Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

National Clean Energy Summit 2.0: Jobs and the New Economy

***

My Note –

We are the grandchildren that were left with it. When I hear politicians and business people from corporations say how we don’t want to leave our grandchildren with air that isn’t breathable, global climate change, water that is polluted and soil filled with lead and pollution, I know they are dicking around and talking shit because we are the generation that were the grandchildren left with it already. We are the grandchildren and children living with those results.

When I see mommy’s that are worried to give their child applesauce that isn’t organic and all concerned about the toys their child might have, I can’t understand why they sit them in a car with exhaust fumes filling the cabin without any concern whatsoever. I don’t understand why they don’t know that the chemical plant not two miles from them is covering that home and nearby stores, children’s schools and churches with crud in the air, pollution in the soil, and runoff in the groundwater, creeks and into the city’s water system. How could they not know?

At what point did it matter that there would be future health consequences for us – for our generation – from atomic tests performed within the boundaries of our own country? And where was that fallout going to go? Why do people think they can move to the “countryside” and be safe when toxic chemicals have been dumped in every field, creek and stream for $50 a barrel to some family that needed the money at some point? There has been radioactive chemicals found in well water and in the water table of Greenville, S.C. and people still thought everything was fine. That is one of many places throughout the US that have found something that should not have been where it was found and were exceedingly dangerous to a continued healthy life for people living there.

Where I live, there is a freeway about a half mile away from my home. There is an air base about two miles away. I could walk there from here. At some times of the year, there is such an depth of poisons in the air that it is like standing behind a diesel truck in an enclosed garage with the engine idling and the fuel not burning completely. That doesn’t matter. Every few days, the pollution levels in and around Atlanta are above a level safe to walk outside or play outside or in fact, to be outside – we are the generation of grandchildren who are living with the results of the decisions to do nothing about it effectively leaving us with daily lives suffering whatever effects will come from it.

But still they study it and pay to study it some more and pay for more studies with our tax money and our academic funds and the corporations continue to lobby instead of fixing it and still they study and study and reassure us it will be our grandchildren’s problem and research and lobby and study some more.

In 1975, the industries that were pouring pollutants into the air could’ve added filtering systems on their smokestacks for about $600 a piece. In 1982, they could’ve put those filtering systems on their plants for about $1200 per smokestack, water pipe or effluent pond and by 1990, they still could’ve done it for as little as $2000 per unit. But, they didn’t want to do that.

And, if you look at the amount of money they’ve spent to hinder, undermine and destroy legislative efforts to regulate their industry’s pollution which would’ve required them to add these systems, the lobbying and public relations money spent to prevent that regulation is greater than what they would’ve spent to solve the problem in the first place.

They could’ve used those pollutants to actually make their operations more efficient and in many cases, could’ve used them to power their plants and had an economic advantage from it. But, they didn’t want to do that – so they spent the lion’s share of their available resources to pay lobbyists to get up to Washington and into every state legislature and to exert pressure on elected officials to back off.

Every industry using petroleum based products and transportation systems wanted it to stay that way, claiming that our future generations and grandchildren would be left the costs of cleaning it up and fixing it. Well, that’s us. Here we are. And, now we have used the money, time, efforts, brilliant minds, resources, academic institutions, research and three generations of people and business to study the hell out of it in every last detail while we continue to have the same problems that we had in the first place with very little changed except to have extended the damage to a greater area and higher intensity.

Throughout every square mile of the country and across every other country in the world, the ecological damage has continued unabated affecting every last man, woman and child in the generation that is living now. It is a fact. No matter how rich or how poor, whether you can go skiing in the Alps where you think the air is clean, or are off to some Caribbean Island where the water is bright turquoise under a clear blue sky or are sitting under a pretty apple tree out in the “country” – the pollutants are everywhere you stand, everywhere you walk, in every breath you take and in every glass of water or wine you drink. Where did you think it would go?

