New resource for energy solutions news....

Today's post: Wednesday, 9-29-2010

We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.

At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just 4 years from now.

And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.

Today’s post: New resource for energy solutions news

Today my CEN National Update email came.

It had some potential good news and some bad news.

But then I noticed that it had a new resource for mostly good news about new projects on many kinds of topics.

The CEN description did not seem to match what I found on the website. BUT, the website was well enough done, I decided to post about it.

www.energyempowers.gov is the web address.

It has some headline stories of different kinds. It had a story about geothermal power, a story about wind power, and one on the new Porsche hybrid. And, it also featured 8 other stories.

But the part I liked best was that they also post stories by energy solutions category and by state.

In California there was a story about a Silicon Valley company that has a way of cutting silicon for wafers with dramatically less waste to cut costs and a Navy location in the Mojave desert to build carports for personnel that protect their cars and their paint from the sun and its heat while also generating photovoltaic solar power on their roofs.

The 3 main story areas are also subdivided. So the site is also useful to find articles on many different energy solution topics.

1. Renewable Energy contains stories by renewable energy source such as solar, wind, and geothermal.

2. Energy Savings has stories by in which area of the economy such as vehicles, homes, buildings, and industry.

3. Grants and tax credits lists those and has stories on people who used them to finance energy solution projects including 48C Advanced Energy Manufacturing Credit and WAP, the Weatherization Assistance Program.

These stories show that despite our inability to be as competitive with China and European countries in renewable energy and CO2 reduction due to organized political opposition by old energy companies, the current federal government is making a lot of small progress in dozens of areas that will gradually improve our energy economy and so is the entrepreneurial business community.