(Credit:
David Gardiner & Associates/NRDC)
The effects that fluctuating oil prices have had on the average American vary widely by state, according to a report released Wednesday by the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"Fighting Oil Addiction: Ranking States' Oil Vulnerability and Solutions for Change," a report (PDF) prepared for the NRDC by David Gardiner & Associates, ranks U.S. states in two major ways. One list ranks U.S. states by their dependence on oil, taking in factors like gas prices. The other ranks states' efforts to reduce oil dependence, taking into account public transportation funding, state fleet efficiency, hybrid car purchasing incentives, emissions standards, and clean-energy projects.
In 2008, Mississippi, Montana, South Carolina, and Oklahoma residents were the hardest hit by oil prices with their drivers spending a larger percentage of their income on gasoline than other Americans. The NRDC's official ranking is by both percentage of income and actual dollar amount spent on gas. So while Mississippi ranked worst for drivers spending the largest percentage of their income on gas, Oklahoma drivers actually spent the most, spending on average $2,766.65 in 2008.
There were some surprises in the report.
A state that you might not normally associate with clean energy (or clean air) seems to have reinvented itself. New Jersey, who just recently announced a major solar effort for its leading power utility, was ranked seventh for states doing the most to promote clean-energy technology and reduce oil dependency in 2008. Not surprisingly, California, which has also been buying big into solar power for utilities amid a plethora of other green initiatives throughout the state, was ranked first.
The states doing the most to wean residents off oil, according to the NRDC report:
- California
- Massachusetts
- Washington
- New Mexico
- Connecticut
- New York
- New Jersey
- Pennsylvania
- Oregon
- Florida
Ten states were also singled out by the NRDC for exerting the least amount of effort to wean themselves off oil in the organization's eyes.
"The failure of the 10 worst states to take meaningful action to reduce oil dependence exacerbates the national security and environmental harms associated with our current transportation habits. These and other states need to be drivers of change," the NRDC said in its report.
The 10 states making the least amount of effort to reduce oil dependence, according to the NRDC report:
- West Virginia
- Idaho
- Wyoming
- Mississippi
- South Dakota
- Oklahoma
- Alabama
- Arkansas
- North Dakota
- Alaska
A new set of layers for Google Earth is trying to make it easier for solar and wind farm developers to figure out where they are least and most likely to be challenged.
The Path to Green Energy, as the Google Earth tool is called, provides information on lands legally prohibited from commercial development, on natural habitats of endangered species, and on lands proposed for inclusion into the federal wilderness system.
The tool was developed by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the National Audubon Society with sponsorship from Google.org's Geo Challenge Grants. The grants program provides nonprofits with money to develop Google Earth tools. Each group receives a $25,000 grant to gather and organize data from within its own organization and from government agencies, including wildlife, game, and fish commissions.
The Path to Green Energy tool, which went live Wednesday, is freely available to the public and currently covers the Western states and the Dakotas.
The tool shows 14 types of areas within three main categories of land protection. Layers can be turned on individually or seen in merged views.
Path to Green Energy tool breaks land protections into three main categories: prohibited, restricted, and "should be avoided."
(Credit: Google Earth)Representatives from the groups said in a teleconference Wednesday that they see the Path to Green Energy maps as a proactive step in reaching out to energy developers before disputes arise over sensitive areas.
Locating environmentally responsible sites "will expedite rather than delay proposals (and) help gain widespread support for a project. It makes good business sense where your chances of getting approval quicker are better," said Johanna Wald, senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Environmentalists, too, want to see renewable energy projects like solar and wind farms go up quickly, and don't want to be tied up in legal battles or prevent progress any more than developers do, according to Wald.
"It will minimize permitting periods, conflict, and oppositions, which in turn will get us where we need to go: more renewable energy in people's homes," said Brian Rutledge, executive director of Audubon Wyoming.
The maps are timely since Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is putting together a federal task force to investigate which public lands could be used for renewable energy generation and transmission. On March 11, Salazar said that the Bureau of Land Management had identified 21 million acres of public land with wind energy potential in Western states, 29 million acres in Southwestern states with solar energy potential, and 140 million acres in Western states and Alaska with geothermal resource potential.
Wald said the Path to Green Energy tool might be useful for researching that task.
After years of confusion and controversy between developers and environmentalists throughout Wyoming, for example, a pilot version of the tool was used to identify habitats of the Greater Sage Grouse population. A current layer in Google now shows the lands that were signed into protection by Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal's executive order last August, while another shows grouse breeding density./p>
"In terms of the potential cost savings, they will be enormous. Anyone who is in the transmission or renewable energy business talks about cost in terms of money, time, and getting these approvals. Sometimes that can take far longer than the build-out process. So if we can streamline that process, it can help enormously," said David Bercovich, program manager at Google.org.
Path to Green Energy tool in Google Earth showing grouse breeding density and lands protected by the Wyoming governor's executive order.
(Credit: Google Earth)
Individual gamers and console makers could significantly reduce energy use from video games, according to study that identified the Nintendo Wii as the industry's most efficient "juice sipper."
Gamers waste a lot of energy simply because they don't turn their machines off when they're not playing, according to environmental advocacy group the National Resources Defense Council and consulting firm Ecos. The analysis, published last week, found that turning off machines when idle could save gamers $100 a year.
Estimated energy usage from different consoles, with comparisons between people who turn off games when idle and those that don't.
(Credit: NRDC and Ecos)The authors said the industry should adopt automatic power-down features and make it easier for consumers to locate these features. Idle machines consume nearly as much energy as when machines are turned on.
The XBox 360, for example, has a power-down feature, but it's turned off by default and is hard to activate because its buried deep in the menus. (For instructions on how to find existing power-down features, click here.)
In terms of energy consumption, Microsoft's XBox 360 is in the middle of the pack, consuming 119 watts in active mode, more than many desktop PCs.
The Nintendo Wii, meanwhile, consumes just 16 watts--less than most laptops--and the Sony PlayStation 3 burns through 150 watts in play mode. PlayStation 3 can update its software to add a power-management feature, but it's disabled by default, too.
The NRDC and Ecos recommend that gamers take the sensible step of turning their machines off (and saving where they are in the game) when they're not using them, a move that would lower their electricity bills and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
It also recommends that the next generation of video game machines have power-management features built in, such as an auto-save feature, a "sleep" button on the console, and automatic power-down after three hours of inactivity.
Energy-efficiency efforts in the computing industry, such as Climate Savers consortium, resulted in more standardized parts and measurements in things like as power supplies.
The study's authors estimate that taking similar steps in the gaming industry would cut the U.S. electricity bill by more than $1 billion per year as well as avoid 11 billion kilowatt hours of electricity and avoid seven million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
Because about 40 percent of U.S. homes have video games, the numbers on energy usage add up. The NRDC and Eco estimated that gamers consume roughly as much electricity in a year as the city of San Diego.
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