Energy and Climate Change

“This 10 point plan is not just about having a healthy environment that keeps us all alive, it’s about the economy and the community. It’s about keeping things in balance,” he said.

"If you look at the kind of money that will be needed for a full smart-grid and support for electric vehicles, then you are talking about a substantial amount," Miller said in a phone interview.

The spending may total "multiple billions" of dollars over a decade or more, he said.

Political leaders in Wyoming, the nation’s leading coal-producing state, say the issue is important enough for the state and the region that it’s worth staging an energy conference of their own to take a decidedly Western view of the issues.

Wind, water and solar energy resources are sufficiently available to provide all the world’s energy. Converting to electricity and hydrogen powered by these sources would reduce world power demand by 30 percent, thereby avoiding 13,000 coal power plants. Materials and costs are not limitations to these conversions, but politics may be, say Stanford and UC researchers who have mapped out a blueprint for powering the world.

These modifications to the household demand profile would
potentially be environmentally and financially beneficial to the electrical generation sector.

The meters will allow customers to access accurate electricity reads every 30 minutes, which helps to monitor and reduce electricity usage – and save money on power bills.

Researchers at the University of Washington and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have taken an important step in converting methane gas to a liquid, potentially making it more useful as a fuel and as a source for making other chemicals.

Eagle Stud is one of eight Montana mills working with NorthWestern Energy http://www.northwesternenergy.com/ on the feasibility of wood-fired electricity as a renewable energy source.

Across America, an anti-garbage strategy known as "zero waste" is moving from the fringes to the mainstream, taking hold in school cafeterias, national parks, restaurants, stadiums and corporations.

Thirty years after Three Mile Island, nuclear is still too risky. But now the risks have shifted from physical to financial.