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Climate change risk underestimated: study

WASHINGTON — The risk posed to mankind and the environment by even small changes in average global temperatures is much higher than believed even a few years ago, a study said Monday. Published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study updated a 2001 assessment by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change […]

Obama names additional appointments in environmental posts

The White House on Monday announced several additional appointments of interest to enviros, with the biggest being that Interior Department Inspector General Earl E. Devaney has been tapped to serve as the chairman of the new Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board, along with VP Joe Biden. Devaney played a crucial role in investigating the […]

NASA mission to monitor carbon dioxide fails

WASHINGTON –A US satellite to monitor global carbon dioxide emissions plummeted into the ocean near Antarctica Tuesday after failing to reach orbit, NASA officials said, calling it a major disappointment for climate science. NASA said the satellite launched successfully from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard a Taurus XL rocket at 1:55 am […]

What will Obama say about climate change in tonight’s big speech?

Buzz around D.C. is that President Obama will address climate change and energy policy in his speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night — amid, you know, all those other things weighing on the new commander in chief. And folks are already parsing what it means if Obama includes revenues from the auction […]

Search giant plans to devote more IT expertise to energy issues

If you're a fan of Google's efforts to encourage energy efficiency and the development of renewable energy (i.e. RechargeIT, Clean Energy 2030, and PowerMeter), get ready for more.

A post on the official Google blog says the company plans to "to put even more engineers and technical talent to work on these issues and problems."

Larry Brilliant, the "chief philanthropy evangelist" at Google.org, offered up that bit of news in a post about a larger change at the Google philanthropy arm -- that Google exec Megan Smith will take over day-to-day management of Google.org, allowing Brilliant to "spend more time motivating policy makers, encouraging public and private partnerships, and generally advocating for the changes that we must make as a global society to solve these problems."

More from Brilliant's post:

In this global economic crisis, the work Google.org is doing, together with our many colleagues around the world, to help develop cheap clean energy, find and fight disease outbreaks before they sweep the globe, and build information platforms for underserved people globally, is more important than ever. We stand behind the commitment made in 2004 to devote 1% of Google's equity and profits to philanthropy, and we will continue to iterate on our philanthropic model to make sure our resources have the greatest possible impact for good.

Eat fried food, save the planet

“You’ll be able to eat fried chicken and save the environment. We’ll be working on our marketing for that …” — former Walmart CEO Lee Scott, discussing the company’s plan to retrofit part of their truck fleet to run on grease from their frying operations

Obama taps a real reformer, Kathleen Merrigan, for deputy USDA secretary

Last time a president had the occasion to name a deputy USDA secretary, I had a rhetorical cow, man. Back in 2005, President Bush chose Chuck Conner, a man who had previously worked as a flack for Archer Daniels Midland, for that position. Could Bush have made a more explicit bow to the gods of agribusiness? 

President Obama suddenly seems intent on blazing a new path for USDA. Sure, he picked a farm-state governor with ties to the ethanol and biotech industries as USDA chief. But that's almost reflexive in our political system. The key question became: who would he pick as the deputy -- the official who typically gets things done and sets the tone for the department? Would he pick a corn-fed flack, like Bush did? Another go-along to get-along type in the Vilsack mode? Or a real reformer? 

Obama chose Kathleen Merrigan, director of the Agriculture, Food and Environment Program at Tufts. From what I can tell at first blush, she's a real reformer.

NASA scheduled to launch carbon observatory early Tuesday

  Editor’s Note: The rocket carrying NASA’s Carbon Observatory into orbit failed early Tuesday morning, destroying the satellite. Updates to follow. NASA hopes to start solving one of climate science’s most vexing mysteries Tuesday morning when it launches the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), its first spacecraft dedicated to measuring atmospheric carbon dioxide. The satellite is […]

If Obama stops dirty coal, as he must, what will replace it? An intro to biomass cofiring

Biomass cofiring will be the focus of a couple of posts since, although rarely-discussed, it is probably the cheapest, easiest, and fastest way to provide new renewable baseload power without having to build any new transmission lines.

I first started analyzing the carbon benefits of cofiring biomass with coal in 1997 when I was overseeing a study by five U.S. national laboratories that examined what an aggressive technology-based strategy built around energy efficiency and renewable energy could achieve in terms of emissions reductions. (See full study here and some history on it by California Energy Commissioner Art Rosenfeld here [PDF].) With supporting analysis done by the Electric Power Research Institute, the Five Lab Study concluded that biomass cofiring was the single biggest potential contributor to near-term greenhouse gas reductions of any renewable energy strategy.

Cofiring is a well demonstrated strategy with multiple benefits. From a practical perspective, most of the existing coal plants are mostly paid off. Plus they are fully permitted and have all the necessary transmission plus they are connected to freight train lines and water supply. Plus this is baseload power. So you avoid all of the problems associated with citing new renewables in the Midwest or Southwest. Cofiring is thus a key near-term strategy for meeting climate goals -- and renewable standards -- in the Midwest and Southeast.

Reid to introduce a new bill granting more authority to feds for electricity transmission

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) today signaled that energy policy will be a major focus for Congress in the next months, announcing plans to introduce a bill later this week that would give the federal government greater authority in siting electrical transmission lines around the country. “What we’re talking about doing is making it […]