E&E's analysis of the positions of the 100 senators on climate legislation, based on interviews with members.

Click on the PDF "Download Analysis" to see the breakdown.

Senate and the Climate Chnage Bill...

The Senate plays a KEY role in the conclusion of the climate change bill 's passage. Several pro Climate Senators have gotten together to form committees that will encourage support for climate change legislation. I am earnestly awaiting the outcome of this controversial bill and am hoping that the Senate will use good judgement and pass the bill. Stay tuned for further developments.

ExxonMobil Invests $600 Million on Algae

Exxon Mobile, normally opposed to spearheading the research efforts on renewable energy methods recently invested 600 million on R&D for algae-based biofuels. Exxon Mobile is collaborating with the company "Synthetic Genomics" (http://www.syntheticgenomics.com/) and the research is likely to continue for a period of five - six years. This is exciting, and I look forward to learning about the new developments.

Sandbag - Real Action on Climate Change

http://www.sandbag.org.uk/

Sandbag, a climate campaign group argues for the reduction of carbon emission permits. Historically dirty producers have been given allowances as a result of lobbying agencies and pressure from companies. Sandbag argues against giving out these "free" or "hot air" allowances, and advocates for limiting the number of permits that are on the market. If we reduce the number of permits, we force polluters to come up with internal methods of reducing carbon emissions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/jul/20/emissionstrading-carbon-emissions

G-8 Summit Updated on Climate Change

The G-8 Summit of the 8 most powerful leaders in the developed world met for three days to discuss a number of global items, and one in particular was climate change. Obama and others could not come to an agreement over reducing the amount of carbon emissions, and found themselves in a gridlock. Each country had their own agendas to deal with and struggled to agree on a standard goal in combating climate change.

Further, the unrest in China called for the Chinese leader to return home to attend the domestic concerns of his country, which made the possibility of further talks almost impossible. China is a huge player in this game and without their full participation, coming to a G-8 agreement will be put on hold.

US - Russia Nuclear Agreement

The US and Russian Administration both came to an agreement to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in their respective countries. This is a step in the right direction for Russia after their notorious military conflict with Georgia last year. Obama's future goal is to eliminate nuclear threat globally, and is particularly interested in reducing Iran and North Korea's nuclear weapons.

NYT Article "Betraying the Planet" by Paul Krugman

The House passed the Waxman Markey Bill on Friday yet there were a number of people in the House who fiercely argued that climate change was not a threat, and offered dissenting remarks against the majority. It's quite comical that there are still a number of people who really think that climate change has no adverse or negative effects on our planet. How much more proof do these guys need? And I realize that these politicians have to protect the fossil fuel producing interests within their respective States, but they arent fooling anyone at this point. There is an overwhelming amount of eveidence from scientists, researchers, and analysts who have actual proof that climate change is a huge threat to our planet. In fact, I think any person whether educated or not, can get access to this proof. Do we have to constantly showcase the number of risks and destructive results of climate change or can we just all come to an agreement that this is reality.
In response to those arguing against Waxman Markey on cap and trade, we should still be wary of the allowance permits that can be given to historically dirty fossil fuel producers. We dont want to make the same mistake as the EU ETS.

Cornell Club Event: “The Ramifications of Carbon Mitigation Paradigms: Can the Public Win when Politics Overshadow the Science of Engineering?”

As an alumn of Cornell University, I get access to all speaking events at the Cornell Club, and recently there has been a lot of talk about green energy/environmental issues. Yesterday, I attended the talk "The Ramifications of Carbon Mitigation Paradigms: Can the Public Win when Politics Overshadow the Science of Engineering?” by a Cornell Engineer (who has worked as a Power Plant Developer) named Adam Victor. Adam Victor currently is the President of TransGas Energy Systems, LLC.
He spoke in length about the possible threats that can occur from the failed US evironmental policies and the past Administration's inability to act on their enviornmental agendas towards curbing climate change. In particular, he spoke about New York City as the place where possible catastrophic events can and will occur, if we dont make REAL changes in our legislation. He touched on the point that we have become a country that argues against building any sort of power plants (iindistrial plants/power plant production/carbon sequestration plants) close to areas where we work, live, eat or breathe. He identified several key projects in the city that were passed up because of community protest. His response makes sense. What difference does the opinion of a residential community make when it comes to the larger national and even global community towards creating new plants that use energy waste and recycle it as renewable power, or creating power plants that capturing carbon.

