Google Helps Fight Global Warming

Posted on | February 11, 2009 | Comments Off

Power To The People
Google Press Release — Imagine how hard it would be to stick to a budget in a store with no prices. Well, that’s pretty much how we buy electricity today. Your utility company sends you a bill at the end of the month with very few details. Most people don’t know how much electricity their appliances use, where in the house they are wasting electricity, or how much the bill might go up during different seasons. But in a world where everyone had a detailed understanding of their home energy use, we could find all sorts of ways to save energy and lower electricity bills. In fact, studies show that access to home energy information results in savings between 5-15% on monthly electricity bills. It may not sound like much, but if half of America’s households cut their energy demand by 10 percent, it would be the equivalent of taking eight million cars off the road.

Google’s mission is to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” and we believe consumers have a right to detailed information about their home electricity use. We’re tackling the challenge on several fronts, from policy advocacy to developing consumer tools, and even investing in smart grid companies. We’ve been participating in the dialogue in Washington, DC and with public agencies in the U.S. and other parts of the world to advocate for investment in the building of a “smart grid,” to bring our 1950s-era electricity grid into the digital age. Specifically, to provide both consumers and utilities with real-time energy information, homes must be equipped with advanced energy meters called “smart meters.” There are currently about 40 million smart meters in use worldwide, with plans to add another 100 million in the next few years.

But deploying smart meters alone isn’t enough. This needs to be coupled with a strategy to provide customers with easy access to energy information. That’s why we believe that open protocols and standards should serve as the cornerstone of smart grid projects, to spur innovation, drive competition, and bring more information to consumers as the smart grid evolves. We believe that detailed data on your personal energy use belongs to you, and should be available in an open standard, non-proprietary format. You should control who gets to see your data, and you should be free to choose from a wide range of services to help you understand it and benefit from it. For more details on our policy suggestions, check out the comments we filed yesterday with the California Public Utility Commission.

In addition to policy advocacy, we’re building consumer tools, too. Over the last several months, our engineers have developed a software tool called Google PowerMeter, which will show consumers their home energy information almost in real time, right on their computer. Google PowerMeter is not yet available to the public since we’re testing it out with Googlers first. But we’re building partnerships with utilities and independent device manufacturers to gradually roll this out in pilot programs. Once we’ve had a chance to kick the tires, we’ll make the tool more widely available.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to providing consumers with detailed energy information. And it will take the combined efforts of federal and state governments, utilities, device manufacturers, and software engineers to empower consumers to use electricity more wisely by giving them access to energy information.

Activist ship hits Japanese whaling vessel

Posted on | February 9, 2009 | Comments Off

Japanese whalers claim activists threw rancid butter at the whaling fleet.

A group of radical anti-whaling activists said they were pelted with bloody chunks of whale meat and blubber.

Sounds like an ugly dinner party?

SYDNEY (AFP) – Ships carrying militant environmental activists and Japanese whalers collided during a high seas clash in Antarctic waters Friday, with each side blaming the other.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said it had no choice but to hit the Yushin Maru No.2 after the Japanese whaling vessel made a sudden attempt to block the path of activist ship the Steve Irwin.

“We’ve been in pretty intense confrontations with them for the past few days,” Paul Watson, captain of the Steve Irwin, told AFP.

“We were in the process of blocking the transfer (of a dead whale) from the Yushin Maru No.2 when the Yushin Maru No.1 moved directly in front of the bow to block us,” he said.

“I could not turn to starboard without hitting the Yushin Maru No.1. I tried to back down but the movement of the Yushin Maru No.2 made the collision unavoidable.”

But Tokyo’s government-backed Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR) blamed Sea Shepherd for the collision, saying its vessel “came forward and rammed the Yushin Maru No. 2 in the stern.”

“While no one was injured, the circumstances could have been much worse, even fatal,” ICR head Minoru Morimoto said.

Toshinori Uoya, a Fisheries Agency official, disputed Sea Shepherd’s account and said it was impossible for the Japanese ships to make sudden movements to produce a collision.

“If they keep tailing us, it’s no surprise that there would be a collision,” Uoya told AFP.

“This is a very dangerous activity and our country is doing legitimate research based on the rules of the IWC (International Whaling Commission),” he said.

Sea Shepherd activity “is illegal and it puts in danger the lives of the crew members and damages our property. It is unforgivable,” he said.

The militant conservationists have been harassing the whalers on their annual hunts in the Antarctic for the past five years, but Watson said he had “never seen them (the Japanese whalers) this aggressive.”

“They are obviously frustrated at the money they are losing and they have been ordered to do whatever needs to be done in order to prevent us from preventing them killing whales.”

Earlier this week the group said two activists had been injured when they were blasted with high-pressure hoses and pelted with metal balls.

In turn, the militant environmental group has been accused by Japan of “eco-terrorism” for its attempts to disrupt the annual hunt.

