There is no shortage of information out there about the effect high oil prices are having on everything from driving habits to foods costs. You may have seen some of that information right on this here blog.

Undoubtedly, it is yet another demonstration of how much our economy turns on the cost of energy.

But this story in Reuters demonstrates just how extreme those effects can be and raises a few questions for the greater Pottstown area.

The story, if you don't have time to read the link, talks about the rising value of plastic buried in landfills.

Most plastic is made from petroleum in some form or another, so as the cost of oil goes up, so too does the value of products made from oil.

The story, which comes out of Britain, notes that prices for high quality plastics such as high-density polyethelenes (HDP) have more than doubled to between $370-560 per ton, from just a year ago.

So it's time to ask the question.

Having just about finished the final closure plan for the Pottstown Landfill, and having just signed a contract to treat its leachate, is it time to think about opening it up again to dig up the plastic?

This idea would probably has almost as many ups as downs.

On the down side, who knows what's buried there, particularly in some of the old sections that were filled long before regulators paid any attention to what was buried in the ground. Mining it could cause exposure to those hazards.

On the other hand, having a way to make a profit by digging it up could provide a financial incentive to the landfill owners, Waste Management, to investigate what's in there and ensure it is disposed of properly, all while looking for plastic in landfill sections that were filled long before recycling programs became prevalent.

Seeing as much of the leachate (the contaminated water that percolates through the landfill's trash) comes from the section of the landfill that has no cap, having something of value inside could make if affordable to dig it up and re-cap it using modern standards. Of course, that's a decision only Waste Management can make. Their landfill, their call.

Certainly, as two Berks County landfills explore ways to get energy out of their facilities by pumping and exporting cumbustible landfill gas, mining a landfill for plastics is yet another avenue by which we can recover energy from our buried waste.

But before we rush into anything hastily, we should consider the effect on the atmosphere of returning all that plastic to burnable fuel and whether the harm it's resulting greenhouse gases and toxins could cause to the environment doesn't outweigh the benefit of taking it out of the landfill.

Due to unfortunate budget cuts, the once-vast research department at The Thin Green Line is severely depleted and we cannot yet conduct that anaylsis, but the "harms/benefit analysis," as the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection likes to call it, should be done nonetheless.

Of course, the best (and least expensive) way to capture the fossil fuel energy trapped in plastic is to not send the plastic to the landfill in the first place. Yes, I'm talking about recycling.

Jim Crater over at Recycling Services Inc. in North Coventry has become a master of matching recycled materials to markets that want them. But by its nature, his effort is limited in scale by how many people bring their recyclables to the center. (Count me among them).

(Equally masterful are his volunteer specialists whose sharp eyes and sharp wits allow recycling numbskulls such as myself to make sure the No. 6 plastic goes in the No. 6 bin.)

But a truly global market for used plastic offers an opportunity for truly large-scale recycling, particularly on a municipal level, because it would not be as hard to find buyers.

So perhaps its unexpectedly good timing that the Borough of Pottstown is embarking on an ambitious program to boost its recycling.

It's driven by simple municipal economics. It costs a lot to get rid of trash at a landfill, so the more trash you keep out of the landfill, the less it costs to collect the trash and the fewer people come to yell at you at borough council meetings.

Toward that end, borough council has voted to purchase new 65-gallon recycling bins to make recycling easier for residents, and to encourage less trash going to the landfill.

You'll be able to throw it all in, cans, plastic bottles, paper, junk mail. If you have any questions, a label right on the bin will tell you what can go in.

The borough intends to test the new bins in each of the borough's five wards and The Thin Green Line has offered, and the borough has agreed, to be one of the guinea pigs.

When the bins arrive, our staff of one will let you know how it works, how its working in my house, and perhaps help you avoid some of the unexpected pitfalls that often accompany any new venture.

In the meantime, start looking at those soda bottles as something other than just something to get rid of.

You hear it all the time.


"Government needs to be run like a business."


"Those tree-huggers are costing us jobs!"


