Latest Articles

Solar chargers, real and imagined

The real news of the day: there’s now a solar-powered charger for iPhones. The more entertaining news: At Comic-Con this weekend, Jimmy Fallon dressed up as a solar-powered superhero called “Recharger” and tried to sell his idea to, among others, Jon Favreau, Stan Lee, Joss Whedon, and that hot guy from Lost. This skit is […]

Love in a time of cataclysm

Wanted: Experienced couples therapist, preferably also with degrees in theology and law, for fractious, passionate pair riddled with apocalyptic anxiety, burdened with love for their children (all of them), acutely conscious of the finitude of time and resources, and fearful that the world has gone mad. Must take insurance. Everyone told us that building a […]

Ask Umbra on solar pool heaters

Send your question to Umbra! Q. Dear Umbra, With all the rain we’ve had this year, the pool water doesn’t get a chance to warm up in between rainstorms. We are trying to design a passive heating system. We’ve thought about flexible one-inch black hose (if we can find it) attached to the filter and […]

Larry Craig, oil lobbyist

Illustration by Tom Twigg/GristThis is an actual thing: Larry Craig, former punchline of Idaho, has opened a Washington consulting firm to work as an energy lobbyist. New West Strategies LLC offers “strategic advice, guidance, and advocacy” from Craig, the senator was arrested in 2007 in a sting operation against men cruising for sex at the […]

Tesla speeds past financial troubles, opens retail stores across country

Five months ago, Tesla Motors appeared to be following in the footsteps of other American automakers. Lay-offs, a dearth of financing, and a spring recall of 70 percent of delivered Roadsters prompted speculation that Tesla might soon be the next casualty of the economic downturn. But Tesla proved just too cool to fail. In May, […]

Tracking property tax financing programs for renewable and energy efficiency investments

Berkeley’s program for leveraging property taxes to help homeowners finance investments in solar and energy efficiency is taking off–San Francisco was the latest to announce a new program.  To date, 11 states (and counting) have enacted enabling legislation allowing local municipalities to follow suit.  Which ones?  The good folks at the Interstate Renewable Energy Council […]

Even with economic headwind, U.S. still adds 4,000 MW of new wind — and a dozen new factories

The U.S. wind energy industry installed 1,210 megawatts (MW) of new power generating capacity in the second quarter, bringing the total added this year to just over 4,000 MW –  an amount larger than the 2,900 MW added in the first six months of 2008, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) said today in its […]

Another major study predicts rapid warming over next few years — nearly 0.3°F by 2014

From 2009 to 2014, projected rises in anthropogenic influences and solar irradiance will increase global surface temperature 0.15 ±0.03 °C, at a rate 50% greater than predicted by IPCC. So conclude Judith Lean, of the US Naval Research Laboratory, and David Rind, of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in a new Geophysical Research Letters […]

The fantastical falsehoods of Roger Pielke, Jr.

Now that they’ve shut down his original blog, Roger Pielke, Jr., is desperately trying to remain relevant in the blogosphere.  Pielke’s preferred strategy – as it has always been – is to utterly misrepresent what people say and then attack that misrepresentation in the hopes of garnering media attention.  Baselessly smearing the professional reputation of […]

Looks like no Senate vote on climate and clean energy bill until at least November

As I have said many times “Obama can get a better climate bill in 2010” – although that is true only if he and Congress have a coherent strategy to do just that (which at this point, they don’t, see below). Since the CBO has made clear that health care reform is tougher than climate […]