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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.

All of our Emergent partners are back from Wind Power 2008 in Houston, Texas. The conference was exciting and highly productive. A lot of new contacts have been made and we hope many new partnerships will emerge from the conference. Jayson is currently in Houston taking a seminar on GH WindFarmer, the software Emergent uses to optimize our wind farm designs prior to development.

This evening, we paid a visit to the Tiverton, Rhode Island Town Council to discuss the possibilities of a wind partnership. On our way to the Tiverton Town Hall, we visited the Portsmouth Abbey Wind Project, a 660kW wind turbine that has been operating at the Portsmouth Abbey for nearly 4 years. Pictured here is Chris beneath the spinning blades of the Abbey turbine.

Bloomberg News just released some comments from Richard Sandor, owner of the Chicago and London Climate Exchange:

Winds of change are being felt across the energy industry. As fossil fuels become less economically feasible to sustain our thirst for energy, new options are being explored. Renewable energy, earth’s naturally regenerative energy resources, becomes more financially attractive as the price of oil explodes. What makes these energy sources unique is that they can be harvested directly on site and distributed to surrounding communities. With renewable energy, centralized power production suddenly becomes less efficient and less economically sound.

Researchers at Tufts University completed a study for the Natural Resources Defense Council detailing the huge costs the US will face if climate change goes un-addressed. Short and sweet, with some very scary numbers.

CHECK IT OUT!

“If the two biggest oil producers in the world can no longer increase production, that’s a catastrophe, not a bubble,” said Stephen Leeb, an investment manager who has authored two books on oil scarcity. Apparently Russia and Saudi Arabia, the two largest pumpers of crude in the world are losing pumping capacity by the day; Saudi Arabia couldn’t increase oil output if it wanted to. Pure and simple, the current supply and demand scenario is driving the price of oil into the stratosphere. Wake up politicians! Cheap oil is dead.

The price of oil closed at over 133 dollars per barrel yesterday. Today, the front page of the NYTimes notes the price jumping over $135 per barrel in overnight trading, and the article then goes on to describe many of the downstream economic effects of the soaring price of oil.

We’d like to congratulate all our Emergent seniors at Tufts University in Massachusetts, who are graduating from their undergraduate studies on Sunday, May 18th. Jesse Gossett is graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Science and History. Jayson Uppal is graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering. And Jared Rodriguez, that’s me, is graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies and Civil Engineering. Congratulations guys! Now we can throw ourselves entirely into Emergent!