Reverse Energy Consulting

The government’s key inflation measure came in higher than expected due to a 6.3% jump in oil and gas prices.

NEW YORK — Consumer prices in October were essentially unchanged from a year ago, the government reported Wednesday, as the rising cost of oil and gas offset earlier price declines.

The Consumer Price Index, the government’s key inflation reading, is now down only 0.2% during the past 12 months compared to the same period a year ago. This is the smallest 12-month rate of decline since February.

The so-called core CPI, which is more closely watched by economists because it strips out volatile food and energy prices, is up 1.7% over the past year.

For the month, overall prices rose 0.3%. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a 0.2% rise.

The core CPI rose just 0.2% in the month, but that was higher than the forecast of a 0.1% increase.

A 6.3% rise in fuel prices in the month helped feed the overall monthly increase. The prices of other forms of energy increased in October as well, with electricity costs up 0.6% and natural gas prices rising 1.9%.

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Women have a voice!

LONDON – Women bear the brunt of drought, rising seas, melting glaciers and other effects of climate change but are mostly ignored in the debate over how to halt it, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) said on Wednesday.

In its 2009 state of the world population report, the agency said the world’s poor are the most vulnerable to climate change and the majority of the 1.5 billion people living on $1.0 a day or less are women.

“Poor women in poor countries are among the hardest hit by climate change, even though they contributed the least to it,” said UNFPA executive director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid.

World leaders are due to meet at a U.N. global warming summit in Copenhagen in December and the U.N. agency urged them to think about how much women are harmed by climate change and how much they could be engaged in the fight against it.

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Texas Oil Feild

NEW YORK  – Oil prices rose on Wednesday as a drop in U.S. oil and fuel inventories outweighed wider economic concerns.

Crude stockpiles in the world’s top consumer fell by 900,000 barrels last week, more than forecasts for a 300,000-barrel drop, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported.

Gasoline and distillate stocks dropped by 1.7 million and 300,000 barrels. respectively.

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Seen here are dolphins directly in the path of the drillers. How will the wildlife be effected by this new lease on the wildlife's Habitat ???

WASHINGTON- The U.S. Interior Department said on Friday it plans to lease nearly 36 million acres (14.6 million hectares) to energy companies next spring to drill for oil and natural gas in the central Gulf of Mexico, but will shorten the time that the firms have to develop the tracts.

The area to be leased could produce up to 1.3 billion barrels of crude oil and 5.4 trillion cubic feet of gas according to the department.

“Continued development in appropriate areas of the Outer Continental Shelf, such as in the areas we will offer in the Gulf of Mexico, is a key component of our efforts to reduce our country’s dependence on foreign oil,” said U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.

Lease Sale 213 will involve about 6,800 tracts spread over 35.9 million acres located 3 to 250 miles off the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The blocks are in water depths from 10 feet to more than 11,200 feet.

The proposed sale blocks include about 4.2 million acres in an area know as 181 South, near the Alabama-Florida offshore border. Drilling off Florida in the Gulf is only allowed far from the state’s shoreline.
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Ash plume at confluence of Clinch and Tennessee rivers on 4/16/09, about 5 months after the Kingston plant disaster

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Interior Department said on Wednesday it would immediately strengthen oversight of surface coal mining programs and draw up new regulations to protect streams polluted by mining operations.

The action comes after a U.S. court in August blocked an attempt by the Obama administration to overturn a Bush administration rule that made it easier for coal mining companies to dump mountaintop debris into valley streams.

The court said the department should have followed certain procedures, including collecting public comments, before trying to repeal the government regulations.

The department said it will now move as quickly as possible “under the law” to gather public input for a new rule, based on sound science, that will govern how companies handle fill removed from mountaintop coal seams.
Click Here to Continue reading U.S. boosts coal mining oversight to fight pollution

On February 11, 2009, a bill (SB 232) was introduced in the Rhode Island General Assembly that would mandate at least a USGBC LEED “Certified” rating (or equivalent green certification) for public buildings and schools that enter the design phase after January 1, 2010. This would include all new facilities in excess of 5,000 square feet and all renovations in excess of 10,000 square feet.

STATUS: Gov. Donald Carcieri signed SB 232 into law as Public Law No. 2009-212 on November 9, 2009.

More information: Bill  “232″

Credit:ReverseEnergy.com
Source: Paul.Karrer

DOE announced on October 15 its selection of three university-led wind energy research facilities to receive $24 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds over the next two years. Located in Illinois, Maine, and Minnesota, the trio of institutions were selected competitively to conduct research and development on utility-scale and prototype wind turbines, with the goal of improving the performance and reliability of both land-based and offshore wind turbines. The funds will also enable the institutions to provide educational opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students in wind energy technologies.

