November

U.S. Department of Energy to build Fuel Cell/Turbine Power Plant: "The U.S. DOE plans to build an on-site fuel cell/gas turbine power plant the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Science Center at Fort Meade, Maryland [promising] to be the most efficient on-site plant in the world [with] the lowest environmental impact of any power plant [using] fossil fuel." ENN, 11/2/00

Ice Energy Source Needs More Study on Gulf of Mexico Floor: More scientific work must be done before energy companies interested in harvesting fossil fuels trapped in yellow ice at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, can exploit this resource, according to oceanographer Ian MacDonald of Texas A&M University. Ben Iannotta, ENN, 12/2/00

Canada Commits to Wind Power: "The Canadian government has allocated $12.4 million to ensure that half of the power consumed by government facilities in Saskatchewan will be wind-powered by 2002." ENN, 11/2/00

New Jersey Corn Growers Look to Ethanol For Help: "The Garden States corn farmers… hope a proposed ethanol plant in Jew Jersey would help them turn a profit. With many energy experts predicting that ethanol use in gasoline will increase dramatically in coming years, they believe now is the time to look into building such a plant." Peter Furey, New Jersey Farm Bureau Executive Director said, "It would be a constant market for corn, a steady demand." Critics of ethanol as a gasoline additive opposed to the plant, say the ethanol industry is an inefficient sham, surviving only with significant tax breaks, and that new developments in automobile technology already make the use of ethanol unnecessary. Jeff Diamant, Star-Ledger,11/15/00

Virginia Utility Agrees to Cut Pollution: Dominion Virginia Electric Power, accused of violating the U.S. Clean Air Act, has agreed to cut pollution from eight of its coal-fired plants in Virginia and West Virginia by 70 percent. "This successful legal action will bring cleaner air to New Jersey," State Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Rover Shinn said. Anthony S. Twyman, Star Leger, 11/17/00

Global Warming Seen Doubling Heat Deaths by 2020: "Deaths from heat waves in big cities worldwide are expected to double over the next two decades if nothing is done to curb global warming, the United Nations weather agency said." Reuters, 11/21/00

LADWP Getting in the Black with Long-Range Master Plan: The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has a $1.7-billion plan that will ensure electricity supplies over this decade by refurbishing a few old power plants, and adding small generators. It has been doing so well with power outages this year, that it has been able to pay down its debt by selling its surplus power. James Flanigan, LATimes, 11/22/00

New York Power Authority Announces Sites for Small, Clean Gas Turbines: "The New York Power Authority announced it has selected sites for nine small, clean electric generators [in order to] meet … increasing demand for electricity." Business Wire, 11/22/00

Anchorage-Area Residents Still Waiting for Snow: "For the firs time in 15 years… Anchorage experienced a snowless Thanksgiving. '[T]here has been only one other Thanksgiving in Anchorage when there was no snow on the ground,' said David Vonderheide, spokesman for the National Weather Service… [T]emperatures have been 9 degrees Fahrenheit over average… a 'pretty significant departure.'" Yereth Rosen, Reuters, 11/24/00

Climate Change Could Bankrupt Us by 2065: "The sixth largest insurance company has warned that damage to property due to global warming could bankrupt the world by 2065… 'Property damage is rising very rapidly, at… 10 percent a year,' said De. Andrew Clugolecki, director of general insurance development at CGNU, a top five European life insurer and the United Kingdom's largest insurance group." ENS, 11/24/00

Climate Meeting Ends Without Deal: "A U.N. climate conference [at the Hague, Netherlands] collapsed without an agreement… The negotiators broke off talks nearly 12 hours after going into seclusion to try to nail down details on the extent to which countries may meet their targets for reductions of greenhouse gas emissions without actually burning less fossil fuel… 'Governments have spent two weeks essential arguing about how they can do as little as possible to reduce the threat of global climate change,' said Tony Juniper, vice chairman of Friends of the Earth. The environmental group Greenpeace said the meeting `will be remembered as the moment when governments abandoned the promise of global cooperation to protect the planet Earth." Some lobbyists from environmental groups broke into tears as Dutch Minister Jan Pronk announced, " We have not reached an agreement. I am very disappointed... There were extremely high expectations of us." Arthur Max, AP, 11/25/00

Floods, Landslides Kill 49 in Indonesia's Sumatra: "Floods and landslides set off by torrential rains have killed at least 49 people in Indonesia's West Sumatra… [H]eavy rains and typhoons… Floodwaters isolated… West Sumatra." Reuters, 11/26/00

Climate Change to Hit Low-Income and Minority Communities Hardest: Joanne Kliejunas, executive director of Redefining Progress, told the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Forum [at] The Hague, "Buried beneath the headlines on global warming is this harsh reality-the heat deaths, infectious diseases, respiratory illnesses and economic dislocations that will result will harm low-income people and communities of color the most." Redefining Progress Press Release, 11/27/00

Odd Culprits in Collapse of Climate Talks: "[A] rift between branches of the environmental movement appeared to contributed to the failure of pivotal negotiations aimed at completing a pioneering climate treaty." One hot issue dealt with how much credit toward emissions targets countries should get for using forests or farmland to absorb carbon dioxide. The United States sought to use its forests as a way of gaining credits before taking any action, to which the European Union objected, interpreting it as a ruse to do nothing. The U.S. returned with a pared-down proposal, which was ultimately rejected and resulted in a stalemate. Noting the intensifying clash between environmentalists' agendas, Dr. Stephen H. Schneider, a climatologist at Stanford with a history of 20 years in the climate debate, lamented the Kyoto protocol may have only been a beginning but it was important to get started. Staunch environmentalists disagreed. "We're better off with no deal than a bad deal," said Bill Hare, top climate campaigner for Greenpeace International." Dr. Michael Grubb, professor of climate change and energy policy at Imperial College in London observed, "When something like this is killed, it is killed by an alliance of those who want too much and those who don't want anything." Andrew C. Revkin, NYTimes.com, 11/28/00