Welcome

WASHINGTON, DC, July 18, 2008 (ENS) - Ladies and gentlemen: There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of life depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to the challenge of a present danger.

In such moments, we are called upon to move quickly and boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside old habits and rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of big changes. Those who, for whatever reason, refuse to do their part must either be persuaded to join the effort or asked to step aside.

This is such a moment. The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk. And even more - if more should be required - the future of human civilization is at stake.

I don't remember a time in our country when so many things seemed to be going so wrong simultaneously. Our economy is in terrible shape and getting worse, gasoline prices are increasing dramatically, and so are electricity rates. Jobs are being outsourced. Home mortgages are in trouble. Banks, automobile companies and other institutions we depend upon are under growing pressure. Distinguished senior business leaders are telling us that this is just the beginning unless we find the courage to make some major changes quickly.

Al Gore addresses the audience at D.A.R. Constitution Hall. July 17, 2008 (Photo by Matthew Bradley)

The climate crisis, in particular, is getting a lot worse - much more quickly than predicted. Scientists with access to data from Navy submarines traversing underneath the North polar ice cap have warned that there is now a 75 percent chance that within five years the entire ice cap will completely disappear during the summer months. This will further increase the melting pressure on Greenland. According to experts, the Jakobshavn glacier, one of Greenland's largest, is moving at a faster rate than ever before, losing 20 million tons of ice every day, equivalent to the amount of water used every year by the residents of New York City.

Two major studies from military intelligence experts have warned our leaders about the dangerous national security implications of the climate crisis, including the possibility of hundreds of millions of climate refugees destabilizing nations around the world.

Just two days ago, 27 senior statesmen and retired military leaders warned of the national security threat from an "energy tsunami" that would be triggered by a loss of our access to foreign oil. Meanwhile, the war in Iraq continues, and now the war in Afghanistan appears to be getting worse.

And by the way, our weather sure is getting strange, isn't it? There seem to be more tornadoes than in living memory, longer droughts, bigger downpours and record floods.

Unprecedented fires are burning in California and elsewhere in the American West. Higher temperatures lead to drier vegetation that makes kindling for mega-fires of the kind that have been raging in Canada, Greece, Russia, China, South America, Australia and Africa. Scientists in the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Science at Tel Aviv University tell us that for every one degree increase in temperature, lightning strikes will go up another 10 percent. And it is lightning, after all, that is principally responsible for igniting the conflagration in California today.

Like a lot of people, it seems to me that all these problems are bigger than any of the solutions that have thus far been proposed for them, and that's been worrying me.

I'm convinced that one reason we've seemed paralyzed in the face of these crises is our tendency to offer old solutions to each crisis separately - without taking the others into account. And these outdated proposals have not only been ineffective - they almost always make the other crises even worse.

Yet when we look at all three of these seemingly intractable challenges at the same time, we can see the common thread running through them, deeply ironic in its simplicity: our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges - the economic, environmental and national security crises.

We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet.

Every bit of that's got to change.

But if we grab hold of that common thread and pull it hard, all of these complex problems begin to unravel and we will find that we're holding the answer to all of them right in our hand.

The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels.

In my search for genuinely effective answers to the climate crisis, I have held a series of "solutions summits" with engineers, scientists, and CEOs. In those discussions, one thing has become abundantly clear: when you connect the dots, it turns out that the real solutions to the climate crisis are the very same measures needed to renew our economy and escape the trap of ever-rising energy prices. Moreover, they are also the very same solutions we need to guarantee our national security without having to go to war in the Persian Gulf.

What if we could use fuels that are not expensive, don't cause pollution and are abundantly available right here at home?

We have such fuels. Scientists have confirmed that enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth every 40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world's energy needs for a full year. Tapping just a small portion of this solar energy could provide all of the electricity America uses. And enough wind power blows through the Midwest corridor every day to also meet 100 percent of US electricity demand. Geothermal energy, similarly, is capable of providing enormous supplies of electricity for America.

The quickest, cheapest and best way to start using all this renewable energy is in the production of electricity. In fact, we can start right now using solar power, wind power and geothermal power to make electricity for our homes and businesses.

But to make this exciting potential a reality, and truly solve our nation's problems, we need a new start.

That's why I'm proposing today a strategic initiative designed to free us from the crises that are holding us down and to regain control of our own destiny. It's not the only thing we need to do. But this strategic challenge is the lynchpin of a bold new strategy needed to re-power America.

Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.

This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative. It represents a challenge to all Americans - in every walk of life: to our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and to every citizen.

A few years ago, it would not have been possible to issue such a challenge. But here's what's changed: the sharp cost reductions now beginning to take place in solar, wind, and geothermal power - coupled with the recent dramatic price increases for oil and coal - have radically changed the economics of energy.

When I first went to Congress 32 years ago, I listened to experts testify that if oil ever got to $35 a barrel, then renewable sources of energy would become competitive. Well, today, the price of oil is over $135 per barrel. And sure enough, billions of dollars of new investment are flowing into the development of concentrated solar thermal, photovoltaics, windmills, geothermal plants, and a variety of ingenious new ways to improve our efficiency and conserve presently wasted energy.

And as the demand for renewable energy grows, the costs will continue to fall. Let me give you one revealing example: the price of the specialized silicon used to make solar cells was recently as high as $300 per kilogram. But the newest contracts have prices as low as $50 a kilogram.

You know, the same thing happened with computer chips - also made out of silicon. The price paid for the same performance came down by 50 percent every 18 months - year after year, and that's what's happened for 40 years in a row.

To those who argue that we do not yet have the technology to accomplish these results with renewable energy: I ask them to come with me to meet the entrepreneurs who will drive this revolution. I've seen what they are doing and I have no doubt that we can meet this challenge.

To those who say the costs are still too high: I ask them to consider whether the costs of oil and coal will ever stop increasing if we keep relying on quickly depleting energy sources to feed a rapidly growing demand all around the world. When demand for oil and coal increases, their price goes up. When demand for solar cells increases, the price often comes down.

When we send money to foreign countries to buy nearly 70 percent of the oil we use every day, they build new skyscrapers and we lose jobs. When we spend that money building solar arrays and windmills, we build competitive industries and gain jobs here at home.

Of course there are those who will tell us this can't be done. Some of the voices we hear are the defenders of the status quo - the ones with a vested interest in perpetuating the current system, no matter how high a price the rest of us will have to pay. But even those who reap the profits of the carbon age have to recognize the inevitability of its demise.

As one OPEC oil minister observed, "The Stone Age didn't end because of a shortage of stones."

To those who say 10 years is not enough time, I respectfully ask them to consider what the world's scientists are telling us about the risks we face if we don't act in 10 years. The leading experts predict that we have less than 10 years to make dramatic changes in our global warming pollution lest we lose our ability to ever recover from this environmental crisis. When the use of oil and coal goes up, pollution goes up. When the use of solar, wind and geothermal increases, pollution comes down.

To those who say the challenge is not politically viable: I suggest they go before the American people and try to defend the status quo. Then bear witness to the people's appetite for change.

I for one do not believe our country can withstand 10 more years of the status quo. Our families cannot stand 10 more years of gas price increases. Our workers cannot stand 10 more years of job losses and outsourcing of factories. Our economy cannot stand 10 more years of sending $2 billion every 24 hours to foreign countries for oil.

And our soldiers and their families cannot take another 10 years of repeated troop deployments to dangerous regions that just happen to have large oil supplies.

What could we do instead for the next 10 years? What should we do during the next 10 years? Some of our greatest accomplishments as a nation have resulted from commitments to reach a goal that fell well beyond the next election: the Marshall Plan, Social Security, the interstate highway system. But a political promise to do something 40 years from now is universally ignored because everyone knows that it's meaningless. Ten years is about the maximum time that we as a nation can hold a steady aim and hit our target.

When President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon and bring him back safely in 10 years, many people doubted we could accomplish that goal. But 8 years and 2 months later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the surface of the moon.

To be sure, reaching the goal of 100 percent renewable and truly clean electricity within 10 years will require us to overcome many obstacles. At present, for example, we do not have a unified national grid that is sufficiently advanced to link the areas where the sun shines and the wind blows to the cities in the East and the West that need the electricity. Our national electric grid is critical infrastructure, as vital to the health and security of our economy as our highways and telecommunication networks. Today, our grids are antiquated, fragile, and vulnerable to cascading failure. Power outages and defects in the current grid system cost US businesses more than $120 billion dollars a year. It has to be upgraded anyway.

We could further increase the value and efficiency of a Unified National Grid by helping our struggling auto giants switch to the manufacture of plug-in electric cars. An electric vehicle fleet would sharply reduce the cost of driving a car, reduce pollution, and increase the flexibility of our electricity grid.

