Green Jobs , A report out yesterday from the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and commissioned by the Center for American Progress, says that a $100 billion, two-year national investment in renewable energy, mass transportation, and a "smart grid" for electricity, would yield two million new jobs, with a big chunk going to the manufacturing and construction industries. Green Recovery – A Program to Create Good Jobs and Start Building a Low-Carbon Economy would, among other things, help in "the reconstruction of local communities and public infrastructure all across America, setting us on a course for a long-term transition to a low-carbon economy that increases our energy independence and helps fight global warming," according to this from the Center for American Progress. (Caveat: Try to ignore the exceedingly corny graphic of a wind farm backed by a superimposed rainbow background.) The announcement from PERI on this has a state-by-state breakdown of how the program could generate jobs and income.
I've mentioned jobs a number of times here, including in reporting on a major DOE wind study from this post. See also Millions of Jobs of a Different Collar from the "NY Times" from April. The "NYT" also has an informative podcast with the reporter at their link.
"Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore " , One more virtually limitless renewable resource is the ocean. Its tides and its waves have been pulsing for eons and there is no reason to expect that they should stop anytime soon. RenewableEnergyWorld.com is, as I believe I've mentioned, a terrific resource. UK Behind Marine Renewables' Rising Tide is a comprehensive look at the state of play of projects and technologies in Britain. Beyond that, it shows why the UK is driving much of the activity in this hugely promising field. Great read.
Scorecard , Reuters has a very useful compendium of where several countries, the EU and some other international compacts all are in regard to their approaches to climate change. See FACTBOX – Greenhouse Gas Curbs, From Australia to India. See also their environmental blogs , valuable and compelling reading.
Hurricanes , I've shied away from the hurricane debate. I'm pretty well at ease with the facts that the oceans are warming and that warmer oceans will produce gnarlier storms. Beyond that, it goes a little over my head. However, we've been getting some big storms blowing through the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, as you know, in the past month or so. If "Time" has something to say about these matters, though, I can certainly pass along their worthy insights. Is Global Warming Worsening Hurricanes? Time delves into that. I would also very much defer to the excellent Chris Mooney over at The Intersection on this question. He has, in fact, written a book on this: Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle over Global Warming.
Meanwhile, I will tell you, as a political scientist, that, no matter what you believe about the physics of hurricanes, Katrina vastly increased the salience of climate change as a serious issue for Americans.
Carbon Capture and Storage , I have posited my skepticism about the feasibility of CCS a number of times here. (See CCS – The Viability of Carbon Capture and Storage and CCS Continued.) Now Vattenfall, an exceedingly reputable European energy giant, has launched an ambitious pilot. Their press release says "The carbon dioxide produced in this pilot plant will not be released into the atmosphere, instead it will be almost completely separated, liquefied and further treated for long-term secure underground storage." Good on ya, mate. See also the Vattenfall press kit on CCS for more information.
My concern remains the cost effectiveness and the time frame in which we can do this, globally. Can it be done in time? Won't we waste precious time, money and focus on CCS when we could so much more quickly, easily and more cheaply be getting our energy efficiency ratings up, optimizing our energy use through distributed generation and "smart" grids, and be capitalizing on renewables?
