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Food stuff this year

I busted my butt to get this in before too much of 2007 passed (I submitted it in the wee hours of 1/2/07), but it turns out I forgot to hit the all-important little button that says "post." Isn't there an expression about yesterday's news being today's fish wrapper? (That expression makes a lot more sense in England where people wrap fish'n'chips in newspaper ...) Here, belatedly, is my 2006 summary, ready to be recycled for your cyber-fishwrapping needs.

My personal best and worst food-related stuff of 2006:

Boise Will Be Boys

As feds prepare to delist gray wolf in Idaho and Montana, hunters polish their rifles In Idaho and Montana, the impending removal of Endangered Species Act protections for the gray wolf has sportsfolk salivating. The wolf, reintroduced to the region a decade ago, is blamed for killing elk and other critters that hunters want around […]

I Am Woman, Hear Me Saw

U.S. Forest Service gets first female chief, trees cower File this under The More Things Change: On Friday, the 101-year-old U.S. Forest Service named its first-ever female chief. Huzzah! Alas, Gail Kimbell is a pro-industry engineer who helped create President Bush’s controversial “Healthy Forests” plan and whose appointment has put conservationists on alert. “She is […]

An old-school method for making gas from biomass

There is a great deal of argument over biofuels, and indeed we don't want to overuse them. But I don't think anyone argues that we can't get some of our power from biomass, or that we won't need a sustainable source of hydrocarbons for chemicals and liquid or gaseous fuels.

I'm going to ignore the usual suspects for a moment to discuss the Fischer-Tropsch process, which uses catalysts to convert biomass to gasoline, diesel, or kerosene (pretty much in whatever ratios you wish). Unlike biodiesel and ethanol, these products are 100% compatible with existing engines in all temperatures, without needing dilution by fossil fuels and without needed engine modifications, even minor ones. The net energy balance is better than for cellulosic ethanol, too.

Is ethanol skeptic Pimentel right after all?

In 2004, the USDA came out with a study (PDF) claiming that corn-derived ethanol delivers 67 percent more energy than it consumes in production. For many observers, including green-minded ethanol critics, the study delivered a resounding “case closed” to the decades-long debate about corn ethanol’s “energy balance.” Critiques began to focus more on the mounting […]

Schwarzenegger wants more

DR: There’s always an emphasis on personal transportation. How do you kick start public transportation and more dense settlements? Did you guys make steps toward that in California? TT: We did. While Prop 87 was going down in flames a week ago, the $60 billion bond package for California infrastructure was passing, with several billion […]

Golden Globe partiers go green

Tonight, you watched a herd of mildly to wildly intoxicated beautiful people congratulating themselves on their artistry, but take heart. At least a small group of them continued the self-celebration responsibly at the "Greenest Party on Earth," sponsored by the Environmental Media Association and E! Television.

Could I have missed this?

I know I'm late on this, but the Wall Street Journal had a report on the 11th about Exxon backing off their position on climate change and perhaps engaging with emissions regulation:

In one of the strongest signs yet that U.S. industry anticipates government curbs on global-warming emissions, Exxon Mobil Corp., long a leading opponent of such rules, is starting to talk about how it would like them to be structured.

One research org says so

I've posted before about Stirling Energy Systems, which sells solar electricity from concentrating mirrors and heat engines for around 11 cents per kWh.

But at least one technical advocacy group -- Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC) -- suggests that mass production could bring prices down to 5 cents per kWh or less (PDF), even without technical breakthroughs.

Some clarifications and such

Several issues and questions have come up around the URGE2 concept, most of which I anticipated but was too lazy to write about on my first post. Forthwith, a few notes, caveats, and explanations. First, remember this is conceived as a communication device, not a complete or ideal description of green policy utopia. It has […]