I wrote last month about The Reaction to EPA’s proposed regulations on greenhouse gases. The virus of fear is spreading. People who should know better, in my opinion, namely eight Democratic Senators from coal, oil and industrial states, wrote to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson warning her, for all intents and purposes, to back off. Coal-State […]
Usually, I don’t drag myself into my own blogs but the Bloom Box is the sort of energy project ultimately supposed to be aimed at people — homeowners — like me. Like most homeowners, I am not a tech geek, and, in theory, I am attracted to the idea of the Bloom Box. However, I […]
States are going against the green energy wave and reverting back to the status quo: fossil fuels. In Wyoming, elected officials are mulling a legislation to add a tax to wind farms. In Vermont, the state senate voted to shut down a 38-year old nuclear power plant that is receiving a 20-year extension to operate. […]
The Department of Energy has announced substantive backing in the form of loan guarantees for an exciting concentrated solar power (CSP) project in California. The plant will generate 400 MW of electricity using the same “power tower” approach I saw when we were on vacation in Spain this past August. For backing this project, I […]
Hard to say, this past week, who was madder and more affronted about a missed opportunity: Evgeni Plushenko, the Russian figure skater who won Olympic silver but felt he deserved gold, or Argentina, which found out that a British company was exploring for oil in the nearby but British-held Falkland Islands. Despite losing a short […]
There is growing concern that the foundering condition of soil in China could facilitate a food crisis in the world’s most populated country. As millions of Chinese farmers migrate toward cities from rural countrysides, the influx of people into urban areas creates a greater demand for meat, grain, and dairy products. But China’s soil is […]
Here’s a not-unexciting little story, courtesy of the good people at Green Energy Reporter, on a potential breakthrough in distributed generation. The Bloom Box is a super fuel cell. It’s super because it’s so small, so efficient and, if they get the price down, can penetrate markets just about anywhere. Google and eBay are satisfied […]
With abject apologies to the Bard, this is just a note on the potentially enormous question of how much do we want to get at the vast amounts of shale gas available, worldwide, and what price is there to be paid. I’ve written about the implications for greenhouse gas reductions in exploiting the enormous reserves […]
After fifty years of intrigue, greed, and environmental obliviousness, can oil, gas and mining companies in developing world situations ever get it right? A new book by Luc Zandvliet and Mary B. Anderson of Boston-based CDA Collaborative Learning Projects suggests it is possible, if the corporate will is there. Getting It Right: Making Corporate-Community Relations […]
Last month, I talked to a man who works indirectly with one of the Native Corporations of Alaska. “The North Slope is going to be running out of oil in the not too distant future,” I said. “What will you do then?” He paused both considering the question and yet not understanding why I asked. […]
Pipelines used to be just a way to get oil or gas from Point A to Point B — mostly political locally, especially for environmental reasons. Sometimes, they are locally strategic, the way they are in Nigeria — want to get the government’s or the company’s attention? Blow up a pipeline. Increasingly, they are geo-strategic, […]
Just a quick note: A former student of mine jumped in the other day with some comment about the recent nuclear power announcement from the White House. Here is her take and my response. For a stunningly strong and incisive analysis, go to Kate Sheppard’s article yesterday at “Mother Jones.” One of the several eye-opening […]
A national food security assessment completed in December 2009 in Niger showed approximately 7.8 million people, totaling three-fifths of the country’s population, face moderate to severe food insecurity, say UN officials. Specifically, 2.7 million Niger citizens suffer from severe food insecurity and 5.1 million suffer moderate food insecurity. An irregular and shortened rainy season last […]
In the January/February 2010 edition of Foreign Affairs, Carlisle Ford Runge and Carlisle Piehl Runge wrote an article titled “Against the Grain, “ which questions if the current global balance between food prices (high) and food supply (low) invites a return of the theories of Thomas Malthus, who posited that overwhelming human population growth would be held back by a decreasing availability of food. […]
I’ve been trying to stay out of the thick of the vastly media-inflated controversy over the science. There are folks, in any event, who are much better grounded in the complexities of the arguments than I am. These include the very good minds at RealClimate, Skeptical Science, Stoat and Climate Feedback, among others. I have […]