After a brief review of the information omniverse, here are just a few of those nutty tree-huggers:

• Wal-Mart, Kohl's, Safeway, Whole Foods. These are just a few of those wacky extremists who are destroying our economy by putting up solar panels on their giant, football field-sized roofs. Apparently, in their misguided attempt to save the planet and cut down on fossil fuel consumption, they have this crazy idea about being efficient and saving money. They're practically Communists! Read all about it in The New York Times here.


• Integrys Energy Group Inc., Quicksilver Resources Inc., Tesoro Corp., American Electric Power Co. These are just four "out there" companies which, The Wall Street Journal reports here, are joining other fringe nut-jobs like Occidental Petroleum, DuPont Co. and Rohn & Haas in appointing environmental committees to their board of directors. They probably all wear Birkenstocks to work. The Journal reported that "About 25% of Fortune 500 companies now have a board committee overseeing the environment, compared with fewer than 10% five years ago, estimates Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres, a national coalition of activists, investors and others concerned with the environment. Such panels typically try to make sure that executives effectively handle conservation efforts, new environmentally friendly ventures like wind power, compliance with environmental regulations and related business risks." Why all this crazy hippie talk? apparently, "the Earth's sustainability 'has become a much more important part of every board's activities,' observes Lester A. Hudson, chairman of American Electric Power Co.'s governance committee, which monitors environmental concerns." Imagine, realizing you might not make money if the atmosphere disintegrates, perhaps because of your own company's activities. I tell you, it's nuts.


• Allegheny Energy, Ford Motor Company. As if that wasn't bad enough, now this insanity has spread to shareholders, who must have also swallowed the Kool-Aid. The Associated Press reported here that 2008 marked a new high in share-holder resolutions concerned with Global Warming. According to Ceres, support for these measures averaged 23 percent so far in 2008. "While that's not enough to pass a resolution, Ceres contends rising vote totals compel companies to act, like a plan by Ford Motor Co. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 30 percent by 2020. 'It's easy to ignore 3 or 5 percent votes, but it's pretty hard to ignore 22 percent votes or 39 percent votes,' said Dan Bakal, director of electric power programs for Ceres," according to the story. Ceres says 57 climate-related shareholder resolutions were filed with U.S. companies in 2008, up from 43 in 2007 and 31 in 2006. Support likewise has climbed from an average of 17.8 percent in 2006 and 21.6 percent last year. This year, support averaged 23.5 percent, according to Ceres. It sounds the folks living near West Virginia's Coal Mountain, need to find some shareholders from Massey Energy, which has plans to shear the top off this mountain like it has so many others. But the locals are trying to convince the company to instead make the most of the mountain's most renewable resource -- wind. As reported in this story in Grist Magazine, Their plans call for at least 14 valley fills to deposit the debris, which is likely to bury at least six local streams. Residents in the area, led by a local group called Coal River Watch, "are hoping to convince state agencies, local landowners, and the coal companies to allow a 440-megawatt wind farm to be built atop the mountain while still allowing Massey Energy to mine beneath the surface, a compromised plan that they hope can start moving the state away from reliance on coal -- and protect one of the most endangered mountains in the country."


• Xcel Energy. Now this one really hurts. This company has a bunch of good old fashioned coal-burning power plants in Colorado and now, (sniff) they're closing them down to reduce emissions, the first in the nation. I tell you, this environmentalism thing is spreading like a virus. Now where are we going to get our pollution? What are the people of Denver and Grand Junction supposed to do for power? Apparently, according to this story in The Rocky Mountain News, still send their money to Xcel, which is replacing its coal burning power plants with solar power plants. The Colorado Public Utilities Commission "approved the utility's request for a 200-megawatt solar plant using concentrated solar technology that not only helps generate electricity from the sun, but also allows energy to be stored for later use." This may help the company meet Gov. Bill Ritter's goal to reduce greenhouse emissions by 20 percent by 2020.


