Climate Climate & Energy
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DOE has nuclear energy in its bloodstream
Stephanie Cooke shares an inconvenient truth about the Energy Department: Given the department’s origins, it is not surprising that nuclear programs have won out over other energy technologies. Of the $135.4 billion spent on energy research and development from 1948 to 2005 (in constant 2004 dollars), more than half, or $74 billion, went to nuclear […]
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Time to get charged up about advances in smaller, faster lithium-ion batteries
Battery advances seems to be flowing as fast as electrons these days — and super fast charging batteries may hit the market in as little as 2 to 3 years. And that’s critical because the car of the very near future, plug in hybrids, are a core climate solution (see here). And electricity is the […]
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How would rebating carbon revenue to taxpayers give anyone incentive to reduce emissions?
There are lots of people who want to return money raised by a carbon program back to taxpayers via rebates. (A “revenue neutral carbon tax” is one way to do this; “cap and dividend” is another; Obama’s proposal is to auction pollution permits and return roughly 80 percent of the revenue via payroll tax rebates.) […]
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The net’s best introduction to the smart grid
Lynne Kiesling is a senior lecturer in the Department of Economics and in the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, a member of the GridWise Architecture Council, and the proprietor of the excellent blog Knowledge Problem. She has written the best general introduction to the smart grid available (and I’ve read a lot of […]
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Water too often overlooked in development efforts, U.N. report says
ISTANBUL — Fresh water and money have one thing in common: Their mismanagement has left billions of people without ready access to either, according to policymakers, non-governmental agencies and activists attending the World Water Forum here this week. AquaFed’s Gerard Payen (Courtesy U.N.) It was one of the few things all parties seem to agree […]
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U.S. media largely ignores latest warning from climate scientists
In the last two years, our scientific understanding of business-as-usual projections for global warming has changed dramatically (see here and here). Yet, much of the U.S. public — especially conservatives — remain in the dark about just how dire the situation is (see here). Why? Because the U.S. media is largely ignoring the story. Case […]
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Whatever its virtues, the gas tax is nearing the end of its life
The post on the mileage tax stirred up a lot of reaction, much of it negative. As it happens, the state of Oregon recently wrapped up a successful trial of a mileage tax system, so for the next few posts I’m going to be relying heavily on an excellent final report on the system (PDF) […]
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UNEP yearbook distills a year’s worth of climate science and innovation
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) released its 2009 Year Book last month to relatively little fanfare. Here are a few highlights, in case you’re behind on the State of Things (and missed the Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World report, President Obama’s unofficial state of the union speech last month, Stephen Faris’ Forecast of […]
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Don’t make too much of current energy prices; they are disconnected from fundamentals
There is a fair amount of hand-wringing over the recent collapse in energy prices which — while academically interesting — is largely irrelevant to larger macro forces. Here then a quick observation that is critically important and horribly misunderstood throughout our current energy, environmental, and economic conversation: current energy prices have very little to do […]
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Climate change and the threat to water
INSTANBUL — The World Water Forum — the largest gathering of water-sector public policy makers, private-sector vendors and non-profit organizations — got underway this morning in Istanbul with a dash of glitz and a glut of gloom. “Everyday, thousands of children die as a result of complications due to consumption of unclean water,” Turkish President […]
