If you are involved in Management or Customer Service and are responsible for communicating the value of smart meters to your utility customers, you don’t want to miss this online discussion - Communicating Smart Meter Value. more...
Join social media mavens Matthew Burks and Amanda Shewmake as they provide an insider's perspective on how HR, communications and marketing professionals in energy companies can harness the power of social media to be more effective and productive. more...
The convergence of power and information technologies in the smart grid has created opportunities for finer grained and broader controls of energy flows. These opportunities can improve electric service in multiple dimensions: lower cost, greater reliability, greater customer satisfaction, and more...
Significant cost over runs. Changing business requirements. A well thought out plan is essential. Attend this free webcast discussion to hear inside hear three experts in utility operations discuss what utilities need to evaluate when they are considering upgrading or more...
The smart grid is shifting the playing field for utilities. And when the game changes, it pays to be prepared. A nimble solutions partner can help you design the solutions that keep operations on track, even as new challenges come more...
Deliver a profitable, productive and commercially successful large scale CSP business in India. Building on the success of past events in USA, Europe & MENA, CSP Today brings to New Delhi the most relevant international experience for the concentrated solar more...
Two day conference that tackles the most important challenges. A blend of European knowledge from the companies who have been installing offshore wind turbines for the last decade alongside local state governing bodies and leading project developers. Permitting, securing long more...
Autovation 2010 is a not-to-miss educational forum that will attract utility executives from around the world looking for new ways to optimize their operations through automation technologies. more...
The North American convention provides a remarkable opportunity to play a part in guiding renewable energy policy for the 21st century. Attendees will create a resolution that, along with similar resolutions already drafted on four other continents, will help set more...
Hosted by the GridWise(R) Alliance and the U.S. Department of Energy, the GridWise Global Forum will convene thought leaders from the highest levels of government, business, NGOS, and academia from around the world to discuss the ultimate enabling potential of more...
Introduction to Natural Gas Trading & Hedging - This program provides a comprehensive understanding of the structures that underlie Natural Gas trading. Beyond Essentials: Option Applications in Energy - This course provides a solid practical and conceptual (non-quantitative) understanding of more...
Electric Business Understanding provides a comprehensive overview of the electric industry. Position yourself for career advancement by gaining a solid understanding of how the electric business works including key physical, market, and regulatory aspects and how market participants navigate this more...
Electric Market Dynamics offers participants an in-depth understanding of North American electric markets and how they function. Enhance your career by furthering your knowledge of market structures, pricing mechanisms, services offered in markets, and how various participants use the markets more...
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Alan Caruba is the founder of The National Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse
for information and commentary on "scare campaigns" designed to influence
public opinion and policy. Begun in 1990, the Center has attracted national
attention and a vast audience for Caruba's weekly commentary, "Warning
Signs", posted on the Center's Internet site, www.anxietycenter.com, and
excerpted widely on other sites.
His new book, "Warning Signs" has just been published by Merril Press. It is
a collection of his weekly columns of the same name. Caruba is the author of
several books, a contributor to others, and widely published in consumer and
trade publications over his long career.
A former fulltime journalist, Caruba is a member of the Society of
Professional Journalists, as well as the American Society of Journalists and
Authors, and the National Association of Science Writers. In addition, a
charter member of the National Book Critics Circle, Caruba maintains
www.bookviews.com, an Internet site offering news of the best new fiction and
non-fiction.
These days, he writes about a broad spectrum of public issues including
environmentalism, education, energy, immigration, the United Nations, and
international affairs. He has authored three "pocket" guides, "The Pocket
Guide to Militant Islam", "America: A Nation Without Borders", and "The
United Nations Versus the United States", each available from the Internet
site of The National Anxiety Center.
The CEO of The Caruba Organization (www.caruba.com), he is a veteran public
relations counselor.
He can be contacted by email at acaruba@aol.com or by writing to him care of The Caruba Organization, 28 West Third Street, Suite 1321, South Orange, NJ 07079.