• FPL Group Inc. Not to be outdone by their neighbors in the north, this Florida utility, which already bills itself as the nation's top producer of wind power, is investing $688 million in capital, the lifeblood of American capitalism, in this goofy new technology as well. According to this story by Reuters, "the new plants would take FPL more than a third of the way to a goal announced last year to build a total of 300 megawatts of solar capacity in Florida, and the company is more bullish than ever on the prospects for solar, Chief Executive Lew Hay told Reuters in an interview. Coupled with the skyrocketing cost of conventional power-plant fuels like oil and natural gas and the rising price of commodities to build such power plants, solar is becoming more competitive, Hay said. "


• Delmarva Power. And right down the road in Rehoboth Beach Delaware, the first offshore wind farm to be developed in the United States has already sold one-third of the power that will be generated during its first 25 years of operation before a turbine is even placed in the water. According to a story published by the Environmental News Service, Delmarva Power agreed in June to buy up to 200 megawatts of power from an offshore wind farm to be developed by Bluewater Wind Delaware. The company "believes this contract is a significant step toward developing Delaware's first offshore wind farm, which will almost certainly be the first offshore wind farm in the country," said Hunter Armistead, head of Babcock & Brown's North American energy group. Sunrise at Rehoboth Beach where the Bluewater wind farm will be constructed 11.5 miles from land off the coast of Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. "This offshore wind farm will bring clean energy, new jobs, and stable rates to Delmarva Power customers," said Armistead. According to this 25 year agreement, Bluewater Wind could begin delivering electricity to Delmarva Power's Delaware customers around the year 2012.
  

I tell you, it's just nuts out there. Clean energy, new jobs and stable electric rates? What is the world coming to?

Next thing you know, next thing you know one of the political parties will have a woman and a black man compete for the right to run for president.

These crazy kids. When are they going to wake up? What makes them think they can change the world?

That's right kids, reading is still a good thing to do. In fact, YOUR'RE DOING IT RIGHT NOW!

But commentary about whether reading a book is the same as reading a blog aside (a subject In intend to tackle in a column back in that fuddy-duddy old newspaper of ours), this is a blog telling you to read books, well at least some books. And maybe a blog....

OK, what I'm trying to say here is Americans have always been a people who believe in self improvement.

And all too often, we turn to the experts to do so. Which is why the self-help section of the Barns & Noble off Papermill Road is larger than the literature section.

So if we're willing to to read a book or two to improve ourselves, how about the planet?

OK, let's start small.

How about instead of saving the world, we just buy junior some green school supplies.

For this we turn not to some tree-killing paperback, but my favorite sardonic on-line magazine, Grist.

In this article by Holly Richmond, we can find about everything from notebooks made from 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper, to mechanical pencils which reuse materials from car headlights.

No seriously.

If you're looking for something a little more comprehensive, try a book with the title "A Community Guide to Environmental Health."

This $28 book has a FREE! digital version you can download. It contains handy hints on everything from how to build a compost toilet in your own back-yard assuming you hate your neighbors, (toilets consumer 40 of the books 600 pages, so there is lots to choose from), schematic drawings of simple fly and roach traps, to disinfecting water using sunlight or lime juice.

It even teaches communities how to organize opposition to harm from oil companies, chemical plants and mining.

But maybe, instead of facing down the giants of industry, you would just like to cut down on the impact your household's everyday activities have on the environment on which it depends.

For that, there's "The Green Book," by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas Costigan.

As reviewed by my fellow Mercury blogger, Business Editor, voracious reader and occasional supreme being Michelle Karas, in her book-review blog, "Balancing the Books," this book includes no end of ways we could do better.

The answer to the above question, according to the World Meteorological Organization, is, well, summer.

Although July was brutal both to my anti-perspirant supply and my PECO bill, I think we can all agree that this August has been preternaturally pleasant -- and it hasn't even been calculated yet.

As this Reuters story highlights, the first half of 2008 was the coolest of the last five years.

We true believers of Global Warming are often, with some cause, labeled as alarmists. (Folks, we're just trying to get your attention.)

So it seems only fair to purvey the good news as well.

So yes, thanks to La Nina, which cyclically follows the warming trend known as El Nino, the first half of the year has been cooler than the previous five and is likely to stay that way until January.

The bad news, and you knew there had to be some, is that it will still be warmer than average. That's because the last five years are among the hottest in recorded history.

