Latest Articles
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Grains become fuel at the world’s first cellulosic ethanol demo plant
Our plant supplants your plant: a real-life cellulosic ethanol refinery. Photo: Iogen Sometimes it seems virtually anything can be made into fuel. As though, if we had the right technology, we could throw together old T-shirts, bumper stickers, and pine cones to make a magical elixir to run the millions of cars on North America’s […]
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Jim Baker eyes the oil in Iraq
With the disaster unfolding in Iraq, you'd think the U.S. government might take its eyes off the oil for a moment. There are some 27 million Iraqis who might demand a higher place in our priorities.
Apparently not. It turns out Jim Baker's ISG report is chock full of recommendations about what to do with Iraq's oil. Antonia Juhasz in the L.A. Times gives us the details. Let's just say, if you thought this war had absolutely nothing to do with oil, you need to reexamine your conclusions.
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You really need to ask?
The riffs on energy, climate change, and renewable energy are all the excuse I need to link to Barack Obama's remarkable speech in New Hampshire.
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Biodiesel means trouble for Uganda
As reported by Reuters yesterday:
The president of Uganda asked the National Forest Authority boss to quit after he refused to license a palm oil company to destroy a pristine rainforest on an island in Lake Victoria, according to his resignation note.
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At Marsh Fork Elementary, danger is spelled M-A-S-S-E-Y
In Raleigh County, West Virginia, about 45 miles from Charleston, just over 200 students attend Marsh Fork Elementary School. Though small, Marsh Fork is important to the folks in the Coal River Valley, and not just because it's the only school in the county with high enough enrollment to remain open. No, the fate of Marsh Fork matters more because it represents all the special interests and politics that have come to define life in the shadows of Big Coal.
Not 300 feet away from where children learn and play nine months a year sits a leaking, 385-feet tall coal refuse dam with a nearly 3-billion gallon capacity. Never mind the coal dust that has been found in the school. Never mind the drinking-water contamination that has been reported. If this dam breaks, it will destroy everyone and everything within 30 miles. So why are 200-plus children still making the trip to school every day despite the constant threat of illness and even death?
Because they have nowhere else to go.
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Read and be dazzled by the techno-futurism
David asked contributors for end-of-year lists. Since I normally focus on conservative assumptions, I thought I'd use it as an excuse to look at future breakthroughs and cost improvements.I was going to weasel by calling these "possibilities," but instead I decided to use the time-tested technique of public psychics: I'll call them predictions, crow over any that come true, and pretend the rest never happened.
1. Power storage that will make electric cars cheaper than gasoline cars.
Ultracapacitors, various lithium systems, lead carbon foam (PDF), and aluminum are among the candidates. The first storage device with a price per kWh capacity of $200 or less, mass-to-power ratio as good or better than LiOn, and ability to retain 75% or more of capacity after 1,000 cycles in real world driving temperatures and conditions wins.
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Cool
A new report by occasional Grist contributor Jon Christensen reaches a conclusion that, to me at least, was a surprise: "Land trusts are now protecting more land than gets developed across the western United States each year."
Perhaps we have, in the words of our beloved leader, turned the corner. Heedless development is in its last throes!
More on the report here.
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Yummy and eco
As regular readers know, Gristmill is scrupulously independent, fiercely resistant to even a hint of conflict of interest. We accept no donations or gifts, and offer no quid pro quo.Except when it comes to chocolate and liquor. For those, we happily prostitute ourselves.
Case in point: A "mission-based" company called SweetRiot in NYC sent me a box of their chocolate-covered cacao nibs. They are, in a word, delish. They come in cute little tins, with cute little factoids tucked away in each one. The people who run the company are cute. The web page is cute. The whole damn enterprise is cute. And environmentally progressive. And yummy.
So forthwith, official Gristmill product placement: SweetRiot chocolate! Yippee!
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