As a former resident of Florida (1999-2002…Go Seminoles) your author can assure you, the state is in need of high speed rail. The vast state makes travel times by car irritatingly long. The most extreme example is the drive from Pensacola to Key West. Distance of that journey is 828 miles, clocking in at over 13 hours. From anywhere in the panhandle to south Florida is an all day affair behind the wheel.

Drivers along the highways (especially 10) are under the close eye of the Highway Patrol and must keep the pace under 75 miles per hour for hours and hours and hours. Out of all the HSR corridors, Florida should have the most urgent need for speed. A 220 mph train would be the optimal mode of transit from Tallahassee all the way down to Miami. The length of that journey (480 miles) gives passenger rail a time advantage over cars and planes. Any trip less than 500 miles gives trains the upper hand concerning travel times.

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The “meltdown” that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) mentioned as the only possibility to derail Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court never materialized during last week’s hearing, and with approval a near certainty, a lot of observers are taking a closer look at what Justice Sotomayor might mean to the Court’s environmental jurisprudence.

Jennifer Koons published a wrap-up of the environmental scuttlebutt from the hearings on Friday at Greenwire. The piece touches on the key cases and questions surrounding them. The key lies in unpacking a comment made by Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) when he asked how Sotomayor felt about the Court’s 6-3 reversal of her decision in Riverkeeper v. EPA. (more…)

The earth is the water planet, so it should come as no great surprise that forms of water power have been one of the world’s most popular “renewable” energy sources. Yet the largest water power source of all – the ocean that covers three-quarters of earth – has yet to be tapped in any major way for power generation. There are three primary reasons for this:

The first is the nature of the ocean itself, a powerful resource that cannot be privately owned like land that typically serves as the foundation for site control for terrestrial power plants of all kinds;

The second is funding. Hydropower was heavily subsidized during the Great Depression, but little public investment has since been steered toward marine renewables with the exception of ocean thermal technologies, which were perceived to be a failure.

The third reason why the ocean has not yet been industrialized on behalf of energy production is that the technologies, materials and construction techniques did not exist until now to harness this renewable energy resource in any meaningful and cost effective way.

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You’ve spent hours on your resume. You’ve written and rewritten. You’ve showed it to friends, family, and colleagues, and you’ve made change after change. But is your painstakingly created resume really serving you well? Here are 5 of the most common resume mistakes, and how you can fix them:

1. Not enough white space

Reading a resume isn’t much like reading a book, but there is one similarity: big blocks of text are a turn-off, and may actually turn readers away. It’s imperative to design your resume with plenty of white space to facilitate skimming and ensure that the main facts stand out. Use headings, line breaks, and bullets to break up the page and draw your readers’ eyes forward. And remember: a professional resume isn’t a comprehensive life history. If one position’s entry is going much longer than about 6-10 lines of text, it’s time to do some cutting.

2. Failing to separate tasks from achievements

One way to ensure that your resume is skimmable and that your main achievements stand out is to clearly separate your day-to-day job tasks from your key accomplishments. Putting your accomplishments into a bulleted list is the best way to do this. Bulleted lists make skimming a breeze for busy readers. A word of warning, though: don’t get carried away. Five bullets per position are almost always sufficient, and fewer than that is fine.
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Energy demand in Europe is not growing as fast as in other parts of the world but it still constitutes a significant portion of global energy demand.  Europe’s share of global primary energy demand is around 14%, although it is likely to decrease to 11-12% by 2030 according to IEA forecasts. While growth is slower than 50 years ago, energy for Europe continues to be a strategic issue.

On July 13 2009, the first international agreement on the Nabucco project was signed in Ankara to ensure gas supply for Europe from the Caspian Region to Austria through Turkey and Eastern Europe. Europeans are to almost 50% dependent on foreign resources for their primary energy demand.  Having experienced gas cuts in recent years, resulting in hard times for their industries and residents, Europe would like to become less dependent on Russia by securing its supply from different sources.

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IQwind, an Israel-based start-up developing variable gear technology that improves the energy generation efficiency of wind turbines, has raised $500,000 from ISRAEL G-TEK LLC, according to an announcement by the U.S.-based investors.

IQwind received a first round of investment from Terra Venture Partners in 2007.

Sami Shiro and Uri Benhamron, principals at ISRAEL G-TEK, explain that the investment in IQWind is part of their “plan to create a balanced portfolio of greentech companies with a special focus on Israel as a breeding ground for technology.”

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It is worth taking a minute to run over to National Journal Online’s Energy-Environment blog to read their ongoing discussion, entitled “Running in Place.” The series reflects on progress made in energy-environment policy in the last thirty years, since President Carter committed that we would never again import as much oil as we did in 1979.

Obviously, Carter could not bring that to reality, and we now import three times as much oil as we did when those words were uttered (from a little over a million barrels a year then to 3.5 M bpy today). “Running in Place” brings together leaders from the energy industry, policymakers and environmental advocates to analyze what has gone right, what has gone wrong, and what needs to happen going forward.

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With Intersolar taking place in San Francisco this week, solar professionals from all over the world are coming together to network and exchange ideas. The Intersolar organizers have chosen the right city for this conference: The city’s mayor Gavin Newsom is actively pushing towards renewable energy sources. Under his leadership, the City and County of San Francisco started the first local solar energy incentive program in July 2008. Since launching GoSolarSF, there has been a 450% increase in applications for solar installations in San Francisco, from 200 to 850. Last week, Newsom announced plans to install three new solar installations with over 365 kw power on the San Francisco Housing Authority as part of the GoSolar initiative. According to a report issued by Environment California last week, San Francisco ranks third in number of rooftop solar installations in California. On a per-capita basis, San Francisco leads the state’s large cities for rooftop solar.

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President Obama is the only person capable of speaking directly to the American people in a way that will correct the course of climate change legislation in Congress before it is too late. Congress has never been closer to enacting a price on pollution related to global warming than it is today but proposed legislation is in serious jeopardy of being torpedoed by misinformation and most importantly, a lack of leadership. Congress risks the viability of climate change law further by the method in which it passes related legislation; climate change is a long-term fight and the public must perceive it to be like other continuing programs like Medicare and Social Security.

Propaganda about the effects of cap-and-trade on the economy is one of the primary factors that could bring it down in the Senate. The opposition framed cap-and-trade as a threat to economic growth and  a national energy tax; in response supporters of legislation have described it as a jobs bill. Neither are entirely true but the opposition’s argument is easier to believe, despite evidence to the contrary. (more…)

It’s good to have friends in high places. The Windy City is privileged to have the support of the man holding the highest office in the land, President Obama, to back a hub-and spoke high speed transit network with Chicago as its epicenter. The wheel sprawls in all directions, covering most of the major cities of the Midwest.

Obama is not the only proponent of the high speed rail in the Midwest. Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle is firmly behind the proposal. His conviction comes from a fact-finding mission to Spain he undertook this past winter. The Governor traveled on the Spanish high speed rail, the AVE (Alta Velocidad Española), and came back a believer of the system.

Governor Doyle was not only impressed by the comfort and speed of his journey, he saw the potential for jobs to be created in the manufacturing, maintenance and operation of an American high speed rail network running through his state into Chicago and beyond.

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