And guess what? Yep, more bad news.

In addition to this being a cool trough in an otherwise hot upswell, more extreme weather is accompanying it.

For the southwest, where impractical increases in population are being matched by equally alarming decreases in available water, that means less rain.

As this article in Scientific American outlines, a combination of man-made weather effects is drying out the parched southwest.

First, in the lower atmosphere, greenhouse gases are heating things up. Next, high up, holes in the ozone layer are cooling things off.

As any meteorologist worth his salt-spray can tell you, temperature and pressure differentials are what weather is all about.

The result of this particular dynamic is it pushes the jet streams toward the poles in both the northern and southern hemispheres.

Those jet streams are what carry Pacific Ocean moisture to the southwest deserts. Now, that rain is being pushed further north.

The cool chart that the magazine used to explain this is posted at the top of this blog.

"If we keep doing this, the climate response becomes more extreme," says atmospheric scientist Stephanie McAfee of the University of Arizona in Tucson, who led the research identifying the loss of rain.

Now that's the kind of downer that any gloom-and-doom Global Warming enthusiast would feel proud to end a blog entry with.

Sometimes, a full bladder is more important than a full tank.

As all five of my regular blog readers have no doubt surmised, I recently took a vacation and, like any flag-waving American, I drove.

And before you roll your eyes and ask yourself, Oh God, is this going to be another blog where he waxes romantic about his beloved hybrid, allow me to answer you -- yes!

The trip to Roanoke takes, on average, six hours, most of them spent on the macadam roller coaster known to federal officials as I-81.

And needless to say, I was watching the mileage gauge like I work for Consumer Reports, an obsession which other occupants of the car have begun to worry might keep me from paying any to most important traffic regulations.

I've been experimenting with different speeds and, as my lovely wife Karen theorized, it turns out running the Civic at something more than 55 miles per hour actually improves the mileage over the long haul. The designers must be realists.

No slouch in the "my theory" department, my panicked theory that the mileage would improve in the summer when the engine did not have to warm up, has also proven true.

Armed with this knowledge and a featherweight foot, we achieved admirable but unremarkable mileage on the way down, but climbed near a personal best on the return trip.

I gazed in gleeful amazement as the mileage calculator climbed closer to 50 miles per gallon.

Have I mentioned that my life loves Diet Pepsi? She does.

She drinks it in the morning the way I drink coffee, which is to say a lot.

(This is not the place to discuss how my coffee mugs are reusable and her plastic bottles -- all recycled -- are not, but rest assured, this discussion has occurred.)

Anyhooo, as my feverish eyes gazed at the gauge and my sweaty hands (made so by my refusal to use the air conditioning) struggled to keep a grip on the wheel, we reached 49.9 miles per gallon.

And then, disaster struck in the form of too much Diet Pepsi and a failure to make my passengers don adult diapers as if we were astronauts driving all night bent on breaking a love triangle.

"But I'm almost at 50" I told my squirming, cross-legged betrothed. "Once we get off the highway, the whole thing we be fukakta," an Indonesian word I learned which I'm told means "slightly askew."

But mother nature, not to mention the mother of my child, is not to be denied and so we pulled into the Liberty station and my average was shot.

It got close once back on the highway, but we had already decided to pull off to see Luray
Caverns and the ride over and back over the Blue Ridge, it really is just this RIDGE in the middle of everything, made 50 mpg just a dwindling dream.

But hey, more than 400 miles later, I'm still tooling around Pottstown on the same 11 gallons I pumped down the hill from my father-in-law's house, so I'm not complaining.

By the way, Luray Caverns, said to be the largest on the East Coast, are truly a wonder to behold, made more magnificent by the fact that as far as I can tell, they are one of three things not threatened by global warming.

They are privately owned and therefore have just the right amount of chintzy tourist-trap crap to make me treasure it as an example of pure Americana, so I dutifully bought a T-shirt and my son a solar-powered key chain that blinks his name without batteries.

Laugh if you will, but this place has a "stalactite organ" that plays several times a day. In your FACE Crystal Caverns!.

