Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Presenting in Anacortes on August 13th

In this new era of melting polar icecaps and skyrocketing energy prices, some citizens from our county got together and formed Skagit Beat the Heat. This group has been working to raise awareness of climate change and ways to slow its impact. Now Beat the Heat has invited us to present at their August 13th meeting, at Village Pizza in Anacortes (downtown at 807 Commercial Avenue) starting at 6pm. The meeting is open to the public and any of our other supporters are welcome to show up, especially if they happened to be searching for local groups doing something about global warming!

We are redoubling our efforts to get out in the community, so look for us at various events--it being an election year helps too. I'll also be posting more in coming days, as our schedule has finally opened up after a July full of important dates. Watch this space!

Monday, July 7, 2008

Now we have a problem

Most of the time, the weekly coal price update from the Energy Information Agency isn't all that interesting. However, in recent months the spot price of eastern low-sulfur coal has broken loose of its historical range and rocketed up into new territory. This is a problem because utilities have been counting on coal to keep providing cheap power while the price of natural gas bounces around. If coal isn't cheap, the price of electricity can no longer be held in check. The legendary mines of Wyoming's Powder River Basin are a thousand miles from anywhere, and the trains hauling that coal use a lot of diesel--high energy prices have pushed through the final line of defense. Now we have a problem.