Waiting to Happen in the Gulf
Food & Water Watch and Safety Engineer Warn of Consequences of a Lack of Critical Safety Documents, Fear Disaster Possible for BP Atlantis
BP Atlantis Platform, Gulf of Mexico
Washington, D.C.—Following [April's] explosion on the Deepwater Horizon Platform, leased and operated by British Petroleum (BP) in the Gulf of Mexico, the national consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch is warning of the possibility of a similarly tragic disaster involving the company’s Atlantis Project— one of the world’s deepest semi-submersible oil and natural gas platforms, located 150 miles south of New Orleans in the Gulf of Mexico.
Last year, a whistleblower and former company contractor alleged that the Atlantis platform has been operating without a large percentage of the engineer-approved documents needed for it to operate safely. An independent engineer later substantiated these concerns, concluding that a BP database showed that over 85 percent of the Atlantis Project’s Piping and Instrument drawings lacked final engineer-approval, and that the project should be immediately shut down until those documents could be accounted for and are independently verified.
“The tragic explosion on the Deepwater Horizon platform is an urgent reminder of the calamity that could occur if BP’s Atlantis platform is operating without the approved documents necessary for ensuring its safety,” said Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch. “This accident and the recent Massey mine disaster in West Virginia underscore a complete lack of regulatory oversight over the operations of the fossil fuel industry.”
BP has denied the whistleblower’s assertions regarding Atlantis, going so far as to write a letter to Congressional staff saying that they are “unsubstantiated,” even though internal documents show that in August 2008, BP management was aware of the problems and believed that the document deficiencies “could lead to catastrophic Operator error.” An investigation conducted by the company’s Ombudsman in April 2009 seems to substantiate the charges, although the investigation’s results did not become known until this month. BP has never acknowledged that the Ombudsman conducted an investigation of the project’s document deficiencies.
“BP’s recklessness in regards to the Atlantis project is a clear example of how the company has a pattern of failing to comply with minimum industry standards for worker and environmental safety,” said Mike Sawyer, an Engineer at Apex Safety Consultants, who verified the contractor-turned-whistleblower’s concerns about the company’s lack of proper documents. Read More Here >>>
Well, coming out of left field with this one, this is my final idea of who might be more powerful than Obama. Of course, like “the media” this isn’t a single person. Nonetheless, it is something to consider.
As we all know, climate change rose to the top of national and even global concern when Al Gore made “An Inconvenient Truth” and people saw this movie on the topic. This, without the flash and flare of Hollywood even, was a prime example of how popular forms of media can affect the population and politics.
Millions of people watched Obama’s State of the Union speech, but how many millions more saw Avatar?
The popularity and influence of Hollywood could be a stronger force getting more people behind climate and clean energy legislation than Obama ever could (at least, in the population at large — the people who do elect members of Congress).
A new video on the web has just come out along exactly these lines, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Felicity Huffman, Forest Whitaker, Ed Norton, Justin Long, and others. I am writing about that in my next post, so stay tuned. If “Hollywood” continues on this path, I think it alone could drive the necessary public support for climate and clean energy legislation, but they need to really get behind it, (do more than a youtube video).
Well, it is a string of thoughts here. And I guess the point of it is, we cannot only pin our hopes and disappointments on Obama or even Congress. We have to look at the issue more broadly; tackle tragic media coverage of these issues; engage in our democracy more ourselves to get people in all sectors energized around the fact that if the US doesn’t give Obama and Congress some support and some push, China is going to win the game before we realize we’re playing with them; and hope that some bigshots in Hollywood or other popular arenas help get the common citizen behind strong climate and clean energy legislation.
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BP Atlantis Platform, Gulf of Mexico
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