Pacific Gas & Electric Company is now under contract to produce 24% of its energy from renewables by 2013 with the signing of two new landmark solar energy deals.  The deals will set up the largest solar plants in the world, to be located on roughly 12.5 square miles of San Luis Obispo County, California.  One plant, in partnership with Topaz Solar Farms LLC, a subsidiary of Optisolar, will produce up to 550 MW of energy, while the other, done in partnership with High Plains Ranch II LLC, a subsidiary of Sunpower, will produce 250 MW.  The combined facilities will gernerate enough electricity to power 239,000 homes.

These new deals will propel Pacific Gas & Electric’s reliance on renewable sources of energy to a startling 24% by the year 2013, 4% more than the 20% mandated by California law.  Plus their 800 MW of electricity production vastly outproduces any other solar field currently in operation on earth with the nearest operational competitor being the recently completed Nevada Solar One which has a capacity of 64 MW.

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Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is sticking to her guns, firmly rejecting the notion the House solely vote on whether or not to drill offshore.  The California Democrat will instead introduce comprehensive energy legislation which includes limiting tax breaks for oil companies and funding alternative, renewable energy with the royalties from new drilling in approved areas.  The Republican backed measures for a simple yes or no vote on offshore drilling, sidestepping or ignoring all other energy concerns in the United States for the GOP’s corporate oil sponsors, were described as “a hoax on the American people,” by the Speaker.

The Baltimore-bred, San Francisco Congresswoman went on to tell KQED television’s “This Week in Northern California“:

You want to drill? We want the royalties for the American people, and we want that to pay for renewable energy resources. We want to connect all that together.

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Perhaps one good thing will come out of the brutal fighting between Russia and Georgia this past weekend; a renewed push away from oil.  Just when falling oil prices had begun to sap some of the urgency out of the need for a viable alternative to a petroleum based economy, Vladimir Putin’s newly enriched Russian Petrostate came through with yet another compelling reason to let oil go the way of the dinosaur.  The attacks on the tiny Democratic Republic of Georgia have not only highlighted the urgency of leaving the future of our energy needs in the hands of unpredictable, sometimes openly aggressive countries around the world.  They have also, at least temporarily, driven slumping oil prices back up, with Russian bombing campaigns over Georgia just nearly missing the Baku-Tblisi-Erzerum oil pipeline, a conduit for 1% of all world supplies, coming out of Azerbaijan.

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Fuel, and what fuel to use, has been the issue of the day for quite a few days now. With campaign ads about rising gas prices and offshore drilling plus new debates over whether biofuels are good because they help the environment or bad because they take food away from people, new solutions are no doubt in need.

Over at The Nation, Frances Cerra Whittelsey has an idea, one that I think is swell - people should eat less meat! It all comes down to one simple fact:

While there are daily references in the media to the diversion of corn to fuel-making, there’s hardly ever a mention of the fact that feeding our livestock uses 50 percent to 60 percent of the American corn crop. [The Nation]

More than that, the meat industry plays a pretty big role in global warming:

The shocking fact is that production of beef, pork and poultry is a bigger part of the climate problem than the cars and trucks we drive, indeed of the whole transportation sector. [The Nation]

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

TakePart Gang:

Obama Global Love Fest by Martin Musatov

Interview with Lawrence Lessig by Wendy Cohen

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Nicole Hughes:

Top 10 Ways to Green Your Move

Climate Change Activist Superglues Himself to UK Prime Minister

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Andy Kondrat:

Can Junk Mail Be Green?

Google Maps Adds Walking Directions

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Jon Popham:

Recycling Building Materials Greens Up Home Improvement

CA Hotel Owner’s Anti Same-Sex Marriage Donation Brings Boycott Calls

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Gina Telaroli:

Naming a Generation

Ebert and Roeper Exit: Time to Give a Lady the Thumbs UP

Google Maps, which very recently added a “public transit” option to its directions options, has gone a step further (no pun intended and I’m sorry) and added “walking” to the list of ways to get from here to there.  Here’s a screenshot captured by treehugger.com:

This is pretty exciting news for those of us that would get driving directions in a place like San Francisco and then try and figure out which streets were one-way that actually could be walked.

