And on a conference call with reporters Wednesday, White House officials said they are welcoming, and even encouraging, public input including those from groups that advocate for open government, such as the Sunlight Foundation.

The Sunlight Foundation, an open government non-profit based in Washington D.C. said that it would be monitoring the governmental agencies to make sure the promise of transparency is more than mere lip service to the idea of transparency.

“Today’s release of agency plans is really where the rubber meets the road,” Ellen Miller, executive director and co-founder of the Sunlight Foundation, said in a statement. “Are agencies giving us lists of data and precise plans as to when it will be made available?”

Special Counsel to the President Norm Eisen said he attributes a recent drop in Freedom of Information Act requests to Data.gov, which has already put tens of thousands of government data sets online.

“There is an affirmative effort to get frequently FOIA’ed info out,” Eisen said.

Miller promised to review the plans from the cabinet-level agencies “as soon as we can.” Meanwhile, the White House will have its own public evaluation at WhiteHouse.gov/open “no later than May 1″ according to Federal Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra.

Government transparency plans were created at the behest of the Open Government Directive that President Barack Obama sent to agencies in December. TechPresident has a good rundown on what was in that directive, including the part that directed agencies to create their own open government plans.

For each agency, the plan is required to be put on the internet at “agencyname.gov/open.” For example, the plan for the Department of Energy is available at Energy.gov/open. A full list of the agencies, with links to their open government pages, is available on the White House Web site.

Each agency must also provide the ability for public comment. Again, using the Department of Energy as an example, a large button on the right of the Web site asks the public to “Share Your Idea.”

“For too long, Washington has closed itself off from the oversight of the American public, resulting in information that’s difficult to find, taxpayer dollars that disappear without a trace, and lobbyists that wield undue influence,” President Obama said in a statement released Wednesday. “That’s why my Administration is taking concrete steps to build a government that’s more transparent, open and accountable. And now that these plans are published online, we hope the American people will play their part and collaborate with us to provide oversight and improve upon this information.”

“This information platform will allow people across the globe to benefit from the Department of Energy’s clean energy data and technical resources,” said Secretary of Energy Steven Chu in a statement. “The true potential of this tool will grow with the public’s participation – as they add new data and share their expertise – to ensure that all communities have access to the information they need to broadly deploy the clean energy resources of the future.”

The meeting is set to bring together the chairmen and ranking members of top Senate committees on energy and climate issues, as well as a number of senators who have expressed reservations over the cap-and-trade legislation to address climate change that has stalled in the Senate.

Bingaman is the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

In addition to the 11 senators, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack will also attend the meeting.

“Producing the energy that powers America is something that New Mexico has always done. As we begin to add renewable fuels to our energy portfolio, I am proud that southern New Mexico will remain a leader in the energy industry,” said Congressman Harry Teague. “Investments like these will have a huge impact on our communities, not only in the jobs that will be created but in keeping southern New Mexico on the forefront of the new energy economy.”

A press release from Teague’s office said the money would result in 750 direct or indirect jobs from the construction, administration and operation of the facility.

The money is coming from the stimulus package that Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed into law earlier this year.

The New Mexico biorefinery is one of 19 projects in 15 states which will cost up to $564 million in Recovery Act funding from the Department of Energy.

“Advanced biofuels are critical to building a cleaner, more sustainable transportation system in the U.S.” said Secretary of Energy Steven Chu. “These projects will help establish a domestic industry that will create jobs here at home and open new markets across rural America.”

Dr. Jason Pyle, the CEO of Sapphire Energy, praised Teague for his help in “secur[ing] the nearly $104million in USDOE grants and loan guarantees for Sapphire Energy’s biorefinery.”

“Sapphire Energy and the state of New Mexico will continue to show that algae-based fuel is smarter energy and will keep this state on the world energy map,” Dr. Pyle said in a statement.

Updated 2:34 p.m.

