Efficiency Works: Creating Good Jobs and New Markets Through Energy Efficiency

Center for American Progress and Energy Resource Management / by Bracken Hendricks, Bill Campbell and Pen Goodale http://tinyurl.com/3736k3c [This new report] outlines the top-ranking states for policy leadership on energy efficiency. These leading states support innovative businesses using clean energy as a tool for economic development, job creation, and capital investment. This analysis responds to … Continue reading »

The Obama Approach to Public Protection: Rulemaking

OMB Watch http://www.ombwatch.org/files/regs/obamamidtermrulemakingreport.pdf [H/T: E&E News PM subscription required] While it has moved quickly with tougher air pollution standards, new chemicals policies and the agency’s first-ever regulations on greenhouse gases, U.S. EPA has done little to improve water quality under the Obama administration, according to a report released today by advocacy group OMB Watch. The … Continue reading »

IEA Wind Energy Annual Report 2009

International Energy Annual http://www.ieawind.org/AnnualReports_PDF/2009.html [H/T: PEN-e] This annual Report by the International Energy Agency states that wind generation capacity increased in every country except Austria, with totals ranging from the United States with 35,086 MW to Switzerland with about 18 MW (Table 3). A growing trend is repowering—the replacement of older, smaller turbines with fewer, … Continue reading »

Tsunami Warning and Preparedness: An Assessment of the U.S. Tsunami Program and the Nation’s Preparedness Efforts

National Academies Press (download prepub version in sections with free registration) www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12628 Many coastal areas of the United States are at risk from tsunamis. After the catastrophic 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, legislation was passed to expand U.S. tsunami warning capabilities. Since then, the nation has made progress in several related areas on both … Continue reading »

The Uncertain Future of Nuclear Energy

Belfer Center, Kennedy School, Harvard Univ. / by Frank N. von Hippel, Matthew Bunn, Anatoli Diakov, Ming Ding, Tadahiro Katsuta, Charles McCombie, M.V. Ramana, Tatsujiro Suzuki, Susan Voss, Suyuan Yu http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/20346/uncertain_future_of_nuclear_energy.html In the 1970s, nuclear-power boosters expected that by now nuclear power would produce perhaps 80 to 90 percent of all electrical energy globally. Today, … Continue reading »