Anyway, there's a long-overdue shout-out to bring up while I'm writing about driving.

I have a loyal reader and frequent correspondent in Thomas Mounce of Birdsboro. We first met over the 2004 election in which his candidate won the election but I won the "who will be the most unpopular president in history?" contest.

And whenever I pat myself on the back for buying a hybrid before the tax break expired, he writes to remind me that he drives a Volkswagen diesel that makes like a million miles per gallon.

OK, I exaggerate, but he is as devoted to his automotive choice as I am to mine. And while I have my doubts about diesel fuel because of its high particulate matter content, there is something to be said for the stuff.

So it is with great pleasure that I call your attention to this blog entry from the Los Angeles Times hawking the wonders of the new generation of diesels with which the Europeans will soon flood our markets.

While it notes that recent surges in diesel prices make it a less attractive choice than it was just a year ago, it points out that Honda has a diesel in development that could reach 60 mpg! Might still make sense, even if diesel prices stay high.

Hmm, I would definitely have to ban Diet Pepsi, or fluids of any kind, if I want to compete with that next time I drive to Roanoke.

Surprise!

I know I told you I'm going away, and I have.

But, through the magic of technology, I have set this posting to wait until today.

They say the credo of the environmental movement is to "think globally, act locally.

Well for those of you who don't know him, Jim Crater of Recycling Services Inc., not only acts locally, but he thinks WWWAAAYYYYYY outside the box.

Well tomorrow, Aug. 14, he will host the second of his forums on alternative energy and if its anything like his first last month, which I covered for the paper, it's worth going.

It will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Norco Fire Hall on Route 724 in South Pottstown.

According to their handy release, "The speakers will cover a range of topics from solar water heating for space and domestic hot water, wind power, and ground temperature to community building through co-op buying. The event will also highlight the points of interest from the last workshop called "How to do what you do but better."

Their release also provides the following information about the forum:
Thursday’s speakers include Robert Ihlein from Sunergy Systems, Matt Lillard from Greensavers LLC, Brian Creswell from Creswell & Company, Jon Costanza from Sunpower Builders, John Malm from Radiant Comfort Systems, and Crater himself.

Robert Ihlein was trained in Solar Engineering Technology at Colorado Technical College in the early 1980s. During that time he has been working on a number of different types of solar heating systems. He also has experience working on superinsulated and passive solar homes. Currently he is the owner of a local business called Sunergy Systems, and offers sales, service and installation of solar water heating systems. He also offers other energy related services such as installing solar attic fans. Robert and his wife Alice installed a small solar water heating system on their home in Pottstown two years ago, and have been saving money on fuel oil every since.

Matthew Lillard lives in New Garden Township near Avondale. Matt is a LEED accredited professional certified by the US Green Building Council, as well as a certified Home Energy Auditor in the HERS system, and a Certified Project Management Professional by the Project Management Institute.

Mr. Lillard is a former executive with extensive background in organizational leadership and the management. Most recently, Matthew was a Senior Vice President for Bank of America, the world’s largest credit card company and largest deposit bank in the United States.

Like many of you Mr. Lillard has felt a growing sense of concern over global warming, the visible changes occurring in the world and the risks that these changes bring. He is also concerned about the United States' dependence on foreign sources of energy and the conflict that can result.

These are among the factors that led Mr. Lillard to seek to educate himself on sustainability and which actions he could take to have the biggest positive impact. Mr. Lillard formed Green Savers LLC a company developed to help people learn, prioritize, and provide convenient assistance to make progress toward your priorities saving money, reducing your environmental impact, and living a more healthy and productive life. Visit them at www.yourgreensavers.com.

Brian Creswell was born and raised in the Pottstown area, is an honors graduate of Owen J. Roberts H.S., and attended Lehigh University with a major in architecture. For the past 20 years Mr. Creswell has been involved with various aspects of the building trades from historic restorations to commercial and new residential construction and spoke about his projects at the last event.

Currently he owns and operates Creswell & Company, an award-winning design-build construction company that specializes in green building. Creswell & Company is completing work on the first potential LEED platinum rated residence in Pennsylvania. His topic will be: "Managing your green: Life-cycle costs and paybacks for green building and technology."

