renewable energy

Now's the time to make the big leap to clean energy

For the burgeoning clean energy industry, these are heady times. Having spent most of its years in uphill struggle, the industry has now climbed to the takeoff point. Wind and solar are the world’s fastest growing energy sources, their costs rapidly curving down toward competitiveness with fossil fuels. Fuel cells that provide clean electricity for […]

Crabby Cabbie

Grist for the Windmill

An Anglo-Dutch consortium plans to build the world’s tallest pair of offshore wind turbines this summer, in the North Sea one kilometer off England’s northeast coast. The partners, which include oil giant Royal/Dutch Shell, hope the pilot project will pave the way for a potential $9.6 billion investment in the area, considered to be Europe’s […]

Wind power is dividing enviros and spurring some odd alliances

The National Audubon Society hosted a news conference in September 1999 to denounce Enron Wind Corp.’s plans to build a wind farm near the town of Gorman in Southern California, with enough capacity to power 40,000 homes. “It is hard to imagine a worse idea than putting a condor Cuisinart next door to critical condor […]

All We Are Saying Is Give Peace a Chance

Recently I invited friends around the world to ask their friends and neighbors a simple question: “What would the world be like if it were what you really want, not what you’ve learned to settle for or what you think is possible? What do you really want the world to be like for your children […]

Ouch! Stop Pooling My Hair!

Bird in the Hand Worth Two for Bush?

While you were smoothing on suntan lotion or stoking the barbecue this weekend, Texas state legislators were madly finishing up work before their midnight May 31 deadline. Gov. George W. Bush‘s tax cuts and education initiatives got most of the attention, but we kept our gaze trained on the environmental bills likely to come up […]

Amory Lovins Sees the Future and It Is Hydrogen

For 25 years, energy guru Amory Lovins has been seeing farther and farther into the energy future. He has been labeled a dreamer, but by now he’s accumulated enough of a record to qualify as an oracle. At a recent meeting of the National Hydrogen Association, he (with colleague Brett Williams of Rocky Mountain Institute) […]

Sprawl Brawl

The Sierra Club released poll numbers recently indicating that 47 percent of voters would be more likely to support a presidential candidate prepared to aggressively attack the problem of urban sprawl. Most people associate VP Al Gore with that issue, but Seattle Mayor Paul Schell has his own ideas. Schell jumped on Bill Bradley‘s presidential […]