Climate Climate & Energy

Building faster to get the power to build faster

There's an old saying in the military: "There's always someone who doesn't get the word."

Here is a post that reports on an analysis, repeated a number of times, strongly suggesting that the up-front energy investment in nuclear plants is simply too large to allow nuclear to be a serious contender for replacing fossil fuels in an energy- and carbon-constrained world.

Here's a piece in the Baltimore Sun that says ... well, look:

While the governor and others in Annapolis are demanding cuts in electricity consumption, there's a better way: increasing the supply through nuclear power.

Yep, there's always someone who doesn't get the word.

A cascade of news shows that coal is on the ropes

Remember, oh, about a year ago when every day brought a new article about the coming Coal Boom? How times change. A few pieces worth noting, just from the last few days: Mark Clayton covers the Coal Bust; Keith Johnson covers the latest blow to Big Coal, Missouri’s Associated Electric Cooperative Inc. canning a planned […]

Readying for the Olympics, revisiting artificial turf, and racing with Formula One

As Beijing prepares for the Summer Olympics, officials claimed the best run of blue-sky days on record between Jan. 21 and Feb. 18, and said that 26 of February’s 29 days met the city’s clean-air standard. International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge lauded Beijing’s pollution-reducing efforts, stating, “I can’t hide the fact that there is […]

Chris Anderson: Paper mags are better on carbon than websites

From 1998 until 2006, the Wired website and Wired magazine had different owners and were run separately. In 2006, Condé Nast bought the website back and reunited them. I’ve heard rumors that there were some tensions along the way. I can’t help but wonder if those tensions are behind an odd post from Chris Anderson, […]

Hansen throws cold water on cooling climate claim

NASA's James Hansen has weighed in (PDF) to ...

... expose the recent nonsense that has appeared in the blogosphere, to the effect that recent cooling has wiped out global warming of the past century, and the Earth may be headed into an ice age. On the contrary, these misleaders have foolishly (or devilishly) fixated on a natural fluctuation that will soon disappear.

As Hansen explains:

Norway says whale consumption is good for the planet

Eating whale meat is better for the planet than eating beef, pork, or chicken, according to a comparative carbon-emissions calculation by Norwegian lobbying group the High North Alliance. Says the alliance’s Rune Froevik, in what may be a bit of an exaggeration, “Basically it turns out that the best thing you can do for the […]

Do Big Oil and Big Tobacco share a similar smokescreen?

Stepping into the Heartland Institute’s “2008 International Conference on Climate Change” was like walking into an alternate reality. To the rest of us, climate science is settled, the solutions are sensible, and the time for action is now. But in the Marriott Grand Marquis Times Square, the only science comes from industry-funded think tanks; climate […]

Grand Canyon flood supported by feds, criticized by park officials

Federal flood control managers will let loose a rush of water through the Grand Canyon on Wednesday, which the feds say is necessary to restore sand banks and side pools, and National Park Service officials say is unnecessary, aimed at pleasing hydropower companies, and could irreparably destroy the habitat it’s meant to restore.

Americans reduce gas consumption as prices continue to rise

Shocked by high gas prices? You're not alone: according to the lead story in today's Los Angeles Times, prices are at a record high.

The gravity-defying price of oil shot through another barrier Monday by briefly touching $103.95 a barrel in New York trading, the highest cost ever for black gold even after adjusting for inflation.

But the experts say it's not so much a rise in demand that is pushing up the cost, but a fall in the value of the dollar.

"I don't think it's a coincidence that the price of oil hits an all-time high around the time that the dollar hits an all-time low against the euro," said Ken Medlock, an energy studies fellow at Rice University's Baker Institute. "The amount of dollars you have to give up for a barrel of oil is going to increase because the dollar is purchasing less and less."

In response, according to an excellent story in Monday's Wall Street Journal, Americans have at last began to turn against gasoline.

USDA head suggests harvesting switchgrass on conservation land

Department of Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said Tuesday that it would be a “great idea” to allow farmers to grow and harvest biofuel-bound switchgrass on land currently set aside as wildlife habitat. More than 34 million acres in the U.S. are in the Conservation Reserve Program, which pays landowners to convert cropland to native grasses […]