FILMMAKER’S NOTE: Kassi Fitzgerald appeared in the film “Haynesville” and immediately made a name for herself as a concerned citizen, conscientious environmentalist and, most importantly, a loving mom of two sons Matthew and Joseph. On Sunday, April 29, Kassi lost her son Joseph to a sudden illness. We are heartbroken that this has happened to such an amazing woman. Our thoughts and prayers go to her and her family. We have republished Joseph’s obituary below.

Joseph Caleb Fitzgerald , age 11, went home to be with Jesus on Sunday, April 29, 2012 at Willis-Knighton South ER after a sudden illness. Joseph was born in Shreveport, Louisiana and raised in Stonewall, Louisiana from age three. Joseph was a student at North Desoto Middle School where his favorite subject, his passion was art.

Joseph was a wonderful study in extremes. He could be quick to anger but also quick to hug. Joseph loved beautiful flowers and gardening we often talked about how bad people and bad experiences were like weeds in the garden, you just have to keep pulling them out and eventually you have more flowers than weeds. He loved to cook and had learned the different herbs in the garden and loved experimenting with them. Joseph loved jewels and jewelry making and art (his favorite art work was “Starry Night” by Van Gough. Music (his favorite songs were “Broken Wing” by Martina McBride and “Fire to The Rain” by Adele but he most related to Martina McBride’s song “Concrete Angel”. Joseph also enjoyed catching caterpillars, frogs and lizards and showing his Mom the differences between them. He was fascinated by bugs and reptiles and often spoke of being a gemologist or ichthyologist. Recently Joseph had begun to learn how to build things with his Mom and was excited to finally be getting the chance to use power tools.

Joseph loved the contemporary worship service at church and had an understanding of death and heaven beyond his years. He spoke of seeing his MauMau again someday and we know that now he is with her once again having conversations about bugs, jewelry, lizards, flowers and the many things that only she could relate to him about due to their similar early lives. Joseph will be missed my many. Our home will be quieter, our hearts will be sadder but we all will take comfort in knowing Joseph will never suffer again. He will never feel anger or pain or have nightmares again. Now he will only know joy and peace and the beauty of God’s love and for that we are grateful.

Joseph was preceded in death by his MauMau, M. Sue Harris and is survived by Grandparents, Ron and Shirley Kendrick and Jack and Thelma Fitzgerald; his Mom, Kassi Fitzgerald: Dad and Step Mom, Eddie and Elizabeth Fitzgerald; Brothers Clayton and Matthew Fitzgerald; biological Mom, Terri Jones; Mimi, Missi Dugas; biological sisters Breauna and Alia Jones and a host of loving Aunts and Uncles both biological and adopted by heart.

We would like to thank the North Desoto School System for their love and dedication to Joseph. We especially would like to thank Mrs. Angela Farmer, Mrs. Rocket, Mrs. Tara Falls, Couch Parker and Mrs. Shawnie Leach. We would also like to thank Dr. Clifton Vaughn and Counselor Lauren Finley for there steadfast dedication to Joseph.

Memorial services will be held Wednesday, May 2, 2012 at 4:30 PM at the First Southern Methodist Church in Stonewall, LA
In lieu of flowers the family requests that donations be made to the North Desoto Middle School art department or special education department in honor of Joseph.

We connected with the Director and Producer of ‘Haynesville.’

Click the link below to watch genConnect Senior Editor Randi Zucker interview Kallenberg on his new film “Haynesville,” which is about the United States’ hunt for new energy sources:

www.genconnect.com/career/director-gregory-kallenberg-haynesville-film-debut-video

Gregory Kallenberg’s diverse background in writing and film-making focusing on journalism and television has led him on a unique journey. Kallenberg has written for Esquire, The New York Times,Texas Monthly, Austin American Statesman’s XL magazine, and for Bluefield Productions, which produces shows for the History Channel and A&E. Before creating “Haynesville,” Kallenberg directed “Eating Levi,” which is about Levi Oliver’s quest for eating fame.

Contact: Chris Lyon, 318-213-6437, info@HaynesvilleMovie.com
EPK and graphic elements can be found at www.haynesvillemovie.com/downloads

Internationally Acclaimed Energy Documentary

to Receive Special Presentation

at the Aspen Ideas Festival

The new version of “Haynesville: A Nation’s Hunt for an Energy Future,” the highly acclaimed energy documentary, will be featured at the prestigious Aspen Ideas Festival (presented by The Aspen Institute and Atlantic Monthly) at a special screening event on Tuesday, June 28th at 7pm. The event will be open to the public and will include an all-star pre-screening panel discussion as well as a post-screening Q&A with the film’s director, Gregory Kallenberg.

