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The point of having a domestic energy assessor come into your home is to determine not only what part you might play in saving the environment but also how you might save money on home energy bills such as air conditioning, and hot water heating. A domestic energy assessor can not only advise you on where you are wasting money but what contractors and what equipment such as appliances can help save you money while you help save the environment.

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New fuel standards bill gets passed in Senate but not without some compromise on other key items leaving Democrats with only a mild victory.

The Senate took a huge step toward passage of the biggest increase in fuel economy standards for cars and trucks in three decades - but it came at a major cost for Democrats. Backers of tougher legislation were forced to give up their plan to strip $21 billion in tax breaks, mostly to oil companies, and use the money to subsidize renewable energy lost by a single vote Thursday. It was the second defeat for Democrats, after Senate Republicans, backed by the White House, blocked an effort to require utilities to get 15 percent of their power from renewable sources. SF Gate

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, "We will fight another day."

"This is a strong bill, but I'm disappointed because it should have been much stronger," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, just before the final vote. The House probably will vote for the Senate bill early next week, and President Bush is expected to sign the measure. Senate Democratic leaders came very close to a stronger bill when they mustered 59 votes, including nine Republicans, to close off debate on a version of the bill that included the tax credits for renewables and a rollback of almost $14 billion in tax breaks for oil companies. But they needed 60 votes, and Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., quickly removed the tax package from the bill to secure its passage. The Bush administration had announced it would veto any bill that included what it characterized as a major tax increase on the oil industry. SJ Mercury News

"This sends a chilling signal to the industry, and adds a lot of uncertainty to our planning," said Chris O'Brien, vice president of Sharp Solar and chairman of the Solar Energy Industries Association

Energy bills batted about in Congress this session, including one passed by the House of Representatives last week, have focused on the longer-term initiative of boosting spending on renewable energy, rather than increasing existing oil reserves by opening up new sources of drilling. The House's energy bill includes $22 billion in tax incentives for renewable energy development, along with increased fuel efficiency requirements for cars and light trucks and a mandate that 15 percent of the power generated by investor-owned utilities come from alternative sources by 2020. The Senate's compromise bill drops that last provision, but still includes tax incentives and heightened fuel efficiency standards. The Senate bill also kept small-business measures requiring the Small Business Administration (SBA) to start a program aimed at teaching small businesses to become more energy efficient, and boosting funds available to help small businesses upgrade equipment to reduce energy consumption. CNN Money

Energy Tags: biodiesel" rel="tag">biodiesel, alternative

This article is about many different sources of renewable energy

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This article details the importance of a domestic energy assessor. The United Kingdom has the corner on training and hiring energy assessor professionals that can help homeowners and other community members build and maintain residences and other facilities improve the environment for all.

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There is a good article in Rolling Stone about ethanol. They examine the whole ethanol policy and agribusiness connections with our politicians. I think it is a good read.

The great danger of confronting peak oil and global warming isn't that we will sit on our collective asses and do nothing while civilization collapses, but that we will plunge after "solutions" that will make our problems even worse. Like believing we can replace gasoline with ethanol, the much-hyped biofuel that we make from corn. Ethanol, of course, is nothing new. American refiners will produce nearly 6 billion gallons of corn ethanol this year, mostly for use as a gasoline additive to make engines burn cleaner. But in June, the Senate all but announced that America's future is going to be powered by [tag-tec]biofuels[/tag-tec], mandating the production of 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022. According to ethanol boosters, this is the beginning of a much larger revolution that could entirely replace our 21-million-barrel-a-day oil addiction. Midwest farmers will get rich, the air will be cleaner, the planet will be cooler, and, best of all, we can tell those greedy sheiks to fuck off. As the king of ethanol hype, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, put it recently, "Everything about ethanol is good, good, good."

My feeling is that [tag-ice]ethanol[/tag-ice] is great for a small impact alternative fuel or blended fuel but we sure cannot go the way of turning our corn crops into ethanol and think we are going to save the country from the evil foreign oil.

Rolling Stone's bottom line take:

In the end, the ethanol boom is another manifestation of America's blind faith that technology will solve all our problems.

Energy Tags: solar power, ethanol