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Finding the American Dream - in China |
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Go to Original Friday 05 February 2010 by: Ashwini Srinivasamohan | Foreign Policy Journal US Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke and Energy Secretary Steven Chu returned from China last July with a sober understanding of the degree to which China had advanced in green technology. Sino-US clean energy cooperation reached a milestone later in 2009, when the two presidents signed various bilateral agreements, including the establishment of the US- China Clean Energy Research Centre in Beijing to improve research and development in the field. But clean energy was caught in the political firestorm of the health care debacle. As the recent New York Times article on China's advancements in green technology reinforced, the Chinese have made exceptional progress in this field and are the leaders of our green revolution. But more than a desire to compete with the rest of the world, China is looking for collaboration with foreign powers like the United States. In the few weeks I spent in Shanghai speaking with various individuals in academia and renewable – mainly solar – energy, I discovered that expats of various professional backgrounds and nationalities have become ensconced into the Chinese green economy. Solar, more so than other energy sources – hydro, wind, nuclear, biomass – has attracted not only high-salaried expats to serve as executives for Chinese companies, but also eager entrepreneurs who presciently identified the market potential in China during the financial crisis. As the reality of China's prowess continues to worry some and impress all, we may have to embrace China as a centripetal force in green energy and find our point entry for further collaboration in the coming years. What needs to be understood is that China's energy goals are simple: to secure energy supplies for its burgeoning population while trying to ease the carbon emissions. And to realize this goal, the country has a strategic interest in collaboration, rather than competition, with the rest of the world. |
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Solar energy’s dirty little secret |
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Go to Original by Todd Woody | Grist January 6, 2010 Solar energy has long been one of the great hopes for fighting climate change and liberating the world from fossil fuels. And it’s easy to see why solar has captured the collective imagination: All those photovoltaic panels look so shiny, futuristic, clean, and green. That’s not quite the case. Any form of energy production has its dirty side and solar is no exception. While its impact is nowhere near that of coal-fired power plants, photovoltaic modules are made from a witch’s brew of toxic chemicals. Arsenic, cadmium telluride, hexafluoroethane, lead, and polyvinyl fluoride are just some of the chemicals used to manufacture various types of solar cells. None of this poses much, if any, threat during a solar panel’s working life. Solar modules—which are linked together to form a solar panel—for instance, are solid state and encased in glass or other protective material to keep them dry. The problem, as the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition pointed out in a 2009 report, comes at the beginning and end of a panel’s life. Toxins potentially can be released during the manufacturing process—putting workers at risk—and when panels finally hit the scrap heap decades later. “The solar PV industry has the potential to provide enormous environmental benefits,” according to the Silicon Valley Toxics report, “but the toxic materials contained in solar panels will present a serious danger to public health and the environment if they are not disposed of properly when they reach the end of their useful lives.” The report compared the nascent but fast-growing solar industry to the electronics industry of past decades, which left a legacy of toxic pollution in the 1970s and ‘80s. Unlike the early electronics industry—which in Silicon Valley was literally built on plumes of contaminated groundwater—solar companies are taking a more responsible approach, as any green business must. |
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Meltdown, USA: Nuclear Drive Trumps Safety Risks and High Cost |
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Wednesday 06 January 2010 by: Art Levine, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis The pro-nuclear Department of Energy is set to offer this month the first of nearly $20 billion in loan guarantees to a nuclear industry that hasn't built a plant since the 1970s or raised any money to do so in years. But although the industry is seeking to cash in on global warming concerns with $100 billion in proposed loan guarantees, environmentalists, scientists and federal investigators are warning that lax oversight by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) of the nation's aging 104 nuclear plants has led to near-meltdowns along with other health and safety failings since Three Mile Island - including what some critics say is a flawed federal health study apparently designed to conceal cancer risks near nuclear plants. Also See: Part II: Energy Department, NRC Back Nuclear, Ignore Industry’s Dirty Little Secrets All that is joined by the dangers and risks posed by at least 30 tons yearly of radioactive, cancer-causing, nuclear waste produced at each 1,000 megawatt plant; projected costs of $12 billion to $25 billion for any new plants (built largely through taxpayer support); and their ongoing vulnerability to terrorist attacks at sites like Indian Point, 35 miles from New York. For instance, a meltdown of the two reactors at Indian Point, dubbed "Chernobyl on the Hudson," could quickly kill nearly 50,000 people with radiation poisoning in a 50-mile radius and cause over 500,000 cancer deaths within six years, according to research by the Union of Concerned Scientists and other experts. "Nothing's changed," said Paul Gunter, director of Reactor Oversight for the Beyond Nuclear reform group, about nuclear plants. "They're still dirty, dangerous and expensive." But such concerns stand in sharp contrast to wave of a positive PR about the nuclear industry as the "clean air energy" solution to global warming, driven by ads, campaign donations and lobbying - and abetted by media outlets too often willing to accept industry and Nuclear Regulatory Commission spin at face value. |
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Investing in coal is dysfunctional |