At the same time, of course, we need to greatly improve our commitment to efficiency and conservation. That's the best investment we can make.

America's transition to renewable energy sources must also include adequate provisions to assist those Americans who would unfairly face hardship. For example, we must recognize those who have toiled in dangerous conditions to bring us our present energy supply. We should guarantee good jobs in the fresh air and sunshine for any coal miner displaced by impacts on the coal industry. Every single one of them.

Of course, we could and should speed up this transition by insisting that the price of carbon-based energy include the costs of the environmental damage it causes. I have long supported a sharp reduction in payroll taxes with the difference made up in CO2 taxes. We should tax what we burn, not what we earn. This is the single most important policy change we can make.

In order to foster international cooperation, it is also essential that the United States rejoin the global community and lead efforts to secure an international treaty at Copenhagen in December of next year that includes a cap on CO2 emissions and a global partnership that recognizes the necessity of addressing the threats of extreme poverty and disease as part of the world's agenda for solving the climate crisis.

Of course the greatest obstacle to meeting the challenge of 100 percent renewable electricity in 10 years may be the deep dysfunction of our politics and our self-governing system as it exists today. In recent years, our politics has tended toward incremental proposals made up of small policies designed to avoid offending special interests, alternating with occasional baby steps in the right direction. Our democracy has become sclerotic at a time when these crises require boldness.

It is only a truly dysfunctional system that would buy into the perverse logic that the short-term answer to high gasoline prices is drilling for more oil ten years from now.

Al Gore in his home office in Tennessee (Photo courtesy Alliance for Climate Protection) )

Am I the only one who finds it strange that our government so often adopts a so-called solution that has absolutely nothing to do with the problem it is supposed to address? When people rightly complain about higher gasoline prices, we propose to give more money to the oil companies and pretend that they're going to bring gasoline prices down. It will do nothing of the sort, and everyone knows it. If we keep going back to the same policies that have never ever worked in the past and have served only to produce the highest gasoline prices in history alongside the greatest oil company profits in history, nobody should be surprised if we get the same result over and over again.

But the Congress may be poised to move in that direction anyway because some of them are being stampeded by lobbyists for special interests that know how to make the system work for them instead of the American people.

If you want to know the truth about gasoline prices, here it is: the exploding demand for oil, especially in places like China, is overwhelming the rate of new discoveries by so much that oil prices are almost certain to continue upward over time no matter what the oil companies promise. And politicians cannot bring gasoline prices down in the short term.

However, there actually is one extremely effective way to bring the costs of driving a car way down within a few short years. The way to bring gas prices down is to end our dependence on oil and use the renewable sources that can give us the equivalent of $1 per gallon gasoline.

Many Americans have begun to wonder whether or not we've simply lost our appetite for bold policy solutions. And folks who claim to know how our system works these days have told us we might as well forget about our political system doing anything bold, especially if it is contrary to the wishes of special interests. And I've got to admit, that sure seems to be the way things have been going. But I've begun to hear different voices in this country from people who are not only tired of baby steps and special interest politics, but are hungry for a new, different and bold approach.

We are on the eve of a presidential election. We are in the midst of an international climate treaty process that will conclude its work before the end of the first year of the new president's term. It is a great error to say that the United States must wait for others to join us in this matter. In fact, we must move first, because that is the key to getting others to follow; and because moving first is in our own national interest.

So I ask you to join with me to call on every candidate, at every level, to accept this challenge - for America to be running on 100 percent zero-carbon electricity in 10 years. It's time for us to move beyond empty rhetoric. We need to act now.

This is a generational moment. A moment when we decide our own path and our collective fate. I'm asking you - each of you - to join me and build this future. Please join the WE campaign at wecansolveit.org.We need you. And we need you now. We're committed to changing not just light bulbs, but laws. And laws will only change with leadership.

On July 16, 1969, the United States of America was finally ready to meet President Kennedy's challenge of landing Americans on the moon. I will never forget standing beside my father a few miles from the launch site, waiting for the giant Saturn 5 rocket to lift Apollo 11 into the sky. I was a young man, 21 years old, who had graduated from college a month before and was enlisting in the United States Army three weeks later.

I will never forget the inspiration of those minutes. The power and the vibration of the giant rocket's engines shook my entire body. As I watched the rocket rise, slowly at first and then with great speed, the sound was deafening. We craned our necks to follow its path until we were looking straight up into the air. And then four days later, I watched along with hundreds of millions of others around the world as Neil Armstrong took one small step to the surface of the moon and changed the history of the human race.