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Earlier this month, we told you that our Canadian friends, in Canada, had decided to go ahead and build a facility that will turn waste products into energy.  Well, as per usual, we Americans looked at that and decided we wanted one, so now I can proudly announce that by 2010, the United States will have a plant that will turn 90,000 tons of waste into 10.5 million gallons of ethanol, per year.  U.S.A.!  U.S.A.!  U.S.A.!

Fulcrum BioEnergy, Inc., a company based right near where I’m sitting here in the Bay Area, will build the facility ten miles East of Reno, Nevada, at a cost of $120 million.  In a press release announcing the news, Fulcrum CEO E. James Macias says,

Converting garbage waste into a clean, renewable fuel for cars has profound social and environmental benefits.  It will help mitigate our dependence on imported oil, lower the price of gasoline, reduce the amount of waste landfilled, lower greenhouse gases and create a new industry of jobs and economic growth.  Unlike conventional ethanol technology, which uses corn and other agricultural feedstock, our plant will utilize processed municipal solid waste which will not affect the cost or availability of our nation’s food supply.

Like the plant being built in Canada, the new facility will use gasification technology to convert waste into energy.

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The TakePart Top 10 Weekly Roundup is a compilation of the week’s most notable stories from our entertainment-meets-social-action blogging network. Check out some of our most popular stories of the week, as well as a few TakePart blogger favorites!

TakePart Gang:

Everything I Know About Climate Change, I Learned in the Fifth Grade by Martin Musatov

When Torture Is Condoned, Is FISA That Shocking? by Wendy Cohen

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Nicole Hughes:

Baltimore Woman Turns Tragedy Into Art

Why Don’t We Do More to Stop Global Warming?

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Andy Kondrat:

Foods You Should and Shouldn’t Buy Organic

Paper or Plastic? The Environmental Impact

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Jon Popham:

The Energy Independence Bill: A Filibuster Odyssey

“Bruno” Fools Mossad Agent

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Gina Telaroli:

While Iran Tests Missiles, Test These 5 Iranian Films

Mao’s Out, Time to Capitalize On the Olympics

Imagine a country suffering from the highest energy costs in its 232 year history. A country that imports 70% of its needs for an expensive, environmentally hazardous fuel that enriches some of the most unstable, oppressive governments on Earth to power its gargantuan transportation sector. Then imagine a burgeoning alternative energy industry, ready to take shape in the country, waiting to boom, hoping for the necessary government cooperation to get itself off the ground. The leadership of the country craft legislation to allow for investment tax credits for alternative energy, a boon to investors desperate to find a good place for capital in a risky economic market. A bill which would practically guarantee a groundswell of investment to fund the new industry. The bill passes with ease through the lower chamber of the country’s bicameral legislature. But when the bill enters the legislature’s upper house, the minority party stops the bill cold, by refusing to even allow debate on the legislation vis-a-vis a procedural trick.

Well guess what? You don’t have to imagine anymore, because the scenario presented above is taking place right now in Congress. The bill is The Energy Independence and Tax Relief Act (H.R. 6049). The upper house of the legislature is the United States Senate. The minority party blocking the measure are the Republicans and the parliamentary tactic they’re using to stop desperately needed investment and progress in the alternative energy sector is the filibuster.

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Nevada, it’s not just for gamblers anymore. The Silver State is seeing an industry boom the likes of which it hasn’t experienced since the growth of its gambling industry starting in the 1950’s. A state that was once on the verge of losing its statehood after changes in the mining industry caused a massive drain in population - which in turn lead the state to legalize both gambling and prostitution ,in certain underpopulated counties, in order to draw residents back within its borders - is now seeing the same arid, sun drenched conditions that burdened it being turned into an asset through the rapid growth of the solar power industry.

Witness the opening of Ausra’s solar thermal power plant factory in Las Vegas last week which will produce the hardware necessary to convert all that free, clean, renewable sunlight out there into power we all can use. At full capacity the plant can produce equipment to generate 700 MW of electricity - enough to power 500,000 homes. The future of solar looks practically limitless in Southern Nevada, with the Bureau of Land Management having received applications for production facilities capable of producing up to 10,000 MW, projects that could bring up to $40 Billion worth of investment to the state.

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