Articles by David Roberts

Will ADM surrender gracefully to cellulosic ethanol?

Don't miss a great piece by Sasha Lilley about Archer Daniels Midland and ethanol: "The dirty truth about green fuel."

The latter part covers the environmental sins of corn-based ethanol -- familiar to Gristmillians -- but the first part provides some crucial context. It's about ADM.

Here's a taste:

Americans and Climate Change: Leveraging the social sciences I

"Americans and Climate Change: Closing the Gap Between Science and Action" (PDF) is a report synthesizing the insights of 110 leading thinkers on how to educate and motivate the American public on the subject of global warming. Background on the report here. I'll be posting a series of excerpts (citations have been removed; see original report). If you'd like to be involved in implementing the report's recommendations, or learn more, visit the Yale Project on Climate Change website.

The final chapter of Part I makes a simple but vital point: If communicating climate change effectively is the goal, it makes sense to call on the expertise of social scientists, whose work is devoted to studying the social dynamics in which communication takes place. Today, the intro.

Interview with Lawrence Bender

There's an interesting interview with Lawrence Bender, the producer of An Inconvenient Truth, on TruthDig today.

No nukes is good nukes

Someone -- I think Bart? -- sent me to a paper by David Fleming called "Why nuclear power cannot be a major energy source."

I just got done reading it, and as far as I'm concerned it is devastating to the pro-nuclear argument. Game over.

The paper -- based primarily on the work of Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen and Philip Smith -- carefully considers how much uranium is left in the ground, the energy balance for the full nuclear lifecycle (including cleaning up waste), the promise of breeder reactors, and just about every other aspect of nuclear power.

The ultimate verdict: If nuclear power maintains its current contribution -- roughly 2.5% of the world's energy -- it can continue for about 75 years, under ideal conditions. If we ramp it up to supply 100% of the world's electricity, it could last about 6 years, under ideal conditions. And there are no ideal conditions.

In other words, nuclear power simply cannot bridge the coming energy gap. More than anything, it serves as a kind of techno-totem, allowing people to cling to the illusion that technology will save us and we won't have to alter our lifestyles.

Anyway, read it. Bookmark it. Link to it. Send it to your friends. The nuclear illusion needs to be put to rest once and for all.

My favorite part of the paper is the helpful summary at the end. Here it is: