Latest Articles

Government-guaranteed, for-profit businesses are inherently risky

Q: What do the banking crisis and the energy crisis have in common? A: They have both been created in no small part by government policies that have expressly incentivized risky behavior. For the banking perspective, pick up any recent issue of The Economist. They have lately been running a series of rather insightful critiques […]

IKEA invests in cleantech, may soon stock solar panels

Heading to IKEA for some meatballs and easy-to-assemble furniture? You may soon be able to pick up solar panels as well. The Swedish manufacturer plans to invest some $75 million in a handful of cleantech startups, focusing on the areas of solar energy, lighting, sustainable materials, energy efficiency, and water conservation. Ultimately, IKEA has a […]

From Pole to Paris

Ladder rip Who’s steamy, dreamy, and good with a well-greased pole? These South Florida firefighters, whose 2009 charity calendar showcases sustainable wood. We just hope they put out … fires, that is. Photo: Apollo GT Well-suited Breaststroker Amanda Beard bared her bronzed bod in an anti-fur ad ahead of today’s Olympic opening ceremonies. According to […]

GOP rep in Tenn. loses primary after being linked to Big Oil

In Tennessee, freshman Republican Rep. David Davis lost his primary last night, apparently in large part because his opponent linked him to Big Oil. Davis is the first sitting Tennessee congressman in 40 years to lose in a primary. He was beaten by Johnson City Mayor Phil Roe, who accused Davis of accepting money from […]

What if a public/private partnership tried to invent the stop sign today?

What if there were no stop signs and a 21st century corporation tried to invent one under contract from a 21st century government department? Yep, there are downsides to public investments …

Shipments of geothermal heat pumps grew 33 percent in 2006

Baseload geothermal power gets all the attention because it has such enormous potential for delivering low-carbon 24/7 power. But geothermal heat pumps (GHPs) are every bit as deserving of attention because they are the most energy efficient form of heating and cooling a building over much of this country [click on figure at right to […]

Obama favored by Exxon employees, but McCain has gotten more oil money overall

Barack Obama put out an ad earlier this week accusing rival John McCain of being “in the pocket of Big Oil,” and the Democratic National Committee launched Exxon-McCain 2008, a website to promote the idea that the Republican candidate is in bed with the oil industry. But as Grist noted previously, Obama himself has received […]

Nuclear storage spending at Yucca jumps 38 percent to $96 billion

New nuclear power plants aren’t cheap. Neither is storing their waste. E&E News ($ub. req’d) reports on at Yucca Mountain: DOE has spent $13.5 billion since 1983, and figures to spend $54.8 billion on construction, operation and decommissioning of the repository; $19.5 billion for transporting the waste — including building the canisters for holding waste; […]

Climate change will increase extreme rainfall, says study

Photo: Ali Nishan Climate change will likely lead to more powerful rainstorms, says a new study published in Science. Computer models may “substantially” underestimate the number of heavy rainfalls that will occur in a warming world, say scientists who researched naturally occurring weather events during El Niño patterns between 1987 and 2004. “A warmer atmosphere […]

Brownstein on land use

It’s time to link climate and energy policy to land-use policy. We won’t be able to reduce emissions and escape fossil fuels if we keep building communities that require massive amounts of driving. That’s practically a truism among greens, but I’m not sure it’s really entered the political bloodstream, so it’s nice to see a […]