You are browsing the archive for January 2009.
The US Forest Service, through the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self Determination Act P.L. 110-343, provides $477 million for projects to help communities that have seen revenue declines from timber sales, mineral resources and grazing fees from surrounding public lands. The funding goes to 41 states and Puerto Rico.
The allocations are (I) secure [...]
State and local health and environmental agencies in coastal areas can receive almost $10 million in funding from the EPA to monitor water quality and develop notification programs to inform the public of exposure risks. The Beaches Environmental Assessment and Coastal Health Act (BEACH Act) of October 2000 is the funding mechanism and the allocation [...]
Environment – President Obama will ask EPA to allow states, California setting the precedent by seeking a waiver from less stringent standards in 2007, to require cars to meet a 35 mpg standard for 2011 models making faster progress toward cutting auto carbon emissions. The United Auto Workers have been against this measure because [...]
I took a cursory look at the House Economic Recovery Proposal and pulled out some funding dollar numbers for energy and environmental agencies and projects:
NOAA:
$400,000,000 for habitat restoration and mitigation activities;
$600,000,000 for climate modeling;
$140,000,000 for climate data modeling.
NASA:
$250,000,000 to accelerate the development of “Tier I set of earth science climate research missions”.
ACOE:
$2,000,000,000 for construction furthering [...]
Since calculating carbon emissions is in vogue I looked into accepted formulas. I found one to calculate carbon emissions from fuel on the EPA’s website on climate change.
The formula is: carbon content multiplied by an oxidation factor multiplied by (the molecular weight of CO2 divided by the molecular weight of carbon).
The [...]
I looked around to see what’s being funded right now and who is funding it and found the following:
The State of California has an RFP seeking energy efficiency programs for industrial processes, agricultural operations and water and wastewater treatment plants.
The EPA has an RFP out for activities that advance methane recovery and it’s subsequent use [...]
Here’s a little bit of information on metering. Electric meters measure, record and store aggregated Kwh data for billing customers and energy flow management but on a monthly cycle. Advanced meters and associated network systems measure and record hourly data and communicate the data to a remote location resulting in time-differentiated energy usage [...]
I just read about contract awards for energy efficiency projects. On December 18th, 2008, the DOE issued contracts to 16 energy service companies for projects at federally owned buildings and facilities. Each contract is worth $5 billion for the duration of the contract and eliminates technology specific restrictions.
The financing mechanism is through Super [...]
Things of interest now: Terrestrial Energy by William Tucker offers invaluable insight into the complexity into our energy system and the feasibility, or lack of, into reducing carbon emissions and meet energy demand. Also, WSJ article by Daniel Akst (1/16/09) regarding chic verses cheap. I’ve never been a mac person and am [...]