It's so stimulating!

It's almost time to do your duty to pump up the economy while greening your home.

Texas Comptroller Susan Combs is quite excited about the approaching reservation period for the cash-for-clunkers home appliance program. Check it out, a special Web page that is ever-growing.

She's positively breathless about the opportunity, as evidenced by the countdown clock on the page.

Really, the motivation behind the drive is probably pure, but can't they find better writers to promote a $23 million program? How snappy is "Energy Efficient Appliance Rebate Program," the federal program or "Texas Trade Up Appliance Rebate Program," here in our part of the world?

The idea is to spend federal stimulus money on rebates to consumers who replace their aging, but functioning, dishwasher, water heater, central air, clothes washer, refrigerator, etc with new, energy efficient models that are ENERGY STAR® or CEE qualified?

The comptroller's office is still working out the details, but they'll start taking reservations April 5, at a time to be announced and the buying begins April 16 for a limited time. Don't jump the gun in your enthusiasm or you'll lose out on your rebate. There will be a recycling aspect that is less than clear, but I'm sure it will be more so soon. It will include a $75 bonus rebate for recycling your clunker.

The comptroller's office is so sure this will have buyers buzzing, it's establishing a waiting list for when the rebates are all reserved.

They're really stimulated.

Now spend - after April 16.

We don't need no stinkin' green badges

Big businesses appear to be having second thoughts about whether green is their color, and the state of Texas is going to court against the EPA butting into our state business.

Myron Ebell, director of energy and global warming policy for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, just had a pr firm send out an e-mailed comment from him about BP America, Conoco Phillips and Caterpillar dropping out of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership.

I don't know that he's right, but at least the Twitter world is abuzz with the "news."

Anyway, Myron's take is this on the big businesses.

They “are recognizing that cap-and-trade legislation is dead in the U. S. Congress and that global warming alarmism is collapsing rapidly. We hope that other major corporations will soon see the light and drop their support for cap-and-trade and other energy-rationing legislation,” Ebell said.

Not being tied into an industry mouthpiece group like Ebell, I can’t swear by all that, but the hits keep coming.

According to another industry group, the CLEAR Act that advocates a cap and dividend program in which greenhouse gasses are controlled but there’s no trading of carbon credits in a marketplace that could involve speculation by those Wall Street types is generating a huge buzz of lobbying in Washington.

Really? I wouldn’t have dreamed.

And then there’s the EPA opposition by the state of Texas. The good governor, attorney general and ag commissioner announced today they will lay siege on the U.S. Court of Appeals to challenge the EPA finding that greenhouse gasses are a danger, and we need federal regulations to curb them.

Of course, Texas’ argument is the same as the industry groups’ – money matters more. (Let the kids fend for themselves. We’ve got an empire to defend.)

Rick Perry, according to a news release, said this: “The EPA’s misguided plan paints a big target on the backs of Texas agriculture and energy producers and the hundreds of thousands of Texans they employ. This legal action is being taken to protect the Texas economy and the jobs that go with it, as well as defend Texas’ freedom to continue our successful environmental strategies free from federal overreach.”

Besides, Perry doesn't look good in green. He's more of a red-white-and-blue man.

But to be fair, the Texans at least offer a compromise to “just say no.” They want to continue developing alternative energy production with tax credits to multi-national companies.

Seems this could be another momentum switch as the carbon-laden winds blow another direction. Doesn’t mean we will see a resolution, just a shift in who thinks they’re winning the hearts and minds.

There’s billions of dollars involved, so the dancers should continue to swirl and twirl.

How will carbon screw up your life?

Don't worry, the feds are on the case.

Yeah, it kind of makes sense investors would like to know if too much methane is going to break them, but now federal regulators will be watching to make sure they know.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission gave publicly traded companies “interpretive guidance” on Wednesday, telling the businesses they will have to disclose to investors how climate change might affect their bottom line. I don't know how much pain and suffering comes if you're a violator, but it sounds bad.