“Along with being invited to speak at TEDx and premiering at SXSW, The Aspen Ideas Festival is among the highest honors the film has received. This festival is the place where the world’s great minds meet to discuss our greatest issues,” says Kallenberg, the film’s director. “I look at this as once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to present our film and its message of a sustainable and affordable clean energy future to this amazing group of thinkers.”

The updated and expanded “Haynesville” follows the historic discovery of the massive Haynesville Shale natural gas field found in northwest Louisiana and follows its impact on local people’s lives. The find is projected to hold 180 trillion cubic feet of gas or, in economic terms $1.75 trillion dollars worth of energy. The new version further addresses drilling issues and explores the impact the new shale gas discoveries could have on the United States’ energy future.

“The film provides a unique view into what it’s like to live through an energy boom and, in turn, what these resources could mean for our nation’s energy future,” said Mr. Kallenberg.

The Aspen Ideas Fest is a world-renowned event. The festival is known for hosting some of the most “inspired and provocative thinkers” from a wide range of fields of study to engage in stimulating discussions regarding the world’s most important topics. Past speakers include Bill Gates, Alan Greenspan, environmentalist Bill McKibben, and this year will include NPR’s Michele Norris, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and others.

“Energy and its sources are something we all take for granted. Energy is something we don’t really think about because it’s always there for us,” said Kallenberg. “Hopefully, ‘Haynesville’ helps give some perspective on where our energy comes from, the impact it has on people’s lives and, ultimately the potential benefit this energy could potentially have for the United States.”

“Haynesville” has been lauded as a balanced and highly personal look at how energy affects our country and has been called “Moving“, “A revelation!” and “A humane take on an increasingly relevant—and complicated—subject.”

SCREENING INFORMATION
“Haynesville: A Nation’s Hunt for an Energy Future” will screen at the Doerr Hosier Center – Aspen Meadows Resort Tuesday, June 28, 2011 as a part of The Path to the Clean Energy Future Evening Exchange at 7:00pm. Doors open for the screening at 7:30 and a post-screening Q&A with director Gregory Kallenberg will take place immediately following the film.

By Wendy Koch, USA TODAY

Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation Tuesday that sets the nation’s toughest renewable energy mandate, requiring utilities to draw 33% of their power from solar panels, windmills and other sources by 2020.

“There are people who think we can drill our way to happiness and prosperity,” the Democratic governor said at SunPower Corp./Flextronics plant, which makes solar panels in Milpitas, Calif., according to the Associated Press. “Instead of just taking oil from thousands of miles away, we’re taking the sun and converting it.”

Previously, California required utilities to get 20% of their power from renewable sources. Colorado approved a bill last year requiring 30% of its power by 2020.

Supporters of the higher standard, which takes effect in about three months, said it will reduce air pollution and create green energy jobs. “Public officials have decided to create thousands more jobs for Californians,” said Denise Brode, CEO of America Wind Energy Association, a trade group, in a statement.

Critics said the standard will increase electricity costs at least 7%, despite language in the legislation to limit cost increases, reports the AP. “Industry in California already pays electricity rates about 50% higher than the rest of the country,” said Gino DiCaro, spokesman for the California Manufacturers and Technology Association.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu, who joined Brown at the bill signing ceremony, said the U.S. goal is to make solar energy cost-competitive with all other forms of energy by 2020. He announced a $1.2 billion conditional loan guarantee for a SunPower solar project in San Luis Obispo County that’s expected to power 60,000 homes and create 350 jobs.

Chu announced a $1.6 billion loan guarantee Monday for a BrightSource Inc. solar plant in the Mojave Desert that could create 1,000 jobs and power 85,000 homes.

Fast-forward to summer 2011, and the Green Machine is producing fuel-free, emission-free power at a Mississippi oil field, generating geothermal energy from the hot wastewater that oil and gas producers consider a nuisance.  The Mississippi project, one of 13 Green Machine installations currently operating internationally, was under a spotlight as SMU’s Geothermal Laboratory mounted its fifth international symposium, June 14-15, aimed at spurring interest in geothermal energy from oil and gas producers.

“We are offsetting electric consumption on the site with power generated from hot water,” said Loy Sneary, CEO of Gulf Coast Energy, a Texas-based company that distributes the Green Machine for ElectraTherm, Inc.  “It has been talked about for a long time, people have been researching it and there have been a lot of concepts tested – this is the first time it’s really been done with a modular solution, installed in 50 hours and with the entire system mounted to a tractor-trailer skid.”

