One small section of a 798-page bill titled the “Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2017” was clearly written by lobbyists for the forest products industry. Buried on page 366 is this statement: To support the key role that forests in the United States can play in addressing the energy needs of the United States, the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Agriculture, […]

Earlier this year, the group Clean Energy Now created a website that allows Michigan energy consumers to choose the sources for their energy needs and to compare those choices to what they have now. The new site, PicMyEnergyMix.com, is interactive, allowing the user to make choices about the mix of sources that power their lives. When you have completed the […]

If you’ve ever spent time at Michigan State University, it’s hard to miss the twin smokestacks of the T.B. Simon Power Plant on the south side of campus. And it’s also hard to miss the gigantic piles of coal next to the plant or the hundreds of coal-carrying train cars that feed the maw of the behemoth. Starting in 2016, […]

Last October, I wrote about an exciting new project in Detroit called the Veterans Green Village to bring green energy projects to the city and put military veterans to work. I have stayed in contact with Gordon Soderberg (pictured right) who heads up the project. His group has teamed up with the Motor City Blight Busters of Detroit to create […]

“What I learned from my military experience is that…there’s no way this is sustainable and there’s gonna be one day when we go back and die for this stuff.” I meet a lot of really terrific people in my travels but Gordon Soderberg is one of he most selfless, compassionate men I’ve met in a very long time. He has […]

Ensuring our energy policy doesn’t compromise our water supply

In 2005, President George W. Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (pdf) into law. This comprehensive law does everything from providing new subsidies and incentives for renewable energy production (like wind, solar, biomass, wave & tidal, and geothermal) and tax breaks for energy conservation improvements on homes to providing incentives for increased drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and exempting oil and gas producers from certain requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act. It even extended Daylight Savings Time by a week. There’s a fine summary of this 551 page bill HERE.

One of the components of the Energy Policy Act was Section 979 which compelled Energy Secretary to study the interaction and interplay of water-related issues and energy-related issues. The intent was to ensure that we fully understand how our country’s energy policy impacts our water resources.

The study is eight years late and there’s a petition to sign to move it forward. Details are after the jump.

The Obama administration is announcing this week that they are making an historic investment in biofuels by purchasing 450,000 gallons of drop-in biofuel made from waste cooking oil and from an algae-based system. The fuel is called “drop in” because it can be blended with the traditional fuels used now with no need for equipment modifications. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus […]

I have been following the plans by Wolverine Power to build a new coal-fired power plant in Rogers City, Michigan pretty closely. In May of last year, I blogged about the denial of their permit by the Granholm administration. Then, in April this year, I wrote about how the zombie power plant had risen from the dead. Today, the zombie […]

In a sea of bad, very bad and even worse news on the ecological/energy front, score one for the good guys. Last Friday, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment (MDNRE) denied a permit for the Wolverine Power Supply Cooperative, Inc. to build a new coal-fired power plant in Rogers City, Michigan. While the permit was NOT issued, the […]

I saw this over at Daily Kos this morning in a piece by Adam Siegel (cross-posted from his most-excellent blog Get Energy Smart! NOW!) and it’s enough to make you spit: LoraxAg lines up $4.5M for clean coal gas plant. [LoraxAg] is rounding up $4.5 million in its first institutional funding, with plans to use coal gasification technology to make […]

This is actually a pretty big development in the discussion of Cap & Trade vs. Carbon Tax to rein in our country’s emissions of greenhouse gases. In a January 11, 2010 editorial in the American Chemical Society’s weekly magazine, Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), Editor Rudy Baum has this to say: H.R. 2454, the 1,200-page climate-change and energy legislation passed […]