But investors don’t have enough to worry about, oh, like losing all their money because of greedy, arrogant risk takers or borderline criminals. Now they need the enforcers to look out for cow farts raising ocean levels and flooding the condo they invested in or whether the coal-fired utility they have shares in will get big-time fines for pumping out too much carbon.

The guidance is the first economy-wide climate risk disclosure requirement in the world, according to a group of environmentalists like green-minded investors at Ceres and the Environmental Defense Fund.

“The lack of specific guidance until now has resulted in weak and inconsistent climate-related disclosure by public companies” they said in a news release.

“Today’s vote is a clarion call about the vast risks and opportunities climate change poses for US companies and the urgency for integrating them into investment decision making,” said Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres and director of the Investor Network on Climate Risk, a network of 80 institutional investors with $8 trillion in collective assets. “The business risks of climate change cannot be ignored. With this guidance investors can make more sound decisions based on better information – and businesses will have a level-playing field with clear standards and expectations for disclosure.”

Feel better?

Go ahead and freak

Everybody else is. "OMG snow's coming!"

The weather jockeys are all out of breath about it. Predicting this and that. Of course there's the complication that they really don't know for sure what's going to happen. Maybe that's why they're covering their bets in vagueness. But for a change they have something to talk about.

My mom's out of breath because she lives in the country where electricity and phones get knocked fairly frequently. (Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to be an SPS guy messing with electricity in a blizzard.) So my wife and I took her a giant cooler of water, an extra lantern and some reading material.

My wife's out of breath to the extent we'll be staying in town at her mom's so we don't get trapped away from work. What a drag that would be.

One sister wants to know "Are we going to die?" Okay, the other one is happy she can stay in her cave in front of a fire and eat candy with her dogs. Maybe that balance out.

And there's a general buzz of out of breathness in the newsroom because who knows what could happen.

Are we going to die?

Probably not. This 12 inches, maybe, forecast sounds like a cakewalk compared to other snows we've gotten. I've been snowed into Amarillo for almost a week before I could crawl home back to Wildorado on I-40. It really did look like a parking lot. People were getting out of their cars and visiting in the bright sun after the storm. I could have walked home faster.

So we'll see. All we can do is wait. And no, I'm not making fun of the people and animals who will really suffer. I love a snow, but I hate that. It's just that the air seems to be vibrating. What's the big deal? We live on the tundra so just be careful out there, and after all, we need the moisture.

I'd rather eat boogers?

It’s must be hard to rhyme with sugar because Campbell Soup has underwritten a book called “Who Grew My Soup” that quotes the curious youngster lead character Phineas Quinn as saying, ”I like stuff that’s deep-fried and loaded with sugar. But vegetable soup? Yikes! I’d rather eat boogers!"

But it’s all for the good cause of getting kids to make better food choices like eating more vegetables, presumably in the form of soup from you know who.

Apparently, Phineas didn’t like veggies and hatched a plan to avoid eating them. One argument he hatchs is that you never know where they’d been. Maybe they were grown in Timbuctoofar, he argues.

What illustrations I’ve seen are pretty cool and the few rhymes available in preview are kind of fun if you’re a kid.

The book was written by New York ad agency veteran Tom Darbyshire who, you guessed it, was working on an ad campaign to tell the story of Campbell’s “100-year commitment to using only the highest ingredients.” The book’s illustrator was C.F. Payne.

Get the 32-page hardcover here.

Get Smarter About Water

Ducks take off from the Taylor Lakes playa unit between Clarendon and Memphis. Courtesy Texas Parks & Wildlife.

The thousands of playa lakes across the plains, including the Panhandle, are scattered wet treasures in need of a little TLC to stay their best, and several groups have gotten together some presentations for landowners on what we’re talking about.

Classes, including lunch, will be from 11 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. on Feb. 3 in the Swisher Memorial Building at 127 S.W. Second St. in Tulia.

Playas are hangouts for all kinds of birds and provide what little recharge the Ogallala Aquifer gets. So it’s important to keep them healthy and happy.

“Since most playas are found on private land, landowner management is essential to maintaining and preserving playas as a linchpin in our precious water cycle,” said Darryl Birkenfeld, director of Ogallala Commons.

