There is still time to enter on to the Race of a lifetime

Another weekly blog from Emanuel F.

Progressive Automotive X prize recently announced that the registration deadline for their 10 million dollar prize competition is January 1, 2009. This competition is open to students, individuals, start-up companies, and the Detroit big 3 companies (over the years none of them have dared to participate). So are you prepared to take the challenge of a lifetime?

If you are like me, with no knowledge on cars besides how to turn the key, fill up the tank, and change a tire; then I recommend you leave the race to the "real" professionals.

But why so much buzz over a simple race? Well, did I mention that basically you have to create a super-efficient car that goes 100 miles per gallon (mpg)? This means that one gallon of gasoline has to get you 100 miles of travel. To give you a better idea a Hummer needs 6.2 gallons of gasoline to get you 100 miles of travel  and the average car today has 20.2 mpg, that means that on average a car needs 4.95 gallons to get you 100 miles.

And that is not all, the winning model will need to travel 100 miles on a single gallon of gasoline or its electric equivalent while emitting just 200 grams of greenhouse gases per mile and it must also be assembly-line ready (plan to make 10,000 a year).

Coal is Not the Answer - New Video & Website

A weekly post from Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club's National Coal Campaign.

The coal industry continues to spend tens of millions of dollars pitching the myth of 'clean coal' as the only way the U.S. can meet its energy needs.

But we know better than to take what they say at face value. To help combat their misleading claims, we've launched our new "Coal is Not the Answer" campaign.

We've produced an online video (viewable on the website) that highlights some of the more outrageous claims of the coal industry and cuts through their green-washing spin to lay down the facts on coal. 

Warming Trends Affecting Both Plant and Animal Kingdoms

This is the first in our weekly series of posts from Jake LaBelle, Washington, D.C. energy intern.

In just the past two weeks, two articles from opposite sides of the country have caught my attention. The first was an October 19 article story inthe LA Times describing the northward migration of Alaskan pollock. The Bering Sea has warmed so much that the main food sources of the pollock have migrated far to the north, causing the pollock to move as well. Franz J. Mueter, a fisheries oceanographer at the University of Alaska, analyzed 25 years of surveys: "What we found confirmed the obvious. As waters warm, a lot of fish on the eastern Bering Sea shelf are moving north."

This has a huge effect on the fishing industry in Alaska because the pollock move into Russian waters where American fisherman can’t follow them. This is a problem for the pollock population because in the U.S., there are very strict regulations to prevent over-fishing. Russia doesn’t have those same regulations, so as the fish move into Russian waters, they face extinction from over-fishing.

Two weeks later and 3,000 miles away, a 19th century poet has helped reveal similar changes in flower populations in the northeastern United States. The New York Times published an article on October 27 detailing a study conducted in Concord, Mass., using notes from Henry David Thoreau. From 1851 through 1858, Thoreau tracked the first flowerings of perhaps 500 species. "He knew what he was doing, and he did it really systematically," said Dr. Richard B. Primack, a conservation biologist at Boston University (BU).

The joint study done by BU and Harvard found that on average, common species are flowering seven days earlier today than they were in Thoreau’s time. Not only that, a lot of the species (27%) that Thoreau described were not even found in the area during this latest survey. Another 36% were found in such small numbers that they won’t survive for long. The Quote-du-jour has to be from the author of the article, Cornelia Dean. "The scientists say their research demonstrates the importance of simply watching the landscape and recording what occurs in it." If we just step outside and look around, we can plainly see that global warming is real and happening now.

Q & A with Van Jones

We love Van Jones around here. The head of Green For All and co-founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights is such a loud and valuable voice on the importance of environmental justice, the benefits of clean energy and their relation to green jobs.

The latest issue of Mother Jones magazine is now out, and it includes a great Q & A with Van Jones. Here's one of my favorite sections:

MJ: There's been some criticism that the green-jobs movement is overhyped.

VJ: It's easy for people to say that, but it's a movement that's two years old. There are movements for education reform that are 30 years old and don't have a single victory. I guess they're probably overhyped too. One the one hand, the green-jobs movement has been overhyped if people think that we're somehow going to have a green utopia, and everybody in America's going to have a job putting up a solar panel everyday, and that day will be a week from next Thursday. I mean, that's overhyped.

But the reality is that there are either going to be a whole lot more green jobs or we're going to have a dead planet. It's become kind of fashionable to pooh-pooh it. I've never seen a movement two years old expected to have already changed the country. The civil rights movement took several decades. The women's rights movement took several decades. Other environmental movements are taking several decades. We need to give the green-jobs movement at least a chance to turn green before we declare it dead.

We interviewed Jones on Sierra Club radio earlier this year as well, where he talked about "the emerging green economy and the opportunity to transcend racial inequalities." Go to that episode's webpage to listen to the podcast.

New Report: China's True Cost of Coal

 Using coal costs China $250 billion in health and environmental damage annually, according to a new report from Greenpeace, the Energy Foundation and the World Wildlife Fund entitled, "The True Cost of Coal."

Some 70% of China's power comes from coal, and this report "estimates the external costs to China of using coal. The term 'external' incorporates air and water pollution, ecosystem degradation, damage to infrastructure, human injuries and loss of life, and takes into account the distortion of government regulations."