An international moratorium on commercial whaling was imposed in 1986 but Japan kills hundreds each year using a loophole that allows “lethal research” on the ocean giants.

Japan makes no secret that the meat ends up on dinner tables, and accuses Western nations of not respecting its culture.

Greenpeace & ICF: Stimulus Will Fight Global Warming

Posted on | February 9, 2009 | 5 Comments

Recovery Package Would Cut At Least 61 Million Tons of CO2 Every Year

WASHINGTON — A new Greenpeace-commissioned carbon footprint analysis of the economic recovery package projects that the bill’s energy efficiency and conservation provisions alone could cut carbon dioxide emissions by over 61 million metric tons annually, equivalent to the greenhouse gases from electricity use in 7.9 million American homes or taking over 13 million cars off the road. However, the transportation provisions of the bill, if spent on new highway construction instead of highway repair or public transit, could reduce the benefits by up to 5 million tons annually.
The analysis was conducted by ICF International, a leading climate and energy consulting firm for governments, Fortune 500 companies, and non-profits (http://www.icfi.com/).

“The fact that the federal government could spend so much money and actually help slow global warming means we’ve really turned the page as a country,” said Kert Davies, Greenpeace’s Research Director. “This is a real sign that we’re starting to move beyond the era of fossil fuels.”

Any effective economic stimulus must address global warming. Climate change will create a $271 billion drag on the U.S. economy by 2025 according to NRDC, and cost 5 – 20 percent of global GDP by 2100, according to the U.K. government’s Stern Review.

The report projects how different provisions of the recovery package could affect US greenhouse gas emissions. Across the board, of the measures analyzed, energy efficiency offers the biggest potential for carbon reductions, as well as significant cost savings to consumers and local municipalities.

For example, the report found that $2.5 billion spent on energy efficiency upgrades to homes could reduce carbon emissions by 7.3 million metric tons and save $1.25 billion in annual utility costs. Similarly, a $6.9 billion investment to help state and local governments invest in energy effiiency could generate $3 billion in savings every single year and cut carbon emissions by over 20 million tons per year.

In contrast, if the $30 billion allotted for transportation were spent on new highways, which create sprawl and paradoxically attract more cars, it would cause 10-50 times the global warming pollution than a similar expenditure on light rail or repairing existing roads. Previous research found that investments in mass transit create 19 percent more jobs than new highway construction. (http://www.transact.org/library/decoder/jobs_decoder.pdf)

In order to maximize the recovery package’s economic and environmental benefits, Greenpeace recommended the following measures:

1. Since the job-creation potential of clean energy is virtually limitless, Congress should increase funding for these projects still further. Investments in energy efficiency create 4.4 times the number of jobs as the same investment in nuclear energy and 2.6 times the number of jobs as coal. (http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/assets/binaries/green-job-creation-table)

2. Make the renewable energy tax credits recession-proof. Today, some clean energy companies aren’t earning enough profits to pay taxes and claim the credit. Congress should make the tax credit fully refundable.

3. Eliminate the wasteful and environmentally damaging loan guarantees for nuclear power and liquid coal, which generate far fewer economic and jobs benefits than clean energy.

The full report can be downloaded at

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/press-center/reports4/ghg-impact-of-the-economic-sti

Greenpeace’s analysis can be downloaded at

http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/press-center/reports4/highlights-of-icf-internationa

Background

The report examined the Economic Stimulus Package proposal circulated to Congress on January 20, 2009. ICF was able to quantify the carbon footprint for roughly $24 billion out of the $52 billion in energy spending detailed in the original proposal. For the transportation spending, which was slated to be distributed by states, ICF analyzed four different scenarios: spending all the money on new highway construction, spending half on new highways and half on road repair, spending it all on repair, and spending on light rail mass transit.

The majority of the remaining spending was determined likely have a beneficial effect on global warming pollution that was not quantifiable with the details provided at the time. For instance, several provisions provide money for research that will likely have long-term global warming benefits, such as a “Smart Grid” that will improve the efficiency of electricity distribution.

Research Director Kert Davies and Global Warming Campaign Director Steven Biel are available to discuss the likely global warming and economic impacts of the variety of different versions of the economic recovery package.

Australian Wildfires Kill 84

Posted on | February 8, 2009 | Comments Off

by WorldCitizen.net

Entire towns were turned to ash as fires rages across southeastern Australia. Six bodies were found in a burnt car and are believed to be a family that was fleeing from the flames.

“Hell in all its fury has visited the good people of Victoria,” Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told reported from the fire. “It’s an appalling tragedy for the nation.”

A victim stated, “It rained fire. We hid in our olive grove for an hour and watched our house burn.”

Some scientists question whether global warming is partly to blame. Higher temperatures and more volatile weather patterns may result in more wildfires. Temperatures in Australia were 117 degrees prior to the fire.