Climate Climate & Energy

E.U. greenhouse-gas goal will be tough to meet, says IEA

A European Union goal to keep global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius will be, um, hard to do, says the International Energy Agency. “The scale of the challenge … is immense,” says a report to be published next week. “The technology shift, if achievable, would certainly be unprecedented in scale and speed […]

Fungus in rainforest foliage has promise as biofuel

A fungus hiding out in the trees of a Patagonian rainforest could be “a better source of biofuel than anything we use at the moment,” according to the scientist who accidentally discovered it.

EPA investigator blows the whistle on BP oil spill case

Way back in March 2006, BP pipelines ruptured and dumped tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil all over the Alaskan tundra. It was the biggest oil spill since the Exxon-Valdez. There was a criminal investigation. And then … there wasn’t. What happened? Seattle’s King 5 has broken the story: Scott West, a top […]

The Epstein alternative

Paul Epstein responds to a recent NYT story on the much-ballyhooed “nuclear revival” with a letter to the editor: There are many reasons to balk at constructing new nuclear power plants. Safety, storage, and security are significant obstacles, the last two of which may be insurmountable. Ten seismic faults lie within a 20-mile radius of […]

Decoupling 101: Of triage and panaceas

Decoupling is all the rage. The Obama campaign has made it a key part of their plan (as David gushed here), and many states have instituted decoupling proceedings to change the way that their electric and gas utilities get paid. The good news on decoupling is directional; utilities currently have a strong incentive to keep […]

Biofuel you can believe in

Flint, Michigan seeks Swedish help in turning human waste into biogas to power buses.

Geologists predict that oil production will decline within a decade

As I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, gas prices have fallen back from the phenomenal highs of last summer. The immediate cause has been the economic crisis. When credit markets seized up, some companies that wanted to buy oil simply couldn’t get the cash. And perhaps more importantly, the economic slowdown has decreased projections for […]

CBS looks at the Vatican’s plan to go solar

McCain adviser repeats myths about climate change

Just a few months ago, Steve Forbes, editor of Forbes and an economic adviser to Republican presidential candidate John McCain, was assuring the base that McCain would abandon his call for a cap-and-trade system to regulate carbon emissions once he assumed office. Today, he pens a piece in his own publication rife with debunked climate […]

Home values near transit stations defy the financial crisis

“With the energy [price] increase, it isn’t too much of a surprise that people are saying, ‘Gee, being close to public transportation is something that I value.'” — Byron Koste, director of the real estate center at the University of Colorado at Boulder, commenting on the fact that Denver homes located near light rail stations […]