Latest Articles
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Protesters demonstrate against British eco-towns
Hundreds of protesters gathered outside Britain’s Parliament Monday to protest the government’s plan to build 15 eco-towns. The government is proposing communities characterized by sustainable construction, public transportation, green space, and walkability. It hopes to have five eco-towns built by 2016, and five more by 2020. Monday marks the last day of the government’s first […]
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U.S. Defense Department fighting EPA orders to clean up Superfund sites
Defying environmental law, the U.S. Defense Department has resisted repeated orders lately from the U.S. EPA to clean up some of the nation’s most contaminated places. The DoD/EPA standoff has turned into a bureaucratic pissing match wherein the EPA has asserted its authority to order and oversee cleanup of ultra-polluted Superfund sites the DoD owns, […]
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N.H.’s Shaheen puts energy issues at center of her campaign for Senate
In New Hampshire, former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen (D) is challenging incumbent John Sununu (R) for his U.S. Senate seat, and she’s making energy concerns a centerpiece of her campaign. Here’s her most recent ad, targeting the “Enron loophole”: Previous Shaheen ads have called for tougher regulation of the oil industry and increased investment in renewable […]
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Newsweek political journalist transcribes McCain campaign spin on energy
Last October, Barack Obama laid out a detailed, ambitious, and comprehensive energy plan, and he’s been talking about it ever since. A couple weeks ago, John McCain let loose a flurry of one-off energy gimmicks — a gas tax holiday, offshore drilling, a prize for a car battery — which he crammed together under the […]
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Nice to forget about the day job for a while
You know you’re in Seattle when you get a “severe weather advisory” warning you that the temperature might get up into … the mid-80s. Maybe even above 90! Anyway, summer has finally come to Seattle. I’ve been out working in the yard all day, shoveling and spreading mulch, getting a head start on my flip-flop […]
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An absorbing news story
A nice bit of engineering problem solving! Anything that discourages people from switching from incandescents (5 percent useful light, 95 percent wasted energy) to compact fluorescent bulbs while we wait for the prices on good LED bulbs to come down is a bad thing.
One thing you hear from the nutjobs is how terrible the mercury in CFL bulbs is, and what an EPA nightmare you will have on your hands if you break one of these in your house.
A clever solution is pending: Providing a small bit of mercury absorbing treated cloth with the bulbs so that, in event of a break (rare -- I have many of these bulbs, and have moved them several times without breakage), you simply put the cloth over the break and it sucks up the mercury, and you recycle the cloth so the mercury is recaptured. Neat!
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Moyers talks to Boxer
Wow, you kinda forget what good TV journalism looks like until you watch Bill Moyers. He makes the cable babblers look like children. Don’t miss Moyers interviewing Barbara Boxer on the flame-out of the Climate Security Act. She’s really quite good on this, but in the end, as much as I kind of regret saying […]
