A look beyond the Bay - a terrific new video "Ahead of the Curve: States lead on climate change" by Sea Studios:
See also the video on actions by business.
Hat-tip Gristmill.
Just in. San Mateo City Council to formally take up the Sustainable Initiatives Plan (municipal plan, community-wide Sustainable Initiatives Plan and city's carbon footprint available here).
To: Sustainability Advisory CommitteeThis is an important step forward for the city and the city should be applauded. The city is making a substantive effort to implement the plan.
I just wanted all of you to know that at Monday's Council meeting, the City Council will adopt a resolution accepting the SAC's report and formally adopting a resolution establishing the City's goals. The City Council will also approve the City's work plan for climate action for 2008-09 as part of our 2008-10 Business Plan. (See copy attached.)
If you happen to be able to attend the meeting, the Council would like to publically acknowledge you for your assistance.
Thanks again for all your efforts in getting the City to this point. The Council sincerely appreciates your commitment to this initiative and our activities in the coming years will reinforce our interest in making progress in reducing our CO2 emissions.
... Our success relies on the active engagement of our community in these efforts. We look forward to working with you and the stakeholders you represent to collectively make progress in our goals.
Thanks again for your assistance. If you have any questions, just let me know.
Susan M. Loftus
Deputy City Manager
San Jose scores pretty well - mostly because our electrical power generation is relatively clean given that it's mostly hydro and natural gas. Other parts of the country are mostly coal.
Some other findings:
Updated: It is important to note that good land-use and transit also play a very important role. In that regard it's somewhat surprising that San Jose ranks well given that it's relatively weak in these areas.
• The nation's 100 largest cities hold two-thirds of the U.S. population and three-quarters of its economic activity, yet produce only 56 percent of the carbon emissions from transportation and homes.
• The average metro resident had a smaller carbon footprint (2.24 metric tons per capita) than the average American (2.60 metric tons).
• The West was the only region to show a decline in its partial carbon footprint from 2000 to 2005. Overall, the carbon footprint for the 100 metro areas grew 7.5 percent from 2000 to 2005. San Jose's per capita carbon footprint from transportation and residential energy use decreased 7.43 percent during that time period.
Drivers tend to chuckle when they zoom through this intersection in San Mateo. "Outrageous!" they scoff. Passers-by quickly glance over to see if anyone is parked here and actually paying this rate. But, as it has been for the past year, this prophetic gas station actually is a portal into the future. Soon, all pumps will follow this station's lead.
Eventually, two gallons of gas will cost $10--the same as a ticket to the new Indiana Jones movie. Here's some quick advice: saw the Indy film--skip it or rent the DVD. Secondly, use the Net to your advantage. Try GasPriceWatch.com or GasBuddy.com to find the cheapest rates in your neighborhood. MyCarPoolStation is one example of several online car pooling networks. And Google Maps now includes public transportation information for those seeking directions. Or, better yet, visit the local bike shop.
While there is interesting information in the draft, especially looking at things like refrigerants (which has not been considered fully within the city footprints that have been done), the draft is overly complex. We need to be discussing the objectives of a protocol, the possibility that this will become mandated rather than voluntary and the benefit of having precise emissions information (possibly based on vague data) vs. the ease of reporting.
Although pressure may get a city to take action, profound change can only come from an educated and engaged government staff and city council/board of supervisors.
Therefore, simplicity in reporting is important – something that everyone can understand and act on, enough information to be able to ascertain good policy and programs, and no need to hire outside help to do it. The draft is not this user-friendly and no statewide or local agency representing the interests of CA cities and counties is part of the Technical Workgroup (the writers of the protocol).
What will help local governments to take action should be the primary criteria for a good protocol. This draft may be more useful to the regulatory agencies than the local governments.
You can follow the work of this process by going to these two links:
California Air Resource Board - local government
Climate Registry - local government
(This link has a list of participants in the Technical Workgroup.)
The slide show from their southern CA meeting is available at:
Accelerating peak oil and climate change create some potentially unpleasant future possibilities. An exploration of various scenarios is found at FutureScenarios.
Here's one to avoid, "BrownTech":
Flows of energy from more expensive sources such as tar sands, deep ocean oil, gas to liquids and coal to liquids slow the decline in fuels from crude oil.