The workshop presentations will touch on depletion rates of the Ogallala, playa conservation programs, and techniques for playa grazing management. And best of all it’s free.

Dave Haukos, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service migratory bird specialist at Texas Tech University will begin with an overview. Kevin Mulligan, a Tech geographer, will talk about saturated thicknesses and depletion rates of the Ogallala. Manuel De Leon, wildlife biologist with the Natural Resource Conservation Service, will cover federal incentive programs like the Wetlands Reserve Program and the Grasslands Conservation Program. He will also discuss grazing practices that enhance playa functioning and increase wildlife habitat, according to a news release.

To reserve a place at this workshop, or for more information, contact Jeff Lewter, NRCS District Conservation in Tulia at 806-995-4126, ext.3.

The workshop is sponsored by Ogallala Commons, with its partners: the Natural Resource Conservation Service, Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, and Playa Lakes Joint Venture.

graphic from Playa Lake Joint Ventures

The circle of life or something

This is a new one on me - "upcycle."

An Oregon winery, COWHORN, is promoting not only its early releases, but recycle, upcycle, whatever programs. It's sent its first shipment of 1,000 used wine bottles to be "upcycled" into "heirloom goblets, pitchers, tumblers, vases and votives," according to a news release.

Don't ask me why they spell their name in all caps, but they do.

COWHORN is also partnering with Ashland Food Co-op to covert used corks into compostable wine packs.

On top of that, literally, "At COWHORN, even the soft metal bottle cap covering the cork gets a new life through Rogue Recycling."

And then there's talk of nature flowing in cycles, etc. But the Biodynamic winery seems to be trying. And the end products look pretty nice.

The only rub is they tout their wines as pleasing the James Beard Foundation and people in the Oregon eco-culinary scene.

"Among the new estate’s early accolades is a 90-point rating from Wine Spectator for its 2007 Viognier, now sold out. In their annual round up of most memorable wines, the San Francisco Chronicle featured COWHORN’s 2007 Marsanne Roussanne, also sold out, as one of the year’s top 20 'unexpected pleasures.'”

Please note, two sold outs mean we'll never know how good they might be. Frustrating.

Lights Out – The clock is ticking

The second annual “Sylvania Socket Survey” is full of surprises.

Okay, it says 74 percent of participants have switched to energy-saving light bulbs in the past year. That may be true, but there are more than 74 percent of shoppers at stores I frequent buying standard bulbs or the stores are foolishly filling shelves with the outdated bulbs.

That was surprise one. But No. 2? Almost 75 percent of respondents didn’t know that incandescent bulbs are headed for a phase-out beginning Jan. 1, 2012.

Count me and everybody I know in that group. I’m not proud of that, but it’s true. A press release about the survey says the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 calls for the transition to start with traditional 100-watt bulbs and continue from there.

At the bottom of the release is the explanation that the survey involved only 300 adults. That makes some of the findings make a little more sense, but I wonder if some of the them are really true. How does compact fluorescent lights get into “71 percent of homes in America” but rank second to traditional bulbs in terms of use? Are the CFLs not turned on or do people only use them in a few lamps, using the usual bulbs in all the others?

I don’t get it.

Anyway, here’s the rest of the results.

66 percent of respondents said they are likely to purchase a compact fluorescent light (CFL), halogen or light-emitting diode (LED) bulb in the future.
Halogens are used in 40 percent of homes.
12 percent are using LED lighting.
52 percent said price is a key consideration in purchasing; the responses reflect a 12 percent spike compared to 2008.
Just 13 percent said they plan to buy extra 100-watt bulbs before the phase-out.
16 percent say they will shift to lower wattage incandescent light bulbs.
91 percent said they consider energy consumption per bulb to be an important factor.

I don’t get it.

But then there's the recycling. CFLs have mercury in them, so don't throw them in the Dumpster, experts say. And you might want to use a drop cloth when changing bulbs because you don't want to have to sweep up a toxic mess.

But wait, there's more!