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Go to Original Jeremy Leggett | guardian.co.uk Companies who invest in coal seek short-term returns while fuelling future climate ruin. The acid test of the Copenhagen climate change summit was always going to be coal. Had governments managed to come up with a meaningful agreement, those who seek to continue burning coal would have faced significant risk that they would be spending their money on what investors call "strandable" assets – assets that become obsolete and therefore worthless. And for their part, financial institutions would have had to think twice whether they should keep pouring billions of dollars into new coal-fired electricity generation, seeking short-term returns while knowingly fuelling future climate ruin that is not costed in today's books. But there was no meaningful agreement. And so we see the first in the queue to foist coal horrors upon us already knocking at the door. Since Copenhagen, E.ON has announced that any further emissions cuts by the company will depend on governments making progress in 2010 in the climate negotiations. E.ON and Centrica have both said they are less likely to build coal plants attempting carbon capture and storage. We can expect to see similar sentiments from most of the other big energy companies. Enlightened business leadership ahead of legislation is not their bag. More plans for unsequestered coal, without trapping and burying the carbon dioxide, will be the best we can expect. To be fair to the power companies, the fault is wider. Most investors expect this behaviour of them. Most banks, insurance companies and pension funds are happy, as things stand, to continue investing in coal. When it comes to the London Stock Exchange, they will have their first major chance soon. The largest Russian steam coal producer is eyeing an initial public offering in London during the first half of 2010. Suek, owned by two oligarchs, is worth $8-9bn (£5-6bn), and will be floating as many as a quarter of its shares. As one anonymous banker put it to Reuters: "There haven't been any good opportunities in this sector for a long time, and the sector is on its way up, so therefore this will be a positive story." |
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Helen Caldicott Slams Environmental Groups on Climate Bill, Nuclear Concessions |
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Tuesday 22 December 2009 by: Art Levine, t r u t h o u t Dr. Helen Caldicott, the pioneering Australian antinuclear activist and pediatrician who spearheaded the global nuclear freeze movement of the 1980s and co-founded Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), has joined with left-leaning environmental groups here in an uphill fight to halt nuclear power as a "solution" to the global warming crisis. "Global warming is the greatest gift the nuclear industry has ever received," Dr. Caldicott told Truthout. The growing rush to nuclear power was only enhanced, experts say, by the weak climate deal at the Copenhagen 15 climate conference. The prospects for passage of a climate bill in Congress - virtually all versions are pro-nuclear - were enhanced, most analysts say, because it offered the promise that China might voluntarily agree to verify its carbon reductions and it could reassure senators worried about American manufacturers being undermined by polluters overseas. But at the two-week international confab that didn't produce any binding agreements to do anything, Caldicott and environmental activist groups were marginalized or, in the case of the delegates from Friends of the Earth, evicted from the main hall. The upshot of the latest trends boosting nuclear power - although no nuclear reactor has been built in America since the 1970s - are indeed grim, she said. "Nothing's going to work to stop them but a meltdown," she said, fearing the prospects of such a calamity. "I don't know how else the world is going to wake up." Her fears may sound apocalyptic, but as Truthout will explore in more depth in part II of this article, the dangers of a meltdown, terrorist attack and radiation damage are far greater than commonly known. That's because of what federal and Congressional investigators, advocacy groups and medical researchers say is a culture of sloppy security, health and safety oversight by a cozily pro-industry Nuclear Regulatory Commission. (An NRC spokesman denied those allegations in a written statement to Truthout.) The quasi-independent agency is funded primarily by fees from nuclear power plants. On top of all that, the Obama administration is planning to offer about $20 billion in loan guarantees to fund two new uncertified and risky reactors designs that have faced safety and cost overrun problems overseas. |
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World’s Largest Solar Energy Office Building Opens in China |
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A vast fan-shaped compound in China has officially taken the title of “largest solar-powered office building in the world“. Located in Dezhou in the Shangdong Province in northwest China, the 75,000 square meter structure is a multi-use building and features exhibition centers, scientific research facilities, meeting and training facilities, and a hotel – all of which run on solar power. |
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Argentina: Solar Villages Light Up the Andes
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New battery could change world, one house at a time
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Forget gas, batteries — pee is new power source
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US Car Manufacturers Plough a Lonely Furrow on Biofuels
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Analysis: Climate Bill May Spur Energy Revolution
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"Green" Power Plants May Burn Palm Oil
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Exelon Plans to Build Solar Power Plant on Chicago's South Side
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Drill, Baby, Drill
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Google Shows Alternative Energy Firms the Way
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Stimulus Appears to Be Sparking Alt-Energy Revival
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Obama Puts Up $2.4 Billion for Electric Vehicles
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Biofuels More Harmful to Humans Than Petrol and Diesel, Warn Scientists
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Wind, Waves, and Watts
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Helix Wind Turbine
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Hybrid Solar Lighting
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New Wind Power Technology
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Hawaii Endorses Plan for Electric Cars
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Plasma Turns Garbage into Gas
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A Closer Look at Obama's Energy Plan
