Rep. Van Hollen Pushes Cap-and-Dividend. By Kate Shepard, Grist, April 30, 2009. "Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) thinks he's got the key to passing a climate bill this year: send every American a rebate. It's not a bribe, but a dividend -- and one he thinks will help grow support for legislation to cap carbon. Van Hollen, an up-and-coming Democratic leader and chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has introduced a cap-and-dividend bill -- a type of cap-and-trade bill that would take all of the proceeds from selling pollution permits to industries and return that money directly to 'every American with a Social Security number' in the form of a monthly check... 'I think by doing this simple, fair thing of returning an equal amount to every consumer, you help generate support for that effort,' said Van Hollen. 'Everyone feels like they're a part of that process, everyone has a stake in the success of the enterprise.' The House Energy and Commerce Committee held a round of hearings on the Waxman-Markey bill last week, and will start serious debate on it next week. In the meantime, Van Hollen is working to convince House leaders to incorporate his approach."

The Battle to Shape the Waxman/Markey Bill. By Lisa Lerer, Politico, April 29, 2009. "As the climate change battle continues to heat up, dozens of lawmakers, industry associations and environmental advocates are waging intense lobbying campaigns to shape legislation that would establish a cap-and-trade system... Here's some of what the major players are pushing for: Electric companies. The utilities want Congress to give 40 percent of the cap-and-trade system allowances for free to regulated local distribution companies. The electric companies argue that getting the free allowances would enable them to reduce the impact of the cap-and-trade-related price increase on consumers, including low-income families and businesses... Democrats. A significant number of moderate and conservative Democrats who sit on the Energy and Commerce Committee have voiced concern with the bill... Coal-state Democrats want to push back the reduction deadlines... Midwestern Democrats support setting aside 15 percent of the carbon allowances for free distribution to trade-sensitive industries, like steel, paper and aluminum... Southern Democrats are concerned about the renewable electric standard included in the bill... Republicans. Republicans on the committee argue that a cap-and-trade system would raise costs on already-strapped businesses and consumers, particularly in the middle of the country, and they are threatening a slew of GOP amendments... Environmentalists. Many environmental groups believe that all the allowances should be auctioned off, with the proceeds used to invest in clean energy and to offset consumer price increases. Giving away allowances, they say, will slow the transition to cleaner types of energy. They also oppose the... offset [provisions] in the bill... Auto companies. Car manufacturers generally support the bill but want 5 percent of the cap-and-trade revenues to help fund the development of greener automobile technologies... Coal companies. Coal companies want to... push back the start date of a cap-and-trade system, currently set at 2012, to give companies and the federal government at least five years to prepare for the new system."

Congressional Republicans Issue Talking Points Against Climate Bill. GOP.gov, April 29, 2009. "1) The Democrat's cap and tax plan is nothing more than a national energy tax. 2) The truth behind the Democrat's cap and tax plan is that it will lead to more taxes, fewer jobs, and more government intrusion. This is an irresponsible proposal that will do more harm than good. 3) The President's energy plan is a $646 billion tax that will hit almost every American family, small business and family farm. Family energy costs will rise on average by more than $3,100 a year. 4) Those hardest hit by this massive tax will be the poor - who experts agree spend a greater portion of their income on energy consumption. 5) A devastating consequence will be fewer jobs for hard-working Americans. Various studies suggest anywhere from 1.8 million to 7 million jobs could be lost. 6) Republicans believe there are better solutions than more taxes, fewer jobs, and more government intrusion. 7) House Republicans want to increase American energy production made by American workers, encourage greater efficiency and conservation, and promote the use of alternative fuels."

Who Are These Guys Behind the Anti-Climate Action Ads? By Pete Altman, NRDC, April 30, 2009. "There's a new anti-climate action front-group running around D.C., backed by some old gunslingers who've been packing heat for polluters for years."

'Junk Economics' in Climate Debate as Bad as Junk Science. Commentary By Paul Krugman, NYTimes, May 1, 2009. "The 2008 election ended the reign of junk science in our nation's capital, and the chances of meaningful action on climate change, probably through a cap-and-trade system on emissions, have risen sharply. The 2008 election ended the reign of junk science in our nation's capital, and the chances of meaningful action on climate change, probably through a cap-and-trade system on emissions, have risen sharply. Yes, limiting emissions would have its costs. As a card-carrying economist, I cringe when 'green economy' enthusiasts insist that protecting the environment would be all gain, no pain. But the best available estimates suggest that the costs of an emissions-limitation program would be modest, as long as it's implemented gradually. And committing ourselves now might actually help the economy recover from its current slump... So can we afford to save the planet? Yes, we can. And now would be a very good time to get started."

