There are those who, for selfish, near-term interests, work hard to obscure the truth and only pretend to be part of the solution. When it comes to products and information, buyer beware.

First, the bad news: LG has been caught cheating by rigging it’s refrigerators to pass an energy efficiency test. It’s not the first time for LG (see Watts In Your Kitchen? ). Seems some people in the company not only cheat, but cheat poorly. On the bright side, the CEO of PG&E and a well-respected environmental scientist have collaborated on a very readable white paper on the science of global climate change and a response that will have a minimum negative effect on the U.S. economy in the short term, and very positive effects for the long term.

As reported in The Sydney Morning Harold, LG was caught with an illegal device in its model L197NFS and P197WFS refrigerators. The illegal device kicks the refrigerators into low power mode when it detects the temperature at which the refrigerators are tested in the lab (typically 22°C). So it shows Energy Star-level efficiency in the test, but costs more than $250 (Australian) to operate over a 10 year period than it would if it was energy efficient in the home. LG advertises that the fridges uses 738 kWh per year, when they actually use 876 kWh. There is another problem. The refrigerators can shut off when opened—putting your food at risk of spoiling.

Peter A. Darbee is the Chairman of the Board, CEO, and President of PG&E Corporation. His coauthor of the paper, Climate Change for Policymakers and Business Leaders, is Christopher B. Field, Director, Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington D.C. For Darbee, global climate change is a business challenge; for Field, it’s pure science. Among other things, this is what they agree on.

• Global climate change will increase the severity of extreme weather events (including snow storms on the east coast); severely disrupt agricultural growing seasons and therefore create food shortages; increase scarcity of water for drinking, irrigation, and energy production; and make populated coastal areas vulnerable because of rising sea levels.

• Combating climate change through carbon cap and trade mechanisms, improved energy efficiency, and increased renewable energy will, according to the independent Congressional Budget Office, minimally impact U.S. economic output through 2050, while the positive economic effects of investment in energy efficiency and renewable energy, and a cleaner, healthier and more stable planetary climate will dwarf these negative effects.

I believe that, given the right information, more than 50% of us will see an environmental problem clearly and do what we can to fix it. But getting to 50% requires leadership—the kind that Darbee, a businessman, and Field, a scientist, are trying to provide through their white paper. Then there are those who, for selfish, near-term interests, work hard to obscure the truth and only pretend to be part of the solution. When it comes to products and information, buyer beware.

Three months before the state election, Prop 16 has made headlines in every major state newspaper.

At first glance, Proposition 16 might appear to lack a certain splash-factor — at least compared to other initiatives – like 8 or even 71 – that have appeared on recent California ballots. In short, the proposition would require a two-thirds super majority election by voters before a local government could pool the buying power of consumers to secure energy contracts. (Oh, are you still reading this? Good.)

And yet, three months before the state election, Prop 16 has made headlines in every major state newspaper. The LA Times, the Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, and the Sacramento Bee, to name just a few.

From the standpoint of Prop 16's backers, these are not the good kind of headlines. With few exceptions, each article has put a spotlight on a dramatically lopsided campaign: One side of Prop 16 – the "Yes" camp – is funded entirely by a single company, PG&E, which has said it's prepared to spend $35 million on the campaign. The "No" camp has scraped together less than $25,000, nearly all of it from an advocacy group with a staff of 15.

When I asked a Yes On 16 spokesman whether he was concerned that his camp's financial muscle might turn off voters, he said that the issues at hand are simply too important not to put on a ballot. But "important" how? To PG&E's profit margin? Or to the communities interested in pursuing public power? That may be the key distinction guiding voters on June 8.

To view the complete Campaign Finance reports of Proposition 16 opponents and proponents (including details about where money comes from, and where it is spent), click here.

Listen to Battle Over Public Power radio report online.

To go solar or not to go solar? Homeowners looking to save money on their energy bills have a number of factor to consider.

It's easy to get excited about installing solar panels on your house – particularly when you find out that state and federal rebates can cut the price almost in half.

But, as we've reported before, you might get more bang for your buck from far cheaper (and yes, far less exciting) fixes. Small things like weather stripping your doors, turning down the thermostat or upgrading your refrigerator, can put a dent in your utility bills.

Even if you've done all that, solar panels still might not pencil out. That's because of something called "tiered pricing", which is how most utilities calculate your monthly energy bills. The idea is that energy is relatively cheap as long as you stay within a certain amount. Exceed that, and you're in the next "tier," where the rate increases. At the next tier, the rate is even higher. The difference between top tier and bottom pier can be as much as 44 cents versus 8 cents per kilowatt hour.

That's why solar panels tend to make more sense for people with substantial energy needs – the big, air-conditioned houses, the heated pools, the multiple flat-screen TVs.

The higher your monthly utility bills without solar panels, the faster those panels will pay for themselves once they're installed. Plus, even if those panels don't meet the complete energy needs of your house, they may be enough to bring you down to a lower tier, where the rate is much better.

If you're interested in making your home more energy efficient, this handy and comprehensive online audit from the people at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs is a good place to start.