Jon Costanza was constructing one of the first solar houses built on the East Coast 33 years ago, when the oil embargo was forcing Americans to re-think their energy usage. He started SunPower Builders in 1972 at the age of 18, built his first solar house in 1974 and, as he confidently states, "never looked back."

John is dedicated to the profound common thread between the art of historic restoration and energy conservation. Today, SunPower occupies this unique niche in the solar market, integrating PV and SHW installations into farmhouse restorations. In the past year, Jon has been excited to see SunPower’s solar division expanding and expects this trend to continue.

An active member and advocate for the solar community, Jon is on the Board of the Philadelphia Solar Energy Association (PSEA) and the Northeast Solar Energy Association (NESEA). He will never stop promoting in his vision of "Massive Change", in which humans can learn to consume and renew, responsibly and simply. Jon lives in Collegeville, with his family, his solar array and a plethora of pets.

John Malm founded Radiant Comfort Systems to fill the need for well engineered radiant heat systems in the MidAtlantic market. As an engineer (John has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Penn), he appreciates the capabilities of these advanced systems. John lives with his wife, two sons, and many horses and assorted animals in Elverson. He will be speaking about ground temperature.

Crater is the President and General Manager of Recycling Services, Inc., in Pottstown. For about 40 years he has been tinkering with many projects and environmental ideas.

He has focused his attention mostly on wind and solar-power projects. He started with water heating in dark hoses and solar air heating units with recycled cans, and then he moved to wind spinners and rebuilding several wind generators. After that his focus went to Solar PVs, electric vehicles, and alcohol and vegetable oil fuels.

Now Crater is experimenting with ground-temperature heating and cooling. He has also worked on energy-saving programs and held a number of alternative energy events.

His most recent endeavor was to power approximately 30 music events using his mobile solar electric unit. His motto is: "Have sun, will travel." Other recent projects include using a passive solar design for heating and heat displacement, a small floating undershot waterwheel, and a 100 MPG project car. His project list goes on and on. Mr. Crater considers himself an energy worker. His question to the community is: "What will we call alternative energy when everybody uses it? Common sense I suppose."

In addition to the scheduled speakers, environmental organizations will be available to answer questions and provide information.
For information on the event, contact Jim Crater, General Manager for Recycling Services, at JimCrater@aol.com or 610-323-8545, or simply visit the website: recyclingservices.org. Attendees should BYOM (bring your own mug) for water!

No longer a matter of interest, the ideas proposed here will also be a matter of financial and, eventually, planetary survival.

Make the time to go.

You'll be glad you did.

I know, I know, I've been neglecting you.

I last posted before jetting off (O.K. driving my hybrid off) to the Jersey shore to snatch a few hours of relaxation from what is turning out to be an awfully hectic summer.

And now, guess what? I'm doing it again.

I leave tomorrow on yet another abbreviated vacation, but feel guilty about doing it without another quick posting. (Is "blog guilt" a certified psychological condition yet?)

It occurred to me that at this time of year, elementary and secondary school students are busy denying the looming start of school, but that college students can no longer deny the inevitable.

So as parents and student alike prepare for the trek to whatever far-flung school junior has chosen drain you bank account, consider the following.

First, and most important on my blog, is the fact that my alma mater is number three.

The rank is courtesy of The Princeton Review's latest college rankings which now includes the "greenest colleges" in addition to other important rankings like best party school and school with the quirkiest mascot.

The greenest of them all, according to Princeton, is Arizona State University at the Tempe campus. Second is Bates College in Lewiston, Maine and then roaring in at third is my old school, Binghamton University (known formally as the State University of New York at Binghamton).

As any Binghamton alumni can immediately recognize, our school never really "roared" in anything. But anyway, the remaining schools on the list are, in order: College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia Institute of Technology, also in Atlanta, Harvard, University of New Hampshire, University of Oregon, University of Washington and Yale.