International Atomic Fusion Project to Boost Its Budget. By James Kanter, NYTimes, April 30, 2009. "China, the United States, Japan and the European Union have committed billions of dollars to construction of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER, in a heavily forested corner of Provence called Cadarache that is a center for atomic research... The original budget, set in 2001, was about $10 billion, to be spent over 30 years. About half that amount was to be spent by participating governments on national projects to build components for the reactor. That budget is being revised because prices of crucial commodities like steel and copper have soared, and because features are being added to the original design to help to ensure that the experiment works. The seven parties are expected to decide on a new amount, which could be significantly higher, and on how to share the burden of paying for it, at meetings in June and November, said Neil Calder, a spokesman for the ITER Organization."

Generating Energy From the Deep. By Kate Galbraith, NYTimes, April 30, 2009. "Lockheed Martin is best known for building... military equipment. But since late 2006 the company has taken on a different kind of enterprise:... ocean thermal energy conversion, which uses the difference in temperature between the ocean's warm surface and its chilly depths to generate electricity... The technology is expensive and can work in only a limited number of places, like the tropics, where there is a large difference in temperature between the ocean's layers... [and it] would not leave its surroundings unscathed. A huge amount of cold water would have to be pumped up from the depths. If that water, which is rich in nutrients, is discharged into a different part of the ocean, it could confuse fish and alter the balance of the ecosystem... Last year, Gov. Linda Lingle of Hawaii announced a partnership between Lockheed and the Industrial Technology Research Institute in Taiwan to build a test plant in Hawaii. Lockheed says it hopes to obtain financing for the project from the Defense and Energy Departments, as well as from the private sector."

The Grid May Be Smart, But Will It Also Be Green? By Richard Harris, NPR, April 30, 2009. "The push is on to make the nation's aging electricity grid smarter. Many assume that a smart grid will also be a green grid--delivering clean electricity and helping to address climate change. But that's not necessarily so." See ten-part series: Re-Envisioning Electricity in the U.S. All things Considered, NPR, April 2009.

Green Inc.: A Winter's Tale: My First Season With Micro-Combined Heat and Power. By Kevin Ferguson, NYTimes, April 29, 2009. "Though far more common in Japan and Europe, micro-combined heat and power (MCHP) systems are gaining a small share of the residential market in the Northeast... Boston's home heating season came to an abrupt close in April and with it my [MCHP] experiment... The idea behind this and other so-called co-generation systems is to minimize wasted energy by generating two forms of it -- electricity and heat -- from a single source. My system -- called the freewatt -- burns natural gas to create 1.2 kilowatts of electricity from an electrical generator. The heat from that combustion also warms the water in my home's cast iron radiators and, incidentally, the hot water heater... There are downsides. MCHP isn't exactly cheap. The cost for my system, including installation, came to $24,880. Rebates from the local utility and other incentives brought my out-of-pocket expense down to about $20,000, but even so, any payback in terms of annual savings on my utility bills will take several years to realize. Another caveat to the system: it only produces electricity when it is also producing heat. In the warmer months, or any time heat is not needed, electric power must be drawn from the grid... [However,] my MCHP experiment seems well worth the expense."

Spanish Solar Plant Stores Heat in Vats of Molten Salts. By David Biello, YaleEnviro360, April 27, 2009. "In the high desert of southern Spain, not far from Granada, the Mediterranean sun bounces off large arrays of precisely curved mirrors that cover an area as large as 70 soccer fields. These parabolic troughs follow the arc of the sun as it moves across the sky, concentrating the sun's rays onto pipes filled with a synthetic oil that can be heated to 750 degrees Fahrenheit. That super-heated oil is used to boil water to power steam turbines, or to pump excess heat into vats of salts, turning them a molten, lava-like consistency... Now, engineers can use the molten salts to store the heat from solar radiation many hours after the sun goes down and then release it at will to drive turbines. That means solar thermal power can be used to generate electricity nearly round-the-clock. The plant in southern Spain, known as Andasol 1, began operating last November and now provides 50 megawatts of power, enough electricity to supply 50,000 to 60,000 homes year-round. Andasol 2 will come online later this summer, with Andasol 3 already under construction. When the entire Andasol complex is completed in 2011, it is expected to generate enough electricity to power 150,000 households -- about 600,000 people."

Five to Watch in the Business of Green. By Adam Pasick, Reuters, April 24, 2009. "With government money flowing and traditional industries fading, 2009 is set to be a watershed year for green business. Reuters News and Venture Capital Journal profile five [green business leaders]."