Articles
2.16.09
The Plain Truth About Glorious Carbon Dioxide
Topic: Environmental, Emissions & Carbon Management Article Viewed 16667 Times;
220 comments We are going to begin 2009 with a lesson about carbon dioxide (CO2). Why do we need to know about CO2? Because the President-elect, several of his choices for environmental and energy agencies, the Supreme Court and much of the U.S. Congress has no idea what they are talking about and, worse, want to pass legislation and regulations that will further bankrupt the United States of America.
11.7.08
States & Utilities Unite to Rob Energy Consumers
Topic: Carbon Markets Article Viewed 8718 Times;
147 comments Energy consumers in ten northeastern States are going to see their bills rise and probably not even know why. They will assume that it is tied to the cost of oil, natural gas, or coal, but it does so only obliquely.
8.8.08
US Arctic Oil May be LOST to the UN
Topic: Fossil & Biomass Article Viewed 5932 Times;
26 comments "The Arctic may hold 90 billion barrels of oil, more than all the known reserves of Nigeria, Kazakhstan, and Mexico combined, and enough to supply U.S. demand for 12 years." One would have thought Joe Carroll's Bloomberg News report would have evoked some interest by the public and other media outlets. Instead, news of the U.S. Geological Survey was greeted mostly by a giant collective yawn.
5.6.08
From the Soviet Union to Putin's Russia
Topic: International Article Viewed 4728 Times;
30 comments When the government of the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the fall was attributed to all kinds of reasons. There was the failed invasion of Afghanistan, the symbolic fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and, after some desperate efforts by Mikhail Gorbechev, Communism as a guiding principle and economic system simply imploded.
2.27.08
America is Running Out of Electricity
Topic: Fossil & Biomass Article Viewed 8140 Times;
77 comments The provision of electrical power nationwide has become the chosen battleground for environmental groups laboring night and day to insure there will not be enough of it to meet our needs.
1.28.08
Congress Conjures Up an Energy Deficit
Topic: Business & Corporate Article Viewed 7062 Times;
75 comments Let's understand a simple fact. You cannot squeeze any more energy out of a gallon of gasoline than already exists. If you mix it with an additive which itself provides less energy, what you get is less energy.
12.3.07
Kansas Rules Against Electricity
Topic: Fossil & Biomass Article Viewed 5466 Times;
46 comments On October 19, a Washington Post article was headlined "Power Plant Rejected Over Carbon Dioxide for First Time." Let's hope it is the last time or those of us around the nation who depend on coal to produce over 50% of the electricity we use are in big trouble.
10.23.07
Not Peak Oil, But Lots More Oil
Topic: Fossil & Biomass Article Viewed 6013 Times;
34 comments There was an interesting news item out of Moscow in late September to which most people probably paid little heed. "Russia is one of several countries that have rushed to lay claims to the area where a U.S. Study suggests as much as 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas could be hidden."
4.9.07
The Supreme Court's Bad Science and Bad Decision
Topic: Policy, Regulatory & Legal Article Viewed 5929 Times;
18 comments In March of 1857, in the famed Dred Scott decision, the United States Supreme Court declared that all blacks, slaves as well as free, were not and could never become citizens of the United States. Sometimes the Supreme Court makes spectacularly bad decisions and this was manifest on April 2 when five of its nine members yielded to the specious argument by twelve States and several environmental organizations.
2.21.07
The Ethanol Debacle
Topic: Fossil & Biomass Article Viewed 7682 Times;
31 comments The State of the Union speech revived the continuing debate over ethanol as a gasoline additive. Energy industry professionals know that the world is not running out of oil, although it is becoming more costly and difficult to find and extract.
1.31.07
Achieving Energy Independence
Topic: Business & Corporate Article Viewed 9298 Times;
145 comments One of the key elements of President George W. Bush's State of the Union speech involved energy issues. Lost in the discussion was the fact that the United States has vast amounts of known, untapped reserves of oil and natural gas, reason to expand its nuclear capabilities, and, in my view, should begin now--on a "wartime" schedule--an accelerated effort to achieve energy independence.