We must now lift our nation to reach another goal that will change history. Our entire civilization depends upon us now embarking on a new journey of exploration and discovery. Our success depends on our willingness as a people to undertake this journey and to complete it within 10 years. Once again, we have an opportunity to take a giant leap for humankind.

{Albert Arnold Gore, Jr. served as vice president of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. Gore served first in the U.S. House of Representatives (1977–85) and later in the U.S. Senate (1985–93) representing Tennessee before becoming vice president.

In 2007, Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize together with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for "efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

He is the author of the 2006 text, "An Inconvenient Truth," a slide show on global warming and starred in the Academy Award-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," released in conjunction with the book. He helped to organize the July 7, 2007 set of Live Earth benefit concerts to combat global warming.

Gore is currently the cofounder and chairman of Generation Investment Management, cofounder and chairman of the Emmy award winning American television channel Current TV, a member of the Board of Directors of Apple Inc., and a Senior Advisor to Google. He is also a partner in the venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, heading that firm's climate change solutions group.}

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2008. All rights reserved.

Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa said today that working Americans hard hit by rising gas prices and a collapsing economy demand a comprehensive long-term program focused on exploring and developing alternative sources of energy as a solution to the crisis facing our country.

“We are not going to drill our way out of the energy problems we are facing -- not here and not in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,” Hoffa told labor and environmental activists at an Oakland, Calif., summit on good jobs and clean air. “We must find a long-term approach that breaks our dependence on foreign oil by investing in the development of alternate energy sources like solar, wind and geothermal power.”

Hoffa then announced the union’s withdrawal from the ANWR coalition, citing the need to build a green economy that fosters the development of alternative energy sources and creates good union jobs – instead of lining the pockets of big oil tycoons.

Hoffa also said that by investing in green energy solutions, the nation will reap the benefits of curbing its dependence on oil through a revitalized economy with the creation of millions of new jobs in a rapidly growing industry.

“Our economy is in shambles. Gas is climbing to $5 a gallon. The dollar has collapsed. Inflation is on the rise. Americans are seeing their paychecks shrink. Their family health care is being slashed,” Hoffa said. “Finding a long-term solution has a tremendous upside. It will be environmentally friendly and will serve as a much-needed boost to our sagging economy.”

Hoffa Says Comprehensive Energy Program, Green Jobs Are Solutions To Energy Crisis
Hoffa also thanked labor’s partners in the environmental movement, who are currently working to reduce emissions from port trucks. He urged the strengthening of the alliance, known as the Coalition for Clean & Safe Ports, to achieve a common goal: Good jobs and clean air.

“If we are to prosper as a nation, our future lies in a green economy,” he said. “But it’s up to us to help define the rules of that new green economy. A green economy means we must reduce our dependence on foreign oil. And it means creating good union jobs in America’s growing industries.”

The Sierra Club praised the Teamsters and Hoffa’s comments. “The Sierra Club and the environmental movement applaud your announcement and look forward to building a powerful movement together -- a movement that helps workers, protects the environment, prevents global warming and rebuilds our economy with good, green jobs,” said Greg Haegele, The Sierra Club’s Director of Conservation. “We are proud to stand here today, as allies and friends of the Teamsters.”

Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.4 million hardworking men and women in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

More than a million people in Australia could face drinking water shortages if the country’s seven-year drought does not break soon, a government report has warned.

The bleak report into the future of the Murray-Darling river system found the situation had become "critical".

The system, which runs from Queensland in the country's north east to Victoria in the south, irrigates Australia's vast food bowl and drinking water to more than a million people.

However, due to rising temperatures and a desperate lack of rain, inflows to the basin are at their lowest ever recorded levels.

Climate change minister Penny Wong yesterday said the Murray Darling was "in real trouble".

"We've had very low inflows, we've had a very dry June and the focus absolutely has to be critical human needs, that is the needs of the million-plus people who rely on the basin for drinking water," she said.

"It just reminds us, yet again, the way in which this country is particularly vulnerable to climate change."

Australia is in the grip of the worst drought in a century, with water restrictions in place in most major cities and a forecast for more dry weather.

The report said the parched Murray-Darling system should provide enough drinking water until the middle of next year.

But the document, compiled by senior federal and state government officials, warned there could be difficulties supplying drinking water after that if rains did not arrive.

