Department Of Energy

Thomas Clifton Mann , 87, former U.S. ambassador to Mexico and El Salvador, died Saturday in Austin, Texas.Irene Seiberling Harrison, 108, whose father founded Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., died Thursday. In 1898, she pulled the switch that signaled the start of her father's company in Akron, Ohio.Victor Stello Jr., 64, a nuclear power regulator who played a key role in the response to the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant near Harrisburg, Pa., died of cancer Friday at his home in Potomac.

WASHINGTON -- In their renewed campaign to abolish the Department of Energy, congressional Republicans have the right goal but the wrong reasons.The department should be terminated, not out of indiscriminate ideological animus against big government, but because it's a slovenly organization, a menace to public safety and incorrigibly immune to reform. Its important functions in nuclear-weapons storage, scientific research, energy efficiency and environmental cleanup must continue. But they should be put under the management of government agencies that can responsibly handle complex affairs.

FREDERICK -- Enter this townhouse and you'll find a refrigerator that uses the same amount of energy as a 60-watt bulb.You'll discover that the windows are placed to take maximum advantage of the orientation of the house.You'll see finishes and sheathing whose primary purpose is to save energy.This is not your ordinary townhouse.It's a glimpse into the future -- an experiment prepared and designed by a group of manufacturers who are seeking the most energy-efficient ways to build.Last Monday, the Consortium for Advanced Residential Buildings (CARB)

WHEN YOU CHOOSE the cycle and switch on the washing machine, you're probably not thinking much about air pollution.But the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy think you should. In fact, every time you turn on anything in your house that uses electricity or gas to operate, they want you to think about air pollution, and how you can reduce it.And in return, they want to reduce your yearly energy bill by a third.The two federal agencies have teamed up on a program called Energy Star, designed to get consumers to buy energy-efficient appliances, lighting, and heating and air-conditioning equipment.

Washington. -- Military bases used to be the champs at survival when the budget cutters went on the rampage.But, with the Cold War passing into history, Army, Navy and Air Force installations are actually being shut down.Now rapidly coming along as their successors in eluding extinction are scientific vestiges of the Cold War, the big research centers that assured nuclear pre-eminence against the Soviet Union.The U.S. no longer manufactures or tests nuclear weapons, and is on the way to reducing its nuclear-weapons stockpile by 90 percent by the year 2002.

The Department of Energy has spent nearly $50 million over the last three years paying private law firms to defend its contractors against eight lawsuits brought by workers and civilians who asserted they were harmed by radiation from the nuclear weapons industry, according to an internal memorandum.Payments to private lawyers in the eight cases accounted for more than half of what the department spent in that time on contractors' legal fees, records show.The memorandum, prepared by a team of lawyers in the Energy Department's Office of General Counsel, was obtained by the Military Production Network, an alliance of small environmental groups from 12 states where nuclear weapons plants are situated.

Baltimore natives Williams Thomas Langan, a coal expert with the U.S. Department of Energy, and his wife, Charlotte Lorraine Langan, were among the 132 killed aboard the crash of USAir Flight 427 Thursday evening.Mr. Langan, along with seven other Department of Energy clean-burning coal experts from Pittsburgh and Morgantown, W.Va., were returning from Chicago, where they had attended a conference sponsored by the department.Mr. Langan, 57, had been director of the Department of Energy's Clean Coal Technology Division in Morgantown since 1990, said Michael Gauldin, the department's director of public and consumer affairs.

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration expanded an inquiry yesterday into the propriety and safety of human radiation experimentation conducted by the government in the decades after World War II.Following the lead of the Department of Energy, which began three weeks ago to comb its archives for records on the experiments, the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said yesterday they...

Martin Marietta Corp. spent about $554,000 from 1986 to 1991 on questionable entertainment costs in connection with its management of certain contracts for the Department of Energy, according to a Government Accounting Office report released yesterday.The money was spent on such things as alcoholic beverages, golf outings, musical performances, dinners, luncheons, receptions, tours and a chartered boat ride.The funds were part of $25 million that Martin Marietta Energy Systems of Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Columbia-based Essex Corp. said yesterday that a 15 percent drop in revenue in the quarter than ended Sept. 27 was directly related to the loss of a Department of Energy training contract in November 1991. But an improvement in bottom-line results for the quarter was attributed, in part, to the completion of several fixed-price programs. The high-tech company supplies training products, as well as image processing equipment, to government and commercial clients. The firm's comparable quarter in 1991 ended Sept.