...Rapid onset of climate change also tends to support centralised nationalist systems for several reasons. First the consequences of chaotic weather, food supply problems, radical land use change and abandonment of marginal land, leads to demands for strong government action to protect people from high food and fuel costs, natural disasters, the consequences of strong action by other nations, and mass migration by displaced people. Rates of urbanisation increase as climate change impacts and withdrawal of government supported services in more remote rural regions accelerates.
Continuous contraction affects large sections of the economy but the energy, resource and agriculture sectors along with recycling and retrofit industries experience rapid growth based on high commodity prices that are sustained despite economic recession in the main consuming economies. In some affluent countries, reform of monetary systems lowers the scale of financial collapses and refocuses capital on productive and socially useful innovation and investment.There are several variants in this speculative exercise. Worth reading for a sense of the interplay between extreme weather, energy, society, economy, and international dimensions.
Information technology continues to yield gains in energy and resource management; from real time pricing and self-healing electrical grids, to internet based ride sharing systems and telecommuting. Conservation yields the greatest gains with major public policies to change personal and organisational behaviour.
The Bay Area will have a carbon fee on stationary sources starting July 1.
The 15-1 vote by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District sets the stage for 2,500 companies and agencies - from supermarkets to gas stations to power plants - to pay 4.4 cents for every metric ton of carbon dioxide they expel, beginning July 1. The top 10 companies combined would pay more than $820,000. The fee for a large share of businesses would be less than $1.The fee applies to all stationary sources and all greenhouse gasses without minimum threshold.
Boulder, Colo., is the only area with a similar emissions fee program. Last year, the city imposed greenhouse gas fees on consumers and businesses to fund global warming education, energy audits and weatherization - but not to track carbon dioxide.There is little question that the economic context is challenging but we're already behind the curve to get started.
So says San Carlos Councilman Matt Grocott as San Carlos weighs action on global warming. Sadly, that opinion while a minority remains a persistent and entrenched one.
The national science academies of every industrial nation have unanimously stated that human-caused global warming is an urgent problem. The editor-in-chief of Science magazine said that “a consensus as strong as the one that has developed around this topic is rare in science.” And the world’s most comprehensive assessment, the IPCC report, written by over 4,000 world experts warns of grave consequences with 90% certainty. Even CEOs of Alcoa, Dupont, GE, Wal-Mart, Lehman Brothers to name a few not only agree but believe action will help the economy. If a doctor had this kind of certainty about a patient’s disease and didn’t act they would be convicted for malpractice.
Add to that the fact that clean tech is one of the few areas where firms are still hiring, not to mention soaring energy costs of fossil fuels and what we spend in blood and money to ensure the flow of petroleum.
Let's hope Mr. Grocott's colleagues are more forward thinking as they consider adopting the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement tomorrow.
A tornado hit Riverside in southern California this past week. 
It is not possible to say with certainty that any given extreme weather event is directly caused by global warming. In fact, while rare, they do turn up in California from time to time (click diagram for details), the most recent prior one in the Bay Area being one in South San Francisco in 2005.
However, there is little question that global warming creates more extreme swings in the weather. Heavy precipitation this winter, followed by sudden cessation in the Spring are causing water utilities to scramble (more on that soon). And locally, record lows have been rapidly followed by record highs.
These events are completely consistent with global warming.
Tips from the panel at the GreenWestExpo this past week.
Hat-tip TriplePundit.
Before the revolution, everyone believes it is impossible. After the revolution, everyone says it was inevitable.
Oil continues its march driven by soaring demand, tight supplies and speculation. But while speculation is playing a role the fundamentals of supply and demand are the primary drivers. The International Energy Agency offers little hope for change:
The world’s premier energy monitor is preparing a sharp downward revision of its oil-supply forecast, a shift that reflects deepening pessimism over whether oil companies can keep abreast of booming demand….Commentators are speculating about further rises in the price of gas. And gas of course is already causing considerable pain, still more theft of grease, new hybrids are imminent from Honda, and Caltrain ridership is surging.
For several years, the IEA has predicted that supplies of crude and other liquid fuels will arc gently upward to keep pace with rising demand, topping 116 million barrels a day [MMBD] by 2030, up from around 87 million barrels a day currently. Now, the agency is worried that aging oil fields and diminished investment mean that companies could struggle to surpass 100 million barrels a day over the next two decades.
An annual count in February found 36,993 weekday riders on the San Jose-to-San Francisco commuter line. That's a 9.3 percent jump from last year's count, and it surpasses the previous peak of 35,609 at the height of the dot-com boom in 2001.I love Caltrain, yet some people still think "no one rides Caltrain" - something I heard just a couple months back.
