Latest Articles

Can green jobs save the day?

All sorts of different claims and arguments get jumbled together under the rubric of green jobs. Let's pick apart the claims and get past the sloganeering.

Please try IronCache — a memcached extension for ExpressionEngine

IronCache is an extension for the ExpressionEngine CMS that boosts performance for high traffic sites by using memcached

Solyndra was collateral damage in a trade war with China

Solar-panel installations are booming in the U.S. even as domestic solar companies are struggling, thanks to China's policy of shoveling money into its solar industry.

Wall Street Journal embraces peak oil denialism

 

Daniel Yergin is to peak oil and limits to growth what Richard Lindzen, Anthony Watts, Christopher Monckton, the Heartland Institute and Exxon Mobil are to climate change. That is, Yergin's entire reason for being in the public eye is his rejection of the possible arrival of this calamity.

So of course it's perfectly logical that the Wall Street Journal, long a bastion of climate change denial, would give Yergin a stage on which to spew his unique brand of half-truths.

Protesters in China attack solar panel plant over pollution

Solar power may be the clean energy solution we're all waiting for, but only as long as it's constructed in an environmentally responsible manner. Five hundred protesters in China besieged a solar-panel manufacturing plant in the city of Haining, after it dumped massive amounts of fluoride into a nearby river, killing fish and livestock.

Canadian geothermal could produce a million times as much electricity as the country needs

 

The federal Geological Survey of Canada says that the total available geothermal resource in that country could produce a million times as much electricity as the entire country uses, or well more than enough to light up all of planet earth many times over.

Rent solar panels instead of buying them

Solar leasing companies have been ramping up their business in the past year or so, and, looking at Colorado, you can see how successful they've been. So far this year, more than half of home solar installations were leased systems; last year, it was only 40 percent. The solar leasing companies say it's because it makes solar affordable to a broader swath of people.

The new biodiesel boom

Last year, about a third of the biodiesel plants in the country went idle and output fell by half. But now federal tax credits and renewable energy mandates mean that biodiesel is booming again and plants are opening back up.

Their hold on success is tenuous, though: it depends, the industry says, on Congress extending a tax credit that pushes fuel blenders to include biofuel. The current boom started when Congress restored that credit back in December. But that was only a one-year reboot. For the industry to revive completely, producers say they need a longer extension.

Food Studies: What does the history of baking powder have to do with punk rock cooking zines?

Explaining a what a Masters in gastronomy entails is hard enough; don't ask this cupcake-baker-turned-student what she's planning to do with her degree.

Small fry: The case for smaller fish portions

New science says smaller fillets are more sustainable -- but not just for the reasons you'd expect.