The Illinois Institute of Technology will perform tests on a 1.5-megawatt General Electric wind turbine. The one shown here is located at the Forward Wind Energy Center in Wisconsin. Enlarge this image. Credit: Invenergy LLC

The awardees include Chicago’s Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), which will receive up to $8 million to install a test turbine at an existing wind farm in rural Illinois. The 1.5-megawatt General Electric wind turbine will be used to study advanced concepts for wind turbine control, robust sensors for blades, and innovative models to improve wind turbine performance and reliability. The University of Minnesota will take a similar approach, drawing on up to $8 million to install a 2.3-megawatt Siemens wind turbine, which will be used to investigate novel systems for mechanical power transmission and electric power generation. The new turbine will be close to an existing wind farm, allowing the university to study how it interacts with the wake caused by the nearby turbines.

Meanwhile, the University of Maine will investigate offshore wind power, receiving up to $8 million to design and deploy two 10-kilowatt wind turbine prototypes and one 100-kilowatt prototype to be mounted on floating offshore platforms. The university’s plan includes optimizing the designs for floating platforms by evaluating durable, lighter, hybrid composite materials, while also determining the requirements and logistics for manufacturing and deploying the platforms. See the DOE press release and DOE’s Wind and Hydropower Technologies Program.

Should the federal government force Americans to use less energy?

Congress is considering legislation that would require residential and commercial buildings to be 50 percent more energy-efficient within the next five to six years. Those account for about 40 percent of U.S. energy consumption, the most of any sector. Building standards have traditionally been the purview of local governments, but a new coalition of business, electric industry, and consumer and environmental groups is pushing for national action.

Meanwhile, President Obama recently announced a federal lighting standard aimed at cutting the amount of electricity used by certain industrial light bulbs. He also dedicated $346 million in stimulus funds to boost energy efficiency in new and existing homes and commercial buildings.

Should Washington mandate tougher energy standards for appliances, equipment and buildings? Or can industry and consumers take sufficient energy efficiency actions on their own?

– Margaret Kriz, NationalJournal.com

credit:Reverseenergy.com

Coal mining is destroying our ecosystems and communities. Here, the practice of mountain top removal coal mining has leveled this Appalachian mountain.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. lawmakers will pass major energy legislation, possibly including measures to address climate change, by the end of this year, a top White House official said on Sunday.

“I do know this, at the end of this first year of Congress there will be an energy bill on the president’s desk,” White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”

When asked whether the bill would include a controversial cap-and-trade system aimed at curbing emissions of carbon dioxide, Emanuel said “our goal is to get that done. We will see.”

Democrats in the House Energy and Commerce Committee will begin hearings this week on proposed legislation that would limit greenhouse gas emissions and require companies to acquire permits to release carbon into the atmosphere.

Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman has said he wants the bill, which includes measures to boost energy efficiency and develop clean energy technology, to pass the committee in late May and the House of Representatives later in 2009.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, also a Democrat, said he hoped the Senate by the middle of 2009 would pass cap-and-trade legislation, which allows firms emitting more carbon dioxide than the limit to buy credits from those that emit less.

No major bill addressing the issue has been introduced in the chamber.

Democrats control Congress.

But the attempt to enact new climate change laws at a time when the U.S. economy is in a deep recession has raised concerns among Republicans and some Democrats, who worry that doing so would raise costs for consumers and industry.

Emanuel said it was understandable that there would be some objections to a program of this magnitude, but he disagreed with the criticism that the cap-and-trade system was a broad base tax increase.

“No, what I believe is we’re going to alter how we deal with our energy policy,” Emanuel said.

Congress faces pressure to act on climate change following the Environmental Protection Agency’s finding last week that carbon dioxide posed a danger to human health, possibly paving the way for federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.

Emanuel reiterated that the White House supported a legislative solution for reducing climate warming emissions.

Source:Reuters(Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe; Editing by Paul Simao)

Credit:REVERSEENERGY.COM

A unique team of private companies and non-profit organizations has devised an energy retrofit for the Empire State Building that will reduce its energy use by 38%, including a 33% reduction in cooling load and a 3.5-megawatt reduction in peak electrical demand. The retrofit project, a small part of a $500 million upgrade for the New York City landmark, will reduce energy loads by upgrading windows and lighting and by adding radiative barriers behind the radiators. To deliver the remaining energy more efficiently, the retrofit will upgrade some of the chillers for the building while removing others, and it will install new variable-speed air handling units. And to better control that energy delivery, the retrofit will add demand-control ventilation and tenant energy management systems, while also upgrading energy controls and meters for the building as a whole. Efforts to be completed by the end of 2010 will yield half the energy savings, while the remainder will be achieved by 2013.

Click Here to Continue reading Retrofit of Empire State Building to Slash Energy Use by 38%