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Cellulosic ethanol, that is

Ha. This headline from Greenwire yesterday (sub. rqd) verges on parody:

Cellulosic fuel on cusp of commercialization, but hurdles remain, experts say

How to transform personal transportation with existing tools

Previous posts about CyberTran described next-generation mass transit systems.

But nobody expects automobiles to disappear from U.S. roads in the near future. We need to get efficiency way up, fast.

The automobile equivalent of CyberTran is the ultra-light electric car. Electric cars don't have to be dull; Tesla Motors sells the Tesla roadster, a ~$100,000 electric sports car that can outrun a comparable Ferrari costing almost twice the price.

But they also don't have to be toys for the filthy rich. Solectria demonstrated the midsize four-passenger Sunrise in 1997. It traveled 216 miles from Boston to New York at normal highway speed, using only 85% of the power in a battery containing energy equivalent to less than a gallon of gas (PDF). Solectria claimed at the time it could profitably retail the car for as little as $20,000. So why did it never come to market?

The problem with a mass market car is you have to make in mass quantities. Generally, if you cannot use the full capacity of a major factory by selling at least 40,000+ units per year, a car is considered a niche product. Below that, you cannot get the full economies of automobile mass production.

Inhofe on the U.N. climate summit

The last gasps of a dying chairmanship: Inhofe weighs in on the U.N. climate summit.

His biggest concern regarding the summit -- which, by the way, he didn't attend -- was a children's book (PDF) on climate change, which Inhofe claims is "brainwashing little kids."

Pits of Despair

Coal industry fends off concerns, keeps working on comeback Some of the tap water in West Virginia’s Mingo County is flowing in funny colors: red, brown, and black. Alarmed residents asked the state if the discoloration, caused by high levels of heavy metals including arsenic and lead, could be related to Big Coal’s practice of […]

Low-oxygen event troubling in Hood Canal

Arrr mateys, there's nothin' like a noggin o' rum cuppa joe to sober wake ye up on a Thursday morn. And there's nothin' like a depressing video of a fish die-off to harsh ye mellow. The footage of Hood Canal comes from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and includes a brief explanation of the problem:

Green building convention is abuzz

I'm currently attending GreenBuild, the U.S. Green Building Council's big annual convention. This is just the fifth iteration, but already it's a behemoth. Last year it drew over 10,000 attendees, and this year it's expected to best that record.

The vast trade show floor (over 700 exhibitors) testifies to the big business of green building. The show places leviathan bridge-builders next door to some guy selling composting toilets. An entire aisle is lined with suppliers of modular green roofs.

What I find interesting, though, is less the breadth of exhibitors than the depth.

Dear Sir, you know about that global warming thing?

U.S. Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) yesterday sent the following letter to President George W. Bush, asking him to commit to working with the new Congress to pass meaningful climate change legislation in 2007.

The Senators are the incoming chairs of three important Senate committees on global warming: Boxer in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee; Bingaman in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee; and Lieberman in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

The senators' letter to the President follows:

France to slap tariff on U.S. over Kyoto non-compliance

For the non-nerds out there, that's "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch." Everybody's gotta pay sometime.

Which brings me to this: The European Union may apply a tariff on nations that don't sign on to Kyoto, or who fail to meet their obligations. This would include America and Canada.

Is a smart guy

Earlier today I had a nice long chat with Terry Tamminen, who until recently was Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's top environmental advisor.

It's safe to say that Tamminen is one of the most influential figures in environmental policy in the country, though he's not widely known. Through his friendship and professional association with Schwarzenegger, he helped develop a whole range of innovative policies, including the biggie: AB 32, California's greenhouse-gas reduction bill. (See also the low-emissions-vehicles regulations that got the state sued by automakers.)

Time for the feds to step in

My previous post about CyberTran described a mass transit system that is highly energy efficient compared to conventional transit, and is inexpensive enough, and supports small stations well enough, to work in suburbs as well as cities.

Some readers were disappointed to find that CyberTran is not currently running anywhere -- that it is still experimental.