The interest group Paths to a Sustainable Future will show Escape from Suburbia, the sequel to the award-winning film, The End of Suburbia, about the future of the American dream after the oil age. This film focuses on viable alternatives for communities working at the local level.
The movie will be shown at the interest group’s meeting which begins at 6:00 p.m. at the Urban Ecology Center, 1859 North 40th Street, (414) 344-5460.
RENEW Wisconsin supports and the Governor’s Global Warming Task Force has before it the concept of fixed above-market prices (called feed-in tariffs) for electricity produced from renewable resources, as described in an article by Mark Landler in The New York Times:
THALHEIM, Germany — This sad stretch of eastern Germany, with its deserted coal mines and corroded factories, epitomizes post-industrial gloom. It is a place where even the clouds rarely seem to part.
Yet the sun was shining here the other day — and nowhere more brightly than at Q-Cells, a German company that surpassed Sharp last year to become the world’s largest maker of photovoltaic solar cells. Q-Cells is the main tenant among a flowering cluster of solar start-ups here in an area known as Solar Valley.
Thanks to its aggressive push into renewable energies, cloud-wreathed Germany has become an unlikely leader in the race to harness the sun’s energy. It has by far the largest market for photovoltaic systems, which convert sunlight into electricity, with roughly half of the world’s total installations. And it is the third-largest producer of solar cells and modules, after China and Japan. . . .
At the heart of the debate is the Renewable Energy Sources Act. It requires power companies to buy all the alternative energy produced by these systems, at a fixed above-market price, for 20 years.
This mechanism, known as a feed-in tariff, gives entrepreneurs a powerful incentive to install solar panels. With a locked-in customer base for their electricity, they can earn a reliable return on their investment. It has worked: homeowners rushed to clamp solar panels on their roofs and farmers planted them in fields where sheep once grazed.
The amount of electricity generated by these installations rose 60 percent in 2007 compared with 2006, faster than any other renewable energy (solar still generates just 0.6 percent of Germany’s total electricity, compared with 6.4 percent for wind). . . .
From a press release issued by We Energies:
MILWAUKEE- We Energies’ Blue Sky Green Field wind project was placed into commercial service today. The 88 turbines have a demonstrated capacity of 145 megawatts and are expected to generate more than 328 million emission-free kilowatt hours annually – enough to power 36,000 homes.
“Blue Sky Green Field is one of several targeted efforts we’re undertaking to generate more energy from renewable resources,” said Rick Kuester, executive vice president of Wisconsin Energy Corporation, the parent of We Energies. “We appreciate the support we have received from our customers and from the communities of Calumet and Marshfield and northeast Fond du Lac County in making the project a reality.”
At a cost of approximately $300 million, the Blue Sky Green Field project consists of 88 Vestas Wind Systems turbines spread across 10,600 acres. Each turbine is capable of producing 1.65 megawatts of electricity. The V82 turbines have a hub height of approximately 262 feet and a blade length of 134 feet. From the foundation to the tip, each tower has a height 397 feet.
We Energies continues to pursue the development of additional renewable energy to meet customer demand and to meet the state of Wisconsin’s Renewable Portfolio Standard, which requires utilities across the state to generate 10 percent of their energy from renewable sources by 2015. “While the Blue Sky Green Field project is an important contributor to our renewable goals, We Energies will need to add several more renewable projects to meet the state mandate,” said Kuester.
A story by Tom Content in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel also reports on Blue Sky Green Field and notes:
In addition, the 86-turbine Forward Wind Energy Center in Dodge and Fond du Lac counties was completed this month, said Mick Baird, Invenergy project manager.
Immediate release
May 19, 2008
More information
Michael Vickerman
608.255.4044
mvickerman@renewwisconsin.org
Fossil Fuel Watch: Gas Tax Pains
by Michael Vickerman, RENEW Wisconsin
May 19, 2008
Could there be more convincing proof of America’s debilitating addiction to oil than the recent calls to institute a gasoline tax holiday issued by two of the three presidential aspirants still in the race?
Imagine what would happen if a candidate for public office endorsed a repeal of cigarette taxes. Articulating such a position would instantly disqualify that candidate from serious consideration by rank and file voters. Indeed, it would stop a candidacy faster than you can say “macaca.”
Yet, while Sens. John McCain or Hillary Clinton, both advocates of suspending the 18.4 cents/gallon gasoline tax, have been excoriated in editorials for espousing such patent flimflam, they don’t seem to have lost any ground with the voting public.