No doubt it galled Princeton to have to name Harvard and Yale as being better than them in anything. No worries through, Princeton ranked third in having the happiest students, a top-ten list that neither of its other Ivy League rivals even made; as well as being ranked first in students happy with their financial aid.

You can see all the rankings by clicking here.

And, as this article in The New York Times indicates, a green ranking is increasingly important to the up-and-coming generation.

As the Times article notes, the Princeton Review survey this year asked 10,300 college applicants about what was important to them and "63 percent said that a college’s commitment to the environment could affect their decision to go there."

But while all this awareness is exciting, there is doubt about how meaningful some of these labels are.

"Some higher education officials worry that campuses are taking easy steps to win the label rather than doing the kind of unglamorous work — replacing air exchange systems, for example — that would actually reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases. Some campuses are changing little more than their press releases," the Times reports.

"Sustainability is far more than recycling and “Do It in the Dark” competitions to see which dorms use the least water and electricity. Sustainability is a complex concept, expensive and difficult to achieve. It involves an entirely new approach to day-to-day living and the reappraisal of the existing infrastructure," Kate Zernike writes in The Times.

(And now pardon my continued laziness as I try to do a week's worth of work and still leave for my vacation on time by shamelessly cutting and pasting two paragraphs from the Times story that really encapsulate the scale of the challenge and also manages to suck the joy out of any exuberance you might have felt about people finally starting to "get it.")

“It’s important that we focus on the significant rather than the symbolic, or at least recognize the symbolic for what it is,” says Sarah Hammond Creighton, the sustainability coordinator at Tufts. “I think the commitments are generally real, but I worry that the translation into the depth of the challenge hasn’t hit people.”

The most high-profile effort, and the most debated, is the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment, signed over the last two years by more than 550 institutions representing about 30 percent of American students. Those who sign promise that within a year they will inventory their greenhouse gas emissions and within two will formulate a plan to arrive at carbon neutrality — that is, zero net CO2 emissions — “as soon as possible.” They also have to agree to at least two of seven measures, including buying 15 percent of their energy from renewable sources and building to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards, a certification developed by the nonprofit United States Green Building Council.

Certainly, let's hope our nation's institutions of higher learning can meet those lofty goals.

In the meantime, let's also hope you parents out there with kids in college manage to avoid a conversation with them about what "Do It In the Dark" really means.

Well folks, I'm off to the shore for a day or two, but before I go, I took a quick look at The New York Times site and saw they too are contemplating "Senate-cide" over our government's inability to get energy right.

Usually, I read something in the news, get up a head of steam and then let it simmer for a day or two before my fingers start to fly.

More often than not, I find just as I'm about to begin that someone has beaten me to the punch, and, to make matters worse, punched more eloquently than I possibly could.

Thus does a head of steam evaporate.

But this time I beat them to it.

This editorial in today's New York Times says everything I said in the blog I posted Saturday. Needless to say, they said it a little bit better, but hey, I don't have the luxury of being only an editorial writer. I've got a day job.

But at least this time, I beat them to the punch. If only I were convinced that it would make a difference.

Anyway, in this case, I'm willing to cut myself a little slack, maybe even go to the beach for a couple of days...

Understand, generally speaking, I'm a big fan of democracy.


Citizens electing their leaders to decide what is best for the country (and the world) within a framework that protects the rights of the minority it a pretty awesome system.


But the key flaw in all this is, or course, the word "elections." Because at election time, the thing that most often concerns these alleged "leaders" is their own reelection.


So as we all drown in $4-per-gallon gas and heating oil bills that may mean our kids won't go to college, energy has become an election football.


As I blogged on June 26 and July 3, the tax break for alternative energy sources is set to expire soon unless Congress gets its act together.


(Did I just say the words "Congress" and "act together" in the same sentence? Somebody slap me.)


Well, as Reuters reported in this article, an attempt to move a Senate bill extending those tax breaks forward, which needed 60 votes but received only 51, was foiled by Republicans convinced the way to move away from our addiction to oil is to drill for more oil, particularly in environmentally sensitive places where it is currently banned.