– cricketdiane, 08-10-09

***

National Clean Energy Summit 2.0: Jobs and the New Economy

http://cleanenergysummit.org/

WHEN: August 10th 2009 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM

WHERE: University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Cox Pavilion
Directions »
Accommodations »
Parking Information»

WHAT: High-level industry leaders, scientists, policy experts, and public officials, along with citizens and the media, will gather in Nevada for a day-long summit hosted by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. This year’s summit will bring together the nation’s top minds including former President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, energy executive T. Boone Pickens, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, White House Council on Environmental Quality Special Advisor Van Jones, Nevada State AFL-CIO executive Danny Thompson, and many others to chart a course for our nation’s clean energy future.

National Clean Energy Summit 2.0: Jobs and the New Economy

http://cleanenergysummit.org/

***

10:00 AM – 12:30 PM Roundtable: Building the Clean-Energy Economy

Welcome and opening remarks by:

United Nations Foundation President, Former Senator Tim Wirth (D-CO), Moderator
Dr. Neal Smatresk, acting president, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)
Former Vice President Al Gore
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger – California
John D. Podesta, President and CEO, Center for American Progress Action Fund

Moderated Discussions:

The macro economic case for clean-energy investment

Bringing energy-efficiency retrofits to scale

Promoting the market for renewable energy and energy infrastructure
Participants include:
Denise Bode – CEO, American Wind Energy Association
Lucien Bronicki – Founder and Chairman, Ormat Technologies
Dr. Stephanie Burns – CEO, Dow Corning
Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
Secretary Steven Chu – U.S. Department of Energy
General Wesley Clark – Chairman, Growth Energy
Former Vice President Al Gore
Nevada State Senator Steven Horsford
Van Jones – White House Council on Environmental Quality
Rose McKinney James – Energy Foundation Boards
Terry O’Sullivan – General President, Laborers’ International Union of North America
T. Boone Pickens – Boone Pickens Capital Management
John D. Podesta – President and CEO, Center for American Progress Action Fund
Marc Porat – Serious Materials and Pegasus Investments
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)
Steve Roell – Chairman and CEO, Johnson Controls
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger – California
Dr. Keith Schwer – Director, UNLV Center for Business and Economic Research
Secretary Hilda L. Solis – U.S. Department of Labor
Danny Thompson – Executive Secretary Treasurer, Nevada State AFL-CIO
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa – Los Angeles, California
John Woolard – President and CEO, Bright Source Energy
Michael Yackira – CEO, Nevada Energy
Former Senator Tim Wirth (D-CO) – United Nations Foundation, Moderator

2:00 – 2:30 PM Special Remarks by President Bill Clinton

2:30 – 4:00 PM Clean-energy policy community town hall:

Participants include:
Vice President Al Gore
Senator Harry Reid (D-NV)
T. Boone Pickens
Cathy Zoi, Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy
John D. Podesta, Moderator

http://cleanenergysummit.org/2009_agenda.html

***

including –

Dr. Stephanie Burns – CEO, Dow Corning

My Note –

I don’t have to go to Russia, India, China or Taiwan to be exposed to Dow Chemical polluting – I just have to go down the road a few miles from where I live –

DOW CHEMICAL CO.
1881 W. Oak Pky.
Marietta, Georgia
United States of America
Industry or SIC:
Plastics Materials And Resins (SIC:2821)
[apply]
[cancel]
[delete]
[upload an image]
Select A File:
Corporate Owner:
DOW CHEMICAL COMPANY THE
[apply]
[cancel]
[delete]
[upload an image]
Select A File:
Years Reporting to TRI:
2000-2005
[apply]
[cancel]
[delete]
[upload an image]
Select A File:
Est. Position Accuracy:
1000 meters
[apply]
[cancel]
[delete]
[upload an image]
Select A File:
On-site emissions:
193,304 lbs in 2005 (Level:6)
[apply]
[cancel]
[delete]
[upload an image]
Select A File:
Est. Hazard of on-site emissions:
15,966 (Level:5)
[apply]
[cancel]
[delete]
[upload an image]
Select A File:
Main Chem. Emitted:
Chlorodifluoromethane
[apply]
[cancel]
[delete]
[upload an image]
Select A File:

More Info
This graph shows how this facility compares to other facilities in its industry, county, and state, as well as all facilities nationwide (the county bar is not shown if the county contains fewer than 10 facilities). The higher the bar, the greater the ranking for the hazard associated with the facility’s toxic chemical emissions to air compared to each reference group. A bar that reaches the top of any group indicates that the facility has the highest value for that group.