12.6.06
The Californication of the Economy
Topic: Environmental, Emissions & Carbon Management Article Viewed 6902 Times;
28 comments The midterm elections were held on November 7th and by November 10th the Associated Press reported that California Senator Barbara Boxer was promising "major policy shifts on global warming, air quality and toxic-waste cleanup as she prepares to lead the U.S. Senate's environmental committee."
10.12.06
Peak Oil or Lots More Oil?
Topic: Fossil & Biomass Article Viewed 7313 Times;
38 comments In May 2006 I wrote, "I know about the "Peak Oil" theory that says we either have or are about the reach the point of diminishing returns regarding the world's oil supply, but these recent discoveries suggest there is still plenty of oil to be found." In that commentary I documented nearly a dozen new fields of oil and natural gas discovered since 1995.
9.18.06
California Commits Eco-Suicide
Topic: Environmental, Emissions & Carbon Management Article Viewed 12836 Times;
156 comments In late August, Democrats in the California legislature and the Governor agreed to a deal that would impose a limit on all greenhouse gas emissions. As reported by the Associated Press, "The bill would require the state's major industries - such as utility plants, oil and gas refineries, and cement kilns - to reduce their emissions of the pollutants widely believed to contribute to global warming."
6.26.06
Drilling for the Future
Topic: Fossil & Biomass Article Viewed 5451 Times;
11 comments As the price of gasoline and the myriad products that utilize petroleum in their manufacture rises, Americans are going to ask why the Congress has resisted accessing the billions of barrels’ worth of oil and natural gas in our offshore continental shelf.
3.13.06
What's So Great About Ethanol?
Topic: Fossil & Biomass Article Viewed 10028 Times;
30 comments I don't know how many years I have been hearing how great ethanol is as a gasoline additive. I mostly thought of it as a boon to farmers who raise corn and other crops that are converted into this form of alcohol. The energy bill, a mishmash of giveaways to all kinds of energy interests, mandated more use of ethanol and biodiesel.
12.30.05
A Big Dose of Energy Reality
Topic: Fossil & Biomass Article Viewed 9480 Times;
20 comments Americans get interested in energy when either gasoline or heating prices rise. The rest of the time, we assume that, either there are sufficient energy resources, i.e., coal, natural gas, and oil, or we buy into the doom and gloom "experts", that we are running out of everything.
11.23.05
It's Getting Colder, Not Warmer
Topic: Environmental, Emissions & Carbon Management Article Viewed 9392 Times;
39 comments In 1922, the poet Robert Frost wrote, "Some say the world will end in fire,/ some say in ice./ From what I've tasted of desire/ I hold with those who favor fire,/ but if it had to perish twice,/ I think that for destruction ice /is also great/ and would suffice ." The likelihood, the science, points to ice.
6.7.05
Oil Now and Oil Tomorrow
Topic: Fossil & Biomass Article Viewed 8519 Times;
51 comments Between January and this month, the cost for filling my car tank has doubled. People ask why. The answer is that years of effort by environmental organizations have finally paid off, placing so many restrictions on this nation's ability to keep pace with its energy needs, that everyone will now pay more and maybe, in the process, figure out who to blame.
11.10.03
The Case for Off-Shore Drilling
Topic: Fossil & Biomass Article Viewed 5461 Times;
10 comments For a small State, New Jersey continues to send a large delegation of mental midgets to Washington, DC to represent it. In the last election, Sen. Robert Torricelli, the man famed for leaking the name of a CIA agent, was yanked off the ticket at the last minute as the result of some serious ethical lapses.
6.6.03
Hyping Hydrogen: The Energy Scam
Topic: Distributed & Cogeneration Article Viewed 6035 Times;
12 comments Not long ago I wrote a commentary, “The Great Hydrogen Myth”, in which I offered my opinion that throwing another billion dollars at more research for the purpose of replacing oil, coal, or natural gas, was a huge waste.
4.21.03
The Great Hydrogen Myth
Topic: Distributed & Cogeneration Article Viewed 6463 Times;
30 comments Over the last twenty-five years, the government has spent $1.2 billion on fuel cell research and development. During his recent State of the Union speech, President Bush proposed spending another billion for further research. Automakers have already spent millions to no avail.
