1. Home
  2. Articles posted by: Rona Fried (Page 1289)

New Field for Earmarks in U.S. Goals on Energy

By John M. Broder WASHINGTON, Aug. 17 – Tucked away among the $3.2 billion in Congressional earmarks in the recently passed energy and water spending bill is a $4 million grant to a small company in suburban Chicago that is trying to solve the problem of capturing and storing carbon dioxide emissions. The company, Jupiter Oxygen, which is run out of an office park near O’Hare airport, holds potentially valuable patents for burning coal cleanly but has fewer than 10 employees and sparse revenue. As a speculative venture in an embryonic field, it has little access to capital markets, traditional bank loans or federal grants. It does, however, have powerful friends in Congress, including Representatives Peter J. Visclosky, Democrat of Indiana, and Joe L. Barton, Republican of Texas, who sponsored the earmark and who together have received more than $41,000 in campaign donations from Jupiter Oxygen executives. In all, company officials and family members have given political donations of at least $150,000 in recent years. The case of Jupiter Oxygen is an example of how companies in a variety of energy-related businesses, solar, biofuels and wind power, are lining up at the federal trough as the government shovels out billions […]

Read More

New BLM Chief Excludes Public from Environmental Decisions

A decision released by the new director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) means that countless potentially harmful projects involving oil and gas exploration, logging and grazing on public lands are no longer subject to a key federal law that protects our nation’s natural resources, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). NRDC experts say the decision gives a pass to big business by making an end run around requirements of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), a landmark law that gives the public a voice in decisions about federal projects in the communities where they live and work. It declares that whole categories of projects do not result in any significant environmental impacts, thereby exempting them from environmental review. “This is the Bush administration – though its new BLM director – silencing public input and turning the stewardship of the government into a rubber stamp for industry,” said NRDC’s Bobby McEnaney. “This decision will cause irreparable damage to the great wildlands of the American West, and it leaves the American people totally out of the conversation about what to do with land held in the public trust.” Just last week, Bush appointee James Caswell was confirmed by […]

Read More

Report Predicts $7.2Bn Thin-Film PV Market by 2015

The world thin-film photovoltaics (TFPV) market is forecast to reach $7.2 billion by 2015, compared to just over $1.0 billion today, according to a new report that has been published by NanoMarkets LC, an industry analyst firm. The market is being driven by the inherent advantages of TFPV including low cost, low weight, and the ability to manufacture on flexible substrates and embed solar power capabilities into walls, roofs and even windows. Unlike more conventional PV that uses crystalline silicon, TFPV also has the ability to operate under low light conditions. The report notes that to support the growing demand for TFPV, most manufacturers are ramping up production capacity and several – including First Solar, Fuji Electric, Nanosolar, Sanyo, Uni-Solar and G24i – are building plants with more than 100 MW in capacity. Some of the findings of the report include: Because worldwide energy prices are rising fast and PV prices are falling fast, PV will carve off a big slice of the energy market and could eventually account for as much as 20 percent of the U.S. market’s energy needs. Because TFPV costs less than conventional PV, TFPV is most likely to take off first. Just a few years […]

Read More