Latest Articles
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New coal plants like accelerating toward a wall
My colleague Jerry North and I wrote an op-ed about plans to build a slew of new coal plants in Texas. It was not published, but I think it makes some good points. Interestingly, many of these same points are made in a recently published op-ed reported on here.
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And does it well
The New Yorker has a great profile of Amory Lovins written by journalist, book author, and interviewee Elizabeth Kolbert. (It’s not online — check last week’s issue.) It’s a fantastic piece, really capturing Lovins’ entrepreneurial drive not just to do research and develop strategies but to evangelize for his perspective. He’s tireless trying to get […]
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It will have lasers
WorldCarFans has caused a bit of a blog uproar by posting what it claims is a spec-ed out sketch of the 2008 Prius (larger version here). According to Jalopnik, the new Prius will, depending on who you believe … … have a turbo, a diesel engine, a plug-in feature, a rooftop solar panel, a methane […]
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Venture capitalist predicts
While I’m turning over the microphone to Vinod Khosla, he also sent along his thoughts on the prospects for alternative fuels and clean tech in 2007. Lots of interesting and contestable stuff therein. It’s below the fold; have at it. Ethanol Cellulosic plants are real — at least six in construction Tariffs on their way […]
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Umbra on tree planting
Dear Umbra, My wife recently heard a program on NPR where an expert on global warming said that planting trees in the Northern Hemisphere plays a negligible role in fighting global warming, while playing a significant role in the Southern Hemisphere. Do you have any light to shed on this? Randy Cunningham, Confused Tree-Hugger Cleveland, […]
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Venture capitalist says cellulosic rules
After I ran the section of the interview with Terry Tamminen on ethanol, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla (whom we interviewed here) contacted me and asked to respond. Naturally, I said yes. His response is below the fold. —– Terry Tamminen: Right now, obviously, corn ethanol is not a very good bargain — depending on where […]
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Expressing energy in terms of oil is misleading
Pardon my smugness -- it comes from being raised in a land that uses the metric system. So this idea that's been making the rounds -- expressing energy content in "cubic miles of oil" -- don't impress me much. Why not cubic cubits?
Fortunately, someone's done the heavy lifting of criticizing this idea a bit more thoroughly:
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New report says there’s a ton waiting to be used
From an MIT press release: A comprehensive new MIT-led study of the potential for geothermal energy within the United States has found that mining the huge amounts of heat that reside as stored thermal energy in the Earth’s hard rock crust could supply a substantial portion of the electricity the United States will need in […]
