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Bush may designate large marine reserves

Hoping to burnish President Bush’s conservation legacy, the White House is considering creating some of the largest marine reserves in the world, NPR reports. The plan — now being discussed, but not a sure thing — would have Bush use his powers under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to create “marine monuments,” which would not […]

Fox News anchor calls for assassination of Barack Obama

“… and now we have what … uh…some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama … uh … um … Obama [after being prompted by the FNC anchor] … well both if we could [laughing] …” — Fox News anchor Liz Trotta, commenting on Hillary Clinton’s invocation of Robert Kennedy’s 1968 assassination […]

Somebody forgot to tell Rockport that coal is cheap

How much would your town pay to stabilize the electric bills of every home and business in it for the next 25 years?

Nevada Solar one is a better and smaller neighbor than a coal mine

Every now and then, one hears complaints about solar energy: "But it takes too much land!" "An entire Idaho!" "Three Californias!"

Nevada Solar One takes up about 400 acres, mostly for mirrors and heat engines. You would have to mine about 5,300 acres to feed a coal-fired powered plant producing the same amount of electricity. Even acre for acre, I'll take Solar One's pleasant campus over a coal mine.

Math below the fold.

The best thing I’ve had all month

Odwalla strawberry lemonade. Mmm …

Direct and indirect ways of killing people

“We’re just damn glad to live in a free country where you can have a gun if you want to.” — Mark Muller, owner of Max Motors in Butler, Missouri, which is giving away a free handgun with each purchase of a vehicle

Militarization and progressive change are not compatible

The U.S. military push for coal-based synthetic fuels reminds us that in the long run, solving climate chaos is incompatible with an aggressive military policy. Solutions will ultimately have to draw on traditional American virtues of thrift and cleverness, not the domination and power expressed in the new U.S. Air Force motto: Air Force Above All, which probably sounded more impressive in the original German.

Militarization has a long history of pushing us down less sustainable paths in the U.S. Part of that is direct meeting of Pentagon needs. For example, one reason we have today's super-highway system is that Eisenhower was impressed by the military advantages of the German autobahn network -- both for the Germans and for the allies when their turn came to use it.

The "National Defense Highway System," as it was called when first inaugurated, was built wide enough to allow tanks and military convoys to travel freely across the U.S. without depending on rail. The financial structure was similar to the autobahn's as well. The national highways trust is based largely on fuel taxes paid by both rail and trucks, but which rail gets almost no benefit from -- that helped ensure the gradual shift of freight from trains to trucks.

Lost amid the crop-subsidy battle, a new biofuel regime

Amid all the thunder and lightening about subsidies in the new farm bill — which officially became law Thursday — Congress made a major policy shift with regard to the goodies lavished on ethanol makers. Under previous policy, biofuel makers — whether conventional or cellulosic — benefit from a 51 cent a gallon tax credit […]

Wind energy ad wins Cannes award

I think I’ve posted this before, but a quick search didn’t turn it up. Anyway, this video, an ad for Epuron energy company created by the Nordpol+Hamburg agency, won the “Golden Lion” in Cannes. Check it out:

Geothermal power: a core climate solution

While wind and solar get the media attention of a sexy starlet, good old geothermal power is treated like an aging character actor.

But geothermal energy is, in fact, sizzling hot these days. Big-time investors from Warren Buffet to Goldman Sachs to Morgan Stanley to Google have begun investing:

In 2007, private equity firms invested more than $400 million in geothermal energy, which is derived from hot water under the Earth's surface and can be used for space heating or generating electricity.

Why the interest in a form of energy that President Bush repeatedly tried to zero out of the Department of Energy Budget? One reason is the soaring cost of conventional power like coal and nuclear. Another is the growing awareness of just how much is zero-carbon electricity will need in coming decades.