All of us have to deal with higher oil heating prices, as well as high electrical delivery rates.

After looking at various technologies to shift some of my home's energy budget to alternative sources, I was disappointed to see NH does not have any programs in place to municipalities, towns, homeowners, small businesses and property owners to help with capital costs associated with buying the hardware needed to adopt alternative energy sources.

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Governor Lynch has started a process, and there is a Task Force.

And of course, many of us know the Governor has been active in the highly publicized
'Cap and Trade' of Greenhouse Gases. This is fine, to an extent, gently pushing markets towards adoption of more alternative energy. However, there are steps I feel that there are more robust steps the State could be taking to encourage a more rapid shift away from traditional networks of energy. These steps will make the State economy more independent of outside fluctuations in supply, pricing, and delivery. It could provide a huge boost in local jobs, as well.

SOURCE: Expert Voices

Student engineers in high schools are preparing for annual mileage competitions where passenger vehicles approach 1,700 miles per gallon. The Indiana Mathematics, Science, Technology and Education Alliance (IMSTEA) will host the annual Super Mileage Challenge on April 28 at O’Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis. Last year, five of the 22 Indiana high school teams competing there exceeded 1,000 MPG, and 16 of them exceeded 200 MPG. The IMSTEA seeks inquiries from teachers in other states who would like to participate.

Mater Dei reached 1,345 MPG in Indiana and then, after a bit of tweaking, went to the Eaton Proving Grounds in Marshall, Michigan and hit 1,693 MPG. Similar high school Supermileage competitions are also held in Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin (where 56 schools are participating this year). A coordinating group called Supermileage USA is in the early stages of organizing a national competition.

On November 2, 2007, thousands of young adults converged on Washington, D.C. for Power Shift 2007, the first national youth summit to solve the climate crisis. Youth of all backgrounds will use their experience from local and state level climate change movements to create a fresh, positive, and inspiring vision of the future, one focused on our potential to overcome the challenges of the 21st century, build a clean energy economy, achieve energy independence, create millions of green jobs, increase global equity, and revitalize the American economy.

One of them was our own Zo Tobi, performing his original rallying songs.

Dear Friends,

Today I'm announcing with regret my withdrawal from the campaign to represent New Hampshire in the US Senate. I remain committed to the goals of our campaign, but I do not have the financial resources needed to campaign full-time for the next nine months, which is what would be required to beat John Sununu.

I would like to thank all the people who have volunteered their time, money, and energy to support the campaign. I'm proud that our campaign has brought the need for an Apollo Program for Energy to the forefront of the Senate debate here in New Hampshire, and I’m going to continue to work for the issues that have been the foundation of our campaign, including:

• Promoting the awareness that America’s energy policy is crucial to our national security and economy as well as to our environment.
• Keeping our nation a leader in the global economy by investing in education, supporting science and technology research and development, and providing affordable, portable health care for all Americans.
• Eliminating the excessive power of special interests in our political process.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MANCHESTER – The Friends of Patrick Arnold PAC has launched a campaign website at Democracy for America’s DFA-Link.

Patrick Arnold, a resident of Manchester’s Ward 12, is running for State Representative to represent citizens of Manchester’s west side (Hillsborough Co., Dist. 17) in the State Legislature.

For Immediate Release

CONCORD -Gov. Lynch today urged legislators to approve a proposal to allow New Hampshire to join the rest of the region in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, saying it is the right thing to do for New Hampshire's citizens, economy and environment.

Gov. Lynch testified before the House Science, Technology and Energy Committee in support of legislation (HB 1434) that would allow New Hampshire to enact the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which is part of an overall effort to reduce harmful pollution that causes climate change and to promote the use of cleaner energy. Gov. Lynch signed onto the bipartisan agreement with other governors in 2005, and New Hampshire's Department of Environmental Services played an integral role in developing the initiative.

"I believe strongly there should be national action and a national energy policy that addresses these issues. But I also do not believe that New Hampshire can afford to wait for national action - and we are not waiting," Gov. Lynch said.

SOURCE: OpEdNews.com

by Harvey Wasserman

The Granite State horse race between John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama could turn on an issue that's topped the primary agenda here ever since the bicentennial--atomic energy.

Two reactors sit in this tiny seacoast town just north of the Massachusetts border. One is licensed to operate. The other is a rotting shell, stopped before it could be completed by America's first wave of mass anti-reactor civil disobedience arrests, which began in August 1976.

Republican candidates Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Fred Thompson and Rudolph Giuliani all support a "nuclear renaissance," the massively funded push by the nuclear industry to build a fleet of new reactors. Thompson lobbied for a proposed Westinghouse nuclear plant that was killed in 1984. Giuliani has been employed by Entergy, which owns the Indian Point nuke, thirty-five miles north of Manhattan. Huckabee says anti-nuke arguments are "unfounded."

SOURCE: truthout.com

2007 a Year of Weather Records in US
By Seth Borenstein
The Associated Press

Saturday 29 December 2007

Washington - When the calendar turned to 2007, the heat went on and the weather just got weirder.

January was the warmest first month on record worldwide - 1.53 degrees above normal. It was the first time since record-keeping began in 1880 that the globe's average temperature has been so far above the norm for any month of the year.