"Work is continuing on contingency planning in order to protect critical human needs for 2009-10 should inflows remain at or below record minimums through winter," it said.

"Governments would also need to consider how they would set aside water early to protect critical human needs for 2009-10."

More than 40 per cent of Australia's food comes from the Murray-Darling Basin. It would take years of above-average rainfall to return water levels in the basin to normal, but "the long dry" is expected to continue.

A recent report predicted a tenfold increase in the frequency of heat waves as climate change continues to push up temperatures on the continent.

Alex Hunter waits to load harvested catfish into a truck for processing)

LELAND, Miss. — Catfish farmers across the South, unable to cope with the soaring cost of corn and soybean feed, are draining their ponds.

“It’s a dead business,” said John Dillard, who pioneered the commercial farming of catfish in the late 1960s. Last year Dillard & Company raised 11 million fish. Next year it will raise none. People can eat imported fish, Mr. Dillard said, just as they use imported oil.

As for his 55 employees? “Those jobs are gone.”

Corn and soybeans have nearly tripled in price in the last two years, for many reasons: harvest shortfalls, increasing demand by the Asian middle class, government mandates for corn to produce ethanol and, most recently, the flooding in the Midwest.

This is creating a bonanza for corn and soybean farmers but is wreaking havoc on consumers, who are seeing price spikes in the grocery store and in restaurants. Hog and chicken producers as well as cattle ranchers, all of whom depend on grain for feed, are being severely squeezed.

Perhaps nowhere has the rise in crop prices caused more convulsions than in the Mississippi Delta, the hub of the nation’s catfish industry. This is a hard-luck, poverty-plagued region, and raising catfish in artificial ponds was one of the few mainstays.

Then the economics went awry. Feed is now more than half the total cost of raising catfish, compared with a third of the cost of beef and pork production, according to a Mississippi State analysis. That makes catfish more vulnerable. But if the commodities continue to rocket up — and some analysts believe they will — other industries will fall victim as well.

Keith King, the president of Dillard & Company, calculates that for every dollar the company spends raising its fish, it gets back only 75 cents when they go to market.

“What’s happening to this industry is sad, but being sentimental won’t pay the light bill,” Mr. King said.

Dillard and other growers take their fish, still squirming, to Consolidated Catfish Producers in the hamlet of Isola, where workers run the machinery that slices them into filets. With fewer fish coming in, Consolidated Catfish is resorting to layoffs.

One hundred employees were let go in the last month, and an additional 200 will be cut soon. President Dick Stevens predicts that by the end of the year the company will have jobs for only 450, about half the number at its peak. That might not be enough to keep the plant open.

“The industry is going to implode,” Mr. Stevens said. He blamed the government’s ethanol mandates for making fuel compete with food for the harvest of the nation’s farmland. “Politicians were in a rush to do something, and it became a terrible snowball.”

Across the highway, one of the local feed mills, Producers Feed Company, has already shut down. The ripple effects have begun: between the grain mill and the fish plant was Peter Bo’s Restaurant, locally celebrated for, naturally, its catfish. Hanging on the door is a “for rent” sign.

Some catfish producers recently switched to a feed based on gluten, a cheaper derivative of corn, to reduce their costs. But corn gluten transportation and prices were particularly hard hit by the Midwest floods.

“As sick as we were over what happened to the Iowa farmers, we were also sick over what was going to happen to us,” Mr. Stevens said.

It is a feeling echoed by others who depend on corn and soybeans.

In the spring, hog farmers thought they were past the worst. Export sales to China were strong. Corn appeared to level off. Some farmers sought an edge by reformulating pigs’ diets and reducing the weight at which they sent the animals to the packer.

“And then corn goes up another buck, and you’re back where you were,” said Dave Uttecht, a producer in Alpena, S.D., who raises 70,000 pigs a year.

“I’m a farmer. I’m used to peaks and valleys.” Mr. Uttecht said. “But this is like falling into the Grand Canyon.”

Smaller herds will eventually put a floor under hog prices, and there is already some liquidation going on. But in the short term, sending more hogs to market will increase the supply of pork and push prices down further. Every farmer is hoping his colleagues will liquidate first.

“We’re all waiting for someone else to blink,” Mr. Uttecht said.

Hog farmers at least have the advantage that bacon and pork chops are solidly rooted in American cuisine, and if you want either there is no replacement.

In this and many other ways, catfish farmers are not so lucky.

