A technology that might provide clean electricity that is cheaper and more reliable than coal is ready for testing. Some of the world's leading scientists think it will work. So why aren't we spending a few million (not billion but million) dollars to find out? The basic idea: wind blows harder and more constantly at high altitudes where aircraft fly than over the tops of towers we install wind turbines on today. Attach wind turbines to tethered helicopters and we can generate many times the energy of conventional turbines. We can use the tethers both to send electricity to the …

Biochar is being promoted as a way to save the world. (I admit to being optimistic about this myself for a very brief time.) It certainly sounds good. Take agricultural or forestry waste that is pretty much pure carbon, with almost none of the other nutrients plants need. Burn it without oxygen, producing a bit of bio-gas for fuel, and a bit of high value pyloric oil suitable for a number of advanced uses. What is left is charcoal which can help build soil and permanently store carbon. As a a bit of added glamor it is based on the …

I recently posted that Kerry-Lieberman is not worth fighting for. It also won't pass. This proposal is dead on arrival. I've heard supporters describe two paths to passage, though they sound more like wishes upon stars. One is that Obama suddenly prioritizes climate, and makes a large scale push to support the bill. I'll let true believers debate that one. The other path is a massive grassroots surge in support of the bill. Given how awful even supporters admit the bill is, that is even less realistic. The usual examples supporters give of weak bills that led to big changes …

The main argument for supporting Kerry-Lieberman seems to be "it's a crappy bill, but once it passes it will get better". KL proponents often point out that social security was loophole ridden in a way that excluded most African-Americans when it first passed. But a combination of demographic shifts, and changes to law extended social security to the point that today it covers almost all old U.S. citizens today. Similarly, the civil rights act of 1957 was almost unenforceable as written. But it did create substantial desegregation in limited sectors of society, made civil right enforcement a Federal issue and …

This is the executive summary(doc) of the American PRIDE (Promote Renewable Infrastructure & Develop Efficiency) proposal.  The PRIDE(doc) proposal is a two decade ~400 billion a year jobs bill that makes a profit, while creating two to five million new jobs per year, reducing U.S. oil use by a third within ten years, and reducing U.S. greenhouse gases around 60% by 2020. It phases out close to 90% of U.S. emissions by 2030 and reduces greenhouse gas pollution to around zero by 2040.   Possible technical means To show that this political proposal is reality based, it includes one feasible …

The leading U.S. bill in tackling the climate crisis is so flawed and weak and full of concessions to major polluters that even centrist environmental groups like Greenpeace have noticed that it is worse than nothing. It fails to take advantage of the many opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in ways that strengthen our economy. The people most to blame for this are not our Congress critters and Senators. The kind of changes we need originate with grassroots pressure, not with politicians. We need an organized movement centered on grassroots demands for solutions. While networks like 350.org have accomplished …

Sean Casten's  criticism of Cap-and-dividend[1] seems to indicate that he had a really bad day. Implying that former  former CEO Peter Barnes, and former software corporate executive Senator Maria Cantwell are Marxists is simply not a propitious way to begin a critique or proposal.  The substance does not seem any better. One of his criticisms of the Cantwell-Collins bill: "The closer an incentive/penalty to the behavior, the more efficient the incentive/penalty. In the Cantwell-Collins bill, CO2 is not taxed at the point of CO2 release, but rather at the point of fossil fuel extraction/import. The theory says that these prices …

In my last two posts I argued two points: emissions pricing is less popular with the public than funding of trains, renewable requirements and other types of public investment and rule based regulation . And the public is right. Clean energy, clean industry and clean agriculture are fundamentally infrastructure.  Infrastructure depends much more on rules of the game and public investment than price fluctuations. Price fluctuations themselves depend as much (or more) on power relations as on supply and demand. Historically everything from U.S. agriculture, canals, telegraph, railroads, auto roads, air and water ports, utilities, wired and wireless communication spectrum …

Last week, I documented that the public supports trains and auto efficiency standards and renewable requirements, along with other policies sometimes slandered as "command & control" over emissions pricing. This week: some historical perspective on why the public is right, and mainstream environmental groups are wrong. Historically U.S. infrastructure, the basis on which this nation developed, was never some magical response to supply and demand. The Erie Canal would not have been built without rights of way given away to the builders. Land given to homesteaders and farmers made us one of the world's great farming nations. Railroads were built …