Friday Five: October 5, 2012

Now this is putting your money where your mouth (and lungs, and throat, and heart, and skin, and endocrine system...) is.
Group buys Wyoming oil leases to stop drilling
"The deal would end PXP’s plan to drill 136 gas wells near the Hoback River headwaters inside Bridger-Teton National Forest, [near Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming]. Opponents said the project would pollute the air, harm wildlife and taint pristine streams in a rolling landscape of meadows and forest."

There are signs that as we urbanize, we start to look at priorities and judge that maybe having one car for every 1.3 people is too many and we can still live a high quality of life without a personal vehicle.
The rich world's peak car moment: Car-pooling, car-sharing, car-ignoring
"[C]ar marketers are both accepting and pushing back against the "peak car" moment in the West. They understand that a weak economy makes big-ticket purchases hard. They understand that young people are getting crushed between expensive education and cheap jobs. They accept that cars have lost that halo of hipness they owned in the 1970s. But they also see a future beyond peak car abroad."

While other countries with higher qualities of life determine that renewable energy systems can form a large percentage of the generation mix....we debate about how much to continue subsidizing cola and oil.
German coal-fired generation of electricity falls while renewable generation rises
"The percentage of coal-fired electricity in German electricity generation has fallen from 56.7% in 1990 to 43.5% last year — a decrease of more than 10% despite a increase in total electricity generation during the same period of about 10%. At the same time the share of renewable energy in the electricity mix has increased from 3.6% to 19.9%, mostly due to the rapid development of wind energy and biomass."

So it is good news that we are starting to develop off-shore wind...and once the first offshore wind project moves forward, all signs point to the Great Lakes being one of the next "hot spots" for wind development.
Deepwater to build first US off-shore wind farm
"The privately held U.S. wind power developer plans to begin construction of the $250 million, 30-megawatt (MW) Block Island project by early 2014, ahead of a farm proposed by Cape Wind long expected to be the nation's first offshore facility."

Meanwhile, Chicago announces a small step forward, then decides to take it very slowly and deliberately.
Emanuel: City will stick with voluntary water meters
"By 2015, the average annual water and sewer bill for a single-family home in Chicago with a water meter is set to go from roughly $339 in 2011 to $694. The average bill for a single-family home without a meter is set to go from $450 in 2011 to $920 in 2015."