By: T. Boone Pickens

The Congressional Independence Day recess is here. The amount of time available to pass substantive legislation before both houses adjourn is dwindling.

Between the end of the July 4th Recess and the August Recess, Congress will try to pass the financial reform bill, and the Senate will fulfill its Constitutional duties on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. With all that, the single largest unfinished piece of business for the 111th Congress remains the adoption of a comprehensive energy bill.

I have been around this business for a long time, and I understand that an energy bill is likely to contain a great deal of compromise on key issues. That’s the nature of the system — you have compromise to get the things you really need and serve what you believe to be the greater good. The debate surrounding the balance between our environmental and energy polices, while important, should not delay us from adopting legislation to reduce our dependence on OPEC oil.

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The U.S. Department of Energy probably didn’t know what it was getting itself into when it announced an interpretive rule in early June that would effectively ban multi-head shower systems.

Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors – National Association has called on its members to strongly protest a DOE proposal that would ban multiple head showers. DOE proposes to interpret the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975, as amended, to mean that a showerhead is anything past the mixing valve. That would mean that all fittings could not spray more than 2.5 GPM combined.

“Without advance notice to stakeholders, the United States Department of Energy has issued an interpretive rule defining showerheads which will have an impact on the installation of higher-end bathrooms such as spas and showers that have both a showerhead and hand shower or shower towers,” PHCC-NA said in its alert.

DOE interprets that a showerhead is all components that are supplied standard together and function from one inlet (i.e., after the mixing valve) forming a single showerhead for purposes of the maximum water use standards.

Using this rule, DOE will find a showerhead to be noncompliant with the Energy Policy and Conservation Act’s maximum water use standard if the showerhead’s standard components, operating in their maximum design flow configuration, taken together use in excess of 2.5 GPM when flowing at 80-psi, even if each component individually does not exceed 2.5 GPM.

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By: Michael Newport

As we face serious environmental and economic ramifications from the Gulf Oil spill, more people are taking a closer look at the benefits of natural gas. Obama’s hotly anticipated climate change bill by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will include tax credits for natural gas fuels for trucks and manufacturers. Is natural gas America’s savior or a transitional fuel source that will tide us over until we become a cleantech nation awash in viable wind, solar and biofuel solutions?

The development of natural gas properties in the United States ensures our country’s greater energy independence from geopolitical strife and provides high paying energy sector jobs and prosperous communities. As the CEO of an energy company that is actively tapping our country’s natural gas reserves, even I don’t think natural gas is the answer to all our country’s energy needs. I simply believe that natural gas is a great, long-term bridge energy solution that provides an important part of our country’s energy equation.

America is awash in natural gas discoveries including Louisiana’s Haynesville Shale and new fields in Mississippi, New Mexico and Wyoming. As we engage in fruitful drilling of our natural gas resources, we should also build up our renewable and alternative energy technologies. Why? While our country has enough natural gas reserves to fuel Americans for many generations to come, we need to keep our eye on the ultimate prize — creating environmentally sound energy solutions that are not tied to natural resources. Americans needs to take a leadership role in developing alternative energy solutions.

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By: Andre Amado

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently granted sugarcane ethanol the status of “advanced biofuel” after recognizing — based on scientific studies — that it reduces the emission of greenhouse gases by 61% when compared to gasoline.

The world’s top economy is justifiably concerned about climate change, which increasingly threatens the quality of life on our planet. We all know that without energy, there can be no development, but the production and use of energy and industrial activity are large carbon emitters. The greatest challenge of our times is precisely to try to reverse the current trend of environmental degradation without disrupting economic growth in its role of generating employment, particularly in developing countries where the most shameful pollution is poverty.

Brazil has much to say in this debate. In the 1970s, the response we gave to the sudden increase in oil prices, when the country imported about 80% of our fuel, came in the form of the Pro-Alcohol Program. With ups and downs, government, businesses and research centers engaged in developing a competitive fuel — sugarcane ethanol — which quickly proved to be the product with higher agricultural productivity, higher energy efficiency, and more opportunity for socially-inclusive development, as wages paid in the sugar-alcohol industry are the highest in farming.

At the same time, the adoption of flex-fuel technologies ignited the process that enabled Brazil not only to develop the world’s cleanest energy matrix — with a 46% share of renewable energy against a world average of 13% and just 6% in industrialized countries — but also to prevent releasing carbon emissions to the tune of 850 million tons since the Pro-Alcohol program was enacted. It is worth stressing that Brazil is now the only country in the world where gasoline — not ethanol — is the alternative fuel.

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By: DAVID BRANCACCIO

The Danes have an enduring relationship with wind. This is symbolized by the big, honking wind turbine that looms like a bird of prey over the parking lot outside the Bella Center, the venue for the U.N. Climate Change Conference Denmark is hosting in December.

It was a Dane, physicist H.C. Oersted, who discovered electrical induction, the principle at work inside wind and other electric generators. Danish farmers brag they were the first in the world to generate electricity from wind.

The Danes are now hard at work cracking one of the great challenges of wind power: the fact that the wind blows when it darn well pleases. Sometimes it blows hard when there isn’t much need for the resulting electricity. Sometimes the air is becalmed when electricity is needed the most.

Wouldn’t it be nice if households in Denmark had nice batteries to store the wind power coming off the country’s wind farms?
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