Graph Details
For more information go to www.mapecos.org/about

**********

August 6, 2009

DOE Awards $377 Million in Funding for 46 Energy Frontier Research Centers

Washington, DC – In a major effort to accelerate the scientific breakthroughs needed to build a new 21st-century energy economy, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the delivery of $377 million in funding for 46 new multi-million-dollar Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) located at universities, national laboratories, nonprofit organizations, and private firms across the nation.

“As global energy demand grows, there is an urgent need to reduce our dependence on imported oil and curtail greenhouse gas emissions,” said Secretary Chu. “Meeting the challenge to reduce our dependence on imported oil and curtail greenhouse gas emissions will require significant scientific advances. These centers will mobilize the enormous talents and skills of our nation’s scientific workforce in pursuit of the breakthroughs that are essential to expand the use of clean and renewable energy.”

Of the $377 million awarded to the EFRCs, $277 million comes from funding made available through the Recovery Act with the remaining $100 million made from DOE’s FY2009 budget. The 46 EFRCs are being funded at $2-5 million per year each for a planned initial five-year period and were selected from a pool of applications received in response to a solicitation issued by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science in 2008 and announced on April 27, 2009. Selection of the EFRCs was based on a rigorous merit review process utilizing outside panels composed of scientific experts. In total, the EFRC initiative represents a planned DOE commitment of $777 million over five years.

EFRC researchers will take advantage of new capabilities in nanotechnology, high-intensity light sources, neutron scattering sources, supercomputing, and other advanced instrumentation, much of it developed with DOE Office of Science support over the past decade, in an effort to lay the scientific groundwork for fundamental advances in solar energy, biofuels, transportation, energy efficiency, electricity storage and transmission, clean coal and carbon capture and sequestration, and nuclear energy.

EFRCs funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act include:

  • Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ) – $14 million for five years to adapt the fundamental principles of natural photosynthesis to the man-made production of hydrogen or other fuels from sunlight.
  • University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ) – $15 million for five years to enhance the conversion of solar energy to electricity using hybrid inorganic-organic materials.
  • University of California, Santa Barbara (Santa Barbara, CA) – $19 million for five years to discover and develop materials that control the interactions between light, electricity, and heat at the nanoscale for improved solar energy conversion, solid-state lighting, and conversion of heat into electricity.
  • Columbia University (New York, NY) – $16 million for five years to develop the enabling science needed to realize breakthroughs in the efficient conversion of sunlight into electricity in nanometer sized thin films.
  • Cornell University (Ithaca, NY) – $17.5 million for five years to understand and control the nature, structure, and dynamics of reactions at electrodes in fuel cells, batteries, solar photovolataics, and catalysts.
  • University of Delaware (Newark, DE) – $17.5 million for five years to design and characterize novel catalysts for the efficient conversion of the complex molecules comprising biomass into chemicals and fuels.
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA) – $19 million for five years to understand the transport of charge carriers in synthetic disordered systems, which hold promise as new materials for conversion of solar energy to electricity and electrical energy storage.
  • University of Massachusetts (Amherst, MA) – $16 million for five years to use novel, self-assembled polymer materials in systems for the conversion of sunlight into electricity.
  • University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI) – $19.5 million for five years to study complex material structures on the nanoscale to identify key features for their potential use as materials to convert solar energy and heat to electricity.
  • University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill, NC) – $17.5 million for five years to synthesize new molecular catalysts and light absorbers and integrate them into nanoscale architectures for improved generation of fuels and electricity from sunlight.
  • Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) – $19 million for five years to synthesize, characterize, and understand new classes of materials under conditions far from equilibrium relevant to solar energy conversion, storage of electricity and hydrogen, and catalysis.University of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, IN) – $18.5 million for five years to understand and control, at the nanoscale, materials that contain actinides (radioactive heavy elements such as uranium and plutonium) to lay the scientific foundation for advanced nuclear energy systems.
  • Pennsylvania State University (University Park, PA) – $21 million for five years to dramatically increase our fundamental knowledge of the physical structure of bio-polymers in plant cell walls to provide a basis for improved methods for converting biomass into fuels.
  • Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN) – $20 million for five years to use fundamental knowledge about the interactions between catalysts and plant cell walls to design improved processes for the conversion of biomass to energy, fuels, or chemicals.
  • University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA) – $12.5 million for five years to simultaneously explore the light absorbing and emitting properties of hybrid inorganic-organic materials for solar energy conversion and solid state lighting.
  • University of Texas, Austin (Austin, TX) – $15 million for five years to pursue fundamental research on charge transfer processes that underpin the function of highly promising molecular materials for photovoltaic and electrical energy storage applications.

