Latest Articles

Water proves good fodder for two new books, fact and fiction

My rubber boots are ankle deep in mud. An overhang of moss supported by a wedge of ice taller than I am — ice that has likely never before been exposed — is dripping water onto my hat. It is August 2004, and I am standing on the North Slope of Alaska, at a spot […]

Will Waters Never Cease?

Aussie firms extract both clean energy and drinking water from ocean Among our many environmental problems, two of the most vexing are dwindling freshwater supplies and a dearth of clean energy. Now two Australian firms think they’ve hit on a way to tackle both at once: a desalination plant that could convert saltwater to freshwater, […]

Nuke Rest for the Wary

Lawmakers slash funding for Yucca Mountain nuke dump In a season of setbacks for President Bush, Congress delivered yet another this week, cutting funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear-waste dump well below the amount requested by the White House. House and Senate negotiators working on a funding bill for energy and water projects allotted $450 […]

Cabal and Chain

International Energy Agency predicts grim future Unless the industrialized world gets off its ass and starts weaning itself from oil, the future holds sky-high energy prices, a more than 50 percent rise in greenhouse-gas emissions over the next 25 years, and near-total dependence on a small cabal of Middle Eastern countries. This grim portent comes […]

Umbra on coffee

Dear Umbra, I am a seriously indulgent coffee drinker. Lately, there have been a ton of “green” coffee shops popping up. I like to support local coffee shops, and I want to believe that they are “shade-grown, fair-trade, organic,” but I’ve wondered if they are being honest. How do I know if they are legit? […]

WSJ: China’s oil-demand surge slackens

Peak-oil enthusiasts and skeptics alike will find much to chew on in this page-one piece from today's Wall Street Journal.

By all accounts, China's explosive energy-demand growth over the past several years has strained the ability of OPEC and other oil producers to keep up. Now, the Journal claims, that pressure shows signs of easing:

This year, China is on track to account for about 16% of the world's new oil consumption, little more than half last year's share. The Centre for Global Energy Studies estimates that Chinese demand will rise by about 230,000 barrels of oil a day this year -- a large increase, but a far cry from the 860,000-barrel-a-day jump of 2004 and a much more manageable pace for global suppliers.

The article also features the spectacle of a big-time oil exec engaging in a bit of what's known on Wall Street as "jawboning" -- trying to influence the market (in this case talking it down) with mere words. The Journal reports:

Though most market watchers were caught off guard by last year's steep run-up in China's oil demand, [Exxon Mobil CEO Lee] Raymond said that its consumption growth has been generally in line with industry expectations. "Speculation" accounts for about $20 of the current per-barrel price of oil, Mr. Raymond estimated. "The fundamentals" of supply and demand, he said, "support something like $35 or $40." The Exxon chief said that, in about a decade, it will be likelier that oil prices will be below $35 than they will be to stay at today's level of about $60 a barrel. [Emphasis added.]

Might outrage over last quarter's startling profits, as well as the Congressional price-gouging hearings, have influenced Raymond's desire to describe a frothy, puffed-up oil market?

Seattle’s waste dump is an example of how not to do things

Because I live so close to it, I take an interest in how well Seattle's north-end waste transfer/recycling station is run (as if that is not obvious by now, this being my third and, thankfully, last post on the subject). The Wallingford neighborhood in which it is located is known for its tolerant, liberal-minded denizens, which explains why, in addition to the waste transfer station, the city has also placed numerous mental halfway houses and drug rehab centers there.

Kansas School Board redefines science

The Kansas Board of Education has hit on an innovative way to stop the abuse of science: They just passed new science-curriculum standards that "rewrite the definition of science, holding that it no longer is limited to searching for natural explanations for natural phenomena."

Hillary Clinton joins the pack in calling for greener energy policy

Hillary Clinton has joined a growing claque of both Democrats and Republicans swigging from the cup of clean-energy Kool-Aid as they gear up for the 2006 congressional elections. In the past two months, the New York senator has popped up at a major Arctic Refuge rally, a high-profile global-warming conference, and a clean-technology investor symposium […]

The WSJ documents GM contamination

The Wall Street Journal came out with a terrific page-one article documenting "genetic pollution" -- the damage caused when genetically modified crops cross-pollinate with conventional crops.

The article leads with an organic farmer in Spain whose sells his red field corn at a premium to nearby chicken farmers, who prize the product because it "it gives their meat and eggs a rosy color." (I'd be willing to bet that rosy color also translates to higher nutrition content.)

Now the farmer is screwed -- his seeds, carefully bred over time, have become contaminated by GM corn from nearby farms. The rich red color of his corn, like his premium, has vanished into the ether.