Mountain View General Plan to incorporate climate considerations:
Today, the city is gearing up to craft another blueprint for growth through 2030. In addition to outlining traditional city policies on open space, housing, retail and transportation, the new general plan will incorporate climate change, said city planner Sarah Goralewski.A number of cities received grants from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District in December to incorporate climate considerations into their General Plans. This is a good thing but ensuring it is done so meaningfully is a devils-in-the-details discussion. Does the general plan genuinely support vibrant communities with amenities around transit options? Are bike paths complete, safe and along key corridors? Is solar access ensured? Are permeable surfaces incorporated to capture and filter rain and runoff? These and other elements are the keys to good climate thinking in a general plan.
"Climate change, sustainability and affordable housing" are likely going to be included in the document, agreed Martin Alkire, a principal planner with Mountain View.
San Carlos has a great group of folks encouraging progress. Just in is the following report, showing mixed support from the city council.
San Carlos decided to table the vote until the next meeting May 27 since one council member was not there. Two of the members, Omar Ahmad and Brad Lewis (the mayor) said they would sign the agreement. Bob Grasilli said he would sign the "alternate agreement" put forward by the city, Matt Grocott said he won't sign anything because "global warming is a lie". We think the other member of the council Randy Royce will sign so things look good.The "alternate agreement" is a statement that the city "may" do a variety of things but has no commitment to anything in particular. There is significant opportunity for the city to show more leadership.
Matt Grocott complained that this was on the agenda again, and Brad told him that the letters of community support influenced the council to put it on the agenda. :-) The assistant city manager, Brian Moura, gave a glowing report about all the things he has done as "Green Programs Manager" and made it sound like San Carlos is far ahead of other cities. He also tried to influence the council to sign the alternate agreement, which as you know, requires no commitment by the city. He told Matt the item was on the agenda because it's been a year since his last presentation on green initiatives (but did not mention that the initiative for that largely came from us).
Just in from Mike
On Saturday morning the Burlingame City Council and the Planning Commission held their annual joint meeting to establish priorities for the planning and building departments for the coming year. As I alerted you, this agenda included four initial proposals from Burlingame's Green Ribbon Task Force that were tabled (due to lack of support) at the April 7 City Council Meeting. Again there were skeptical questions and comments about solar power from some council members, but this time there were strong rebuttals from most of the city planners. When it came time to make decisions, Community Development Director Bill Meeker announced that he sensed a consensus to go ahead with these proposals, and nobody commented, so the GRTF can now work with city staff to move on with our investigations.
Thanks to those of you who emailed the City Council or spoke at the meeting. I was especially pleased to hear Michael Barber, President of the Burlingame Elementary District Board of Trustees, tell the Council that he had financing and plans in place to put solar panels on every school in the district.
On Sunday morning the GRTF hosted the first annual Green Street Fair, in conjunction with the "Fresh Market." We had over 40 exhibitors, including the first-ever "Burlingame Cool City Team" table. (A big thanks to Carley, Rosanna, and Denise for volunteering to staff our booth.) We had a steady stream of foot traffic through the fair for four hours, and it seemed to be a very successful event.
There's little question that a veggie diet (not to mention less processed food, etc) is better for the planet. My wife and I were vegetarian for a number of years but we discovered that we're actually healthier with some meat. It's been suggested that blood type affects what kind of diet works best. But even then, if going veggie isn't for you, there is no question that it can be good to just eat less meat - we eat far too much of it. Half or even less, once or twice a week, is plenty.
Hat-tip Gristmill.
Addressing global warming is going to require global action at every level. India's decision to put a global warming coordinator in every village is a sign that this process has begun.
At the same time it represents an enormous economic opportunity. Tomorrow's event as part of the California Clean Tech Open with entrepreneurs, scientists, and venture capitalists at Santa Clara University will try to build momentum on this need and opportunity. But it will take creative approaches:
...figuring out the right business model is tricky because people at the bottom of the economic pyramid don't necessarily want handouts, but they can't pay high upfront fees either. Gadgil praised Solar Electric Lighting Company, or SELCO, in India, because its novel financing model requests small monthly payments for its solar-powered lights.
In a seeming follow-up to McCain, Silicon Valley executives push Congress to extend the federal renewable energy incentives. Thirty executives presented their case noting that renewable energy projects are already showing pull-back by any customers uncertain if their projects can be completed by the end of this year when the incentives expire. Their presentation included a letter and report on the value of renewables to the economy:
In a letter to congressional leaders, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, TechNet, the National Venture Capital Association and trade groups for wind and solar warned that the loss of tax credits would jeopardize $19 billion in clean-tech investment and 116,000 jobs nationwide.Well, it's sure important to protect the oil companies given how they are hurting these days.
