How T. Boone Pickens’ Energy Plan Just Got Killed

The financial bailout bill passed by Congress may have once and for all put an end to T. Boone Pickens’ energy plan. Let me explain.

Until the financial meltdown obliterated all other news coverage, T. Boone and his energy plan were everywhere. His book, The First Billion Is the Hardest, is number two on the bestseller list. During the Republican and Democrat Conventions his press conferences were attended by a fawning media, virtually all of who filed stories with the theme "oil man turns wind energy advocate."

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Berkeley Financing Program Brings Renewable Energy Home

Date: 17 Sep 2008 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

With has the potential to become one of the nation’s fastest spreading local renewable energy programs, the Berkeley city council last night voted unanimously to use the city’s bonding authority to finance rooftop solar on residential properties. The city will pay the upfront costs and property owners will repay those costs over 20 years through a special assessment on their property tax bills. If a person moves, the solar system will stay at the property and the new owners will assume the remaining years of the assessment.

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Republicans Have Handed Democrats a Winning Election Issue

Date: 20 Aug 2008 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

The Republicans keep handing the Democrats a winning election issue. And the Democrats keeping refusing to accept the gift. I hope the beginning of the formal election campaign knocks some sense into them.

Thegift is the Republicans’ continued opposition to extending renewable energy incentives. Eight times since the fall of 2007, a Republican-threatened filibuster has thwarted a vote on extending these incentives. They will expire at the end of this year — and with that expiration, many believe the solar and wind industries will come to a grinding halt.

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Electric Cars Are the Key to Energy Independence

Al Gore’s heroic speech challenging us to make our electrical system 100 percent renewable promised it would simultaneously address three major crises: the weak economy, catastrophic climate change and the dire national security problems inherent in our dependence on imported oil.

He got two out of three right. A crash renewable electricity initiative would provide an immediate boost to our economy and could slow climate change, since electricity accounts for about a third of our overall greenhouse gas emissions.

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Electric Cars Are the Key to Energy Independence

Date: 6 Aug 2008 | posted in: Energy, Energy Self Reliant States | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

ILSR vice president, David Morris, responds to Al Gore’s recent speech proposing a 10 year effort to move the United States to a 100% renewable energy electric system to address three major crises: the weak economy, catastrophic climate change and the dire national security problems inherent in our dependence on imported oil. Morris says that Gore got got two out of three right.… Read More

Report: Rural Power – Community-Scaled Renewable Energy and Rural Economic Development

Date: 5 Aug 2008 | posted in: agriculture, Energy, environment | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

This August 2008 report by David Morris and John Farrell was sponsored by the Ford Foundation. The next 20 years could generate as much as $1 trillion in new renewable energy investment in rural America. The report is a policy roadmap for states and the federal government that would redesignpolicies to encourage a highly decentralized and dispersed renewable energy industry that is significantly locally owned. Doing so would multiply the number of rural areas that benefit from burgeoning renewable energy industries, and would create a sustainable asset whose wealth and revenue will largely remain in revived local communities and regions.

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New York State should enact a natural gas depletion tax

Date: 27 Jul 2008 | posted in: Energy, From the Desk of David Morris, Media Coverage, The Public Good | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

Buffalo News, July 27, 2008 The newly discovered natural gas reserves in the deep layer of rock of the Marcellus Shale, which lies under the Southern Tier, are potentially worth more than $70 billion. On Wednesday, Gov. David Paterson signed a bill making it easier for companies to drill for natural gas. Unfortunately, he didn’t sign … Read More

Money is Fleeing

Date: 2 Jul 2008 | posted in: Energy, From the Desk of David Morris, The Public Good | 0 Facebooktwitterredditmail

Money is Fleeing Pennsylvania should get a cut of the state’s increasingly valuable natural gas resources By Justin Dahlheimer, originally published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 2, 2008 One resource that could help improve Pennsylvania’s fiscal future during an economic recession can be found under its feet, or, more precisely, under its soil. While the state’s … Read More

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