Fossil Fuels

Advocates of alternative-fuel vehicles would seem a unified bunch of tree-huggers, bound by their determination to wean the world's automobiles off fossil fuels. But there's a red-hot fight brewing in the green-car world. Proponents of the two most-hyped technologies - hydrogen fuel cells and plug-in electric hybrids - are squared off in an increasingly bitter fight. They are vying for publicity, manufacturer acceptance, favorable regulation and, especially, financing for research and investment in infrastructure and marketing.

PLAINSBORO, N.J. -- In its heyday it was a palace among physics laboratories, with an enviably fat budget, ample support staff and the prestige that comes to research institutions working at the cutting edge in solving global problems. But today, the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, still a leader in hydrogen fusion research, is so short of cash that it can no longer afford even a receptionist.However, a dry spell of discouragements and spending cuts for fusion research may be ending.

GLOBAL warming is as difficult a challenge as public officials have ever faced. Despite inadequate knowledge, we must make decisions that could involve more than a trillion dollars and many lives.But we do know enough that the correct course of action is clear if, instead of first focusing on an international agreement, as we have been doing, we focus on what type of long-range energy policy makes sense.A real problemConcern about the accelerating buildup of carbon dioxide as a result of increased burning of fossil fuels is legitimate.

AS THE concentration of greenhouse gas emissions keeps rising in the atmosphere and warming up the planet, it is time to reconsider a national policy to limit the use of nuclear power -- a policy increasingly at odds with itself.On the one hand, the government recognizes that the expanded use of nuclear power since the early 1970s has been crucial in reducing the direct burning of fossil fuels. Policymakers support the idea of renewing the operating licenses of nuclear power plants and developing designs for a new generation of advanced reactors.

Glenn McNatt's wrong; poetry is alive and wellI am sorry that, for Glen McNatt, poetry is dead.We will always be moved by words, and it doesn't matter if they were spoken five minutes ago or 4,000 years ago.It doesn't matter very much whether they are spoken live in a room with us, heard through a speaker, or read from a cathode-ray tube or in a book. We long to hear words that give expression to what is intimate and solitary, beautiful and wise, because we long for meaning that connects us to our contemporaries, the generations before and after us and to the natural universe.

YOU SHOULDN'T grill a steak. But if you must, don't use lighter fluid to ignite the charcoal. If the drought isn't burning up your lawn fast enough, you can mow. But don't refuel your mower by day because temperatures will cook the fumes. Night is also the preferred time to gas up your car, but don't travel alone. Either car-pool or ride the bus, which you can do free in some areas during Maryland's latest air-pollution alert.State health, environmental and transportation officials have plenty of advice and directives to dispense as Maryland copes with persistent Code Red air pollution conditions.

DELEGATES from more than 150 nations are gathered in Kyoto, Japan, to cap two years of technical work with a ringing and binding call for reductions in greenhouse gases -- notably carbon dioxide from fossil fuels -- to reverse global warming. They may not make it.Broadly speaking, the nations are grouped in two camps. The United States is in neither. If the conference fails to produce agreement, the U.S. is likely to be cast as villain. If a compromise is brokered that produces a treaty that would bring results and pass Senate ratification, the U.S. would emerge as unlikely hero.

WASHINGTON -- In one of the most important environmental decisions of the decade, President Clinton approved significantly tighter pollution limits on deadly soot and choking smog yesterday while offering states and cities substantial flexibility in deciding how to reach the new goals over the next 10 years and beyond.Ending a fierce behind-the-scenes battle, Clinton sided with the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Carol M. Browner, against the concerns of his economic advisers, who had balked in the face of industry complaints that the rules would cost far more than they were worth.

WASHINGTON -- An international conservation organization says the Chesapeake and Delaware bays are among 15 "critical" migratory bird habitats around the world most threatened by global warming.The World Wildlife Fund, in a report summarizing recent scientific research, says rising sea levels, changes in the timing of the seasons and drier weather in some locations have begun to alter breeding grounds and food availability, and could change them faster than some migratory birds can adapt.

Human FeelingsAfter watching and hearing House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) brag about his party's "Contract with America," it seems that congressional elimination of social programs will soon replace baseball as our national pastime.This being the case, I am reminded of a passage from George F. Will's 1990 book, "Men at Work," in which he states: "Umpires should be natural Republicans -- dead to human feelings."Mel TansillCatonsvilleFuel AlternativesThe Clinton administration's commitment to cutting carbon emissions is not enough.