Never mind that oil companies hold hundreds of leases to drill on public lands that they are not utilizing, the Republicans believe voters will believe that a crisis is the time to decide what to let oil companies do with our future, and have said as much -- publicly!

These same companies seem to be doing OK without the Senate's help.


As CNN reported here Exxon Mobil just posted the largest quarterly profit in U.S. history Thursday, posting net income of $11.68 billion on revenue of $138 billion in the second quarter.


That profit works out to $1,485.55 a second. That barely beat the previous corporate record of $11.66 billion, also set by Exxon in the fourth quarter of 2007."The fundamentals of our business remain strong," Henry Hubble, Exxon's vice president of investor relations, said on a conference call. "We continue to capture the benefit of strong industry conditions."


That's an understatement if ever I read one. I can see why Senate Republicans feel moved to rush to their aid.


The extension of the tax breaks isn't dead yet, but I think "on life support" is not an unfair way to characterize them.


But as the Senate Republicans try to convince voters we can drill our way out of an energy crisis, those tax breaks will expire (I wonder how John McCain will vote on this matter?) and our nation's nascent entrepreneurial attempt to get ahead of the curve on energy will suffer a setback, perhaps a fatal one.


And so elections will imperil all of us to live with the consequences of the need to curry favor with oil companies in order to increase campaign donations.


But fear not oh faithful reader, all hope is not lost. Some vision remains.


This story by McClatchy newspapers that says the U.S. will soon be the world's number one wind power producer, suggesting that we may be succeeding without tax breaks.


But be careful of jumping to too many conclusions. As Mark Twain is said to have said, "figures don't lie, but liars figure."


The American Wind Energy Association is expected to release a survey next month that calculates that the US wind industry now tops Germany in terms of how much energy is being produced from wind. But that has more to do with how windy America is than any visionary investment level by us. Maybe all those senate blow-hards are a natural resource we should begin taking advantage of.

Germany still has more installed capacity - 22,000 megawatts compared with 17,000 in the US at the end of 2007. But the average wind speed is stronger in America, which means more energy is being generated, the group said.

Not surprisingly, the newspaper group also reports that many of the world's leading wind companies are not US companies, and they will need to move manufacturing jobs to the US as the wind industry grows, Swisher said. His group says 4,000 wind-related manufacturing jobs have been added in the US since 2007.


Before you get too excited, you should know that currently, wind provides about 1% of US electricity.

The cost of wind power is almost comparable to fossil fuels such as coal, at between 4.5 and 7.5 cents per kilowatt hour, but building a wind farm costs more than a fossil-fuel plant - between $1.5m and $2m per megawatt of capacity compared with $800,000 for a natural-gas plant.
Once constructed, though, wind plants have no fuel costs compared with coal and natural gas plants.


Since Germany far surpasses the U.S. in solar power generation, despite our sunnier weather patterns, I'd call this one a draw.


But also in the promise for the future category, consider this idea. What if the weather didn't matter?


As O. Glenn Smith, a former manager of science and applications experiments for the International Space Station at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, writes in this New York Times opinion piece, maybe the best idea is to harvest solar energy from space.


Smith, who seems to know what he's talking about, said it's not as James Bond as it sounds. As solar panels get lighter and thinner, this idea is more and more financially feasible.


Basically, you launch a bunch of solar collectors into space, which is a much more efficient way to collect solar energy, and then beam it back to earth. (Yes, I said "beam it.")


Smith writes: "Once collected, the solar energy would be safely beamed to Earth via wireless radio transmission, where it would be received by antennas near cities and other places where large amounts of power are used. The received energy would then be converted to electric power for distribution over the existing grid. Government scientists have projected that the cost of electric power generation from such a system could be as low as 8 to 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is within the range of what consumers pay now."


And if you want justification for what would surely be an expensive undertaking, Smith urges us to consider that: "Over the past 15 years, Americans have invested more than $100 billion, directly and indirectly, on the space station and supporting shuttle flights. With an energy crisis deepening, it’s time to begin to develop a huge return on that investment."


Now if only we could figure out some way turn that into a campaign contribution, then it might actually happen. (Sigh.)