WASHINGTON, September 10, 2009 – President Barack Obama today announced his intent to nominate Harris Sherman as Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Sherman will serve with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

“For decades, Harris Sherman has been dedicated to conserving and improving the environment in Colorado and beyond,” said Vilsack. “It would be a privilege to have a public servant like Harris join the USDA leadership team to help carry out President Obama’s vision for protecting the natural resources we need for a healthy and prosperous America.”

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SACRAMENTO, Calif.—Increasing California’s use of renewable energy would seem like a relatively simple goal, but it has become one of the hottest legislative debates as lawmakers rush to finish their business for the year.

Democrats are pushing two bills that would require utilities to get a third of their power from renewable energy sources by 2020. It would be the most aggressive such standard in the nation.

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WASHINGTON, Sept., 10, 2009 – Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced the selection of $17.5 million in community facilities projects that are being funded immediately with federal funds provided through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that President Obama signed into law in February. Altogether, USDA has announced nearly $252.5 million in Recovery Act funding for community facility projects to date.

“Facilities such as libraries, public buildings and community centers bring vitality to small towns and cities and these Recovery Act investments will benefit people throughout the country,” Vilsack said. “The Obama Administration is committed to strengthening communities in rural areas and these investments will help further that goal.”

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On Pier 96 on San Francisco Bay, a dirty, smelly leviathan of a machine roars and vibrates as it organizes 750 tons of refuse each day into neat cubes of plastic, paper, and metal.

It may look crude, but this three-story-high knot of conveyors, computers, bins, and gears is a central part of San Francisco’s growing effort to use technology and ingenuity as the most innovative companies do: to cut costs, solve problems, and improve life for customers (or in this case, citizens).

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BILLINGS, Mont.—The U.S. Navy plans to fly fighter jets and run ship engines powered by “biofuels” made from algae and oilseeds—part of a fledgling effort to reduce the military’s dependence on imported fossil fuels.

For the last several years, the military has conducted test flights using synthetic jet fuels derived from coal and natural gas.

Now the effort is being expanded to include fuels from algae and the oilseed crop camelina, which is grown primarily in arid parts of Montana.

Military biofuels contracts worth more than $11 million were awarded recently to Solazyme of San Francisco and Sustainable Oils of Bozeman, Mont.

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HONOLULU, HAWAII – Recognizing that the Aloha State has a growing problem with bed bugs, the Hawaii Pest Control Board has approved the use of ThermaPureHeat® – a proven and green technology – as a new weapon in the battle against bed bugs and their eggs.

Like many areas on the mainland, Hawaii has seen a large increase in the number of reported cases of bed bugs in hotels, condos and private homes. Up until this point only pesticides have been approved for use by pest control companies. Pesticides are usually applied in multiple treatments and are most effective when they can be sprayed directly onto bed bugs and their eggs – something very difficult if not impossible to do given the difficult-to-reach places where the creatures hide. In addition, in many cases when using pesticides to kill bed bugs, mattresses, box springs and bedding need to be replaced, which can be an expensive proposition.

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78 projects in 20 States and the District of Columbia will receive a total of $89 million to address problems caused by fire, insects, invasive species and disease

WASHINGTON, September 9, 2009 — Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced projects funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) for forest health protection projects. These 78 projects will receive almost $89 million and are located on forested lands in 30 states. This funding will be used to restore forest health conditions on Federal, State, and private forest and rangelands recovering from fires, forest insects and disease outbreaks. These conditions weaken affected lands and threaten the benefits these lands provide, including clean water, clean air, habitat for wildlife, resistance to wildfire, and recreational opportunities for the public.

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KINGMAN – An ad hoc committee formed earlier this year to assess Kingman’s economic development and marketing potential has been upgraded to a full-fledged, 11-member commission.

The Kingman City Council granted the request after the chairman of the Economic Development and Marketing Committee, Daniel Del Monaco, gave Council a presentation on the benefits such a commission could bring the city, as well as a list of initiatives his group plans to pursue.

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Researchers at the Cornell University have created the basic elements of a solar cell that they hope will lead to solar cells with much better efficiency. The research team fabricated a simple solar cell called a photodiode from an individual carbon nanotube.

About the size of a DNA molecule, the nanotube was wired and eventually revealed that the narrow, cylindrical structure of the carbon nanotube caused the electrons to neatly squeeze through one by one thereby generating more electricity by utilizing the spare energy from the light. Though scaling up the device would prove to be expensive, it does show a possibility where highly efficient solar cells could be developed to solve the energy crisis.

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At 72 dollars a barrel oil today sits at a dramatic, 50% lower level than last year’s high of 147. However, 147 dollar oil is not a price that either you or I ever experienced. It was a brief moment in time over several trading days, and then it was gone. The relevant price of oil in 2008 was of course the average for the whole year: 99 dollars. Sorry, if you thought you were living in a world of 150 dollar oil last year. You weren’t.

What’s astonishing therefore is that with national unemployment just below 10% and surely to go higher, oil this Summer has only been 25-35% lower than last year’s average. Oil at 65-75 is bad enough with 10% unemployment. When you consider the broader measure of unemployment however, now above 16%, oil prices in this range are a shocker.

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