More people appear to be saying "yes" these days, even if grudgingly. The question is: Is it too late?

The Public Policy Institute of California has been tracking public support for expanded nuclear power over the past several years. Survey participants are offered a menu of four potential energy options, one at a time.

The question posed is: "Thinking about the country as a whole, to address the country’s energy needs and reduce dependence on foreign oil sources, do you favor or oppose the following proposals?" Then the four options are offered, including: "How about building more nuclear power plants at this time."

As recently as 2002, adults surveyed in California opposed the idea by a margin of 59% to 33%. But that gap has been closing steadily in the years since and by this July, Californians were split just about down the middle on the question, with 46% in favor and 48% opposed. The poll has a margin of error of about 2%, making it a virtual tie.

When you dig into the numbers a little deeper, some demographic preferences emerge: support increases with both age and education. Californians 55 and older support more nuclear by a wide margin (58% to 36%) as do college graduates (50%-43%).

Many people use cost as an argument against nuclear but just as the PPIC was phoning around for opinions on the matter, the Palo Alto-based Electric Power Research Institute was finishing up its own report , concluding that trying to reach greenhouse gas reduction goals without baseload technologies like nuclear power, could end up costing much more. Dan Kammen, who runs an energy lab at U.C. Berkeley, would appear to agree. He said in a recent interview for Climate Watch that "Without knowing exactly where things will come down on nuclear, I think that it absolutely has to be part of the equation in a way that it has not been in the past. Energy costs from fossil fuels are rising at almost 5% a year now, and the damage we are doing and are going to do more of, if we don’t stop our fossil fuel expansion, in terms of greenhouse warming, is so large an issue that these technologies have to be back on the table.

But there's a serious question of whether the nation– let alone the state– is in a position to embrace nuclear as it did in the 1960s. Kammen is also a professor of nuclear engineering, and noted with some alarm the rate at which the industry is "graying." Now in his mid-forties, he told me that when he attends technical meetings for nuclear engineers, he's often "the youngest guy in the room–by 20 years." Since the U.S. more or less abandoned its nuclear hopes following the Three Mile Island debacle, the nation has ceded most of its nuclear industrial capacity to other nations, and few young people have chosen to enter the field.

The effective ban on new nuclear plants that California has had in place since 1976 could be reconsidered. But ultimately electric utilities will have to want it and I sense a certain "nuclear fatigue" in that arena.

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) shut down its only reactor in 1989, after a thumbs-down referendum. When I called to ask for an interview on the prospects for a nuclear revival, they declined. They didn't even want to talk about it. Managers at PG&E, whose twin reactors at Diablo Canyon produce nearly a quarter of the utility's output, still claim an interest in nuclear. But when I asked CEO Peter Darbee about it recently, he said he had the sense that most people in California would prefer to look elsewhere for energy solutions. Of course, that was before the latest PPIC poll.

Listen to the New Nuclear radio report online.

Check out an interactive "atomic timeline," marking some of the milestones in nuclear power history in the U.S. By former Climate Watch intern Amanda Dyer.

Hourly energy use data, now online.

I've never paid much attention to my electric meter. For most of us, it's just that box on the side of the house with a small white disk spinning inside, keeping track of our energy use. But over the next three years, all the meters of PG&E customers will be getting a major upgrade to a new, digital SmartMeter.

I met one customer, Ken Kube in Castro Valley, whose meter has already been upgraded. Since the new meters track his home energy use digitally, Kube can log into his PG&E account and see his real-time energy use. On one level, it's really the ultimate tool for parents who like to remind their kids to turn out the lights. But it's also a powerful conservation tool. Kube could see how much energy he uses at night, when his appliances are drawing power in stand-by more (what's known as "vampire" power).

These meters are just a small piece of the puzzle when it comes to a smart grid. Just what the smart grid is depends on whom you ask, but most people agree it comes down to one thing: communication. The energy landscape is changing rapidly. In addition to increasing demand, there's more renewable power like large-scale solar and wind coming online – which are often far from urban areas and are available intermittently. There's also small-scale solar on building rooftops – which means energy consumers are becoming energy producers. There will also be plug-in electric cars, which need to draw power from grid.

To manage all this, utilities and grid operators need more information than they have. And that's where meters come in. But as Kurt Yeager of the Galvin Electricity Initiative describes, it's a huge networking challenge – and a huge market opportunity.

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A number of companies have jumped into the smart grid market as a result, from Silicon Valley start ups to international corporations. As Eric Miller, the Chief Solutions Officer for Trilliant describes, managing the information flow in smart grid will be the biggest challenge.

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Other smart grid companies are banking on the consumer market. Google is developing the PowerMeter, an online tool that tracks home energy use. They're partnering with GE, who is positioned to work with utilities, with its meter technology, and with consumers, with smart appliances, as Sunil Sharan, the Director of the Smart Grid Initiative explains.

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More on the smart grid: check out the Smart Grid at Home radio report and a slideshow of grid technology, old and new.