Climate Cities

Electric cars could impact water supplies, says analysis

Converting most U.S. vehicles to run on electricity could have an impact on water supplies, according to an analysis to be published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. Generating the needed electricity would require more water than producing gasoline, the report found — that is, if the nation’s electricity grid continues to be powered […]

Defying conventional wisdom, NC residents express desire for public transport

Photo: Roadsidepictures You know that old saw about how greens should shut up about public transportation because Americans hate trains and insist on getting around in their own private chunks of resource-sucking steel and plastic? Well, that may be going the way of $2/gallon gas. Get this, from a recent poll of North Carolina residents: […]

Journalist Michael Grunwald on the hubris of the Army Corps

Dam, that’s a pretty lock: the sun sets behind the Corps navigation structure at Alton, Ill. Photo: Mark Hirsch Imagine the Pentagon had been caught red-handed concocting its justification before launching the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Imagine that after the scandal died down, the Pentagon admitted Saddam didn’t really have WMDs — but proposed […]

A brief history of the creation and growth of the Army Corps

Today, it’s almost impossible to say “Army Corps of Engineers” without also saying “Hurricane Katrina” and “levee failure,” or “Yazoo Pump” and “boondoggle.” But the corps’ original mandate made no mention of hurricane and flood protection, or even of the Mississippi River. An Army Corps survey crew in 1916. Photo: history.nasa.gov In 1802, Congress established […]

A special series on the Army Corps and the Mississippi River

It’s spring, and for most of us that means tackling a few home improvement projects: cleaning the gutters, say, or replacing storm windows with screens. Remaking the Mississippi An interactive look at a few current Army Corps river projects The Mississippi Valley Division of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for maintaining the […]

Green building may be quickest path to decreased emissions

Reuters has the skinny on a new report on green building. The report concluded that building green would reduce greenhouse emissions more quickly than any other approach.

According to the article:

North America's buildings release more than 2,200 megatonnes, or about 35 percent of the continent's total, of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. If the construction market quickly adopted current and emerging energy-saving technologies, that number could be cut by 1,700 megatonnes by 2030, the report said.

Alas, there are "obstacles" preventing the rapid adoption of green building techniques:

One is the so-called split incentive policy, where those who construct environmentally-friendly buildings do not necessarily reap the benefits of using them.

Also, governments and other institutions separate capital and operating budgets instead of budgeting for the lifetime of a construction project, creating a disincentive to build "green," the report found.

Oh well, I guess I'll have to make do with a nice cozy place on the Street of Dreams until green building catches on. Uh, scratch that.

Everything you could possibly want to know about batteries

The Economist has published a very readable history and explanation of batteries, especially ones suitable for all electric cars, called "In search of the perfect battery." In particular, it has a very extensive discussion of lithium-ion batteries, which will almost certainly be the core battery for most electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. I highly recommend the piece, since electricity is the transportation fuel of the near- and far-future.

(h/t to my brother Dave for sending this to me.)

Denver hopes to reduce car emissions by encouraging better driving

The city of Denver has unveiled a “Driving Change” pilot program designed to reduce vehicle greenhouse-gas emissions by encouraging drivers to ease off the lead foot. Starting in May, 400 public and private Denver vehicles, including that of Mayor John Hickenlooper, will have a device installed to monitor time spent braking, idling, accelerating, and speeding. […]

A post-petroleum American dream

"This craziness is not sustainable," concludes The New York Times op-ed columnist Bob Herbert, and he's talking about the economy, not the environment. He continues:

Without an educated and empowered work force, without sustained investment in the infrastructure and technologies that foster long-term employment, and without a system of taxation that can actually pay for the services provided by government, the American dream as we know it will expire.

And without petroleum. Oil is shooting over $100 per barrel, caused ultimately by a looming decline in global supply, and exacerbated by rising demand in China and India, foolish policies such as the occupation of Iraq, and repressive regimes such as in Nigeria. And if we are serious about reducing carbon emissions to near zero in order to avert climate catastrophe, we must scale back our use of petroleum to near zero.

While we're learning to live without petroleum, we need to rebuild the workforce, infrastructure, technologies, and tax system, as Herbert suggests. I will argue in this post that we can accomplish all of these goals by replacing internal combustion engines with electric motors, using other energy sources for other petroleum uses, and perhaps most importantly, by changing the arrangement of the buildings, production, and people in our society in order to eliminate the need for so much petroleum.

In order to understand how to accomplish all of this, we need to know how petroleum is used, so let's look at some numbers!

If we want to create jobs, why aren’t we spending on mass transit?

The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending Priorities (PDF): Number of jobs created by spending $1 billion on defense: 8,555 Number of jobs created by spending $1 billion on health care: 10,779 Number of jobs created by spending $1 billion on education: 17,687 Number of jobs created by spending $1 billion on mass […]