Last year, more than $1 billion was invested in clean tech in Silicon Valley, according to a Cleantech Group report.
The House and Senate have disagreed over how to pay for a package of extended tax credits, including an $8.8 billion-a-year research and development tax credit that expired at the end of 2007. A House measure to shift tax breaks from oil and gas to renewables failed in the Senate after fierce opposition from oil companies.
Or, more accurately, an odd triple - Google.org, Chevron and BP invest in Oakland-based solar power plant builder BrightSource Energy.
McCain made a widely broadcast statement on the need for action on global warming on Wednesday. This was shortly followed by statements that he opposes incentives for solar power.
Sen. John McCain made clear today that he is not comfortable with subsidies for solar power, though he has supported incentives for nuclear power plants and thinks more federal support is needed to encourage the industry.This comes as the scramble is on to get the incentives through Congress and solar companies are scaling back including local solar installer Akeena. Evidently McCain noticed no irony in the fact that nuclear is subsidized at dramatically higher levels than renewables.
As with any contractor, one should be selective. Of Bay Solar Power Design, the Examiner writes:
The company, based out of Pacifica until last November, when it relocated to Fairfield, is being investigated by the District Attorney’s Office, the Contractor State License Board and the Better Business Bureau. The investigations, authorities said, were prompted by a stream of complaints from former customers who claimed they paid for solar panels and never received them.
Climate Counts recently rolled out its climate ratings for top US companies with local companies HP and Google being the top local performers in their categories.
Launched by local green company Stoneyfield Farms, Climate Counts scores companies from 0 to 100 based on whether they have done the following:
There's little question that Google is genuine hero in supporting the development of renewable energy on several fronts including Google.org investments, public policy and other arenas. But while Google aspires to its motto "don't be evil", the picture is complex and Google does not wholly escape criticism.
- MEASURED their climate "footprint"
- REDUCED their impact on global warming
- SUPPORTED (or suggest intent to block) progressive climate legislation
- Publicly DISCLOSED their climate actions clearly and comprehensively
Google's interest in being less bad is very good news for the environment. Google, long suspected of leaving tech's biggest carbon footprint, remains famously tight-lipped about the size of that footprint. Unlike Intel and IBM, Google didn't participate in the Carbon Disclosure Project 5. The CDP5 is a voluntary CO2 emissions reporting project undertaken on behalf of 315 institutional investors with $41 trillion under management. The report looks at how the world's largest companies are responding to climate change. A Techworld report estimated that 3 million tons of CO2 emissions would make Google "possibly the it world's largest indirect contributor to global warming."Climate Counts primarily aims at consumer awareness. In contrast, the Carbon Disclosure Project is more technical and aimed at policy makers and opinion leaders. It is is the largest, most authoritative effort to get companies to report and act on their carbon emissions. Disclosure is essential to understand the scale of the problem, ensure accountability, and track progress. Google refuses to publicly report its emissions for competitive reasons.
In contrast, HP stands out with stellar ratings in CDP's most recent report.
Among the featured projects in Forbes "World's Biggest Clean-Energy Projects" is this fascinating entry from Humdinger Wind. The first turbine-less wind energy generator.
Frayne won Popular Mechanics' Breakthrough of the Year Award in December 2007 for his Windbelt technology. Unlike other wind technologies, the Windbelt is small and light enough to hold in your hand. Rather than generating electricity through rotating turbines, the Windbelt captures small pockets of energy emitted from a small vibrating membrane.Forbes erroneously lists this company in Mt. View. It is actually in Hawaii.
The ribbon cutting ceremony for the San Mateo Hillsdale High School solar installation has been changed to Monday, May 19 at noon.
The ribbon cutting comes after approval at long-last of the solar panels students worked tirelessly (and successfully) for months to fundraised for.
Updated: Panels are springing up everywhere it seems. Today eBay launches the largest commercial solar installation in San Jose. eBay bounces the short-lived prior title owner from last month who bounced the previous one from two days before:
• Today: eBay to dedicate Building 17 on its North First Street campus, complete with a 3,248-panel, 650-kilowatt solar system installed by Solar City over five buildings.
