Climate Climate & Energy
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Will we see record low Arctic ice volume this year?
“Daily sea ice extent as of July 21. The solid blue line indicates 2009 … the purple line shows 2008; and the solid gray line indicates average extent from 1979 to 2000.” The blogosphere and scientific community are all abuzz as to whether 2009 will beat 2007 in minimum Arctic sea ice area. See, for […]
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Is the proposed clean energy agency a dirty deal for taxpayers and the environment?
Will the proposed clean energy agency become a slush fund for nuclear power?U.S. lawmakers are considering legislation that would create a new independent federal agency to promote government investment in clean energy. But watchdogs are raising questions about whether the way the proposed agency is structured is unfair to taxpayers and bad for the environment. […]
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Damning look at Canada’s tar sands tops enviro journalism awards
Canadian journalist Andrew Nikiforuk won the top prize from the Society of Environmental Journalists’ annual reporting awards for his investigation of oil extraction in the tar sands of northern Alberta. Nikiforuk’s book — Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent — examines the high social and environmental costs of the process of […]
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Does CEQ-EPA regulatory banter abet historicide?
Mired in the acrobatics of regulatory doublespeak, the Obama administration’s increasing oversight of the unbearable daily toll on Appalachian coalfield residents from mountaintop removal begs the question: Are Obama’s well-meaning but irresolute environmental administrators abetting the crimes of human rights violations and historicide? Whether they are unaware of decades of regulatory circumvention by Big Coal […]
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Solar Power, Yes We Did! (& Will!)
The outlook for all three categories of solar power in the United States is bright, according to a new study by the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC). The IREC reports that photovoltaic (PV) capacity grew by 63 percent in 2008 alone. The study’s author, Larry Sherwood, credits the federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for a […]
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The Climate Post: Smalls steps and giant leaps
First Things First: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited India last weekend to inch forward collaboration on regional security, global business, nuclear power, and climate change. U.S. papers played up the real-time meltdown between Clinton and Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh. The two appeared before cameras on a trip to a new, energy-efficient office building […]
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Memo to Post: If George Will quotes a lie, it’s still a lie
When New York Times columnist Tom Friedman called upon “young Americans” to “get a million people on the Washington Mall calling for a price on carbon,” another columnist, Mark Steyn, responded: “If you’re 29, there has been no global warming for your entire adult life. If you’re graduating high school, there has been no global […]
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“Realistic” first-generation CCS costs a whopping $150 per ton of CO2 — 20 cents per kWh!
Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs has published a blockbuster study, “Realistic Costs of Carbon Capture.” The paper concludes that First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) carbon capture and storage plants are going to be much more expensive than most people realize: 1. The costs of carbon abatement on a 2008 basis for FOAK IGCC plants are […]
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Money can’t buy YOU love — but it can buy the fossil fuel industry the GOP loves
Oil companies, electric utilities and the coal industry have poured more than $250,000 this year into the coffers of the National Republican Congressional Committee, the party’s House fundraising arm that has played a lead role in attacking Democrats who supported climate legislation. All told, political action committees for various fossil fuel industries have given at […]
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Congress reverses Chu’s decision, flushes $100 million down the toilet pursuing hydrogen cars
Honda’s FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel cell car: yours for only $100,000!There are only three sure things in life — death, taxes, and you’re never going to buy a hydrogen fuel cell car. Congress should stop wasting your money pursuing Bush’s phony dream. The fundamental problem with hydrogen as a transport fuel is one that no […]