The phase-out will happen over two years, and by 2014, maybe there will be more choices, but the main option now is CFLs. Just be careful you get the right kind. There is a special kind if you have a dimmer switch, and you have to get the right temperature bulb, for some reason measured on the Kelvin (not my idea) scale, to get the type of light you want from yellowish to blueish. The Energy Star folks have a good illustration, but this seems a little complicated.

Nevertheless, the idea is to save energy, and that's a good thing says Andrew deLaski, director of the Appliance Standards Awareness Project in U.S. News & World Report.

"It's hugely important," he says. "A 60 to 70 percent reduction in light bulb energy use will save as much energy annually as that used by all the homes in Texas last year."

I guess disrupting my life is worth that.

How much do I care?

Well, there's a new way to spend time online and save the planet at the same time.

I got a press release today with a link to a nifty new beta site that allows you to enter facts about your home and find out what you can do to save energy which translates to saving money and reducing the amount of carbon you are responsible for utilities spewing into the atmosphere. It also shows you the do-it-yourself cost of changes and how your home ranks to an "average" home, whatever that is.

Just don't be in a hurry. It may look like you're about to finish the survey when - boom - there's subquestions on the topic you are on.

How'd our house stack up? It's hard to tell, but the accuracy of ratings against average should improve as more people take the survey.

Biggest saving? Install a programable thermostat at a do-it-yourself cost of from $30 to$190 dollars. Quite a spread, but supposedly it will save us $208 a year and reduce carbon by 1,848 pounds annually.

Next up? Install compact fluorescent bulbs.

But I don't get this helpful hint. Put in more attic insulation at a cost of $700 and save $22 a year. That's a long payoff in my wallet world. Besides, there's a puny 195 pounds of carbon to be saved with this move.

Hmmm

A Big Hug From Mother Nature

Speakers at Texas Tech's energy forum in Amarillo today addressed many topics, but digging deep for heating and cooling were a focus.

In a case study, a middle school in Frisco adopted a geothermal heat pump system that will save it $1.7 million over 20 years compared to a central gas boiler and air-cooled chiller, said Don Penn, consulting engineer with Image Engineering Group in Grapevine.

It all comes from filling classrooms with air blown across pipes that go up to 400 feet into the earth. Water under low pressure in the pipes becomes the same temperature the soil is, around 60 to 70 degrees, makes a u-turn and goes back to the surface to units that heat or cool school rooms, depending on the season.

There is a temperature control unit for each room so giant heating or cooling units aren't cranked up because the band wants to practice after hours, forcing the heating or cooling of many rooms that are empty.

"Each room is its own atmosphere," Penn said.

The life of the well field should be quite long, given the low pressure inside heavy-duty pipes.

"You'll be tearing the building down, and the well field will still be there," Penn said.

So the deal is about saving money, and then there's the carbon that is never released into the atmosphere because there's no coal or natural gas involved.

I know he's a salesman, and there weren't any naysayers invited, so my jury is still out on the viability of the technique. However, representatives of Lubbock Christian University who are using it on their campus vigorously vouched for it.

Go, See, Do Stuff

It's good to be smart and this might help all of us.

The Wildcat Bluff Nature Center will hold two events Saturday.

Leadership in energy and environmental design is the topic Mark Benton will be talking about from 10a.m. to noon. The regular admission to Wildcat Bluff will cover the event too.

It's also good to have fun and this might be just the thing. From 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., the center will host its Sunset Seasonal Sausage and Suds Scheindig. Cost is $10.

Both events are open to the public.

For more info, call Wildcat Bluff Nature Center at 352-6007.

Big House On The Prairie

Sure, she looks a little rustic, but the first building at Mariposa ecoVillage is coming along.

The last I saw her, there were a few long blocks of compressed earth stacked on a low cement wall. She looked like a giant lincoln log project just getting started. She didn't have much vavoom, although there was some promise.

But this morning I checked and was impressed. The walls are complete with openings for windows and doors. The roof is on and you can see how the ceiling will have a gentle upward curve to it. The structure now looks like something. She's even a little imposing in her sturdiness out on the hill northwest of town.

