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Latest Articles

  • Wall Street Journal editorial mischaracterizes both my position and biofuels

    To my surprise, on Tuesday I found myself cited by the Wall Street Journal as a strong advocate of subsidies for food-based ethanol, and as a recipient of "federal dole" who ought to "take a vow of embarrassed silence." While I appreciate the Journal's foray into fiction writing (and I'd love to discuss my status on the dole with my accountant, who recently filed my taxes), I would like to clarify a few facts and offer a more rounded view of biofuels and ethanol in general.

    A few facts:

    Vinod Khosla Climate & Energy

  • Duke Energy goes (a tiny bit) solar

    Yesterday, Duke Energy announced that it will buy the full output of the country’s largest PV solar farm, to be built by Sun Edison in 2009, coming online in late 2010 (all modules complete by 2011). According to Duke, the plant will cover between 100-300 acres in an area that enjoys about 60 percent sunny […]

    David Roberts Technology

  • Offset criticisms have not stopped being true

    Patrick McCully has a great feature in The Guardian about some of the problems with offsets. (No single article can tackle all of them.)

    The points are pretty standard:

    1. At least two thirds of the offset are fraudulent.
    2. Fraudulent offsets used as permissions to burn coal and increase climate chaos.
    3. Throw in massive supporting evidence in an entertaining package.

    Ho freaking hum, right?

    Meanwhile, the world keeps burning. Every ton of offset-enabled coal power makes our climate a little sicker.

    Gar Lipow Climate & Energy

  • Lieberman and Warner prepare an amendment calling for more support for nukes

    Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John Warner (R-Va.) are already circulating a proposed amendment [PDF] to their own Climate Security Act that would alter the bill to include more explicit support for nuclear power. The amendment calls for “a portion of funds, as determined necessary by the appropriate committees of jurisdiction,” to be deposited into […]

    Kate Sheppard Politics

  • The Onion on GM tomatoes

    From The Onion: PASADENA, CA–Geneticists at the California Institute of Technology announced Monday that they have developed a tomato with a 31 percent larger price tag than a typical specimen of the vine-ripened fruit. “By utilizing an exciting new breakthrough in gene-splicing technology, we’ve been able to manipulate this new tomato with recombinant DNA in […]

    Tom Philpott Food

  • House passes clean-energy tax credits, bill out of Senate committee would give Calif. waiver

    Exciting things going on at the Capitol: The House has passed a bill with tax credits for renewable energy; the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed legislation asking President Bush to grant California the waiver it needs to regulate vehicle greenhouse-gas emissions. Get all the details in Gristmill. new in Gristmill: <a href="new in […]

    Grist staff Uncategorized

  • Bay Area initiates first-of-its-kind fee on biz greenhouse-gas emissions

    Businesses in nine San Francisco Bay Area counties will pay 4.4 cents for every ton of greenhouse gases they spew, after the district air-quality board voted 15-1 Wednesday to approve the fee. Set to take effect July 1, the fee will affect more than 2,500 businesses; the district estimates that perhaps seven power plants and […]

    Grist staff Technology

  • Harrison Ford’s chest wax as PSA

    Remember that whole "Harrison Ford got a chest wax to illustrate the pain of deforestation" thing? Yeah, here’s the resulting PSA for Conservation International: Check out the behind-the-scenes footage.

    Grist staff Culture

  • House passes massive tax extensions for renewable energy

    The House approved legislation today that renews billions of dollars in tax breaks for wind, solar, biomass, and other renewable energy sources, and extends a proposed new tax credit for biofuels derived from sources other than corn. “The Energy and Job Creation Act of 2008” (which is a much better name than it had last […]

    Kate Sheppard Politics

  • Full text of the substitute amendment to Lieberman-Warner now available

    The full-text of the amendment [PDF] to the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act is now available, which answers some of the outstanding questions stemming from the outline Sen. Boxer has been circulating. A few important areas to look at in the new version: Cost containment: This is the mechanism, also called an “emergency off-ramp,” that will […]

    Kate Sheppard Politics