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Last night’s debate

I came in this morning planning to review last night’s Democratic debate and blog about the energy/environment questions. Turns out there were none — indeed, policy and substance were almost entirely absent from the debate. There seems to be broad agreement that it was a real low point for journalism, a gotcha-fest that illuminated nothing […]

Google Checkout maps the spread of donations and Earth Day lovin’

I think Google has a crush on the planet. First, they announced a goal of achieving carbon neutrality for 2007 and beyond. Then, they unleashed their RE<C campaign (Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal), aimed at producing one gigawatt of clean electricity more cheaply than coal. Next, you may have noticed their blacked-out search page on […]

Americans for Balanced Energy Choices gets new name, t-shirts

ABEC has re-branded themselves the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. See here for an interview with President Stephen Miller, who does an admirably media-savvy job of laying out their talking points and PR strategy.

His key points:

1. "If we push too hard, too fast, we will force fuel switching away from coal."
2. "The president and the congress have a role to play to make sure the public sector invests in coal-fired power."
3. We've spent a lot of money on t-shirts, trucks, and advertising to affect the primary campaign, and it's working.

In other words: We need to burn more coal. We need taxpayers to pay for the cost of that coal. And we've got enough money to make sure it happens.

Here's the creepy new 60-second ad they're running nationwide:

Judge denies Humane Society injunction, OKs sea-lion trapping

Denying an injunction sought by the Humane Society, a federal judge has given the go-ahead to Oregon and Washington state officials to trap and kill salmon-gobbling sea lions near the Columbia River’s Bonneville Dam. The animal-rights group sued after the National Marine Fisheries Service OK’d sea-lion culling last month. An official hearing on the Humane […]

Clinton bashes Obama on energy

Clinton is attacking Obama over his energy bill vote in Penn. again. (More on the vote; more on the attacks.) You’ve got to know McCain is chuckling right now. He’s having the easiest campaign ever!

Bush and farm policy ‘reform’

In the farm bill debate, the Bush administration has joined Environmental Defense Fund, The Environmental Working Group, and other Big Green groups in taking a “reform” position: subsidies are bad, so let’s cut them. I’ve been arguing that this position amounts to no reform at all, because it doesn’t address the underlying problem of U.S. […]

Saving ourselves means trench warfare, not waiting for breakthroughs

On online wag recently noted that at Bell Labs -- one of the most productive, innovative places the world has ever seen -- the slogan was "Never Schedule Breakthroughs." A breakthrough is just that: a radical and unpredictable reorganization of understanding. Waiting for one is like trying to solve one of those elaborate circular garden mazes by assuming a teleporter to take you straight to the center.

We might well need some breakthroughs to survive the climate crisis, and it will be nice if we get them, but I'm much more impressed by things like this, a serious incremental step, than I am by the wondertoys we're so often told to ogle. The FLOX work is a great example of the trench warfare of science and technology. It can help buy us time to radically reduce our energy demands and switch off fossil fuel use entirely -- time to aggressively apply every off-the-shelf idea and practice we have now, without hypnotizing ourselves with the need for "breakthroughs."

Methane hydrates: What’s the worst — and best — that could happen?

Methane hydrates (or clathrates), "burning ice," are worth understanding because they could affect the climate for better or worse. You can get the basics here on ...

... a solid form of water that contains a large amount of methane within its crystal structure [that] occur both in deep sedimentary structures, and as outcrops on the ocean floor.

The worst that could happen is a climate catastrophe if they were released suddenly, as some people believed happened during "the Permian-Triassic extinction event, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum." The best that could happen is if they could be recovered at a large scale safely -- then they would be an enormous new source of natural gas, the lowest-carbon and most efficient-burning fossil fuel.

A recent workshop was held: "Vulnerability and Opportunity of Methane Hydrates," International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, March 13-14, 2008. You can find most of the presentations here. Science magazine recently ran a summary ($ub. req'd) of the meeting, which I will reprint below [unindented]:

An earthy recipe for treading lightly on earth and pocketbook alike

As Earth Day approaches this year, it seems that people are thinking more about food’s price than its ecological footprint. A simple trip to the grocery store tells the same story we’ve been hearing on the news: it’s getting more and more expensive to feed ourselves. The morel of the story. I’ve been thinking a […]

Goldman videos

Video of Goldman Prize speeches here and here.