Energy Resources & Access

“No Hay Desechos, solo recursos” reads the Sistema BioBolsa logo, there is no waste, only resources, and that is the heart and sole of Sistema Biobolsa, an organization working in 22 Mexican States, and 15 other countries to bring sustainable resources to agricultural communities. Here is the low down, a highly innovative membrane digester that processes animal waste (especially cow) into a useable methane rich bio gas, and an organic rich fertilizer called Biol.

Oregon has an opportunity right now to help tackle climate change and reverse the momentum of ever-greater carbon pollution and ever-riskier climate change impacts. Last month, Gov. Kitzhaber committed Oregon to the Pacific Coast Action Plan on Climate and Energy, a partnership to put a price on carbon and to promote shared climate policies with California, Washington, and British Columbia.

Coal contributes to 43 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, making it a major driver of climate change. In fact, a new statement released by leading scientists suggests that nearly three-quarters of fossil fuel reserves—especially coal—must remain unused if the world is to limit temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius.

We believe that the process of unconventional fossil fuel development including shale tight oil and gas development in the Monterey Shale formation using hydraulic fracturing, acidization, and other forms of well stimulation will exacerbate many of these environmental threats, particularly climate disruption, local air and water pollution, and resource consumption. Thus, the decisions you make about the development of unconventional oil and gas production from shale in California will hold important consequences for California and the state’s future.

Less than one-seventh of the US$5 billion needed to fund the Least Developed Countries’ (LDCs’) most urgent climate change adaptation projects has been delivered by wealthy countries — a sliver of their annual spending on their own disasters and globally on fossil fuel subsidies. LDCs played almost no role in causing climate change, yet from 2010 to July 2013, their deaths from climate-related disasters were more than five times the global average. International pledges of climate finance to address this inequality are overall both inadequate and unmet.

A 2011 law has provided new information about what natural gas companies are doing with the huge amounts of waste generated by West Virginia's drilling boom, but major data gaps remain, a legislative committee heard Tuesday. Evan Hansen, president of the consulting firm Downstream Strategies, said the state requires drilling operators to report what they do with only about 38 percent of the waste they produce.

I am excited to announce that this week, International Rivers published a new report titled An Introduction to Integrated Resources Planning. The report, written by 1999 Fellow Chris Greacen, Chom Greacen, David von Hippel, and David Bill, demonstrates the benefits of a comprehensive approach to energy planning.

Ask a Wall Street analyst and all but the most extreme contrarians will tell you that over the long run, the market is going to go up. Sure, over the last century there have been some downturns, and some flat periods of little growth, but if you invest over the long haul you are virtually guaranteed to make money. Now consider the question: Is the planet warming?

Julia Ledewitz was on a panel at the U.S. Solar Decathlon and XPO to discuss strategies to save energy and ultimately money in office building adminitration. Read more