"The True Cost of Coal" was written by a group of Chinese economists. Check out the Greenpeace "True Cost of Coal" page to download the whole report or the summary. There's an excellent video about China and coal on that page as well.

A Week of Coal News

There's a lot going on this week related to coal, so I thought I'd do one post with all the news hits worth sharing.

First up from the Des Moines Register, another sign of coal's tremendous contribution to global warming - "Coal-Fired Power Plants Are Iowa's Biggest GHG Emitters - Study."

**Updated Link** Thanks and sorry to Mitch, who reminded me that the first news link I provided here was a subscription news sites. I've added a Forbes link: Also, great news from West Virginia - the credit crunch has halted plants for a coal-to-liquids plant. Here's the story from Forbes.

From New Mexico, more news about how polluting coal-fired power plants are: "Smog levels in San Juan County violated planned federal health standards for ozone air pollution, raising concerns about a third coal-fired power plant in the region."

Not so great news here, India is shopping for coal in the U.S. This is a reality - other countries are unfortunately investing so much in coal, they're looking to import it from the U.S.

And did you see the poll about how much Americans can't stand mountaintop removal coal mining?

Ruling Threatens Streams Near Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining Sites

This is another in our weekly series of posts from Bruce Nilles, head of the Sierra Club National Coal Campaign.

And then there were none...The Stream Buffer Zone Rule, the last remaining legal impediment to devastating mountaintop removal coal mining is now just one step away from being abolished, thanks to an Office of Surface Mining decision announced late last week.

On Friday, the Office of Surface Mining (OSM) released its assessment of stream buffer zones – basically giving mining companies the environmental green light to dump mining waste in or near streams.

For years the OSM has failed to enforce the Stream Buffer Zone Rule, which prevents mining within 100 feet of streams, in communities across Appalachia. So instead of enforcing the current law, the OSM decided to just get rid of it – saying this is best possible protection for the environment. In fact, OSM failed even to consider the concept of enforcing the current rule to protect streams and limit the size of mining waste disposal areas in its decision making.  All the alternatives considered involved mining in and around streams.

This decision seems to only aim for expediting mining without regard to environmental damage. And considering how frequently the Sierra Club and others keep finding coal mining companies conducting illegal mining (see Ison Rock, VA; Jellico, TN; and Fish Trap Lake, KY) and releasing unsafe amounts of toxic selenium (see Zeb Mountain, TN; and Hobet and Fola, WV) – you can see how this is just another excuse for these companies to avoid environmental regulations.

There is no doubt that mountaintop removal coal mining is devastating to water quality –one Environmental Protection Agency study found that 93 percent of streams downstream from mountaintop mining waste sites were unfit to support aquatic life.

The Environmental Protection Agency is now the only one standing between the mining companies and our waters. The Stream Buffer Zone cannot be repealed without EPA approval. A poll released today shows that two out of three people opposed repealing the rule, so contact the EPA today and demand that they to side with the American public.

Halloween Energy Saving Tips

Google has some great energy tips they released just in time for Halloween - in case you're "spooked by high energy prices." Check them out - and use the energy calculator.

Image courtesy of Google.

Green Jobs and Coal

The NY Times today has an article entitled "Green policies in California Generated Jobs, Study Finds." It's a good read, showing that energy efficiency policies created 1.5 million jobs in the state between 1977 and 2007.

Related to energy issues, we're now unveiling our "Coal Is Not the Answer" website. It's chock full of answers and facts about coal, all split into five sections: coal is not clean, coal is not abundant, coal is not cheap, coal is not a replacement for oil, and coal is not needed. Go check it out and join the discussion!

China Drops Coal-To-Liquid

Here is another in a series of posts from Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club National Coal Campaign:

Last week, China's government took a bold step when it announced that it was halting immediately its plans to build all but two of its proposed coal-to-liquids projects.  Its rationale: "environmental and economic concerns."

This is the same argument we here at the Sierra Club have been making for the past year about the 10 coal-to-liquid plants proposed in the U.S: Liquid coal simply makes no financial or environmental sense.

Liquid coal is a major distraction of capital and attention away from the challenge and opportunity ahead. Liquid coal would emit 10 percent more global warming pollution than gasoline, all at a time when we are wrestling with how to slow and reverse global warming.  It is also extremely wasteful - taking 3.5 gallons of water to make just one gallon of fuel.   

But U.S. coal companies, never missing an opportunity to push their harmful product, are strongly advocating liquid coal as the answer to our oil addiction.

The fight over liquid coal is centered in Ohio where Baard Energy wants to build a massive $4 billion coal-to-liquids plant on 650 acres near Wellsville in eastern Ohio. The plant would consume five billion tons of coal to produce about 50,000 barrels a day of diesel and jet fuels. The production of those 50,000 daily barrels will require 5.4 million gallons of water every day.

If allowed to proceed, the plant would begin construction this year and be ready for full operation in 2012.

When the Chinese government is saying coal-to-liquids projects are too dirty for China, what does it say about the current state of affairs in the United States when our government is still considering approving such filthy projects?