A Timber Town Finds a Future in New Crop
Grays Harbor’s new biofuels plant
By Jay Inslee and Bracken Hendricks
Special to the Apollo News Service
Fourth in a series
A clean-energy revolution promises not just to renew big cities; clean energy is having a big impact on small-town America as well. Grays Harbor, a port hamlet near Aberdeen and Hoquiam on the coast of Washington State, was dying twenty years ago. Built on the abundant riches of the massive timber on the Olympic Peninsula, it enjoyed a century of harvesting, sawing, processing, and shipping lumber all over the world. Read more
100 MPG
CalCars and the beauty of high-mileage ideas
By Jay Inslee and Bracken Hendricks
Special to the Apollo News Service
Third in a series
To see the future of the American automobile, take a spin down to Corte Madera, California, and introduce yourself to the CalCars boys.
This group of rebels met one sunny day in April 2004 in the garage of a typical condominium ten miles north of the Golden Gate, determined to roll out a car that could be “fueled” by plugging it into a wall at night with a standard extension cord and run on gas when needed. It was a Toyota Prius when they started and a symbol of an American revolution in automobiles when they finished.
Steelmills to Windmills
Jobs in Pennsylvania’s clean energy economy
By Jay Inslee and Bracken Hendricks
Special to the Apollo News Service
Second in a series
In the absence of federal action to achieve a clean energy economy, governors and mayors across the country are taking the lead. They have done extraordinary things.
With leadership from his state legislature, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has created the country’s first state climate change policy, capping carbon emissions as well as promoting the installation of solar energy in California. Gov. Brian Schweitzer has done groundbreaking work on biofuels and wind in Montana. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius from Kansas has promoted renewables and slowed constructions of new power plants that can’t reduce carbon emissions, while also working with Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska to advance the use of biofuels.