You can learn more about Adam Victor's ideas by reading the latest New Yorker article about his endeavors: http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/columns/intelligencer/12346/

2009 Top Sustainable Stocks

The following list of companies are leading the way towards a future of sustainable energy either by gmaking their internal operations "green" or by growing their business based on innovative green technologies.

The 2009 SB20 List
Company Name Ticker Sector Country First Solar Nasdaq: FSLR Solar USA Vestas VWS.CO; VWDRY.PK Wind Denmark Gamesa GAM.MC; GCTAF.PK Wind Spain Ormat NYSE: ORA Geothermal USA/Israel WaterFurnace WFI.TO; WFIFF.PK Geothermal USA
Renewable Energy Telvent Git, SA. Nasdaq: TLVT
Smart Grid Spain
Novozymes NZYM.CO; NVZMY.PK Industrial/Ethanol Denmark
Westport Innovations Nasdaq: WPRT;
Transport Canada WPT.TO
Pure Technologies PUR.V Water Canada
Chipotle Mexican Grill NYSE: CMG Corporate USA
Naturex SA NRX.PA Food France
United Natural Nasdaq: UNFI Food USA
Plant Health Care PHC.L; PLHCF.PK Agriculture UK
Bendigo and BEN.ASX Corporate Pioneer/ Australia Adelaide Bank Finance
Novo Nordisk NYSE: NVO Corporate Pioneer/ Denmark Pharmaceuticals Google Nasdaq: GOOG Corporate Pioneer/ USA Technology IBM NYSE: IBM Corporate Pioneer/ USA Technology
Herman Miller Nasdaq: Corporate USA
MLHR Green Building Philips NYSE: PHG
Green Building
Timberland NYSE: TBL Corporate Pioneer/ USA

Investing in Green Energy: What the Industry Experts are Saying

In the link: http://news.zdnet.com/2422-13748_22-302503.html, you can listen to some industry experts discuss their ideas about investing in green technology, carbon management, and smart grids.

Carbon Tax vs. Cap and Trade vs. Plan C

Since this is the most hotly debated climate change topic both globally and here in the United States, I decided to dive a bit deeper into the cap and trade vs. carbon tax debate. While I am a huge advocate of creating some sort of cap and trading scheme (cap and auction in particular), there are a lot of critics that point out the obvious problems with such a market. Before dissecting the multitude of cons, let me first speak briefly about the argument for cap and trade. The pros of the cap and trading scheme are numerous: creating a market, making carbon caps transparent, creating new jobs, etc. But the strongest claim is that it favors a long term solution as opposed to a short term fix politically, as opposed to a tax that has to be politically renewed with every new Administration. A carbon tax is not a long term promise, but only a promise for Now. Although there will be new laws and regulations that will have to keep controls on this scheme, the main point is that its not as easy to dissolve as lets say a carbon tax. The Clean Air Act worked well for the cap and trade scheme for Sulfur Dioxide (http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=1085), so as long as we dont make the same mistakes as the EU (granting mega allowances to big time pollutants), we can really make a difference in carbon emissions in this country.

In opposition are those who propose that a cap and scheme is costly and almost impossible to administer given the amount of players and regulations that are needed in order for the scheme to work.

One author from Yale360 proposes another answer to the carbon emission problem -- making renewable energy cheaper than fossil fuels. Although this idea has a lot of loopholes, its still a good idea. We need to start thinking out of the box - maybe these two options are not the only answers to this global problem.

NYT Article: in 2008, we spent more money investing in renewable energy generation than on fossil fuel generation.

In the NYT article, "Clean Energy Funding Trumps Fossil Fuels", the author states that global investors spent 56% on renewable energy generation in 2008. The Kyoto Protocol, and the cap and trade scheme developed in the EU and other countries abroad have created the necessary enthusiasm and urgency for investors to start thinking about renewable energy as the new primary source of energy. Although this was the first year that renewable energy generation investment surpassed fossil fuel generation investment, this phenomenon predicts that similar trends will follow in the coming years. It will take a long time before fossil fuel sources are phased out of the marketplace so renewable energy sources have a long way to go in terms of replacing fossil fuel generation. Yet overall, this is great news for green activists. A change in generation source investment strategy means that a plethora of changes are in store for the global green energy community.