Catfish started out as a local delicacy, widely celebrated in the lore of the Deep South. Mark Twain saluted it in “Life on the Mississippi.” A character in Eudora Welty’s story “The Wide Net” says after stuffing himself, “There ain’t a thing better.”

Mr. Dillard, whose operation at its peak was one of the country’s five biggest catfish companies, came to the delta 50 years ago to farm cotton. He put in some catfish ponds a decade later almost on a whim. “I liked the way they tasted,” he said. “Fried.”

Other farmers had the same idea. At first the ponds were put on soil too dry for cotton. When they proved a better crop, they took over cotton ground, too. For a long time, everyone made money.

In 2005, according to the Agriculture Department, catfish farming was a $462 million industry, far exceeding any other American farm-raised fish. The industry employed more than 10,000 people at its peak, almost all in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Arkansas.

Times were too good, perhaps. In retrospect, the name probably should have been changed. Chilean sea bass would not have eclipsed the catfish if it were still known as the Patagonian toothfish, nor would orange roughy have become so esteemed as the slimehead.

“We didn’t focus on the market or on the product,” said Mr. Stevens, the processing factory president. “We’re the first culprits here.”

The industry’s decline accelerated when producers from Vietnam and China flooded the domestic market, putting a ceiling on prices.

Efforts by American producers to portray the imports as unclean and potentially unsafe did not work. The campaign did, however, achieve a measure of vindication last summer when the Food and Drug Administration announced broader import controls on Chinese seafood, including catfish, saying tests had shown the fish were contaminated with antimicrobial agents.

Rising feed prices were the final straw for Dillard & Company, which decided to close last January. Eighty of its 10- to 20-acre pools are empty already. An additional 170 will follow as soon as their fish are big enough to sell.

“It’s easy. You just pull the plug,” Mr. King said, surveying a pool that was nearly dry. Nearby, half a dozen men were running their nets through a pond, then hoisting the last of its catfish onto a truck.

“I’ve been doing this for 23 years,” said one of the workers, Craig Morgan. “I don’t know what I’ll do now. And there are a bunch of me’s out there.”

It is unclear what can replace catfish as easily as catfish replaced cotton. Attempts to make a tourist industry out of the fact that the delta was the birthplace of the blues are still embryonic.

“If we don’t do something, there will be nothing but tumbleweed here,” Jimmy Donahoo, a former catfish farmer, said. He, like others in the industry, thinks the producers should be supported by government subsidies, just like other farmers.

At Dillard & Company, they are not waiting for help.

“You focus your resources where you can maximize your profits,” Mr. King said. All the empty ponds will be planted with soybeans and corn, those two commodities for which there seems boundless appetite.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The California Building Standards Commission adopted a green building code yesterday for all new construction statewide as part of a rules package that policymakers said was the first of its kind in the nation.

Adherence to the California Green Building Standards Code [PDF], which takes effect in 180 days, will be voluntary until 2010, when its provisions are expected to become mandatory, commission leaders said. The voluntary period gives builders, local governments and communities time to adapt to the new rules, the commission said.

The code sets targets for energy efficiency, water consumption, dual plumbing systems for potable and recyclable water, diversion of construction waste from landfills and use of environmentally sensitive materials in construction and design, including eco-friendly flooring, carpeting, paint, coatings, thermal insulation and acoustical wall and ceiling panels.

"By adopting this first-in-the-nation statewide green building code, California is again leading the way to fight climate change and protect the environment," Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said in a statement released Thursday. "This is literally a groundbreaking move to ensure that when we break ground on all new buildings in the Golden State we are promoting green building and energy efficient new technologies."

"This is a huge step in greening the state and greening the nation," said Rosario Marin, the Secretary of the State and Consumer Services Agency and the chair of the California Building Standards Commission.

At Sierra Club California, Senior Advocate Jim Metropolus said, "We recognize that this is a first step. We also recognize that there is still a lot of work that needs to be done."

In announcing the adoption of the new code, just hours after its approval, Marin said the standards represent the work of more than 15 months by policymakers and external stakeholders ranging from environmentalists to industry advocates.

Those familiar with the process said the challenge was to produce guidelines that struck a balance among the different groups, from advocates of requirements that set the highest standards for environmental responsibility to others who held that objectives perceived as being too tough would not be achieved — and possibly not attempted.

Marin acknowledged the efforts by saying the process brought together groups with "very disparate interests" to develop the building code. The code "sets a floor, not a ceiling," she said, adding that builders, cities and counties are encouraged to exceed the standards.