Scientists in SMU’s Geothermal Laboratory in the Huffington Department of Earth Sciences in Dedman College see a natural partnership in co-production of geothermal energy from oil and gas wells.  Large quantities of water are produced with the extraction of oil and gas, either because it was present in the reservoir before drilling, or because water was injected into the formation to force oil and gas to the surface.

Historically, geothermal production in the United States has been limited to tectonically active regions with extremely hot, naturally pressurized waters – like The Geysers Field in California.  But newly developed technology like the Green Machine allows for the generation of electricity from moderately hot water. Sneary sought advice from SMU’s Geothermal Laboratory in finding oil and gas production sites likely to have sufficient heat flows to support the Green Machine’s production and, as a result, contacted Denbury Resources. The Plano-based company is in the business of revitalizing old wells by injecting carbon dioxide into the reservoir, which increases reservoir pressure while reducing the oil’s viscosity. This process allows the recovery of oil that otherwise would not be produced.

The data that SMU provided Sneary made it clear that the water being produced at approximately 204 degrees Fahrenheit by Denbury wells near Laurel, Miss., likely had sufficient heat flow for the Green Machine.   “We try and support valid research projects where possible,” said Gordon Moore, regional facility engineering manager at Denbury.  “At that point, the unit at SMU was operational, and they invited us to come down to SMU and take a look at it.”

The Green Machine is designed for 30-65 kilowatts of power output, but the lower temperature and flow at the Laurel demonstration site generates a lower output, producing 19 kilowatts of power. According to Moore, this is enough to offset about 20 percent of the energy required to run the down-hole pump on the oil well it is paired with. The machine was installed in May, and SMU geothermal experts say this kind of co-generation can be particularly effective to reduce the energy costs for pumping hard to reach oil.

The Green Machine is a relatively small unit – about the size of a small garden shed. This allows for easy transport, with the entire system mounted on one trailer skid. The hot water is separated from the oil and gas that it is pumped out with, and the produced water then heats refrigerant in the Green Machine that expands into high-pressure vapor and, in turn, drives a generator.  Proponents of this type of unit say its portability is one of its biggest benefits.

“ElectraTherm deployed the Green Machine at Denbury to connect and generate electricity seamlessly, and we are excited with the results – 50 hours installation time is a great accomplishment for the first time,” said John Fox, CEO of ElectraTherm. “The ongoing operational lessons we learn from this demonstration will benefit future installations with higher performance capabilities.”

Read more about Geothermal Energy Utilization Associated With Oil & Gas Development.

PARIS — Keeping any airplane aloft requires a delicate balance of four forces: lift, drag, weight and thrust. André Borschberg’s requires a fifth factor to be in perfect equilibrium as well.

During the day, his slender, propeller-driven plane is powered in flight by the energy it collects from the sun through an array of solar cells

atop its 64-meter, or 208-foot, wingspan. For the plane to continue flying through the night, however, Mr. Borschberg must carefully ration that energy, which is stored in the aircraft’s 450 kilograms, or 990 pounds, of lithium-ion batteries. In this way, he said, the plane could theoretically fly indefinitely.

“It has become a game,” Mr. Borschberg, a former Swiss Air Force fighter pilot, said of his aircraft, the Solar Impulse. “It’s not a question of flying fast. It’s how do you manage to keep flying until the sun rises the following day.”
Taking wing from Brussels without burning fuel, emitting noise or trailing pollution, the experimental plane arrived at Le Bourget airport, north of Paris, last week — although it took nearly 16 hours for the craft, the guest of honor at Paris Air Show this year, set to open Monday.

The show is a global coming-out party for a project that has won admiration from many in the aviation world for its promotion of renewable energy.

“Presenting this technology to the public and showing that you can fly an aircraft with no fuel — that shows the progress this industry has made in its environmental consciousness,” said Damien Lasou, a managing director and aerospace analyst at Accenture in Paris.
Nonetheless, some industry executives privately dismiss the plane as little more than a vanity project of Mr. Borschberg and his business partner, Dr. Bertrand Piccard, with scant commercial prospects, at least for the foreseeable future.

The Solar Impulse, which has been in development since 2005, attracted worldwide attention last July when it completed its first test flight of more than 24 hours, circling high above the Jura Mountains of northern Switzerland and relying on the power generated by the 11,628 solar cells across the upper surface of its wingspan, which is just a touch wider than that of a Boeing 747.

Read the rest of the article at the New York Times.

Taxi Medallion Management aims to drive down its total emissions by 25 percent, Crain’s Chicago Business reports.

The Ford Transit Connect vans that the Yellow Cab Chicago affiliate purchased will help it reach that goal: natural gas emits fewer pollutants and fewer greenhouse gases.

The vans are also more fuel efficient — 23 miles per gallon, up 21 percent from a regular sedan cab, according to Crain’s. The vans are set to arrive in March.

Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local-beat/Cab-Co-To-Run-Taxis-On-Natural-Gas-114416709.html#ixzz1CMSlT19N

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Click here to listen to the entire story…

TEXT OF STORY

KAI RYSSDAL: Three years ago, Marketplace’s Sarah Gardner did a story about American nuclear power, about how that industry was gearing up for a big comeback. There were new tax credits, building permits and regulatory changes in the air. Suffice it to say, a lot has changed.

So I dug up that 2007 “nuclear renaissance” piece from the Marketplace archives. It opens with a sound bite from David Crane, the CEO of NRG Energy. His company had just filed the first petition to build a nuclear power plant in the U.S. in nearly 30 years.

DAVID CRANE: It’s important for all of us to recognize that that was then, and this is now. The nuclear industry today is not the nuclear industry of the 1970s.

When I interviewed Crane in 2007, he was jazzed about safety advances in nuclear technology and new federal loan guarantees. Other utility execs were too. By 2008, they’d drawn up plans to build at least two dozen new reactors here. Fast forward to 2011…

CRANE: All I would say is that the process has taken a very long time.

Crane still hasn’t gotten a desperately needed loan guarantee. And his company’s already shelled out half a billion on this nuclear venture, and they haven’t broken ground yet.

PAUL PATTERSON: I think the reality caught up with the hype, so to speak.

Energy analyst Paul Patterson says it’s not just NRG’s nuclear power dreams that are on hold. In fact, most of a few dozen proposed reactors are in limbo. Congress never did pass a cap on greenhouse gases emitted by coal burning power plants, which would have made fossil fuels more expensive and nuclear power more competitive. And federal subsidies never reached the levels nuclear lobbyists hoped for. But the biggest, baddest enemy of that “nuclear revival”? Cheap natural gas.

Again, CEO David Crane.

DAVID CRANE: It was absolutely not predicted by anybody, expert or soothsayer.

A glut of natural gas has driven down prices and now makes nuclear look wildly expensive. Natural gas is a fossil fuel, but emits half the greenhouse gases of coal. Energy companies have discovered and tapped into huge reserves of shale gas in the U.S.

Bernard Weinstein is associate director of the Maguire Energy Institute in Dallas.

BERNARD WEINSTEIN: We’ve got at least a 200-year supply of natural gas in the United States. So if you’re a utility executive and you’re scratching your head, maybe I don’t want to commit to a nuclear plant right now.

Peter Bradford, a former nuclear regulator, says nuclear power’s always been a hard sell. Its history of cost overruns and plant cancellations means Wall Street won’t touch it. And the feds are cautious too. Last fall, Constellation Energy walked away from a promising nuclear project in Maryland.

Bradford said the Department of Energy demanded what Constellation called a “shockingly high” fee for a government loan guarantee.

PETER BRADFORD: And the nuclear industry’s position now is “We can’t go forward in the face of a fee like that. We need something that’s more like a gift.”

And right now, any gifts from the feds are unlikely. So, what happens another three years from now? Well, if the experts are right this time, the industry will be lucky to have a few nuclear reactors under construction. Of course, as this story’s taught me, things can change.

I’m Sarah Gardner for Marketplace.

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Natural gas may be Uncle Sam’s most ignored blessing. With resources now equivalent to Iran’s oil reserves, domestic shale gas offers a chance to meaningfully reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil, cut the deficit and even reduce greenhouse emissions.

Every modern president since Richard Nixon has paid lip service to the quest for energy independence. Similarly, the bloated trade deficit and climate change have become political obsessions over the past decade. Yet precious little has been done to deploy America’s growing gas endowment to solve these problems.

To be fair, U.S. politicians have had little time to react. Just a few years ago it looked like falling domestic gas production would force the United States to rely increasingly on imports. Instead new drilling technologies — hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling — have enabled energy firms to tap massive quantities of gas trapped in rock.