Getting to 350. By Richard Monastersky, Nature, April 29, 2009. "In 2007, environmental writer Bill McKibben approached climate scientist James Hansen and asked him what atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide could be considered safe. Hansen's reaction: 'I don't know, but I'll get back to you.' After he had mulled it over, Hansen started to suspect that he and many other scientists had underestimated the long-term effects of greenhouse warming. Atmospheric concentration of CO2 at the time was rising past 382 parts per million (p.p.m.), a full 100 ticks above its pre-industrial level. Most researchers, including Hansen, had been focusing on 450 p.p.m. as a target that would avoid, in the resonant and legally binding formulation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 'dangerous climate change'... He came back to McKibben with not 450 but 350. In 2008, he published a paper spelling out his rationale for that target. The difference between 350 and 450 is not just one of degree. It's one of direction."

Toward a Post Carbon Food System. Report summary by the Post Carbon Institute, March 30, 2009. "The American food system rests on an unstable foundation of massive fossil fuel inputs. It must be reinvented in the face of declining fuel stocks. [See PCI report, PDF, 41pp, by Richard Heinberg and Michael Bomford.] The new food system will use less energy, and the energy it uses will come from renewable sources. We can begin the transition to the new system immediately through a process of planned, graduated, rapid change. The unplanned alternative-reconstruction from scratch after collapse-would be chaotic and tragic. The seeds of the new food system have already been planted. America's farmers have been reducing their energy use for decades. They are using less fertilizer and pesticide. The number of organic farms, farmers' markets, and CSA operations is growing rapidly. More people are thinking about where their food comes from. These are important building blocks, but much remains to be done. Our new food system will require more farmers, smaller and more diversified farms, less processed and packaged food, and less long-distance hauling of food. Governments, communities, businesses, and families each have important parts to play in reinventing a food system that functions with limited renewable energy resources to feed our population for the long term."

Bankruptcy Might Finally Force Fuel Efficiency at Chrysler. By Tony Borros, Wired, April 30, 2008. "The smallest and weakest of the Big Three is filing for bankruptcy and hitching its wagon to Italian automotive giant Fiat. At long last we might finally see some small, fuel-efficient cars. Chrysler has the know-how, it just needs to use it."

U.S. Wants Control HFCs by Amending Montreal Protocol. By John Heilprin, AP, April 30, 2009. "The Obama administration, in a major environmental policy shift, is leaning toward asking 195 nations that ratified the U.N. ozone treaty to enact mandatory reductions in hydrofluorocarbons, according to U.S. officials and documents obtained by The Associated Press... The change -- the first U.S.-proposed mandatory global cut in greenhouse gases -- would transform the ozone treaty into a strong tool for fighting global warming. 'Now it's going to be a climate treaty, with no ozone-depleting materials, if this goes forward,' an EPA technical expert said Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because a final decision is pending. The expert said the 21-year-old ozone treaty known as the Montreal Protocol created virtually the entire market for hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, so including them in the treaty would take care of a problem of its own making. It's uncertain how that would work in conjunction with the Kyoto Protocol, the world's climate treaty, which now regulates HFCs... Because they do not affect the ozone layer, HFCs broadly replaced CFCs as coolants in everything from refrigerators, air conditioners and fire extinguishers to aerosol sprays, medical devices and semiconductors. But experts say the solution to one problem is now worsening another... HFCs can be up to 10,000 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as climate-warming chemicals, according to U.S. government data. Currently they account for only about 2 percent of all greenhouse-gas emissions, but the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned in 2005 that use of HFCs was growing at 8.8 percent per year."

Ice Shelf in Western Antarctic Peninsula Continues to Crumble. By David Rising, AP, April 30, 2009. "Massive ice chunks are crumbling away from a shelf in the western Antarctic Peninsula, researchers said Wednesday, warning that 1,300 square miles of ice -- an area larger than Rhode Island -- was in danger of breaking off in coming weeks. The Wilkins Ice Shelf had been stable for most of the last century, but began retreating in the 1990s. Researchers believe it was held in place by an ice bridge linking Charcot Island to the Antarctic mainland... The Wilkins shelf, which is the size of Jamaica, lost 14 percent of its mass last year, according to scientists who are looking at whether global warming is the cause of its breakup. Average temperatures in the Antarctic Peninsula have risen by 3.8 degrees Fahrenheit (2.5 Celsius) over the past 50 years -- higher than the average global rise, according to studies."