Articles by Christopher Mims

Wind turbines are about to become way more awesome

Wind power is pretty bad-ass to begin with, but conventional wisdom is that it's a "mature" technology that, unlike solar and other breakthrough energy technologies, won't be seeing much improvement in the coming decades. WRONGITY WRONG WRONG.

Turns out Nature, like Wall Street, is also bankrupt

If you thought it was just your pension fund that was in the toilet, you'd best break out the plunger, 'cause you've got an entire planet that will shortly be following it down the loo. Check out this infographic:

Forget China; largest rare earth element deposit is under this Nebraska town

Perhaps you've heard that China has a worldwide monopoly on rare earth elements, without which the high-tech and cleantech world -- electric cars, computers, cell phones, wind turbines, smart meters, advanced batteries, the whole enchilada -- would grind to a shiny, clanking halt.

But now, instead of relying on Chinese imports to keep the rare-earth economy humming, we can destroy our OWN local environment! A small town in Nebraska has volunteered to be turned into a giant open-pit mine in the name of powering the post-fossil-fuel revolution.

Record heat, no solar means Texas is paying 40 times more for power

Texas is hotter than balls right now, and it's not just the state's farmers and wildlife that are paying the price for it: Last week, the state set a record for electricity usage that led to its grid operator paying a whopping $3,000/MWh for peak electricity. To give you some perspective on this, $3,000/MWh translates to $3/KWh, or 40 times the $0.08/KWh a resident of that state normally pays for electricity at home.