Senators Tom Udall and Jeff Bingaman, both Democrats, just sent out statements on the proposed facility

“This federal investment will create jobs in New Mexico while helping our country reduce its dependence on imported fossil fuels,” said Bingaman, who is the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “This is great news for our state — one that will have a positive impact now and in the long term.”

“This funding builds on New Mexico’s investment in the development of advanced, homegrown biofuels like algae,” Udall said. “As a result, we will decrease our dependence on foreign oil, reduce our carbon footprint, and create jobs for hardworking New Mexicans.”

Teague’s vote on the American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act of 2009 has become a lightning rod for many Republicans.

Today, after a visit by U.S. Energy Department Secretary Steven Chu which included a fundraising event with Teague, the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC) sent out a letter calling Chu a “radical global warming activist.”

Chu was confirmed by unanimous consent in the Senate on January 20, the same day that Barack Obama was sworn in as President.

The New Mexico Republican Party sent out a press release ahead of Chu’s visit. Chu was joined by Van Jones, a special advisor for green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and he also drew criticism from the New Mexico Republican Party.

The press release began:

In an attempt to shore up liberal support after Teague’s conservative constituents took him to task for supporting a national energy tax which will drive up costs for hardworking New Mexico families, the freshman representative is chairing an energy conference, today and tomorrow, headlining two prominent global warming activists and Obama appointees, Steven Chu and Van Jones.

Both national and state Republicans referenced a Politico blog post where Teague said of global warming, “I don’t know if I believe in it or not. I am not a scientist.”

Former U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, who previously held the seat before an unsuccessful run for Senate in 2008, cited Teague’s vote for the ACES legislation in his decision to attempt to recapture his seat.

“Harry Teague chose to vote for the job-killing cap and trade bill. If this bill becomes law, it will devastate jobs in New Mexico and further cripple the American economy,” Pearce wrote in his press release announcing his candidacy.

Clearly, Republican leaders both in New Mexico and Washington are trying to paint Teague as an environmental extremist.

Carbon free energy technology will catch up with global warming issues, but not before the world suffers through a tumultuous transition and probably centuries of atmospheric cleansing of greenhouse gases.

There’s enough blame to go around. It would take many pages to list all the ideological quacks, corporate solipsists, status quo moneybags, invisible hand freeloaders, and political cowards and sly skulkers in this country who have helped bring us to this precipice.

And, of course, no matter what the deniers said, they could not stop the hundreds of visionary companies and entrepreneurs, heavily capitalized and not, who saw opportunity in the changes ahead, and the dozens of nations who understood the future and began preparing for it.

What the global warming deniers have done is to create a political dead space, a vacuum in which global warming gases have soared and technology, legislation and capital have lagged sorely behind despite far thinking companies and governments.

When Secretary of Energy and Nobel Laureate Steven Chu told Rolling Stone a few days ago that the world will not level out at 450 parts of CO2 per million (ppm), considered the tipping point to centuries of drastic climate change, he was the first senior American official, in my memory, to be so blunt about the world’s chances in the years ahead.

Earth’s atmosphere is currently at 385 ppm. Dr. Chu told Rolling Stone “We’re not going to level out at 450 ppm… I hope we hit 550 ppm. Who knows?” Many scientists around the world worry that continued stalling on the reduction of carbon emissions would result in a “leveling out” at 800 ppm or a 1000 ppm, numbers that guarantee a world climate plagued by unbearable conditions.

“I don’t think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen,” Chu said. “We’re looking at a scenario where there’s no more agriculture in California. I don’t actually see how they can keep their cities going.”

Drought, floods, ice caps melting, rising shorelines, increasing extreme weather, this is what the global warming deniers have helped to bring about.

To survive transitions like the ones ahead, serious thinking and planning has to be accomplished fast. But fast isn’t in the cards either. Globally, we can’t get together on what to do. Nationally, the deniers and brain draggers gum up the works whenever they can. Some states are trying to plan ahead, but many are so cash strapped from decades of anti-tax politics that they’re beholden to big coal and big oil and gas, the very carbon polluters the states need to reel in.