President-elect Barack Obama's energy team is in place, and he has ambitious plans to reform the nation's energy system. Where should he start? How about with the nation's largest consumer of petroleum - the Pentagon. Historically, the Department of Defense and national security concerns drove innovation and inventions that have changed the world. The issue of energy reform presents a timely opportunity for the department to reclaim that critical role. Mr. Obama has laid out a "Plan for Energy and Environment" acknowledging that our addiction to foreign oil undermines our national security.

When President Bill Clinton appointed Bill Richardson to run the Department of Energy, Mr. Richardson's resume was strong on political skills - 14 years as a congressman and one year as ambassador to the United Nations - but short on knowledge of energy. As a result, his tenure is remembered more for the Wen Ho Lee controversy than for any important energy initiative. Now, suppose Mr. Clinton had instead selected a knowledgeable industry leader - Jack Welch of General Electric, for example.

CHICAGO -- Socialism failed because the governments that embraced it couldn't solve the basic problem of economics: what to produce and how much. In the old Soviet bloc, warehouses filled up with things people wouldn't buy while consumers stood in long lines in the hope of getting what they wanted. Thanks to that experience, we're smarter than to think the government is better at judging what to sell than, say, Toyota or Target. Well, most of the time we are. But every so often, something happens that causes normally rational people to decide that supply and demand are useless, so only the government can make sound production decisions.

How quickly is the universe expanding? A group led by an astrophysicist at the Johns Hopkins University plans to design a telescope to answer that question. Charles L. Bennett's team will spend a $1.5 million federal grant during the next two years designing an infrared space telescope capable of conducting the largest survey yet of the universe. The Advanced Dark Energy Physics Telescope would measure light from distant galaxies as a way to study dark energy - the mysterious force that is pushing galaxies away from each other and speeding up the expansion of the universe.

For almost four years, a handful of workers at Department of Energy headquarters in Washington and Germantown have faced the possibility of losing their jobs to an outside contractor. Their jobs were chosen for what federal workers call "a competition" - a bidding war among the agency's workers and private firms - that a former Bush administration official once called "smart shopping." Agencies finished 181 competitions last year that put nearly 10,000 federal jobs up for bid. Employees won the right to keep 60 percent of them, according to Government Executive magazine, an industry trade publication.

Alan J. Streb, a retired deputy assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy and an expert on renewable energy, died Tuesday at a Towson hospice of complications from Parkinson's disease. He was 73 and lived in Glen Arm. A Baltimore native, Mr. Streb graduated from Loyola High School in 1950 and from the Johns Hopkins University in 1954. He received a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Drexel University in 1960, and was employed by the old Glenn L. Martin Co., where he researched propulsion and energy conversion systems.

WASHINGTON -- The home comes with a flat-screen TV, durable concrete counter tops, a deck and bamboo cabinets and floors. But the best feature of this one-bedroom, wood-frame house - designed, built and put on display in Washington this week by a team of University of Maryland students - is its power source. The sun. The house took two years to build and cost $440,000 - a bit steep for 800 square feet, even in today's inflated market. But this one is not for sale at any price. It's one of 18 solar-powered homes built by architecture and engineering students from schools around the country competing in the 2005 Solar Decathlon.

The U.S. Department of Energy is joining the Alliance to Save Energy in a "Powerful Savings" campaign designed to educate consumers on ways to save energy in their homes. Many easy-to-do tasks around your house can save energy and make the home more comfortable without sacrifices. You won't need to wear your winter coat to bed or keep the home dark in the evenings to keep your energy bills affordable. Here are just a few ideas from this education campaign for you to consider: Plug the air leaks in your home.

The drop in oil prices since Saddam Hussein's regime was beaten in Iraq may arouse cheer in some quarters. But not in the land of alternative energy advocates, whose goal is to replace petroleum with a renewable energy source from crop-grown supplies. Department of Energy (DOE) economists fear that the infusion of overseas oil will spur imports to surge past its forecast of 68 percent by 2025. Environmentalists and economists alike see that as a devastating blow to their hopes for the development of biomass energy and a sad reminder of federal indifference in times past.

At the first sight of snow, Joan Toler heads for the closet. Living without electricity, the 50-year-old retired nurse has to pull on some pantyhose, boots and four sweaters to keep warm. Five blankets help, too. Toler, who drives a taxicab, can't pay the $2,800 that Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. says she owes and she disputes. Her service was cut off Nov. 2. "It's just crazy," said Toler, who says she brings home about $1,200 a month. "I'm freezing." As temperatures drop and fuel bills rise this winter, state agencies and utilities are aggressively seeking families and residents such as Toler who need help paying utility bills.