A complete list of the 46 EFRCs, their lead institutions, funding levels and objectives, is on the Basic Energy Sciences’ Energy Frontier Research Centers page.

Media contact(s):
(20…

http://www.energy.gov/news2009/7768.htm

***

My Note –

So, tell me where all the things are from the money we’ve already been spending since 1972 in energy and alternative clean energy research . . .

When I was in high school, there were research grants being made even then, for clean air / clean water / clean energy / clean fuel / alternative energy / non-petroleum based systems for transportation and energy / battery technologies / filtering and carbon sequestration and chemical toxins – pollution sequestration / and on and on and on. For well over 30 years, we have been funding this research. Where are the products to show for it?

Are we to expect that a few windmills are the complete return on this money that has been spent year after year, research group after research group, university after university? Where are all the other clean energy technologies that have come out of this and why aren’t we getting access to any of them on any scale that could make a difference?

The sad fact is that the same participants meeting at this one day “clean energy summit” are responsible for decisions which are allowing these technologies to sit on a shelf in corporations, universities and in government files, and at the same time saying they want to do something about it.

– cricketdiane, 08-10-09

MapEcos is a map of US facilities with information on pollution and improvement efforts. We present a balanced view of industrial environmental performance.

http://mapecos.org/

http://mapecos.org/map

There isn’t two square miles of this country that isn’t covered over in some nasty something that has polluted the air, soil and water. There are pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals in drinking water, even bottled water. There are massive amounts of lead in the soil where our children can play anywhere in the country because of leaded gasoline and falling jet fuel emissions. There are stupidly high emissions from the DOW and other chemical plants everywhere they are.

And they have the right to talk about clean energy as if they will do anything about it now? They haven’t done anything except to move their polluting to a more extensive worldwide phenomenon and paid lobbying groups to stop any government interventions in the US and elsewhere. In Fact – for the amount of money they’ve spent on lobbyists and political contributions and public marketing campaigns to pretend to care while polluting everywhere, they could’ve actually paid for the filters and sequestration systems to have not been polluting in the first place. But, no – they didn’t want to do that.

Now, there is nowhere in the US that isn’t covered over in some kind of toxic chemical nonsense from these industries, particularly the petroleum based transportation systems and related chemical process industries. It could’ve been stopped, filtered, sequestered and other ways used to do many things including clean energy, every day for the last thirty years. All we’ve managed to do is to pay for study after study, engineering applications that aren’t ever going to be used and for research that never get to the marketplace. When do the decision makers fix that? How about now//?

– cricketdiane

***

http://www.epa.gov/TRI/trichemicals/index.htm

TRI Chemicals

You will need Adobe Reader to view some of the files on this page. See EPA’s PDF page to learn more.