Though the McCain-Clinton gas tax suspension proposal set a new low in the public discussion of energy, it can’t be dismissed as mere election-year pandering. Instead, this proposal reveals a dark truth about ourselves: we Americans are psychologically unprepared to accept the energy reality we now inhabit, which is that oil is neither cheap nor plentiful (relative to demand). The same holds true for natural gas.
The factors converging to create global energy insecurity—diminishing output from supergiant fields, rapid demand growth in the world’s most populous nations, civil unrest in oil-exporting nations, etc.—cannot be held at bay with political stunts.
Whether its citizens like it or not, the United States will, going forward, consume a smaller portion of the Earth’s remaining petroleum than at any time during the Automobile Age.
But before the federal government takes action to address supply uncertainties and price volatility, our leaders have to tell the nation in no uncertain terms that continued dependency on oil and natural gas will hasten our economic decline and lead us into future resource wars.
Certainly, Senators McCain and Clinton aren’t up to the challenge. Fortunately for the nation, both are powerless to push their intellectually dishonest tax holiday proposal past Congress and the White House.
The White House predicts that this year’s budget deficit will reach $410 million, a sum that excludes the cost of our continuing military misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States can hardly afford to forgo $9 billion in hard revenues just to manufacture the illusion that every motorist will have $28 extra dollars to spend on items other than gasoline.
Savings in excess of $28 can easily be achieved with one less fill-up at the gas station. And how can that be accomplished? By driving less aggressively, turning off the engine while standing, keeping your tires fully inflated, and organizing your errands to reduce miles traveled.
These are simple and practical suggestions that don’t involve sacrifice or hardship. All that is required is the will to take responsibility over your driving habits.
Each time we leave a light bulb burning in an unoccupied room, each time we leave the engine running in the drive-up lane, we dig ourselves a deeper hole. Of course, we must stop what we’re doing, but we’ve become so accustomed to cheap and abundantly available sources of fossil energy that wasting it has become second nature.
So who’s going to throw the bucket of cold water on our national energy fiesta and tell the people that thrift and responsibility are in and energy profligacy is out. Senators Clinton and McCain have disqualified themselves in spectacular fashion. Is Obama our only hope here?
–30—
Michael Vickerman is the executive director of RENEW Wisconsin, a Madison-based nonprofit organization that acts as a catalyst to advance a sustainable energy future through public policy and private sector initiatives. These commentaries also posted on RENEW’s blog: http://www.renewenergyblog.wordpress.com
and Madison Peak Oil Group’s blog: http://www.madisonpeakoil-blog.blogspot.com.
From a new Fossil Fuel Watch by Michael Vickerman:
Could there be more convincing proof of America’s debilitating addiction to oil than the recent calls to institute a gasoline tax holiday issued by two of the three presidential aspirants still in the race?
Imagine what would happen if a candidate for public office endorsed a repeal of cigarette taxes. Articulating such a position would instantly disqualify that candidate from serious consideration by rank and file voters. Indeed, it would stop a candidacy faster than you can say “macaca.”
Yet, while Sens. John McCain or Hillary Clinton, both advocates of suspending the 18.4 cents/gallon gasoline tax, have been excoriated in editorials for espousing such patent flim-flam, they don’t seem to have lost any ground with the voting public.
While the McCain-Clinton gas tax suspension proposal may have a set a new low in the public discussion of energy, it can’t be dismissed as mere election-year pandering. Instead, this proposal reveals a dark truth about ourselves: we Amnericans are psychologically unprepared to accept the energy reality we now inhabit, which is that oil is neither cheap nor plentiful (relative to demand). The same holds true for natural gas.
The factors converging to create global energy insecurity—diminishing output from supergiant fields, rapid demand growth in the world’s most populous nations, civil unrest in oil-exporting nations, etc.—cannot be held at bay with political stunts.
Whether its citizens like it or not, the United States will, going forward, consume a smaller portion of the Earth’s remaining petroleum than at any time before during the Automobile Age.
Join the MREA and RENEW for the 19th annual Energy Fair June 20-22, 2008. The Fair will be held at MREA’s headquarters, the ReNew the Earth Institute, located at 7558 Deer Road in Custer, WI. See the Travel and Accommodations page for directions and other information.
General Energy Fair Information
Since 1990, the Energy Fair has shown fairgoers how to change the world while having fun. Each summer the Fair transforms rural central Wisconsin into the global hot spot for renewable energy education. The Energy Fair is the world’s largest renewable energy, energy efficiency, and sustainable living educational event of its kind. Please join us this year!
The Energy Fair features hundreds of workshops and exhibits all emphasizing clean energy & sustainable living and is fun for the whole family. In 2007, the Energy Fair hosted over 19,500 attendees. We hope to see you in 2008!