The standards cover commercial and residential construction in the public and private sectors as well as schools of all levels, hospitals and other public institutions. The green thresholds include a 50 percent increase in landscape water conservation and a 15 percent reduction in energy use compared to current standards. All the measures if acted upon would at least be comparable to the requirements of a "silver rating" under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards set by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), commission representatives said.

The standards were preceded by an executive order signed by the governor in 2004 that requires state buildings to reduce energy use by 20 percent by 2015, and directs all new state buildings and renovation projects to attain at least a LEED silver level certification.

Last October, Schwarzenegger vetoed green building Assembly Bill 1058. In a memo to the Assembly, the governor said he supports green construction standards and shares the goals of the bill. But he said he objected to some of its provisions, noting passages that ran afoul of California seismic and fire safety standards. The governor also said building standards should not be statutory and that the responsibility for setting that criteria rests with the Building Standards Commission. His memo, in effect a directive to the commission, accelerated work by the panel that resulted in the green building code approved on Thursday.

In Washington, D.C., USGBC President, CEO and Founding Chair Rick Fedrizzi lauded California for adopting its new code.

"The LEED green building certification system helped lead the way while setting the stage for states and municipalities to strengthen local building codes," Fedrizzi said in a statement. "Buildings are our first, best opportunity to reduce energy use and C02 emissions, and greening them must be a critical component of any policy approach that aims to fight climate change."

Buildings account for 39 percent of the energy used in the U.S., 71 percent of electricity use and 39 percent of C02 emission, according to the USGBC.

A mere breath of a breeze disturbs the quiet of autumn in south London and the wind turbine on the gable of Donnachadh McCarthy's home turns lazily.

The morning sun casts shadows from solar panels onto the walls of the house and filters through the windows into his living room.

"I'm in surplus. I am now providing money to the grid," he said with a grin, gesturing at a red light winking on the wall that marks the progress of his domestic power station.

"I have exported 20 percent more electricity than I've imported this year," he said. "The average carbon footprint is 8.5 (metric) tons in the (European Union), whereas mine is less than half a ton."

McCarthy has long tried to stay at the forefront of British green power generation.

Last November, he made a small media splash as the first Londoner to gain permission to put a turbine on a house that already boasted an array of renewable energy devices.

And his direct action to avoid using fossil fuels--the main cause of climate change--is beginning to look not so much eccentric as ahead of its time.

I have no doubt that microgeneration has the potential to be a major element of the energy mix.

--Mark Lazarowicz, member of parliament

This year, David Cameron, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, said he would add a turbine and solar panels to his west London home, giving "microgeneration" mass media exposure.

Sure enough, domestic turbines promptly gained the accolade of a scare story in the tabloid press.

"Homeowners could be forced by Labour to put up 3,000 pound ($5,250) wind turbines on their roofs," warned the Daily Mail in an article about the governing Labour party's energy policy.

The government is so far showing no signs of making turbines compulsory, but earlier this year it launched an initiative that will devote 80 million pounds ($150 million) over the next three years to develop and promote microgeneration.

The Energy Saving Trust, funded by the government and the private sector, says green power generation could supply more than one-third of energy needs within a few decades.

About 80,000 homes in Britain are producing electricity with small renewable-power generation units such as turbines.

Now turbines have been embraced by mainstream retailers like B&Q, a chain of hardware stores run by Kingfisher, which sells them for 1,500 pounds ($2,800).

"(They) can be easily attached to your home and can save around a third of your electricity bill. And with energy high on the government's agenda, grants are available to cover up to 30 percent of the installed cost," the store gushed in a statement launching turbines last month.

The Energy Saving Trust, a government agency that coordinates attempts to boost renewable energy production and increase efficiency, estimates domestic wind turbines could supply 4 percent of Britain's electricity requirement and reduce domestic carbon dioxide emissions by 6 percent.

Solar panels could, if the price were reduced, also supply 4 percent of electricity needs and reduce domestic emissions by up to 3 percent, it said in a report last year.

"I have no doubt that microgeneration has the potential to be a major element of the energy mix," said Mark Lazarowicz, a member of parliament who sponsored a law passed this year aimed at simplifying the process.

"Speaking to some of the producers, they are saying they are getting more inquiries now than they can cope with. They are having to increase production to meet demand, and this will bring prices down, which will in turn increase demand."

