Tis the season for music and merry making. Melissa Etheridge isn’t usually considered merry, but as the New Year rings in she’s wailing “All Ye Faithful.” Faithful green energy via biodiesel, that is. Or if you are not feeling the holiday spirit, think MTV’s “Pimp My Ride.” Her tricked out vehicle, however, is one fueled by used French fry oil. The overwrought balladeer recently switched her SUV to biodiesel, and has powered her tour vehicles with old grease since 2005. “The feeling that I‘m not using any fossil fuel just thrills me,” said BioMelissa this week in an announcement by the National Biodiesel Board. In early February, she will be singing to the biodiesel faithful at a conference in San Francisco. Wonder if BioWillie Nelson will join her? And there’s another rocker, Neil Young, into alternative fuels with his Link Volt project. A new anthem? Sex, alternative fuels, and rock ‘n roll? Dr. Snarky Sparks advises that Melissa’s Christmas stocking be filled with remedial science texts. That left-over grease burning in her tank comes from plants--like soybeans. Those plants use fertilizers and pesticides, which come from petroleum. Fossil fuel is also combusted in the oil for processing and transportation, making greenhouse gases and other pollutants. Many of Dr. Snarky’s colleagues continue to examine the overall carbon impacts of using corn, soybeans and other crops to create alternative transportation fuels. The last few months of studies predominantly show that the road to a carbon light future- like hell-is lined with good intensions. While it’s better to reuse the grease in a vehicle’s engine instead of the human heart, it’s not better living to be fed by fossil-fuel and carbon heavy agriculture. MTV might consider a new reality show: Pimp My Budget. State Assembly Republican leader Mike Villines (R-Fresno) is pushing to get the next round of budget lyrics to include extending the deadlines of the state’s climate protection law, AB 32. He wants an outside economic analysis of the law requiring a 30 percent reduction in state greenhouse gases. Although Dr. Snarky welcomes a second opinion, AB 32 is lawyered up enough as it is, and a push for a third party analysis could push the patient to life support. U.S. Senator James Inofe (R-OK) could use a second opinion, however. He may have thought he was the dancing the Nutcracker when charging that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials violated the law when providing public information about the agency’s views on whether to give California the green light on its tailpipe emission law. Robbed of his ballet slippers, though, his argument against California gets booed offstage. According to a report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General, the EPA’s four-page backgrounder provided to fellow Republican William Reilly, who used to head EPA, was a document released to the media months earlier during a Congressional press conference. In other words, when Inofe tried to take a bow on stage, the audience threw flowers to the non-rabid, Republican Reilly. One agency present under the tree: California Public Utilities prez Mike Peevey announced this week that his former adviser Julie Fitch is the new head of the CPUC energy division. She takes over from Sean Gallagher, a long-time PUCer who untied the strings to join Stirling Energy. Earlier, former CPUC Sacramento lobbyist Delaney Hunter became a consultant for Stirling. The company has been struggling to get its mega solar dish projects with Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric on the ground. In April, it got an injection of $100 million from Irish NTR, who claimed part ownership. Eggs Benedict Arnold? Among the many who want to avoid coal in their stockings is a group of environmental activists in Virginia. In the late fall, they formed a human chain to block access to a coal power project being built by Dominion, expected to produce 5.3 million tons of CO2 a year, according to Time magazine. The police were called in and tried to lure the protestors away by offering to buy them brunch. Protesters decided to bag brunch. Instead activists got stockings filled with coal--a $400 fine and the fear of increased greenhouse gas emissions. If you’ve never been booked into jail, like these protesters, it’s a process of enduring--and making mental notes. In this case, the mental notes are of not what happened, but what didn’t happen. Not once during a four-hour hearing by the California Air Resources Board this week culminating in the adoption of a sweeping greenhouse gas reduction plan, nor during the follow-up press conference, did board members, those testifying, or reporters utter a single word about the imminent bankruptcy of General Motors or Chrysler. To meet California’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals, the Air Board plan depends on the automakers spending tens of billions of dollars in the years ahead to retool factories to produce more hybrid vehicles, plug-in hybrid vehicles, higher mileage gasoline-powered cars, and eventually pure battery electric cars. But, apparently Sacramento is on another planet than Detroit, where the emphasis is on how to keep auto plant doors open past Christmas. Older, more-emphysema-causing, crappy cars are staying the road longer and the factory retooling on Santa’s list is whited-out. In a non-Scrooge mood, Dr. Snarky is looking at her neighborhood lights. Perhaps the new crèche should be powered with photovoltaics, if the Vatican is an indication. The roof on the Vatican’s “Nervi Hall” is now covered with PV panels, according to Reuters.