The walls are still draped with what's left of black plastic sheets meant to slow down the curing of the compressed dirt blocks. But the wind this morning, and apparently before that, was taking a toll on the covering.

After a walk around, it was time to go inside. Wow, there's a big pile of dirt inside on the floor. Wait, what floor? There was only rough, bare ground. Then I remembered. Linda Lloyd, the project manager, told me even the floor would be earthen. A highly packed and polished layer of dirt, mined on site, just like the dirt for the walls. But first there are pipes to lay that will carry water heated by the sun, giving off gentle warmth from inside the "floor."

The thick, solid walls will insulate the inside of the visitors' center for the planned ecologically sound community, so people with inquiring minds this winter can feel comfortable taking in the promise of Mariposa. The idea is for the 18-inch thick walls to keep the temperature between 62 degrees in the winter and 72 degrees in the summer.

I'll give it a couple more weeks and go out to take some photos to post here for a proper sneak peek. She's still not quite ready for primetime, but she's shaping up.

Carbonated Conversations

Just back from a somewhat steamy Columbus, Ohio, and the McCormick Energy Solutions Conference.

It was a jam-packed three days on the future of energy with a constant background glow thanks to global warming. The panelists were by and large true believers and basically activists for the kill-carbon-before-it-kills-us point of view. Most were more temperate than Joe Romm of the Center for American Progress and blog author, but who isn't?

Anyway, it was thought provoking, even with a grain of salt or two. The shift in scientific thinking puts all the blame for excess carbon on human activity, and that makes more and more sense as the data comes in. But one word of caution from former astronaut, and role model for skyward-looking kids of a certain graying age, John Glenn. He said he still has scientist friends passing on the idea that the jury isn't totally out on whether global warming is part of nature's cycles. And that raises the questions of who or what's spewing the carbon dioxide many blame as the leader of the Greenhouse Gas Gang.

But then he came back with this: "If we screw it up, there's no going back...No matter what's happening in the cycles, we have to clean up the environment."

He described Earth's atmosphere as a "thin film" rather than the chunk of air in school textbooks, painting an image of something fragile and at risk.

What a guy. He and his wife since 1943 are still vital and involved and were then off to a national climate something or other.

I'll be writing here and in the Globe-News in a hopefully more coherent way about what's happening here on the High Plains in relation to the topics the experts discussed at the conference. The common thread was the quickest, easiest ways to reduce carbon are conservation and efficiency.

On that topic, a smarter grid is one way experts propose to burn less fuels that release carbon. I'm working on an update on efforts to make our stupid grid smarter here at home for my first story. The next one may be a look at how school districts are faring on the 2007 mandate to reduce energy consumption 5 percent per year.

By the way, the hospitality on the Ohio State University campus was fantastic, although I was dragging a bit from the pace by the time I got home at midnight last night. The organizers of the McCormick Energy Solutions Conference and especially the staff of the Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism and the John Glenn School of Public Affairs know their stuff.

And it was a little eerie looking out my hotel window on the Woody Hayes Boulevard towards the solid, gray memorial to his legacy, the holy stadium where he did his thing that is even lit at night.

Funky food fun

Here's a bit of hodge podge from the food world.

First up - British-based Tesco, the third largest retailer in the world, is offering bits of land to grow your own veggies. The company touts the "allotments" as great ways to get exercise, teach children about nature, preserve the environment, reduce shopping bills and curb the use of fertilizer and pesticides.

Of course the stores also sells grow-your-own gardening supplies.

The allotments are small parcels of ground that rent for between $15 and $75.

Tesco is also planning on selling chicks and adult hens to lay eggs and reports the chicken coops it sells are very popular.

Take two - The brat burger could be in your future.

Johnsonville, maker of all things sausage has been rolling out slices of sausage meat for food service customers. Next up is the brat, which is a pre-cooked product that follows Johnsonville's other Ultimate Sausage Slices — Andouille, Italian, and Hot 'N' Spicy.

