CIBC World Markets Chief Economist Jeff Rubin recently analyzed the explosion in shipping costs in the steel sector from triple-digit oil prices and came away with some thoughts (pdf) about which nation will prosper the most:

Soaring transport costs, first on importing iron to China and then exporting finished steel overseas, have already more than eroded the wage advantage and suddenly rendered Chinese-made steel uncompetitive in the US market.

In other words: Chinese steel manufacturing production is coming to America, along with the sector’s long-lost wages. That's promising news for the US Steelworkers of America, says Rubin, and a telling sign of things to come. The numbers:

China’s steel exports to the US are now falling by more than 20% on a year-over year basis—the worst performance in almost a decade. While many might attribute this decline to the slowdown in the US economy, it is noteworthy that US domestic steel production has risen by almost 10% during the same period.

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• Stacy Feldman's blog
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People opposed to action on global warming use three arguments most often: global warming is not caused by human activities, reducing CO2 will slow economic growth and really it's just an excuse for eco-liberals to create a neo-fascist nanny state to run everyone's life in an irritating and politically correct fashion.

There isn't much I can add to the debate on the first issue, but let's talk about the other two, with the help of the graph above which I found at the Canadian Green Party website.

We'll see that reducing CO2 by increasing energy efficiency improves the economy and that 'nanny' laws work when the free market doesn't.

That blue line going down shows the dramatic improvement in the energy efficiency of refrigerators in the US since 1973. That pinkish line rising tells an opposite story -- of the dramatic rise in standby power over the same period.

Together they tell a couple stories: one about vampires, the other about nannies.

We have come to a point in the election season where the courage of the candidates and the intelligence of the voters are being severely tested. So far, the candidates are flunking. The public’s grade is pending.

The test is about oil and national security.

Who knew that the US is currently exporting 1.8 million barrels of oil a day?

To make sure everybody does, Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Chairman of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, sent a public letter to President Bush, asking him to "keep our oil at home."

The letter didn't specify how, but it didn't miss the opportunity to take a shot at the GOP plan to open up protected offshore waters to oil drilling.

.....at the current export rate, by the time the first barrel of oil could be produced from increased offshore drilling, America would have already exported the equivalent of nearly 40 percent of the oil that is projected to lie beneath protected areas offshore.

It was no coincidence that Markey's letter was released just as John McCain paid a visit to an offshore rig off the coast of Louisiana -- in order to highlight his support for increased domestic offshore drilling.

As the public battle over access to oil in protected US waters continues, Jad Mouawad in the New York Times explains why the stakes have gotten so high: it turns out the major oil companies, desperate for new sources of supply, have almost nowhere else to turn.

And after reading this story on Think Progress, it will also become clear why a McCain election victory would deliver what the oil companies want more than anything else: a clear path to an endless fossil future.

Shares in Denmark's Vestas -- the world's #1 wind turbine maker -- shot up 8 percent last Friday on news that the company had an order backlog worth $10.7 billion. The backlog grew 67 percent since a year ago -- a strong indication of continued robust growth.

The company also announced it was investing $120 million in a new factory in Colorado -- on top of $200 million it's already sinking into another factory -- which will bring 1350 new jobs to the state. That is going to put a total of 2450 people on the Vestas payroll in Colorado.

It's nice that this Danish company that owns a 25% market share in wind turbines globally is outsourcing clean tech jobs to the US, ain't it?

The best part, though, is that the development is playing into the volatile energy politics of the state. As renewable energy takes on a new attractive luster, incumbent oil and gas industries in Colorado are being rocked back on their heels.

Might this be the preview of a larger national drama?

An old friend of mine used to say that at a certain stage in political campaigns, dead cats start flying through the air.  I’ve never understood what he meant by that, but I think the cat-flinging has begun.

Both candidates are doing their share, but one exchange deserves special analysis: John McCain’s attack against Barack Obama’s comment about tire gauges. In one of his recent energy speeches, Obama made the point that acts of conservation by individual Americans can have an impact on rising oil prices. He used tire pressure maintenance as an example.

Cement is at the heart of increasing global warming emissions. It's production releases large amounts of CO2 -- both from the chemical process that creates it and the energy consumed in manufacturing. China alone makes 45% of the world's cement, and globally the industry is booming.

That's why two promising new developments related to the production of cement - an ancient and mundane material -- are drawing attention. Reducing CO2 from making cement isn't as sexy as electric cars, but it's the third largest US CO2 producer so there’s an opportunity to make a real contribution.

Many studies have shown that the environmental benefits from household recycling are minimal or at least highly exaggerated.....America is not in danger of ever running out of landfill to store our garbage......we could store all of America's garbage for the next century within the property of Ted Turner's ranch in Montana, with 50,000 acres undisturbed for the horse and bison.

Stephen Moore, senior economics writer, Wall Street Journal editorial board, 8/15/2008

There's a rumor floating around, unconfirmed, that Stephen Moore didn't get the nod from Mayor Bloomberg to run the NYC Sanitation Department so the Wall Street Journal hired him instead. Today he showed his mastery of trash talk in a piece called Gang Green that even colleagues at his own newspaper found tiresome.

"We choose to go...not because [it is] easy, but because [it is] hard, because that goal will serve to measure and organize the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win."
-John Kennedy in his bid for an American moon landing before the end of 1969

With Al Gore's soaring speech last month calling for an America powered with electricity from 100% renewable sources, a stirring vision comes to mind of a Can Do America, an America that looks at the seemingly impossible and says "why not?"

But as David McClellan wrote the other day in SolveClimate, We need a plan. If why not, then how?

In his post, David laid out in clear, nuts n' bolts terms the daunting task we face transforming America's energy economy. By contrast, the moon-shot of the sixties was easy. A few (thousand) rocket scientists, seven dare-devil pilots with the "right stuff" to ride those rockets, and some smart guys with slide rules to point the rockets in the right direction. Before you know it you're on the moon.

Not to make light of that incredible achievement of 40 years ago, but Gore's call to "repower America" requires not just the best and the brightest, but all Americans, to make it happen.

We'll first need to find a way to break through intractable political grid-lock (starting with a long-term extension of the renewable energy tax credit by Congress) and create a policy framework that addresses in minute detail the technical and economic aspects of Gore's Grand Vision.

Has anyone even proposed creating such a plan?

Take a deep breath.

"So goes San Francisco, so goes California and so goes the nation"

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• Tom Schueneman's blog
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The Wall Street Journal may not like T. Boone Pickens' clean energy plan, but it has a lot of merit. What Pickens sees -- and the WSJ ignores -- is that our oil-driven global economy is stretched to the limit and is likely not sustainable.

A telling indicator is an enormous oil-extraction project in Alberta, Canada -- an enormous energy-intensive, financially questionable undertaking that oil companies are now treating as the next great oil bonanza.