Latest Articles

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 […]

Enviros back Sotomayor for Supreme Court

Sonia SotomayorGreen groups are throwing their weight behind Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, even though she doesn’t have much of a record on environmental decisions and hasn’t always ruled in favor of enviros.  More than 60 environmental and Native American groups — including the Sierra Club, Earthjustice, Greenpeace USA, the League […]

Intersolar gathering

Fifteen thousand solar devotees from around the world are expected to meet in San Francisco this week in an event that organizers hope will “create strong global relationships.” Actually, the sun worshippers will be fully-clothed (many in suits, no doubt). These movers and shakers, metaphorically speaking, will be attending the continent’s largest business-to-business solar trade […]