It doesn't take a world-class bargain-hunter to recognize that the price of anything, from groceries to electronics, is impossible to assess without considering hidden costs. Like that big-screen TV? Better ask about the added cost of cables and digital sound. A home listed below market price can seem great - until repairs to the cracked foundation, faulty wiring and leaky plumbing are factored in. Yet for decades, the U.S. has embraced an energy policy blithely ignorant of the true price tag of driving our highways and providing electricity to our homes.

President Obama on Sunday called a House-passed energy bill "an extraordinary first step" toward halting global warming and reducing the use of fossil fuels, but he expressed reservations about a controversial provision that would slap tariffs on imports from countries that do not similarly crack down on greenhouse gas emissions. He predicted that the measure would spark innovation and jobs, and that its costs to consumers would fall well short of critics' warnings. "What seems contentious now is going to seem like common sense in hindsight," he told reporters in the Oval Office.

If there were a way to harness the gases its members produce with oratory, Congress would no longer need to burn dirty old coal to generate heat and air-conditioning for Capitol Hill. Alas, and remarkably, nearly a decade into the 21st century, offices of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, the Library of Congress and several other buildings still get their heating and cooling from a 99-year-old power plant that burns the most carbon-packed of fossil fuels and produces emissions that cause global warming.

WASHINGTON -President Barack Obama's plans to lead America from recession rest in part on a task bigger than a moon shot and the Manhattan Project, as complicated as any feat of economic engineering in the nation's history. His goal, which past presidents have spent more than $100 billion chasing with limited success, is to replace imported oil and other fossil fuels with a so-called "clean energy economy" powered by the wind, the sun and bio-fuels. The stakes are high. If Obama succeeds, he could spark a domestic jobs boom and lead an international fight against climate change.

WASHINGTON - Charts at the ready, notes spread out before him, Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett begins another address in the House of Representatives on the dangers of America's dependence on oil. The Western Maryland Republican has given nearly 50 such speeches at the Capitol in the past three years, most of them variations on a theme: that a coming decline in petroleum production, coupled with growing demand for energy, will have a calamitous impact on the...

Last month, former Vice President Al Gore highlighted the triple threat embedded in our reliance on fossil fuels - the growing strains to our economy, our environment and our national security. He issued a ringing challenge to America's leaders to generate 100 percent of our electricity from energy sources with zero carbon emissions within 10 years. In the wake of that challenge, a chorus of voices sprang up to insist that the goal is unachievable, undesirable, even unfathomable. Surely, Mr. Gore's was the kind of challenge that invites controversy: succinct, dramatic and bold.

Would the gentleman with the property on Joppa Road near the Baltimore Beltway please get back in touch? You called a couple of weeks ago - something about turning your sprawling property back into farmland - and I know people who would be interested in talking to you. You might be, literally, on the edge of an important new trend. It's called "urban edge agriculture," and some in farming believe it's the next big thing. (Note: These are not the same people who predicted that emu ranching would be the next big thing.

The farmer drove a diesel-powered hay baler in a circuit around his field, followed by his son on a clattering machine that grabbed the bales with metal fingers. Edward F. Stanfield, 77, and his son, Edward B. Stanfield, 49, have followed this oil-inspired choreography for decades on their 600-acre farm in the Randallstown area of Baltimore County. Like farmers around the world, they grow their hay, corn and soybeans with petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides, harvest them with diesel combines, pack them with oil-based plastic and ship them in diesel trucks.

WASHINGTON - Former Vice President Al Gore said yesterday that Americans must abandon fossil fuels within a decade and rely on the sun, the winds and other environmentally friendly sources of power, or risk losing their national security as well as their creature comforts. "The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk," Gore said in a speech to an energy conference here. "The future of human civilization is at stake." Gore called for the kind of concerted national effort that enabled Americans to walk on the moon 39 years ago this month, just eight years after President John F. Kennedy famously embraced that goal.

Congress is finally getting serious about global warming. But ironically, the approach it is considering would hasten, rather than slow, environmental calamity. The Senate opened debate this week on legislation known as the Warner-Lieberman bill. It would limit U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2012 to 2005 levels, and reduce those by 70 percent in 2050. Unfortunately, by encouraging energy-intensive American industries to flee to developing countries, this bill would penalize U.S. businesses that could contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and thus accelerate global warming.