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Solar Power Game-changer: "Near Perfect" Absorption of Sunlight, From All Angles
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Warm Welcome for House Powered by Hydrogen Fuel Cell
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New Jersey: We'll Become a World Leader in Wind Power
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Green Cement May Set CO2 Fate in Concrete
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Two Large Solar Plants Planned in California
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"Major Discovery" From MIT Primed to Unleash Solar Revolution
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Gore Calls for US to Use Renewable Energy by 2018
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Citing Need for Assessments, US Freezes Solar Energy Projects
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The Village That Aims for Energy Autarky
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Agency Calls for "Energy Revolution"
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Wind Can Supply 20 Percent of US Electricity, Report Says
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Arizona's Solar Aspirations in Peril
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Siphoning Off Corn to Fuel Our Cars
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Stop Waiting for "Leaders" to Act on Global Warming
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Our Global Warming Rage Lets Global Hunger Grow
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Biofuel: The Burning Question
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Big Oil to Big Wind: Texas Veteran Sets Up $10 Billion Clean Energy Project
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Harnessing the Sun: Future of Green Jobs
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Renewable Energy Jobs Soar in Germany
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California Utility Signs $3 Billion Solar Power Deal
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The Clean Energy Scam
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Corn Can't Save Us
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Pollution Is Called a Byproduct of a "Clean" Fuel
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House Votes to End Big Oil's Tax Breaks
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Thank Carbon for Air Cars
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Democrats Push "Green" Energy Tax Breaks
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A Green Energy Industry Takes Root in California
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Renewables From the Bottom Up
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Ethanol Craze Cools as Doubts Multiply
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Gore Has a New Ally Against Global Warming
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The Western Appetite for Biofuels Is Causing Starvation in the Poor World
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Panel Urges Global Shift
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At the End of the Climate Policy Tunnel, Will the Light Be Out?
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The Looming Food Crisis
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Energy Efficiency Easiest Path to Aid Climate
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Forget Biofuels - Burn Oil and Plant Forests Instead
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Department of Energy Allowing America's Energy to Waste Away
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Solar Power Wins Enthusiasts, but Not Money
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The Coming Biofuels Disaster
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Google and Utility to Test Hybrids That Sell Back Power
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Biofuels Could Lead to Mass Hunger Deaths
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Global Rush to Energy Crops Threatens to Bring Food Shortages and Increase Poverty, Says UN
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Senate Panel OKs Bill to Increase Green US Power
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Birth of a New Wedge
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Biofuels Boom Spurring Deforestation
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TechNet Is Keen on Green
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Let's Call the Coal Thing Off
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As Biofuels Boom, Will More Go Hungry?
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Green Roofs: Building for the Future
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Global Warming Worries to Boost Renewables
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Renewables Can Turn the Tide on Global Warming
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The Sum of All Ears
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Concern for Rainforest Forces RWE to Scrap Palm Oil Project
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What About the Land?
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The Ascent of Wind Power
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New Development in Solar Cell Technology
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Ocean Power Can Be a Global Warming Cure
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Asia Shows Solar Power Is Not Just for the Rich
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Green Fuel's Dirty Secret
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Kyoto Treaty Powers Up US Alternative Energy Firms
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How the Wind Could Be Our Best Weapon against Global Warming
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The Most Destructive Crop on Earth Is No Solution to the Energy Crisis
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Forests Paying the Price for Biofuels
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You Don't Need Oil to Make Fuel
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One Roof at a Time
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Voluntary Green Power Purchasing up 1,000 Percent
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Solar Cell Panels Made out of Everyday Plastics
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Microgrids as Peer-to-Peer Energy
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Renewal through Renewable Energies
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Join the Virtual March to Stop Global Warming. This site has lots of tips to reduce your carbon output plus a newsletter with regular petition actions. STOPGLOBALWARMING.ORG |
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