Latest Articles
-
A True Grassroots Victory in San Antonio
We’re still celebrating last week’s announcement by San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro that not only will the city shut down its 900 megawatt Deely coal-fired power plant by 2018, but San Antonio plans to replace the power with a combination of traditional sources like natural gas, renewable energy, including solar energy, and energy efficiency. In […]
-
In the worst drought in Texas history, 13.5 billion gallons of water used for fracking
Texas is experiencing the driest eight-month period in its recorded history. But in 2010, natural gas companies used 13.5 billion gallons of fresh water for hydraulic fracturing, and that could more than double by 2020. Where's all this water coming from? Oh, it was just lying around, in these aquifers! You guys weren't using it to drink or irrigate or anything, right? Guys?
-
We might have to geoengineer the planet to save ourselves from renewable energy
Mark Lynas, an author whose pop-sci books about climate change are scrupulous enough to get favorable reviews from the likes of climate scientist Eric Steig, proposed a funny little thought experiment on his blog: Could switching to renewables strip the planet of its sun-protective smog? And if so, will we need to replace it with artificial smog instead?
-
What we could have bought with the $4 trillion we spent on Iraq and Afghanistan
Americans like us some war, but to the tune of $4 trillion? In adjusted dollars, that's just short of what it cost us to whup the Nazis.
Here's a look at what we could have done with that money, had we spent it on something besides stoking Americans' confusion over whether or not the world's 1.5 billion 'Muslims' are in fact a monolithic group whose every member is a terrorist.
-
Biomass is the new coal
Dominion wants to convert three of its Virginia coal plants to run on waste biomass. Will biomass be a smart way to transition away from coal?
-
EVs can climb every mountain…OK, just Pikes Peak
To prove that electric cars are just as bad-ass as run-of-the-mill, gas-powered, souped-up race cars, Nissan entered the Leaf in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb. This race is not for weenies: It requires drivers to cover 12.42 miles and navigate 156 turns while ascending 4,720 feet in altitude at an average grade of 7 percent. Nissan made minimal changes to the factory-floor version of the car, putting in racing tires and some safety equipment but nothing too fancy.
And the Leaf won! -
'Under the weather' Inhofe skips climate denier conference
As a record drought roasts Oklahoma, "under the weather" climate denier Jim Inhofe bails out of Heartland Institute's Conference on Climate Change.
-
Why Broke-Ass is a patriot
Broke-Ass goes off on bicycle lanes, Northern Europe, and the smugness of the eco-movement in general, before telling a few stories about what makes this country great.
-
Feds say Massey cooked the safety books
According to federal investigators, Massey Energy -- the folks who brought you the Upper Big Branch coal mine explosion that killed 29 -- has been deliberately misleading inspectors about safety conditions at its mines. That's the Mine Safety and Health Administration's conclusion, based on 84,000 pages of documents and 266 interviews.
