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Distributed-energy advocacy in the wild

Great op-ed in the Houston Chronicle. It starts off with how coal sucks and renewables are better (yeah, yeah), but then gets into distributed energy, which I wish a lot more people would talk about outside the environmental tribe (which I assume is rather small in Houston).

So what is distributed energy? Essentially, it means local generation of power -- small power plants typically constructed to serve individual hospitals, campuses, apartment houses, factories or entire neighborhoods. The plants have an efficiency level double or better that of regional power plants, because they practice cogeneration -- producing electricity and steam simultaneously.

That's a slightly narrow definition -- distributed energy is more than cogen -- but whatevs. We need to get this stuff out there.

Pataki’s big energy speech

Yesterday, New York governor and presidential hopeful George Pataki gave a major energy speech. Here's the nut:

Let's replace the equivalent of every drop of OPEC oil -- 25% of our current consumption -- with greater efficiency, greater domestic production, and greater use of petroleum alternatives, and let's commit to doing it within the next ten years.

He wants to do this without over-prescribing:

I'm not talking about government picking winners and losers, making investments that favor one technology over another. ... I am proposing a positive policy of tax and other incentives that lets the market answer "how, what, and where."

First, five initiatives to increase alternative fuels:

Nuclear power is complicated, dangerous, and definitely not the answer

If the media and the New York Times editorial page are any guide, nuclear power is the new green-energy option being embraced by environmentalists. This is not a new idea. The first mainstream statement of the “nuclear option” came from a 2003 report by MIT professors John Deutch and Ernest Moniz, “The Future of Nuclear […]

Energy Policy Act birthday, not so much happy

Good/funny/depressing post on ThinkProgress about the first birthday of the Energy Policy Act, the execrable piece of swill that passes for Bush administration energy policy.

Wal-Mart’s green makeover

I have an op-ed on TomPaine.com today about Wal-Mart's recent green initiatives. Give it a read. I'm sure the accusations of corporate whoredom will come rolling in at any moment.

I worry that, even given the copious pixels expended, my overall point was not entirely clear. So below the fold, I shall try to express it in more compact form.

Federal court case allows mining “fill” dumped in freshwater

A recent federal court decision (PDF) confirms and seems to expand the validity of the Bush EPA's redefinition of mine waste as "fill," allowing a gold mine to dump millions of tons of the crap into a freshwater lake north of Juneau, Alaska. This could set a truly disturbing precedent. More at Brudaimonia.

(And PS: "Brudaimonia"? That's some quality philoso-blogospheric geekery.)

Update [2006-8-8 13:7:28 by David Roberts]: Ah, I see our very own Corey blogged about the case a year or so ago. Good background.

Global warming is great!

So says National Review editor James S. Robbins.

(via TP)

Print it, email it, digg it, bookmark it, reddit … technologic

All you eagle-eyed Gristmillers might have noticed a small change recently: a toolbar!

Each post now includes the following features:

• A printer-friendly version, which allows you to hide and display comments;
• email a friend, where you can recommend a post to up to 10 people at a time and include a custom message;
• add to digg, which nows has an environment category;
• bookmark to del.icio.us; and
• add to reddit.

Links are the top of each post. Enjoy!

Where There’s Smoke, There’s Ire

War igniting forest fires in northern Israel Like America’s, Israel’s forests and grasslands are suffering an unusual number of fires this season. But the problem isn’t so much a heat wave as, um, rocket attacks. Since the mid-July start of the Israel-Lebanon conflict, an average of around 50 fires a day have ignited in the […]

Surprise-Side Economics

While cutting back on mercury at home, the U.S. exports it abroad Like Mickey said, it’s a small world after all, and pollution that gets exported can end up coming back home. Case in point: mercury, a neurotoxin especially dangerous to children and women of childbearing age. The U.S. is cutting down on the use […]