Probably, the most important kind of planning to be done is region by region, city by city. And most of it will have to come through volunteerism. There’s no question that there’s vast fortunes to be made by responding to global warming, by cutting green house gases, and by developing alternative sources of energy. But that’s not going to do much good for those of us who will suffer from global warming without profiting from it.
And there’s a whole lot of us in that boat.

New Mexico is already feeling the pinch from global warming. Science writer John Fleck reported in the Journal last week that a federal climate change study has observed that “rising temperatures and dwindling snowpacks” can already be seen in New Mexico. Our springtime precipitation could drop “from 10 percent to 40 percent by the end of the century,” Fleck wrote.

This shouldn’t be news to most of us, but it is. Two years ago in March 2007, a United Nations report concluded that global warming was already triggering weather related hardships and disasters around the world, especially in poorer nations and regions.

Our federal government, of course, paid no attention. Neither did Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Las Cruces, Rio Rancho, and state government either. And the chorus of deniers babbled on.

So what does Albuquerque and the rest of northern New Mexico do if a perfect storm scenario unfolds here – if the drought in the Colorado River catchment continues as it has for almost a decade; if water wars break out among rich states like Colorado, California, Arizona and Nevada, and New Mexico loses its San Juan/Chama water, either through legal wars over the Colorado River Compact or through drought; if we learn that our aquifer is not only shrinking faster than we thought, and hardly recharging at all, but is more polluted that we imagined and requires very expensive reverse osmosis cleanup procedures over many decades, just to keep drinking water flowing?

This is not an outlandish scenario. We know our aquifer is shrinking. We know it’s polluted in many places, but we don’t know how much. And the facts tell us without equivocation that a drought is upon us, and that the Colorado, the mother river of the West is getting smaller and smaller.

The question remains, how does the state of New Mexico and the major cities of the state cope with such a situation?

We know for sure that you can’t cope with any problem by burying your head, by denial, or by political procrastination. Less water means not only less growth, but diminished prosperity all around.

Is it possible to build a positive local economy in the midst of long term drought and an uncharted transition from one complicated fuel system to a completely different one?

I should think cities and states would have to marshal all the talent and imagination they could just to give them a decent chance to do more than painfully muddle through the big climate change already affecting our world.

So why have we done virtually no thinking ahead? Are the consequences just too dire to contemplate? What happens if we don’t.

Chu will visit the Los Alamos and Sandia national labs on Thursday and Friday, according to a preliminary schedule relayed by U.S. Sen. Tom Udall.
 From the blog posting:

We don’t have official confirmation from Chu’s handlers, but Sen. Tom Udall told me he will be accompanying Chu during the visit. Details are still being finalized, but the preliminary schedule has him visiting Los Alamos late tomorrow (Thursday) and spending Friday morning at Sandia, according to Udall.

At the end of March, Udall called for a broader mission for the national labs based in New Mexico.

“As two of America’s premier national security labs, Sandia and Los Alamos can and should continue to play a critical role in securing our nation from existing and future threats,” the New Mexico Democrat said in a statement early last week.

“Focusing on their national security enterprise capabilities and cooperating with other agencies is a perfect way for NNSA labs to use their unparalleled skills and infrastructure to address the problems America faces today,” said Sen. Tom Udall.

Udall, a Democrat, said in a letter to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu that Los Alamos and Sandia are “two of America’s premier national security labs” and “can and should continue to play a critical role in securing our nation from existing and future threats.”

Udall wrote that the labs’ funding are still “supported fundamentally by a shrinking budget of [the] core mission” — that of the Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP). This is despite the labs having “continued to support a broad national security objective” beyond the SSP.

Secretary Chu is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and the 12th United States Secretary of Energy.

The full text of the letter is available below:

The Honorable Steven Chu

Secretary

U.S. Department of Energy

1000 Independence Avenue, SW

Washington, DC 20585

Dear Secretary Chu:

Congratulations again on your appointment and confirmation as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Our nation is in the midst of an energy crisis that requires substantial attention, and I am certain that you bring the necessary expertise, leadership and ambition that will serve President Obama and the nation well.