• April 23: Akeena Solar of Los Gatos announces an 1,890-panel, 410-kilowatt system at Star Quality Concrete in downtown San Jose, calling it the city's largest commercial solar power system.
• April 21: Sunpower and Macy's unveil a 1,500-panel, 307-kilowatt system atop the Oakridge Mall store.
If you live in Mountain View, don't miss this opportunity to voice your answer to the question: What is the single most important thing that Mountain View can do to be more sustainable? On May 19, they are having an evening event for the public to meet with all the working groups of their Environmental Sustainability Task Force... Here's the flier.
They also are using googlegroups to spread info at this link. And they have a wiki site for use by their task force.
And finally, looks like they have a study session planned for council on May 27.
It's coming.
With a little humor:
[Oil at $150-$200 a barrel as predicted by Goldman Sachs] would mean gasoline prices of $5 to $6 a gallon. Unless, of course, we permanently suspend the gasoline tax, in which case gasoline prices would only be $5 to $6 a gallon.And of course, the Bay Area will hit it sooner than the rest of the country.
McCain wants a "flexible" approach simultaneously claiming to support the "aim" of California's moratorium while still wanting more drilling.
"I think we can offer more incentives to states like California and Florida and more of a larger share of revenues and taxes from oil they may exploit," McCain added. "But I can't tell people in California what to do with their coast."However, it's worth noting that additional drilling would have no noticeable impact on gas prices due to soaring demand.
A week after news reports questioned why bureaucrats were holding up an innovative project that provides solar panels to campuses and teaches high school students the values of renewables, state officials got their act together and swiftly approved proposed panels for Hillsdale High School. A ribbon cutting is slated for Thursday, May 15.
The project, spearheaded by Owens Electric & Solar's SOS (Solar Our Schools), is a two-tier program that teaches students while providing panels to cash-strapped districts. Hillsdale's panels were already delivered in March when the Division of the State's Architect intervened because it hadn't reviewed the project yet. The DSA was not returning Hillsdale High's phone calls. And because the DSA moves with turtle-like instincts, students assumed they were going to graduate before seeing the panels.
The DSA should be commended for not disappointing these kids. And San Mateo Union High School District officials are so pleased, that this project may have a domino effect for other schools and districts.
The San Jose Mercury had an article on what the airlines are doing to reduce GHG emissions. Fly slower - Southwest projects that it will save $42 million in jet fuel and people only arrive minutes later. In fact, those extra minutes are part of the extra time factored into arrivals, so there doesn't need to be a change in schedules.
Remember the San Jose case of the stolen grease? The problem is going national.
San Mateo's business group Samceda held a symposium on AB32, the Global Warming Solutions Act, Friday with the participation of a number of key folks participating in the AB32 implementation process. Of course, as the first major global warming bill in the nation, AB32’s implementation will play an enormous role in influencing steps by other states and even federal action.
Ostensibly an “update” on the implementation process, it was mostly a promotion of cap and trade with rather sharp criticism of alternatives as “command and control” options (aka direct caps or carbon taxes). The rhetoric of Schwartenegger’s aide David Crane (Special Advisor to Governor Schwarzenegger for Jobs and Economic Growth and a Senior Advisor to the Governor on climate change) was especially striking (and ridiculous) – that “people on the other side of the isle” want to “reduce profits.”
Everyone agrees – at least everyone who recognizes the need to a solution to the climate crisis – that one essential element to the solution is putting a price on carbon. This then puts market forces into play. Probably the most elegant and effective is a carbon tax at the point of extraction or importation where it is easily tied to carbon volume and not directly imposed on consumers. But there is little political appetite for this kind of approach.
The alternatives all involve a huge range of implementation complexities. “Cap and trade” is the most popular vehicle which creates a cost and a market is widely supported as a general concept. Environmental Defense provides a good rationale here. But the devil is in the details.
Differences of opinion are apparent in several arenas including the environmental movement. On market mechanisms, trading is a point of concern among environmental justice organizations concerned that this will result in continued higher concentration of polluting industries among low-income communities. While it is true that there is a serious problem with many polluting industries are concentrated in low income communities and asthma rates are a huge problem, it's not clear that power plants are a major source. Indoor air quality, diesel buses and other factors are far more significant.
The European experience is instructive. The carbon market experienced serious problems in two areas: huge profits going to existing carbon based energy providers and "offsets" which produced no actual benefit. Scientific American provides an excellent rundown of issues.
