Climate Climate & Energy

New nanoantennas capture sun’s energy 24-7; are cheap; are not yet for sale

Via SolveClimate, the latest whiz-bang new gonna-change-the-world solar technology: nanoantennas! They harvest the sun’s energy even at night! They’re cheap "as inexpensive carpet"! They’re printed on thin, flexible sheets! They’re … in a lab somewhere. Here’s hoping.

Spending on adaptation and mitigation now is an investment, spending later is a waste

This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.

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A dirty little secret of climate change is that somebody wants us to pay much higher taxes and higher energy bills. But it's not the advocates of climate action. It's the other guys.

Make no mistake: The costs of switching to clean energy and an energy-efficient economy are far less than the costs of doing nothing.

A study released by the University of Maryland last October helps bring the cost issue into clearer focus. It concludes that the economic costs of unabated climate change in the United States will be major and nationwide.

Climate change will damage or stress essential municipal infrastructure such as water treatment and supply; increase the size and intensity of forest fires; increase the frequency and severity of flooding and drought; cause billions of dollars in damages to crops and property; lead to higher insurance rates; and even increase shipping costs in the Great Lakes-St Lawrence seaway because of lower water levels. And that's just a sampling.

"Climate change will affect every American economically in significant, dramatic ways, and the longer it takes to respond, the greater the damage and the higher the costs," lead researcher Matthias Ruth told ScienceDaily.

How big are those costs?

Study touts environmental benefits of switchgrass-derived biofuel

Fast-growing switchgrass makes for a super-duper biofuel, says new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The five-year study of 10 Midwest farms concluded that switchgrass-derived biofuel can produce more than five times the energy consumed in manufacturing it, and emits 94 percent less greenhouse-gas emissions than gasoline. “This clearly demonstrates […]

Stern says he underestimated climate risks

Via WSJ, Sir Nicholas Stern says he underestimated the risks of climate change in his influential report. "We underestimated the flow of emissions from developing countries, especially China," he said, observing that emissions of greenhouse gases from China over the next 25 years will equal the total emissions from the U.S. and Europe over the […]

A roadmap to getting 70 percent of U.S. electricity from solar by 2050

OK, having spent an absurd amount of time bashing on a crappy article that came out while I was on vacation, let me turn my attention to an extraordinarily good one (via HillHeat): "A Solar Grand Plan," by Ken Zweibel (NREL), James Mason (Solar Energy Campaign), and Vasilis Fthenakis (Brookhaven National Photovoltaic Environmental, Health and […]

Reclusive candy billionaire opposes drilling near his Montana land

Ranchers and conservationists fighting to keep drills out of coal and gas deposits along Montana’s Tongue River are finding an ally in landowner and reclusive billionaire Forrest E. Mars Jr., former CEO of the Mars candy company. Sweet.

German scientists develop Combined Power Plant

Via the The Sietch blog, some very, very cool stuff out of the University of Kassel in Germany — the Combined Power Plant: The secure and constant provision of power anywhere and at anytime by renewable energies is now made possible thanks to the Combined Power Plant. The Combined Power Plant links and controls 36 […]

Hansen v. coal

PRE-PUBLISHING UPDATE: After I wrote this but before I posted it, I got an email from Grist reader CD notifying me of the sad news that Mass.’s gov approved the coal gasification plant. Decisions like this are going to look awfully stupid in a few years. —– I meant to mention this last week, but […]

Tourism and carbon neutrality

This story is critical -- another datum showing that the global jet travel binge is both global suicide and homicide all at once, complete with pre-flight thuggery from the TSA* and a side dish of helping-promote-coal-to-liquids on the side (there was another story today about the U.S. (Ch)Air Force's new plan for dealing with peak oil: burn liquified coal / natural gas mixtures).

Climate skeptics claim no warming since 1998

Honestly, if anyone tells you "For nearly a decade now, there has been no global warming" -- as this Boston Globe columnist has -- they simply are not interested in seriously trying to understand and deal with the gravest problem facing humanity. They deserve the label "global warming denier" for willfully trying to confuse the public debate.

Let's look at the data, from NASA, presented last month (PDF):

Through the first 11 months, 2007 is the second warmest year in the period of instrumental data, behind the record warmth of 2005, in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis. The unusual warmth in 2007 is noteworthy because it occurs at a time when solar irradiance is at a minimum and the equatorial Pacific Ocean has entered the cool phase of its natural El Niño -- La Niña cycle.

Yes, in some global datasets -- not NASA's, however -- 1998 is still the peak year because that year we had global warming plus the warm phase of the natural El Niño-La Niña cycle. But guess what, deniers? Climate change is about a change in the "climate." A single year doesn't make the climate, that's why people use a running average -- in order to show the trend. Duh!

NASA points out: