Latest Articles

The hybrid solar home, part 2

My thoughts have turned lately to the challenge of heating and powering residential homes in the Pacific Northwest with renewable energy. My goal was not to just find a way to reduce fossil fuel use, but to eliminate it. When I started this exercise I wasn’t at all sure it could be done (in an […]

‘Clean’ coal pollutes more, finds new study

This should be obvious, but of course you never hear it mentioned in stories about carbon capture and sequestration (CCS): capturing and sequestering carbon requires lots of energy; thus, plants that do it have to burn more coal to create that extra energy; thus, the other pollutants created by mixing, transporting, and burning coal will […]

Why do more men than women support nuclear power?

One other bit from the recent Rasmussen results caught my eye: More than twice as many likely McCain voters (73%) like his idea of building more nuclear plants versus 35% of potential Obama voters. Similarly, 72% of men favor building more plants as opposed to only 40% of women. More women (43%) are against the […]

Number of ocean dead zones increasing dramatically, study says

As if fish didn’t have enough to worry about, now those near coastal areas are threatened by an unprecedented number of dead zones, says a study being published Friday in the journal Science. The number of dead zones — oxygen-deprived areas that can no longer support marine life — has doubled every decade since the […]

Drop in U.S. driving last eight months exceeds the 1970s’ total decline

June 2008 saw another sharp drop in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) according to the Federal Highway Administration’s monthly report on “Traffic Volume Trends.” Americans drove 4.7 percent less, or 12.2 billion miles fewer, in June 2008 than June 2007 — beating the record-setting drop of March. Since last November, Americans have driven 53.2 billion miles […]

Snippets from the news

• California utility orders gigantic solar farms. • Bush signs bill banning lead in toys. • Cities desire streetcars. • Samsung unveils “eco-phone”. • Psychologists explore thinking green. • U.S. could halve fuel consumption by 2035.

Jack Johnson is laid-back — except when it comes to being green

USA Today recently published a short feature on musician Jack Johnson. Although the focus of the piece (Jack’s a mellow surfer dude from Hawaii) = not news, there is this interesting bit (emphasis mine): Johnson’s contracts require that event organizers compost and recycle at least 50 percent of the waste generated at the show and […]

Will Gore be veep?

I was just thinking to myself, "self, the time is rapidly running out for speculating about Al Gore running for president being selected as Obama’s VP! What fun will punditry be then?" Luckily, Bob Kuttner’s got our backs: Most folks have assumed that Gore is off the VP list, but he hasn’t been slotted as […]

On energy, survey results show public favors supply, increasingly favors Republicans

New polling from Rasmussen confirms current D.C. scuttlebutt: Republicans are winning on energy. The reason can be boiled down to this: Voters overwhelmingly want prices brought down, they’re convinced that increasing supply is the way to do that, and Republicans are the ones most vocally calling for increased supply. There’s lots in recent survey results […]

In Arkansas, a new GMO/herbicide solution to a problem created by an old one

I’ve written a couple of times about the rise “superweeds” in the Southeast and mid-South. In Arkansas, horseweed and Palmer amaranth now choke fields planted with Monsanto’s Roundup Ready cotton and soy — engineered to withstand heavy doses of Roundup, Monsanto’s broad-spectrum herbicide. Fifteen years ago, horseweed and amaranth weren’t problem weeds. </p Back in […]