The company suggests using them for everything from snacks to stir fries. But check out this useage. No wonder one comment on a blog about this subject asked to be reminded why health care costs are so high.

It's a beautiful world - kind of

Ziploc's evolved, presumably you can evolve, and it's all bright under the orange-slice sun in a new ad for Ziploc Evolve plastic bags.

The Ziploc bag in the ad is covered with a field of peas, broccoli trees and some wierd hybrid wind turbine/palm tree things under the aforementioned orange slice. On the Web site's slide show, there's even animal cracker elephants and rabbits and the clouds look a little like califlower in the frame for Evolve.

But when you need two astericks in an ad to clarify your statements, well, not a good sign. The ad bills the new bags as "made with wind energy & 25% less plastic." Then comes the fine print, but note, it is made up of very small letters in green ink making it a little hard to read. "Made with wind energy and traditional energy sources" and less plastic "when compared to regular Ziploc Brand storage and sandwich bags."

Of course you can still buy those not-so-good Ziploc bags, but now you can feel better about yourself and the planet with Evolve. How many plastic trees do you think have lost their lives to make all the Ziploc bags in the world?

Can't we all just shop together?

My wife laughed, perhaps nervously, when I told her we need to vacation at the Amigo’s supermarket, but I wasn’t laughing.

I just took a tour of the United Supermarket made over to appeal to latino shoppers as well as white bread shoppers. Oh baby. They’ve integrated the Hispanic food into the normal fare so there’s no ghetto where half an aisle has all the good stuff.

The imported candy is with the Hershey’s bars, the exotic shapes of Mexican pasta are with the American Beauty spaghetti. The Mexican Coca-Cola, made with cane sugar, is with the Mountain Dew.

Then there’s the prepared food.

Chicken mole, aguas frescas in six or seven fresh fruit flavors, four kinds of flour tortillas – they’re all made on site. And they're right next to the fried chicken.

Amigo’s COO Sidney Hooper said every effort was made to keep things authentic, not Tex-Mex, and convenient.

The meat market might make the less adventurous a little confused, but how can you beat the whole cow and hog heads for roasting underground in burlap? Well, there’s also five kinds of fajita mixes ready for stir frying, goat meat, rabbit halves, boneless chicken thighs flavored with adobo spices, and yes, hamburger. But there's also cheek meat for barbacoa and whole tongues for lengua. They're really big and look surprisingly like tongues (I've only seen them chopped on my plate).

I’ll have a full story with photos on the Sunday business page. See if you think it’s worth a visit at Interstate 40 and Grand Street.

And Hooper said to ask for a taste if you’re not familiar with something in the prepared food section. Don’t miss the chunky guacamole. Trust me on this.

Five mixes of fajita ingredients ready to go to the stove.

Photo by Stephen Spillman

Friendly skies?

The headline was somewhat troubling – Airlines unite in deal for alternative fuel.

Is that safe? Flying planes on algae or beef fat turned to fuel?

My concern was testing. I haven’t seen a lot about how aviation has access to all this great bio-fuel that works fine. You would think we would want to be careful about this thousands of feet in the air. It might work, but I don’t know about it.

Reading into the press release and my pulse went down a little. Seems Rentech was announcing it had signed an “unprecedented” agreement to supply eight airlines with up to 1.5 million gallons per year of renewable synthetic diesel - but wait - for “ground service equipment” at Los Angeles International Airport.

I was feeling much better. I hadn’t missed some breakthrough. I wasn’t flying on a fuel that was just hitting the market. And I don’t have plans to be at LAX anytime soon, so the trucks on the ground aren’t even a problem.

Much better. Besides, the plant that will make the fuel won’t even be online until late 2012. The low-carbon, clean-burning fuel will be made from “woody green urban waste” like grass clippings.

There goes the pulse again, flying on grass clippings.

This whole green thing will take some getting used to, and I want lots of testing. And that’s not to say this fuel will not be great. I’m just saying…

Dreams going up

It was pretty interesting to see several dreamers get their hands dirty to start Mariposa ecoVillage on Friday.

