Al Gore Gulfstream 5 Watch in Effect

This is the scene outside my window in London right now. All indications are for a visit soon by the Nobel Laureate and former Vice President. Up to eighteen inches are expected in the Southeast, the most snow in thirty years.

Set America Free

I've written before here and in STANDPOINT magazine about the Greenhawk Movement. I should also have mentioned a like-thinking organization - SET AMERICA FREE. They're "a coalition," according to their website, "of tree-huggers, do-gooders, sodbusters, cheap hawks, and evangelicals."

They advocate American taxpayers providing $12 billion of incentives for auto manufacturers to produce, and consumers to purchase, plug-in and flex-fuel hybrid vehicles.

They advocate a mandate to incorporate plug-ins into the US government transportation fleet.

They advocate incentives to transform fueling stations to serve all liquid fuels for flex-fuel vehicles.

They advocate government policies to encourage mass transit.

Read their manifesto at setamericafree.org/openletter

The Greenhawk Moment

... in STANDPOINT, a London-based journal of opinion that debuts today, "The Greenhawk Moment," an article by the undersigned about the convergence in thinking between renewable energy advocates and national security strategists.

As one Greenhawk puts it:

"Wahabis and friends of Ahmadinejad sit atop two-thirds of the world's oil reserves. Dependence makes the US vulnerable from both a security and environmental perspective. In buying oil from Islamic theocracies that sponsor terror, we are funding our enemies."

Read the whole thing HERE.

Envirobabe Nora M reports

... Gunnar Lund, the Swedish Ambassador, told me that at dinner with Bush, he was impressed by how incredibly animated and knowledgeable Bush was about renewable energy and is looking to make it his legacy. The same thing at a big conference a few months ago. Bush was there with 1,000 others, furiously taking notes on
everything from cellulosic ethanol to plug-in hybrids...
-N


Opinion Journal's Political Diary
Ethanol to the Rescue

President Bush is expected to pursue a major domestic initiative in the next year to build a "legacy" before he leaves office. Conservatives are nervous that this means the White House striking a deal with Democrats to shore Social Security -- a deal that might include a whopping tax increase if the current cap on payroll taxes is raised. That danger still exists, but my sources tell me Mr. Bush may instead be placing his "legacy" chips on changing energy policy.
Democrats who have recently visited with Mr. Bush in the Oval Office have found him both fixated and fascinated by alternative fuels. "He's all into switch grass," Rep. Ellen Tauscher, a California Democrat, told the San Francisco Chronicle. She said Mr. Bush was "very engaged and wants to move forward" on bold plans to cure America's "addiction to oil."
Indeed, it appears something is in the works for Mr. Bush's State of the Union message. A federal advisory council on bio-fuels has been told to delay issuing its just-completed report because it might upstage a major announcement from Mr. Bush. White House advisor Al Hubbard is telling reporters to expect a major initiative on energy soon.
Conservatives may not like the subsidies and government-directed research that will be a likely part of any Bush energy plan, but if it means he spends less time pursuing a deal on entitlements with Democrats, they'll consider it a victory. "Bush should know that Democrats could always lead him down the primrose path on Social Security and then use it to bash Republicans in 2008," one GOP Congressman told me. "With energy you have a better chance of building a bipartisan consensus and less political risk."
-- John Fund

Green Salon Update

Envirobabe reports:
"The salon was really wild. The Saudi Ambassador, Prince Turki, showed up right on time and stayed to the end. He was really keen on getting Woolsey to talk to him. Woolsey looked totally freaked out but then calmed down and at one point we had the cold fusion guy, Gunnar Lund, the Swedish Ambassador, Ed Sines, the inventor of a magnet flux clean energy generator (still in process), Woolsey, and Prince Turki, all huddled together. The best part was when Amory Lovins told Prince Turki that he could make more money extracting hydrogen from oil than burning it. I piped up that burning precious oil was akin to burning Picassos. To which Prince Turki quipped "If you like Picassos!" Everyone laughed. Scott Sklar, the solar/wind/trash to fuel modulation godfather kept cracking to the Prince that we weren't going to put him out of business, quite the contrary, then he and I started laughing hysterically. Anyway, by the end of the event, Prince Turki had invited Amory to Saudi Arabia to show them how they can make more money being clean and green than dirty and gooky. And all the rest were scrambling to get their hands on some of the solar cloth and solar xerox machines from Scott. "

