Articles by David Roberts

Sun and Google go green by accident

Joel Makower brings word of Sun Microsystems' splashy introduction of a new energy-efficient processor that it will debut in servers by the end of the year, helping reduce the enormous power load it takes to run ginormous server farms like, say, Amazon.com's.

This is very cool stuff, and long overdue -- most people aren't aware of just how energy-intensive computer technology is. I hope Sun gets some good PR points.

But more interesting to me on a personal level is Sun's "thin-client" strategy.

Carnival of the Green

I was remiss in not linking to the first one of these, so: Don't miss the second Carnival of the Green.

Letting the market decide

This op-ed by Charles Krauthammer fairly captures the current conventional wisdom on energy policy: demand is rising, supply is tight, and so the answer is to decrease demand (conserve) and increase supply (drill in the Arctic Refuge and off shore).

The really amusing part is that the conceit -- nay, the headline -- is "let the market decide energy policy."

But then there's this:

We have a unique but fleeting opportunity to permanently depress demand by locking in higher gasoline prices. Put a floor at $3. Every penny that the price goes under $3 should be recaptured in a federal gas tax so that Americans pay $3 at the pump no matter how low the world price goes.

Um. Wouldn't a stiff gas tax kind of influence the market's decisions about energy policy?

And there's this:

Petrol sounds

The Daily Show's Jon Stewart on the recent Senate hearings featuring oil executives: funny. (Watch the video here.)

Among other things, he refers to Exxon CEO Lee Raymond as "Gassington Jowls," which I should have thought of.