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Articles by David Roberts

David Roberts was a staff writer for Grist. You can follow him on Twitter, if you're into that sort of thing.

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  • Interesting stuff on the hottest new green tech

    I’ve been waiting for a good excuse to link to Earth2Tech, an interesting new project from internet legend Om Malik’s GigaOm family of blogs. It’s focused on clean tech startups, which as we all know are the hot new thing. I’ve also been waiting for a good excuse to post something about thin-film solar, which […]

  • Harkin wants to boost land conservation

    Here’s some reasonably heartening news from CQ.com: The Senate is prepared to write a dramatically different farm bill than the version the House passed last week. The Senate debate will not happen until September or later. For now, Senate Agriculture Chairman Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, has promised to increase funding for land-conservation programs far above House […]

  • Senate Majority Leader vows opposition to Nevada coal plants

    Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has occasionally been viewed with suspicion by enviros, thanks to his friendliness with the mining industry. This should help patch things up: U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada sent a letter this week to four companies telling them not to build planned coal-burning power plants in his […]

  • New company says it can make better, cheaper biofuels

    Picture a liquid fuel that is derived from the same feedstocks as cellulosic ethanol (switchgrass, sugar cane, corn stover) but contains 50% more energetic content and is made via a process that uses 65% less energy. Unlike cellulosic ethanol, this fuel can be distributed via existing oil pipelines rather than gas-hogging trucks and trains, dispensed […]