Farmer who reaped the Sun

Farmer Who Reaped the Sun

BUTTENWIESEN JOURNAL
Hot German July Doesn?t Faze Farmer Who Reaps the Sun Lonnie Schlein/The New York Times
Heiner Gärtner saved the family farm by turning it into a solar
electricity plant, with 10,050 solar panels.

By MARK LANDLER
Published: July 28, 2006
BUTTENWIESEN, Germany, July 25 ? Surely Heiner Gärtner is one of the
only farmers in Germany, if not most of Europe, who greets the dawn
of yet another cloudless day with anticipation rather than angst. Mr. Gärtner had to win the support of Buttenwiesen?s mayor

Lonnie Schlein/The New York Times
Mr. Gärtner?s 69-year-old father, Heinrich, feeding the pigs on the
farm, whose waste is used to fuel a biogas plant to generate
electricity.
As Germany sizzles through what is expected to be its hottest July on
record, crops are shriveling and farmers are growing desperate. Some
have petitioned the European Union to allow sheep and cattle to graze
on land normally off limits, because their own fields are scorched.

Here on Mr. Gärtner?s 200-acre farm, however, the fields are covered
with 10,050 solar panels, which soak up the sunshine and convert it
into electricity. The ambient hum in the air is not the sound of
insects but of transformers carrying a high-voltage current to the
villages nearby.

?We?ve had so much sun,? said Mr. Gärtner, 34, a wide-brimmed hat
shielding his face from the rays. ?It would be better if we could
have this much sun with less heat. But you can?t have everything.?

Extreme heat actually reduces the efficiency of the solar panels, he
said, pointing to a dial that showed the plant was running at 83
percent of its capacity. On cooler days, the panels operate at full
capacity.

Even so, this is shaping up as a thriving summer for Mr. Gärtner ?
vindicating his decision in 2003 to turn this 150-year-old pig farm
into a small-scale electricity plant. Switching from pigs to power
saved his family?s enterprise, which was teetering on the edge of
economic ruin.

?I couldn?t repair the roof if I only bred pigs,? said Mr. Gärtner, a
self-confident fellow with a spiel that is far more entrepreneurial
than agricultural. ?We have to compete worldwide these days. Pork
from Brazil costs half as much as German pork. Our costs are simply
too high.?

When Mr. Gärtner took over the farm from his father in 2002, his
options seemed few and dismal. He considered selling most of the
property and keeping only his family?s stone house ? a last vestige
of the farm started by his great-grandfather, who kept cattle,
chickens and other animals.

But there were few buyers, even for a farm that is fairly large by
southern German standards and blessed with broad, flat meadows amid
the gently rolling countryside of Bavaria. Farms in eastern Germany
and Poland are much larger and therefore more economically viable.

Although the recent collapse in global negotiations over tariffs,
farm subsidies and other barriers at the World Trade Organization may
protect European farmers awhile longer, Bavaria has long promoted its
high-technology industry over agriculture. ?Germany is an industrial
country, not an agricultural country,? Mr. Gärtner said. ?We?re on
the wrong end.?

Visiting a classmate in northern Germany after graduating from
college with a degree in agricultural engineering, Mr. Gärtner was
struck by the windmills that dot the countryside there. His father
had already experimented with making biodiesel fuel out of rapeseed ?
even running a Volkswagen with it ? so the concept of renewable
energy was not alien to him.

Europe, seeking to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, has
encouraged the development of alternative energy by offering hefty
subsidies for people to put up windmills on their property. Germany?s
wind-power industry is the world?s largest, yet growth here has
slowed as people have begun to protest the proliferation of these
giant propellers near their homes.