Many organizations support trading as effective but a major question is allocation of allowances and ensuring there isn't a gaming of the system. Environmental Defense supports grandfathering - allocating free allowances thus creating potentially greater incentive due to potentially substantial profits for carbon based utilities. The Sierra Club does not. Free/grandfathered allowances can allow utilities to reap both money from selling allowances and still pass on costs to consumers. It's a question of who pays and who benefits. If the allowances are auctioned then the funds can be used to further stimulate key technologies and mitigate the costs for those least able to bear any added costs such as low income communities and small businesses.
Carl Pope on "cap and auction":
It's a complex topic and Samceda lost an opportunity to provide a real service to explore AB32's implementation in a more thoughtful manner. Instead it chose to gear up a fight.
Curious about vegetable oil? There are quite a few in our area. A great primer:
Hat-tip AutoblogGreen.
After a long wait, it's officially on the market.
After several years of development, the Roadster - with sleek lines like a Ferrari or Porsche and a sticker price of $109,000 - officially moves from the drawing boards to the market next week when Tesla's first store opens. It's near the University of California-Los Angeles, in the city's toney Westwood neighborhood where Beverly Hills, Brentwood and Hollywood practically intersect.My friend Chris explained to me that a major factor in the delay was that it is fundamentally a unique car - a production vehicle with true sports car performance. The transmission was a point of trouble as most high performance transmissions are typically made for very small runs. Whereas transmission makers who produce higher volumes haven't been use to seeing these kinds of performance demands created by more typical vehicles.
The National Wildlife Federation has released a new report on the global warming impacts to California's outdoor recreation economy. The collapse of the salmon fisheries is exhibit A:
"The unprecedented closure of the salmon fishing season is just the tip of a melting iceberg," said National Wildlife Federation president and CEO Larry Schweiger. "More than 10 million people in California are wildlife watchers or sportsmen. The global warming issue cuts across all income levels, all political boundaries, and all religious beliefs. If you like to hunt, fish or watch wildlife, you're affected."Grist has the story.
"Bricks" are one of the three critical pillars of the "Cars, Coal, and Bricks" triumvirate that is the focus of global warming solutions.
Andy Ball is the CEO of Webcor appeared on SVLG's CEO Show recently. Webcor claims leadership in green building through their participation in the US Green Building Council and builders of "many of California's landmark buildings over the past 30 years". Their website touts their GoGreen initiative, though many of the elements in the examples they cite in their examples - like recycling construction waste - are required so leadership is not obvious there.
Yet, they can legitimately point to successes with the Academy of Sciences Platinum LEED certified building and Electronic Arts and the new EBay building as LEED Gold. And Ball says they automatically show clients their LEED scores and encourage going for more. Very good steps. Perhaps that's what drives his observation that many businesses are looking at LEED Silver as minimum - if true, that's excellent.
Ball talks not only about individual projects but moves cities are making to move green building forward, how to move green building forward, and cost effectiveness of green building:
Gas prices are hitting $4 a gallon in spots around the Bay Area. Gas prices started their run up in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq and haven't looked back since. Prices have always been higher in California due to the cleaner fuel requirements and they are now above their historic post-WWII inflation-adjusted high in 1981.
Of course this is causing real pain, especially for those outside high tech circles, and not surprisingly that's leading to some desperate measures.
Automakers are feeling the pain, especially on gas-guzzling SUVs. GM has been doing everything possible to greenwash without action through steps like its "gas-friendly to gas-free" campaign but even it is being forced to begin investing in serious fuel alternatives such as cellulosic biofuel. Poor Exxon suffered a "disappointing" quarter.
In steps Clinton and McCain with feel-good politics through their "gas-tax holiday" that everyone sees as a bad idea. Tom Friedman labeled the plan “so ridiculous … it takes your breath away.”
Obama's response - you'll save $25-$30 bucks - wow! We need someone to tell you the truth:
Obama is right, the problem is structural. A gas-tax holiday will do nothing. Clean energy is the only solution.
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While solar get the most visibility, much of the Bay Area has terrific wind energy potential. That may start to pick up as San Francisco explores residential wind.
But Robin Wilson already has a Skystream wind generator atop a 45-foot pole sticking out of her new zero-energy home in San Francisco's Mission District. Hers may be the first such "urban residential turbine," though she can't be quite sure.As with solar, up front costs are significant. Here again true net-metering with which owners could make money from generating excess power would be a huge boost.
Ms. Wilson may have started something because San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom visited her home recently and says he's forming a group to study the idea of expanding residential wind throughout the city.