Linda Lloyd, the project manager, Larry Williamson and Gary Hames, of EarthCo Building Systems, and several volunteers were like a tribe with a mission. The sun and wind were typical Panhandle - strong. But the group got started laying columns of compressed earth like giant Lincoln logs to create the hospitality and marketing building for the development devoted to a different lifestyle.

It was messy work - sweat, dust, mud - and then it showered a couple of times just to goo things up. But everyone was smiling and joking, happy to be where they were.

Building the earthen structure is as primitive as any native hut of mud, but they cut the 18-inch-wide columns with electric chisels that work like jackhammers with blades. Then comes the mud, a slurry of water and dirt used to fill cracks, smooth seams and make one column stick to another.

Kind of a humble beginning for a big dream that could include live/work spaces, homes of compressed recycled plastic, car-free zones and people capturing rainwater and the sun's rays. Not far from the day's of half-dugouts in the Panhandle, but miles from today.

Chicken? Egg? Wind?

What has to come first to cover our horizon with wind turbines? This photo was taken near Palm Springs and shows part of an installation of 4,000 turbines.

I have mixed feelings about how much wind would be good for the Panhandle - not really at the wild-eyed chamber of commerce level, but not totally against it like the grumpy old man people accuse me of being.

The American Wind Energy Association recently released its second quarter market report, saying wind installations nationally went against expectations, beating the 2008 first half total. The industry installed 4,000 megawatts in 2009 versus 2,900 MW last year.

In another segment of the business, orders for parts are slowing as is the manufacture of turbines.

AWEA's CEO, Denise Bode, says what we need is a stronger push by the federal government via a robust national renewable fuel requirement.

And what can't the federal government make better? Nevertheless, in the shortrun, that probably won't help the Panhandle.

Walt Hornaday, head of Cielo Wind, knows about the wind business here. His company finished the Wildorado Wind Ranch in Oldham County a couple of years ago and has developed numerous other projects in Texas.

While people continue to say "if only the transmission lines would get here to take our power to the neon lights of Dallas, we could start building wind farms," there might be something else hitting the brakes.

According to Hornaday, The financial sector would not step up and fund that building right now. With projects costing about $2 million per megawatt, that's a lot of missing financing when you think about the Wildorado installation being rated at 161 MW capacity.

The AWEA report has some other interesting information, especially if you're a wind geek. For example, Missouri led the country in second quarter growth at 146 MW added while Texas doesn't even make the top 10 with 454 MW added. I know that's because Texas already has a lot of wind farms, so the 454 is a smaller percentage, but it looks weird to get beat by Missouri.

Pests and Power

Two bits of info - a plague update and a different kind of Happy Meal.

I got a bit of advice in the form of a news release from Texas AgriLife Extension about those grasshoppers that have me hopping mad. Our bit of rainy weather put them into hiding, but the 100-degree temperatures arae back and so is the plague, so I was happy to see the release until about the third paragraph.

"'Can homeowners get rid of grasshoppers? During outbreak years like this one is shaping up to be in some parts of the state, I'd have to say no,' said Mark Muegge, AgriLife Extension entomologist at Fort Stockton."

"They are some of the most difficult insect pests to control in the urban landscape," he added.

Thanks for that. But there are some resources to pass on if you are tired of feeding your innocent plants to these things.

Extension recommends integrated pest management through removing any weedy borders where they lay eggs, using several different insecticides, and choosing plants that are less tasty. (Now you tell us.)

My goal is to save what I've got because replanting the beds doesn't excite me.

Here's a link to the details.

And now about the McCharger. The Charlotte News & Observer reported a couple of weeks ago about a curbside service at a Cary, N.C., McDonald's.

Just think, you're running a little low on energy, so you whip in for a fast-food favorite. Then you remember you forgot to plug in your Prius last night. Pick the right parking place and you can feed your car thanks to McDonald's two charging stations.

The Cary McDonald's is also under review to be LEED-certified by the U.S. Green Building Council. That would make it the third LEED McLocation after Savannah, Ga., and Chicago.