Bavaria, with its inland location, lacks the coastal breezes that
turn windmills. But it gets more sunshine than other parts of
Germany. Moreover, the Gärtner farm, which is known as Maierhof, has
an especially sunny location, with southern exposure and few hills to
block the light.

In 2004, Germany passed a new law that guaranteed people who built
solar parks a minimum price for each kilowatt of electricity that was
two to three times the market price.

That prompted Mr. Gärtner to investigate the possibility of turning
his fields of corn, wheat and barley into rows of photovoltaic
panels. With a lack of solar experts in Germany, he and his
classmate, Ove Petersen, taught themselves the technology (they are
now partners in the venture).

The hardest part, he said, was obtaining loans to finance the roughly
$5 million in construction costs. Mr. Gärtner also had to persuade
the mayor of Buttenwiesen to allow him to string power lines across
the fields. With only a handful of farmers in Germany installing
these panels on a large scale, ?people really had no idea what we
were talking about,? he said.

The project is a family affair. Mr. Gärtner recruited his sister,
Annette, who is an architect in the nearby city of Augsburg, to
design the complex. His 69-year-old father, Heinrich, provides moral
support, keeping an eye on the dials when he is not feeding the fish
in his pond.

When his panels run at full capacity, Mr. Gärtner figures the farm
could supply power to all 7,000 residents of the village. The utility
that buys his electricity, however, uses it to meet demand at peak
periods, like during this heat wave, when air-conditioners are
running full blast.

Mr. Gärtner makes more than $600,000 a year from the sale of this
electricity, which will allow him to pay off his loans in 15 to 16
years. That is good for him, because the government is phasing out
the preferential prices over the next decade. The Mercedes parked in
his farmyard attests to his success.

As he sees it, his farm is merely adapting to an economic cycle that
happens to favor a different sort of energy.

?Animals are energy too; they create food for people,? Mr. Gärtner
said. ?At the moment, power is more profitable than food. That may
not always be the case. You have to be flexible.?

To hedge his bets, Mr. Gärtner has held on to his 1,000 pigs. The
other day, they were huddled in a shed, sleeping through the searing
heat. With the world?s population expanding, he believes, the price
of pork may someday rebound enough to make it a viable business again.

In the meantime, the pigs serve another purpose: Mr. Gärtner uses
their waste to fuel a biogas plant, which also generates electricity.
?One of the criticisms of solar energy is that it is unpredictable
because the sun doesn?t always shine,? he said. ?This is completely
predictable.?

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Envirobabe is a Force of Nature 2

Envirobabe is a Force of Nature 2

Earlier this year, The New York Post reported that at a Georgetown holiday party, my friend the left-leaning screenwriter and “envirobabe” Nora Maccoby challenged Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to recognize that America’s oil dependency was a national security issue. Soon after, Rumsfeld sent out a “snowflake” memo to Pentagon policy wonks resulting in one theme (renewable energy) in Bush’s state of the union speech. Another result: the closet green science wonks hiding in its basement, the group who ACTUALLY invented the internet, began to come out of hiding with the renewable energy science projects they’d long been tinkering with. In the meantime, one Pentagon numbers cruncher did the math and demonstrated that the majority of combat deaths in Iraq derived from attacks on transport convoys carrying oil, water, and other supplies, and that increased energy efficiency would save American soldiers’ lives. Now, Nora, a co-founder of the genuinely bi-partisan Energy Consensus advocacy group is hosting, along with William Haseltine (the biotech pioneer of Human Genome Sciences fame) and his sculptor wife Mara, are hosting the first Green Salon, this weekend in DC. Keynote speakers will be Amory Lovins (author of the seminal green book “Winning the Oil Endgame”) and James Woolsey, former CIA director under Bill Clinton, and sometime advisor to Rumsfeld. It was Woolsey, founder of the “Greenhawk” movement, who pithily observed that “with our addiction to oil we are literally funding the enemy.” One Arab ambassador, set to attend, from a friendly oil-producing nation may politely disagree.