As you know, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) within the DOE provides not only surety for our nuclear arsenal, but acts as one of the strongest scientific research and development engines in the nation. Yet, while our laboratories have continued to support a broad national security objective beyond the core mission of the Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP), almost all activities of the NNSA are supported fundamentally by a shrinking budget of that core mission. This has led to wide concern that the budget and mission constraints of the NNSA could lead to its being unable to provide the very necessary capabilities that are so critical to our nation.

In response to this growing concern, last year Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, DOE Undersecretary for Nuclear Security Thomas D’Agostino, DOE Undersecretary for Science Roy Orbach, and the heads of four NNSA facilities (please see the attached letter) signed a four page “Future Vision” statement outlining a path forward for the NNSA labs to move towards a more encompassing national security mission. The purpose was not only to describe an evolving role of the labs, but also to foster a new environment of cooperation between the labs and other agencies.

“The scientific capabilities and infrastructure developed for the nuclear weapons mission have been utilized by many national security agencies,” the letter states, “and are recognized as essential to fulfilling their responsibilities. Maintenance of a strong infrastructure – both the workforce and the facilities – will require joint support from these national security agencies, as well as careful planning and budgeting by NNSA and its national laboratories, to enable this broader national security mission.”

On the heels of this statement, several Strategic Partnership Agreements (SPA’s) between NNSA and other agencies have either been signed or are currently under negotiation. The SPA’s represent in real terms the early realization of the vision elucidated in the statement signed last year. However, this simply marks the beginning. In order to allow other federal agencies to benefit from the expertise and capabilities developed at the NNSA labs, I believe additional resources and commitment should be devoted to expanding the mission in general, and as part of that effort, specifically to the vision statement and agreements between NNSA and other agencies.

With that in mind, I respectfully urge you to compile a similar statement and lend your support to the establishment of additional SPA’s. By doing so, you will be signaling that these national labs must continue to serve our nation, and must do so in a multitude of disciplines. It is quite clear that each of these labs has recognized the need to diversify their missions, and I firmly believe that we should encourage that diversification, otherwise we risk losing many of the scientists and much of the research that is so crucial and to critical for our national interests.

Several studies are currently being conducted related to the NNSA labs, from the recently released Stimson Report (which encouraged mission diversity and broad investment in the labs by other agencies), to the soon to be released report from the Congressional Commission on Strategic Posture of the United States, to the upcoming Nuclear Posture Review. The confluence of these studies marks what you already know; our national labs are at a crossroads. As such, I believe this represents an historic opportunity to ensure our labs continue to play a critical role in securing our nation from threats not imagined at their birth.

The signatories to last year’s statement underscored how important it was for these labs to transform into national security labs, stating “[we] will advocate for and enable a broader national-security role for NNSA and its laboratories…The nation’s ability to respond to as yet unknown challenging national security problems in the future demands nothing less.” I wholeheartedly echo this sentiment and respectfully ask that you consider lending your crucial voice in support of this effort.

I welcome the opportunity to work with you on this and the many other challenges facing our nation. Please do not hesitate to contact me to discuss further.

Sincerely,

Tom Udall

United States Senator

The process of making ethanol is energy-intensive, and the most expensive ethanol is made with corn in facilities that burn cheap but polluting coal.

According to the study, “Climate change and health costs of air emissions from biofuels and gasoline (pdf),” the numbers are grim.

“For each billion ethanol-equivalent gallons of fuel produced and combusted in the U.S., the combined climate-change and health costs are $469 million for gasoline, $472–952 million for corn ethanol … but only $123–208 million for cellulosic ethanol [ethanol derived from prairie biomass, corn stalks, switchgrass or other sources],” the study says.

The huge range of cost for corn ethanol is due to the different methods used to produce the fuel. The $952 million number is for ethanol made using coal, a method that’s being used in an increasing number of ethanol facilities.