Just last month, the Department of Energy more than doubled estimates of recoverable shale reserves to 827 trillion cubic feet — the energy equivalent of roughly 140 billion barrels of oil. That’s slightly greater than the proven oil reserves of Iran, the world’s third-largest repository of crude.

As gas reserves have ballooned, so has the potential to help solve decades-old policy conundrums, starting with America’s addiction to foreign oil. Last year the tab for the 12 million barrels of oil the U.S. imports daily came to around US$270-billion — accounting for roughly half the total trade deficit.
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/Shale+Uncle+saviour/4100996/story.html#ixzz1BzfgfQ1D

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BEIJING — Aided by at least $43 million in assistance from the government of Massachusetts and an innovative solar energytechnology, Evergreen Solar emerged in the last three years as the third-largest maker of solar panels in the United States.

But now the company is closing its main American factory, laying off the 800 workers by the end of March and shifting production to a joint venture with a Chinese company in central China. Evergreen cited the much higher government support available in China.

The factory closing in Devens, Mass., which Evergreen announced earlier this week, has set off political recriminations and finger-pointing in Massachusetts. And it comes just as President Hu Jintao of China is scheduled for a state visit next week to Washington, where the agenda is likely to include tensions between the United States and China over trade and energy policy.

The Obama administration has been investigating whether China has violated the free trade rules of the World Trade Organization with its extensive subsidies to the manufacturers of solar panels and other clean energy products.

While a few types of government subsidies are permitted under international trade agreements, they are not supposed to give special advantages to exports — something that China’s critics accuse it of doing. The Chinese government has strongly denied that any of its clean energy policies have violated W.T.O. rules.

Although solar energy still accounts for only a tiny fraction of American power production, declining prices and concerns about global warming give solar power a prominent place in United States plans for a clean energy future — even if critics say the federal government is still not doing enough to foster its adoption.

Beyond the issues of trade and jobs, solar power experts see broader implications. They say that after many years of relying on unstable governments in the Middle East for oil, the United States now looks likely to rely on China to tap energy from the sun.

Evergreen, in announcing its move to China, was unusually candid about its motives. Michael El-Hillow, the chief executive, said in a statement that his company had decided to close the Massachusetts factory in response to plunging prices for solar panels. World prices have fallen as much as two-thirds in the last three years — including a drop of 10 percent during last year’s fourth quarter alone.

Chinese manufacturers, Mr. El-Hillow said in the statement, have been able to push prices down sharply because they receive considerable help from the Chinese government and state-owned banks, and because manufacturing costs are generally lower in China.

“While the United States and other Western industrial economies are beneficiaries of rapidly declining installation costs of solar energy, we expect the United States will continue to be at a disadvantage from a manufacturing standpoint,” he said.

Even though Evergreen opened its Devens plant, with all new equipment, only in 2008, it began talks with Chinese companies in early 2009. In September 2010, the company opened its factory in Wuhan, China, and will now rely on that operation.

An Evergreen spokesman said Mr. El-Hillow was not available to comment for this article.

Other solar panel manufacturers are also struggling in the United States. Solyndra, a Silicon Valley business, received a visit from President Obama in May and a $535 million federal loan guarantee, only to say in November that it was shutting one of its two American plants and would delay expansion of the other.

First Solar, an American company, is one of the world’s largest solar power vendors. But most of its products are made overseas.

Chinese solar panel manufacturers accounted for slightly over half the world’s production last year. Their share of the American market has grown nearly sixfold in the last two years, to 23 percent in 2010 and is still rising fast, according to GTM Research, a renewable energy market analysis firm in Cambridge, Mass.

In addition to solar energy, China just passed the United States as the world’s largest builder and installer of wind turbines.

The closing of the Evergreen factory has prompted finger-pointing in Massachusetts.

Ian A. Bowles, the former energy and environment chief for Gov. Deval L. Patrick, a Democrat who pushed for the solar panel factory to be located in Massachusetts, said the federal government had not helped the American industry enough or done enough to challenge Chinese government subsidies for its industry. Evergreen has received no federal money.

“The federal government has brought a knife to a gun fight,” Mr. Bowles said. “Its support is completely out of proportion to the support displayed by China — and even to that in Europe.”

Stephanie Mueller, the Energy Department press secretary, said the department was committed to supporting renewable energy. “Through our Loan Program Office we have offered conditional commitments for loan guarantees to 16 clean energy projects totaling nearly $16.5 billion,” she said. “We have finalized and closed half of those loan guarantees, and the program has ramped up significantly over the last year to move projects through the process quickly and efficiently while protecting taxpayer interests.”

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