Climate Climate & Energy

Developing nations will not remain immune to the need for sustainable development

I want to thank Jeremy Carl of Stanford’s Program on Energy and Sustainable Development for dropping by and making the case for coal — or rather, the case for holding our nose, accepting that coal’s growth is inevitable, and working to make it cleaner (Jeremy’s posts are here and here). I hope the conversation will […]

What’s the ecological footprint of the gambling industry?

I won't explain how it came to pass that -- only two days after a trip to NYC to present Greenhouse Development Rights at a meeting of the UN's Committee for Development Policy -- I went to Las Vegas.

I will say that that my wife, an Aussie, wanted to see the place, that we have a 11-year-old boy, and that the Hilton contains an installation honoring the United Federation of Planets. (The flag of which has a notable similarity to the one displayed in the UN's own, rather more dilapidated, halls.)

Some quick thoughts:

Innovative idea may reduce renewable energy costs

A study done at Stanford and published in the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology is described by its lead author, Cristina Archer, this way:

... each in a separate cage with a treadmill. At any given time, some hamsters will be sleeping or eating and some will be running on their treadmill. If you have only one hamster, the treadmill is either turning or it isn't, so the power's either on or off. With two hamsters, the odds are better that one will be on a treadmill at any given point in time and your chances of running, say, your blender, go up. Get enough hamsters together and the odds are pretty good that at least a few will always be on the treadmill, cranking out the kilowatts.

The combined output of all the hamsters will vary, depending on how many are on treadmills at any one time, but there will be a certain level of power that is always being generated, even as different hamsters hop on or off their individual treadmills. That's the reliable baseload power.

Read the whole story here at Mongabay.

Oh, wait a minute. My bad ...

Jeremy Carl looks at ways to clean up coal

This is part two of a guest essay from Jeremy Carl, a Research Fellow at the Stanford University’s Program on Energy and Sustainable Development. (Part one is here.) —– So if coal is going to be a major part of our energy system for the foreseeable future, what should we do about it? First, some […]

An alternative view on biofuels, from a Briton in Sudan

I've just discovered a great blog maintained by Clive Bates, a self-described "selfless public servant, amateur chef, novice mountaineer, lawless cyclist, overweight runner and occasional optimist." He is being modest: he's the former head of ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) in the UK and more recently the Head of Environmental Policy at the UK Environment Agency.

Over the last two years, Bates has written extensively and persuasively on a wide range of topics, particularly on environmental and energy policies, and climate change.

In his latest post, about biofuel policy, Bates states:

Instead of asking how to reduce transport emissions from road fuel substitution, we should be asking how to make use of land to tackle climate change in the most effective way possible. In coming up with the biofuels targets, policy-makers have asked, and answered, the wrong question. It's not hard to see why ... transport policy-makers have to find transport policies. The results: waste, damage and lost opportunities to do better ...

He starts off:

Search for local climate skeptic in Texas proves fruitless

Awhile back, I ran across the web site demanddebate.com (hat tip: Michael Tobis).

The thrust of the website is that everyone should demand debate about climate change instead of gullibly accepting the Gore/alarmist view. Their slogan is, "I'm more worried about the intellectual climate."

I am teaching a "intro to atmospheric science" class and had been trying to find a skeptic to come talk to the students. So I hit the contact button on the web site and asked:

I would be interested in having an expert from your group come speak to my atmospheric sciences class.

Unfortunately, I don't have any money to support travel, so I'm hopeful that you have someone local to the area (we could probably pay for mileage to/from Houston, Austin, Dallas, or other local cities).

Thanks!

I didn't expect to get a response, but Steve Milloy himself e-mailed me back:

Hi Andrew,

Can't think of anyone offhand. But will think about it.

BTW, you could always show them The Great Global Warming Swindle.

We also have a YouTube video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=XDI2NVTYRXU

Steve

I found that unsatisfactory, so I e-mailed back:

Tobis on the multidimensionality of the climate discussion

Readers know that I was mightily bothered by Andy Revkin’s attempt to classify certain thinkers as part of the "middle" of the climate debate. Some folks have attacked Revkin because they think one "side" — the "alarmist" side — is correct. That wasn’t quite my point. What I was trying to get at I just […]

Drastic delays proposed for Hanford Nuclear Reservation cleanup

The following is a guest post from Gina Barteletti, publications and volunteer coordinator at Heart of America Northwest. —– The U.S. Department of Energy is proposing to add more deadly, toxic waste to Washington State’s Hanford Nuclear Reservation before existing waste is cleaned up. At the same time, DOE is proposing changes to the Tri-Party […]

How oil-intense is your state’s economy?

Last time I checked, oil prices were hovering just below $100 per barrel. This reminds me of something I used to obsess about: high oil prices hit some places harder than others.

All else being equal, oil-efficient economies are more insulated from oil price shocks than are economies that require large oil inputs to function. I'm not talking about the amount of oil consumption, but about the "oil-intensity" of an economy. New York state consumes a lot of oil, and it also produces a lot of wealth. Other states, such as Louisiana, consume a lot of oil, but don't produce anywhere near as much wealth per unit of energy. (In fact, New York produces five times as much wealth per barrel of oil as Louisiana.)

Just so, when oil prices skyrocket, Rhode Island suffers less pain than Texas. And Massachusetts feels less of a pinch than Wyoming. So at the risk of oversimplification, I'll propose a little schema for the future:

1. If the future is likely to bring high oil prices, and
2. we'd like to remain prosperous, then
3. we should probably start weaning our economies from petroleum.

Brilliant, I know.

I guess one potential lesson here is that our big capital investments shouldn't expose us to decades of oil price shocks. (Yeah, I'm talking to you, highway.) They should insulate us from high oil prices. (Oh, hi there, compact walkable neighborhood.)

So, how do all 50 states stack up? Find out below the jump ...

Indiana regulators approve coal plant

Apparently not having received the memo that denying coal plants is the hip thing to do, the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission has approved an application from Duke Energy to build a coal-gasification plant in the city of Edwardsport. The bright side (if you can call it that): Duke will have to submit a plan on […]