As Grist noted back in 2006, “More and more ethanol manufacturers are looking to power their plants with cheap coal instead of its cleaner and increasingly expensive competitor, natural gas, thereby potentially limiting ethanol’s environmental benefits.”

The University of Minnesota study includes charts and maps, including one that shows a big, dark red blotch — next to New Mexico — that indicates where corn ethanol is made with coal.

Without those handy state border lines it’s a little hard to tell what’s what in those pictures above. But here’s another map that puts it in better perspective:

The map is a little old; there are now three plants in operation in Texas and seven more planned.

That green dot in New Mexico is the Abengoa Bioenergy plant in Portales. Built in 1985, it was producing 30 million gallons of ethanol before a temporary shutdown in October due to fluctuations in both the grain and oil markets.

Most of the city of Portales gets its power from Xcel Energy, which sells power generated New Mexico and Texas, including two coal fired power plants in West Texas. About half of Xcel’s power — 52 percent — comes from coal; 41 percent comes from natural gas and 7 percent comes from wind and other renewables.

“The coal plants run about 24-7 because its the least expensive and the most efficient,” says Wes Reeves of Xcel.

More than 70 percent of New Mexico’s power is generated at two coal-fired plants near Farmington (pdf). Carbon dioxide emissions from coal make up more than half of the emissions from power plants in New Mexico.

Because producing ethanol is so energy intensive, many ethanol plants don’t buy electricity; they either buy natural gas or they have their own power plants, which burn coal or other fuel, such as cow poop.

When the Abengoa plant is running, it uses the cleaner, but more expensive, natural gas. Abengoa, which is headquartered in Spain, does not have any coal-fired ethanol plants, says Vice President Christopher Stanley.

The Portales ethanol plant had to close temporarily because the high price of grain sorghum and milo — the raw ingredients it uses to make ethanol — is relatively high, while the price of gasoline, which largely determines the price of ethanol, is low.

“It’s all market-driven,” Stanley says. “It’s our intention to resume production as soon as the market improves.”

And the market is not good. As the Times noted earlier this week, the crummy economy and the credit crisis have put a serious dent in the market for alternative energy. Companies that make wind turbines and solar panels have all laid off workers; biomass and geothermal groups have also seen a slowdown. Meanwhile, the falling price of oil has put a kink in alternative fuels’ chain.

One ethanol plant in Hereford, Texas, which broke ground in 2005, planned to use manure from nearby dairy farms rather than natural gas or coal for power. But less than two weeks ago, the company, Hereford Biofuels, filed for bankruptcy and announced it was putting the still-unfinished plant up for sale.

In New Mexico, the state’s Energy and Innovation Fund has put more than $2 million into research on producing biodiesel from algae.

Algae-derived biodiesel is attractive in part because conventional biodiesel is made from soybeans, and like corn-based ethanol, is subject to the “food or fuel” debate. And demand for biodiesel is increasing; in 2007, the New Mexcio Legislature passed the Biodiesel Standards Act, which will require 5 percent biodiesel in state vehicles by 2010 and for all vehicles by 2012. The state is also offering tax credits to facilities that install blending equipment.

The Center of Excellence for Hazardous Materials Management, working in partnership with Los Alamos National Laboratory and New Mexico State University, has developed an algae biodiesel test project near Carlsbad.

“In Carlsbad we’re hoping to take microalgae to market. The project has the potential to make biodiesel that wouldn’t use a field crop but would take advantage of some wide open spaces and brine water,” says Fernando Martinez, director of the Energy Conservation and Management Division of the New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department.

But is algae biodiesel economically viable? Last year, Doug Lynn, the center’s executive director, said he was cautiously optimistic that biodiesel could be produced from algae for $80 per barrel. That’s a lot better than last year’s $150 per barrel prices for oil, but not compared to the $40 we’re paying right now.

“That’s probably the most promising thing we’ve got right now,” Martinez says.