Quick Links
Search TRI data <!– US TRI Map–> US Map by State

If you want information about toxic chemical releases in your neighborhood enter your Zip code here:

Click here to access a Web-based tutorial to use TRI Explorer more effectively.

The current TRI toxic chemical list contains 581 individually listed chemicals and 30 chemical categories (including 3 delimited categories containing 58 chemicals). If the members of the three delimited categories are counted as separate chemicals then the total number of chemicals and chemical categories is 666 (i.e., 581 + 27 + 58).

TRI Chemical Lists

Note: Three chemicals on the current list (methyl mercaptan, hydrogen sulfide, and 2,2-dibromo-3-nitrilopropionamide) are under administrative stays and are not currently reportable.

PBT Chemicals

  • TRI PBT Chemical Rules – Information on the rules which have lowered reporting thresholds for Persistent, Bioaccumulative, and Toxic (PBT) Chemicals.
  • TRI PBT Chemicals List – List of TRI PBT chemicals extracted from Current List of TRI Chemicals.

Top of page

TRI Chemical List Changes (1987- 2005)

  • TRI Chemical List Changes (PDF) (11 pp, 163K, About PDF)
    EPA has made chemical list changes through the chemical petitions process and EPA-initiated review, therefore, the TRI list of reportable toxic chemicals can vary from year to year. This document lists all the additions and deletions to the TRI chemical list and indicates the first or last reporting year for the listed chemical. For information about the toxic effects of some of the TRI chemicals, see Toxicity Information, and for lists of regulations that cover some TRI chemicals, see Regulatory Program information.

Top of page

Regulatory Program Information

  • TITLE III List of Lists (PDF) (105 pp, 5.3 MB, About PDF)
    This is a consolidated list of chemicals subject to reporting requirements under Title III of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 (SARA) with references to their reporting status under Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund), The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), and Sections 302 and 313 of The Emergency Planning & Community Right-To-Know Act (EPCRA).
  • Regulatory Matrix of TRI Chemicals in other Federal Programs (PDF) (9 pp, 183K, About PDF)
    A matrix has been developed for each TRI chemical indicating whether it is regulated under other selected environmental laws.

Top of page

Toxicity Information

  • Hazard Information on Toxic Chemicals Added to EPCRA Section 313 Under Chemical Expansion.
    This page provides summary hazard information on the 286 chemicals that were added to the Toxics Release Inventory in 1994. EPA has developed information summaries on 40 selected TRI chemicals to describe how you might be exposed to these chemicals, how exposure to them might affect you and the environment, what happens to them in the environment, who regulates them, and whom to contact for additional information.
  • TRI Chemical Fact SheetsExit EPA Disclaimer
    Chemical fact sheets for many of the TRI chemicals are available from the collection of New Jersey’s Right to Know Hazardous Substance Fact Sheets.
  • TRI Chemicals Classified as OSHA Carcinogens
    This is a list of TRI chemicals that are classified as carcinogens under the requirements of the Occupation Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and, the basis of the classifications. OSHA carcinogens have a 0.1% de minimis concentration limit instead of 1%. Amounts of TRI chemicals present below the de minimis concentration limit in mixtures do not have to be included in threshold determinations or release and other waste management calculations.
  • ATSDR TOXFAQSExit EPA Disclaimer
    These are a series of summaries developed by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) that contain frequently asked questions about the health effect for 60 hazardous substances. About 50 of these chemicals are also TRI chemicals.

Top of page

***
My Note –

If every car, truck and airplane were converted today all around the world and every industry stopped polluting today, we would still have a mess to clean up. And, in thirty years from today –
we will be having this same discussion, if these people have their way. I say that because it is what they’ve already done.
The problem is – here was a nice planet which had been sustainable for human life and the future survival of a multitude of species including mankind. Oh well . . .
It is already passed the tipping point. What planet y’all going to live on where there’s a grocery store, taxis, restaurants or $2,500 shoes now?
– cricketdiane, 09-10-09
***
***