Green News Round-Up

• Leading congressional democrats issued a bill today that would halt construction of all new coal-fired power plants that are unable or unwilling to control their emissions. Since carbon capture technology is still experimental, and 10 years away, this bill effectively bans new coal-fired plants. Makes sense to me...

• In the meantime, the alternative energy economy is finally starting to make some real money. Worldwide sales for companies specializing in biofuels, wind farms, solar panels and fuel cells grew 40 percent in 2007 to reach $77.3 billion, according to an annual report issued by Clean Edge, a research firm that studies the green technology industry.

• With the Kyoto Protocol agreement only taking us to 2012, Japan has proposed a greenhouse gas plan that picks up from there and takes us out to 2050.

• In our tradition of covering things that wash up on beaches, thousands of dead starfish washed up on a UK beach. Nobody knows why they died, but I'm guessing whatever the cause, it ain't good. The pics are quite amazing.

• Reinforcing yet again that our grid is not ready for plug-in cars, a study shows that electric cars will require 17x the water of a normal vehicle. This is because most electrical installations use steam-powered turbines. Not good news for drought-stricken areas, but those same areas are the best candidates to transform their grid to solar.