The Home Owner Managing Energy Savings (HOMES) Act will provide rebates to homeowners who invest in energy efficiency improvements. Homeowners who demonstrate a 20 percent energy savings will receive a $2,000 rebate. For every 5 percent in additional energy savings, they can receive another $1,000 – up to a total of $8,000 or 50 percent of the project’s cost. The legislation is modeled after the Welch-authored Home Star Energy Retrofit Act (H.R. 5019), which passed the House with bipartisan support in the 111th Congress.

Synthetic carpeting….holy cow!  It takes 2.3 million BTU’s/cubic foot.  Aluminum is 13 million BTU’s /cubic foot.   It is no wonder why aluminum smelters are located where electrical energy is cheaper, like Columbia River or Iceland.

Reading about embodied energy in cellulose makes me pleased that this is what we have been recommending to most of our clients.  Not only is cellulose great for sealing air leaks, its healthier than other insulation and the lower energy required to make it lowers our carbon footprint.

Seriously? Do people really believe this drivel?

Santorum is misguided and fails to grasp the global significance and importance of becoming a leader in energy conservation and alternative energy. This is a rapidly emerging market that we will fail to have a major part of if we don’t actively engage and take some ownership in. If we don’t create and own this market, you can sure bet the Chinese will with their current billion dollar investments in alternative energy.

Santorum’s argument that there is a correlation between economic progress and energy consumption, was how things were early in our countries history as our economy evolved from agrarian to industrial. US consumption of energy per capita was high during the smoke stack days of the industrial revolution.

We’ve evolved out of this economic era, although it is abundantly clear Rick Santorum’s thinking hasn’t.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=slow-money-small-local-food-enterprises

The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that in the next five years almost half of global oil demand growth will come from China.

Rising demand for oil and significant cash reserves have led Chinese energy firms to buy into foreign oil reserves.

“We are pleased to expand our presence in the oil sands business,” said CNOOC chief executive, Yang Hua.

In 2005 the firm bought a 17% stake in Canadian oil sands firm MEG Energy. CNOOC has also obtained minority stakes in oil projects in Texas and Colorado.

CNOOC is not the only Chinese state oil firm investing in the region.

In 2009 PetroChina bought a $1.7bn share in Athabasca Oil Sands, and Last year Sinopec paid $4.6bn for a 9% share of Syncrude, Canada’s largest oil sands producer.

The IEA estimates that by the end of 2010 Chinese state energy companies operated in 31 nations and held shares in oil firms in 20 of those countries.

Sadad al-Husseini, a senior geologist and former head of exploration at the Saudi oil monopoly Aramco believes that Saudi officials overstate capabilities in the interest of spurring foreign investment. He is also critical of international expectations. He stated that the IEA’s (International Energy Agency) expectation that Saudi Arabia and the Middle East will lead the market in reaching global output levels of over 100 million barrels/day is unrealistic. He says that political leaders must begin to understand and prepare for this “inconvenient truth.” Al-Husseini was clear that he considers himself optimistic about the future of energy, but pragmatic with regards to what resources are available and what level of production is possible. While he fundamentally contradicts the Aramco company line, al-Husseini is no doomsday theorist.

This article in the UK Guardian of Aramco overstating their reserves is consistent to the research of Matt Simmons in his book Twilight in the Desert. Since 1982, the Saudis have withheld their well data and any detailed data on their reserves, giving outside experts no way to verify Saudi claims regarding the overall size of their reserves and output. This has caused some to question the current state of their oil fields. Simmons analyzed 200 technical papers on Saudi reserves by the Society of Petroleum Engineers to reach the conclusion that Saudi Arabia’s oil production faces near term decline, and that it will not be able to consistently produce more than 2004 levels. Simmons also argues that the Saudis may have irretrievably damaged their large oil fields by over-pumping salt water into the fields in an effort to maintain the fields’ pressure and boost short term oil extraction amounts.

It is refreshing for an oil company leader to argue for the need for better conservation in our buildings (40% of our energy consumption) and for new mileage standards (50 mpg). He acknowledges the huge impact the United States has on hydrocarbon emissions (4% of population yet 26% of CO2 emissions). He believes we should tax gas heavily, like Europe, to encourage conservation.

It is a short article, worth reading.

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/50502

Energy will be one of the defining issues of this century. One thing is clear: the era of easy oil is over. What we all do next will determine How well we meet the energy needs of the entire world in this century and beyond.

Demand is soaring like never before. As populations grow and economies take off, millions in the developing world are enjoying the benefits of a lifestyle that requires increasing amounts of energy. In fact, some say that in 20 years the world will consume 40% more oil than it does today. At the same time, many of the world’s oil and gas fields are maturing. And new energy discoveries are mainly occurring in places where resources are difficult to extract, physically, economically and even politically. When growing demand meets tighter supplies, the result is more competition for the same resources.

We can wait until a crisis forces us to do something. Or we can commit to working together, and start by asking the tough questions: How do we meet the energy needs of the developing world and those of industrialized nations? What role will renewables and alternative energies play? What is the best way to protect our environment? How do we accelerate our conservation efforts? Whatever actions we take, we must look not just to next year, but to the next 50 years.

At Chevron, we believe that innovation, collaboration and conservation are the cornerstones on which to build this new world. We cannot do this alone. Corporations, governments and every citizen of this planet must be part of the solution as surely as they are part of the problem. We call upon scientists and educators, politicians and policy-makers, environmentalists, leaders of industry and each one of you to be part of reshaping the next era Of energy.

Signed,

Dave

The arguments that environmental protection hurts job creation reminds me of India after the British were kicked out. India closed their borders from foreign trade and taxed heavily any imports. This was about protecting jobs and foreign intervention. Many of the jobs within India were in protected industries. Over the years India fell increasingly behind the rest of the world. Inefficiency and poor quality became the norm.

The parallel here is that China is progressing ambitiously towards a Green future. And what are we doing? We have groups that are protecting the interests of the oil companies and in so doing, we’ll stand the risk of increasingly falling behind in clean technologies.

See Thomas Friedman in the NYTimes