Articles by Clark Williams-Derry
Clark Williams-Derry is research director for the Seattle-based Sightline Institute, a nonprofit sustainability think tank working to promote smart solutions for the Pacific Northwest. He was formerly the webmaster for Grist.
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The price is right
I suppose it was bound to happen sometime: the Olympia, Washington Olympian is reporting that biodiesel is now cheaper than regular diesel.
Until now, biodiesel consumers have had to pay a premium at the pump; making highway fuel from vegetable oil was more costly than pumping it out of the ground. But thanks to rapidly rising crude prices, that's no longer true.
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Cities are cool
Cool images from the Center for Neighborhood Technology show that people who live in dense urban areas -- downtown San Francisco, the denser parts of L.A., or the Chicago city core -- emit less CO2 for transportation. See for yourself:
I'm showing San Francisco above because it's closest to my heart, but I think the Chicago map is coolest.
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Demand answers
This Oil Drum post goes a long way toward explaining why oil prices have risen so sharply over the last couple of years. According to international oil agencies, global oil production has been fairly flat since the middle of 2004, even as economic growth around the globe has boosted demand. The chart below, derived from U.S. Energy Information Administration figures, shows OPEC production only, but world figures are much the same.
Of course, the global petroleum system is so huge, and some production poorly enough tracked, that there's a lot of uncertainty in the graph above. But it's hard to escape the notion that high prices are being caused by actual global supply limitations, not by oil-company malfeasance or somesuch.
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Get smart
This is a bit far afield, perhaps, but the British press is reporting that new drivers in the UK will soon have to take an "eco-driving" test in order to get their license. The UK initiative is modelled after a Dutch program that claims that smarter driving habits -- slower acceleration, less braking, lower top speeds -- can shave gas consumption by a third or more.
Last year, after a brief (and undeserved) flap over they Toyota Prius's worse-than-advertised mileage, ardent hybrid enthusiasts began circulating advice about how to maximize the vehicles' efficiency. So it's good to see some effort to do the same thing for the 99+ percent of cars on the road that aren't hybrids.
