Latest Articles

Twenty ideas that could save the world

Ask Chris Rapley, the ebullient physicist and director of the Science Museum in London, why he seems more sanguine about our prospects of taming climate change than many of his peers, and he’ll tell you about the day he first toured the museum’s library and archives. Surrounded by the thousands of designs and patent applications […]

Seattle light rail finally opens doors to passengers

Photo: wings777 via FlickrIt’s been a long time coming, but starting this Saturday, it’ll be “all aboard!” when Seattle’s light rail trains pull into the station. The Sound Transit trains will travel 14 miles from Westlake Center, in the center of downtown, south to Tukwila, two miles short of the Sea-Tac airport. By the end […]

What the heck is CCS and can it really help fight climate change? An expert explains

Artist’s rendering of a power plant with CCS technology.Image: Prosjektlab/BellonaIt is conventional wisdom among People Who Matter that burning coal is going to continue, even accelerate, no matter what kind of legislation is passed or international agreements are forged. That’s why carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) — technology that buries power-plant carbon dioxide emissions underground […]

San Francisco solar energy incentive program shines bright in first year

Last July, the City and County of San Francisco launched the first local solar energy incentive program in the nation. The results are in, and the program is an unequivocal success. In the year since our solar energy incentive program GoSolarSF launched, we have seen a 450% increase in applications for solar installations in San […]

Green jobs: debunking the debunkers

Energy markets are neither free nor efficient, so traditional economic arguments against regulation and other government interventions do not apply.  In response to my recent article digging into green jobs, a reader sent me a copy of a March paper by Andrew Morriss et al at University of Illinois that attempts to debunk green jobs […]

Will Senate leadership crack the whip on the climate bill?

In the weeks since the House passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act, it’s become clear that the bill was approved only because of some serious arm-twisting by Democratic leaders. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) personally badgered wavering Democrats, even going so far as to pull one representative out of rehab so he could […]

West Virginia redefines dirty energy as “alternative”

When you hear the phrase “alternative energy,” what comes to mind? Solar power? Wind? Hydroelectric? Not for West Virginia’s political leaders. They think a little differently. In the recent legislative session, Gov. Joe Manchin (D) championed and state lawmakers approved an energy portfolio standard bill requiring 25% of generation to come from “alternative and renewable” […]

Privatize the seas? If only solving overfishing were so easy

School of hard knocksIn this month’s Atlantic, Gregg Easterbrook writes that privatizing the seas through use of individualized transferrable quotas (ITQs) is the solution to the grave problem of overfishing. Recently, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco came out strongly (PDF) in favor of ITQs (which the agency is calling “catch shares”), and has committed her agency […]

Proof of concept: Well-crafted standards spur innovation in lighting

There was an excellent article in the NY Times last Sunday, detailing the unexpected rise of super-efficient incandescent light bulbs as a result of the standard in the 2007 energy bill. The article quotes NRDC’s own lighting and electronics efficiency guru, Noah Horowitz, and really drives home an important point – well crafted standards spur […]

Lunatic fringe watch: wing nuts unleashed on ACES climate bill

If you feel the ground shaking under your feet that is because the United States is about to be swallowed up into the bowels of Hell as the U.S. Senate takes up climate legislation. Or so Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin would have you believe. These and other right-wing “pundits” lost their tenuous grasp […]