And as 2007 drew to a close, it was also shaping up to be the hottest year on record in the Northern Hemisphere.

U.S. weather stations broke or tied 263 all-time high temperature records, according to an Associated Press analysis of U.S. weather data. England had the warmest April in 348 years of record-keeping there, shattering the record set in 1865 by more than 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit.

It wasn't just the temperature. There were other oddball weather events. A tornado struck New York City in August, inspiring the tabloid headline: "This ain't Kansas!"

SOURCE: Boston.com

December 18, 2007

Energy: Bad news from New Hampshire

The energy bill passed by the US Senate last week could have been stronger had it not been for the votes of New Hampshire Senators John Sununu and Judd Gregg. The two voted against extending tax breaks for wind and solar, which would have been paid for by ending $13 billion in tax breaks to the oil and gas industries. Supporters of the stronger energy bill needed 60 votes to shut off debate, but got just 59. So either senator could have been a profile in courage, and the better bill would have passed. Sununu said he voted as he did to avoid a Bush veto and continued standstill on energy reform. According to the watchdog website opensecrets.org, Sununu has received $210,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry, and Gregg $84,000. Apparently neither man has much in

SOURCE: FreePress.org

By Harvey Wasserman

December 14, 2007

Congress stands at the brink of the global-warmed nuclear powered abyss. Again.

In a victory for green power, a massive grassroots/internet campaign forced removal from the national Energy Bill of blank check loan guarantees to build atomic reactors.

But as you read this, House and Senate Democrats and Republicans are negotiating the 2008 Omnibus Appropriations Bill.

Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) has slipped in $25 billion in taxpayer-guaranteed loans for new nukes. The nuke reactor guarantees are bundled with $10 billion for renewable energy, $10 billion to turn coal into liquid vehicle fuel, $2 billion to turn coal into natural gas and another $2 billion to build a uranium enrichment plant.

Safe energy supporters are demanding (see www.nirs.org) that American taxpayers not be forced to pay for another fifty years of radioactive failure.

SOURCE: AmericansUnitedForChange.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

As predicted (see below), Senator John Sununu had the opportunity today to cast a deciding 60th vote to end a Republican-led filibuster against tax provisions in the Renewable Energy and Conservation Tax Act of 2007 -- meaningful legislation that would substantially help wean this nation from its addiction to foreign oil. Sadly, Senator Sununu, who has taken well over $200,000 in campaign contributions from the big oil and gas industries, proved today that he was unable to wean himself from his own addiction to campaign cash.

Senator Sununu turned a blind eye to the sacrifices being made by the people of New Hampshire every time they go to the pump and instead cast the deciding vote to protect the big oil and gas industries’ bottom line out of fear that the big oil money spigot would be shut off:

click here

Listen to and watch the story of stuff as told by eco-activist Annie Leonard.

Teaser youtube:

A number of people have asked me how I got on this path of exploring the materials economy. It started in grade school and crystallized on a spring afternoon on Staten Island. I grew up in Seattle, at that time a green and luscious city. My family would go camping every summer. Since this was in the days before DVDs in the back seats of family cars numbed young passengers, I’d look out the window, studying the landscape, for the whole drive. Each year, I noticed that the stores reached a bit further and the forests started a bit later than the previous year. I wondered where all those forests were going. I wondered how I could stop them from going away entirely.

SOURCE: Alternet.org

By Kelpie Wilson, TruthOut.org, Posted on November 13, 2007

Last Thursday, Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid said that they would jettison the renewable energy provisions in both the House and Senate versions of the 2007 energy bill in the interest of passing a bill before the Thanksgiving recess begins on November 17.

Republicans have been holding up action on the bill for months now, refusing to participate in conference committee meetings to reconcile the House and Senate versions. The big sticking points for Republicans have been support for renewable energy and ending billions of dollars in subsidies for oil companies. Democrats would like to use the oil subsidy money to support solar and wind power.

Representatives of the renewable energy industry were dismayed by the Democrats' abandonment. "This is basically Congress delivering an early Christmas present to the American public -- and it's a lump of coal," said Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). "We are feeling disgusted because this energy bill goes right back to maintaining the status quo."

Right now Congress is crafting the final version of legislation that could cut our oil use by increasing the vehicle fuel mileage standard to a fleetwide average of 35 mpg by 2020. If passed, these standards would reduce our country’s oil consumption by 1.2 million barrels a day, more than twice the amount we currently import from Iraq. But, the auto companies are fighting this increase, pressuring lawmakers to weaken or delay energy legislation.. We can’t let that happen!

FACT:

* The price of a barrel of oil is hovering near $100,
* The cost of a gallon of gas has reached a new high, over $3.00 per gallon,
* Economists project that gas could reach $4.00 per gallon by summer,
* Our dependence on foreign oil IS a national security risk. Tuesday, 2007 marked a sad milestone; the deadliest year in Iraq,
* According to military and security experts, the most effective and efficient way to achieve greater energy independence and increase our national security is for Congress to pass energy legislation that increases how far our cars and trucks can go on a tank of gas....almost 50 NH Veterans signed an open letter to Congress,calling for increasing fuel economy to 35 MPG by 2020.