The lazy days of summer have done quite a bit to bring attention to America’s energy problems. We’ve had heat waves that require us to turn out our pockets and foot the huge bill for air conditioning; we’ve realized that our annual 4^th of July trip to Lake George is no longer affordable because of gas prices. And we’ve been bombarded from all directions by the presidential candidates about all the myriad ways they hope to take the strain of high energy prices off of us.

Here are some thoughts that came to my mind when reading this article. Most of what I am saying does not have to do with exports but rather popular topics in the news today. The alternative energy/ sustainability movement is unlike anything the United States has seen since WWII. Instead of blue collar jobs we will have “green collar jobs”.

Some of you may have noticed some very negative news articles in the New York Times regarding wind power developments in northern New York State. There are quite a few topics for discussion among these articles, and if you don’t mind, we’re going to break them up into multiple posts to do justice to each issue. For this post I’d like to focus on what I like to call the ‘Green-Rush,’ similar in many ways to the American gold rush and almost identical to another rush much less spoken about but oh so much more applicable, the American rush for oil at the beginning of the last century.

Wednesday evening marked another successful illustration of Emergent Energy Group’s integrated approach to renewable energy development through community involvement.

A quote about high gas prices:

In Boston, where turnpike use declined by 600,000 cars in May, officials are pleading with public-transit passengers to travel at nonpeak times.

Time Magazine and CNN have released a list of ten positive effects of high gas prices on America and its people. Is $4 gasoline making America a better country? Read about it here.

Our Cohasset Wind Project at the Graham Waste Services (GWS) site in Cohasset, Massachusetts has been featured in the Cohasset Mariner and the Patriot Ledger; read more about the project here. Emergent has provided feasibility consulting services for the project, including permitting, impact on the community and wildlife, and power output studies.

Click for the video:

T. Boone Pickens has spent at least $10M on an advertising campaign, which aims to educate Americans on the current energy crisis and our reliance on foreign borne oil. Pickens believes over 25% of our electricity demand can come from wind energy in the Midwest alone. The Pickens Plan aims at reducing and eventually eliminating our oil imports by replacing our reliance on oil for transportation and electricity with alternative energy technology. This advertisement is currently running on all cable networks:

When President George Bush calls to repeal a 27 year-old ban on oil exploration in coastal waters surrounding the US, both law-makers and the American public need to take one step back and benefit from an oft’ forgotten virtue, perspective.

The NY Times reports that this past Monday Honda celebrated the start of production of its new FCX Clarity, the world’s first hydrogen-powered fuel-cell vehicle intended for mass production. Fuel cells work from combining hydrogen and oxygen from the outside air to make electricity in a process whose only byproducts are water and heat. Not only will the use of fuel-cell vehicles help alleviate the effects of climate change but it might eventually provide a financial benefit over oil which has risen to $140 per barrel.