Small turbine producers have sprung up in Britain.

One manufacturer, Futurenergy, sells domestic wind turbines for 695 pounds ($1,200) on its Web site and began shipping them four months ago. They now sell about 100 a week to customers all over the world, said director Peter Osborn.

His turbines are bigger than most domestic units and more suited to the windy north and west of Britain than fashionable west London.

But he said the market was huge for farms and rural users. Cameron and other Londoners could buy smaller models.

"I am very optimistic. Every day a new door opens, and they will continue to open," said Osborn.

Other retailers are similarly optimistic, although McCarthy warns that alternative energy will only go so far in Britain's battle to restrict the emissions causing global warming.

"Renewables are not the answer. This is about a range of things that come together. Mainly it's about reducing your need for energy," he said, as he showed off the array of electronics linking his devices to the national power grid.

"This is 40 percent lifestyle, 40 percent efficiency, and renewables can only help with the rest. When you see how much some people waste, you need to tell them to start there."

Story Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

Hauppauge, NY - Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) and American Superconductor Corporation recently announced the operation of the world's first high temperature superconductor (HTS) power transmission cable system in a commercial power grid. The 138,000 volt (138 kV) system, which consists of three individual HTS power cable phases running in parallel, was energized on April 22, 2008 and is operating successfully in LIPA's Holbrook transmission right of way. The cable system, including six outdoor terminations for connection to LIPA's grid, was designed, manufactured and installed by Nexans, the worldwide leader in the cable industry. The cable utilizes HTS wire produced by AMSC, which also is the prime contractor for the project. The 2,000-foot-long cable system is cryogenically cooled using a liquid nitrogen refrigeration system from Air Liquide.

The Department of Energy (DOE) previously funded $27.5M of the $58.5M total project cost, which advances the Department's ongoing efforts, through the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, to modernize the Nation's electricity delivery infrastructure. The cable system contains hair-thin, ribbon-shaped HTS wires that conduct 150 times the electricity of similar sized copper wires. This power density advantage enables transmission-voltage HTS cables to utilize far less wire and yet conduct up to five times more power – in a smaller right of way – than traditional copper-based cables. When operated at full capacity, the new HTS cable system is capable of transmitting up to 574 megawatts (MW) of electricity, enough to power 300,000 homes. HTS power cables are envisioned by the DOE as a component of a modern electricity superhighway – one that is free of bottlenecks and can readily transmit power to customers from remote generation sites, such as wind farms.

HTS cables conduct electricity with virtually no electrical losses, meaning more of the power generated at power plants gets to customers. Conventional power grids typically lose seven to 10 percent of power due to the inherent electrical resistance experienced with copper wires. The higher electrical efficiency of HTS cables provides a means to reduce carbon emissions while meeting the growing demand for electric power in the digital age.

Alternating current HTS power cables have inherently low impedance, which means they can draw power flow away from overtaxed conventional cables or overhead lines, thereby relieving network congestion. They can also be specially designed to have very low impedance (VLI) characteristics. When deployed in strategic locations, VLI superconductor cables, such as the one currently operating in LIPA's power grid, can rapidly absorb additional power flows when conventional power grid components are damaged during electrical storms or other events. Because HTS cablesare self-adjusting, they are expected to become core components of intelligent, more secure power networks.

LIPA is the third electric utility in the United States to have deployed an HTS cable system in its power grid. In the summer of 2006, National Grid and American Electric Power energized distribution voltage HTS power cable systems in Albany, New York and Columbus, Ohio, respectively. At nearly half a mile in length, LIPA's HTS cable system is the longest of the three. It also is the first to operate at transmission voltages. After an initial operational period and following performance and economic reviews of the cable system, LIPA plans to retain the new superconductor cable as a permanent part of its grid. In mid-2007, AMSC announced that it would lead the development of an extension of LIPA's HTS cable system. The new cable will be powered by AMSC's second generation (2G) HTS wire, branded as 344 superconductors. AMSC, who will again serve as the project's prime contractor and wire supplier, has chosen Nexans as the cable manufacturer and Air Liquide as the provider of the cryogenics system. The DOE plans to provide up to $9 million in cost sharing for the $18M project.

DOE's Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability (OE) OE's mission is to lead DOE's national efforts to modernize the electric grid; enhance security and reliability of the energy infrastructure; and facilitate recovery from disruptions to energy supply. For more information, visit: http://www.oe.energy.gov/

SOURCE: American Superconductor