Climate Climate & Energy

Coal-to-liquid is a dead end if there’s a price on CO2

One final post on this week's liquid coal hearing. Forbes wrote up the hearing and got my bluntest quote:

"Coal-to-liquid is just a dead end, from a climate perspective," added Joseph Romm, a senior fellow at the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress. "Liquid coal will not have a future in this country, no matter how much money Congress squanders on it."

Well, I guess "liberal-leaning" is better than "liberal."

Why is liquid coal a dead end? Because, as I explain in my testimony, even a relatively low price for carbon dioxide is fatal to liquid coal's economics, as made clear in two recent report by the U.S. Energy Information Administration:

Eh …

… who needs sea ice and polar bears anyway.

Enter a climate video contest, win a Toyota hybrid

Watch this short eco-video, then make one of your own and enter it in the Ecospot Contest.

(Having trouble viewing the video? Download the latest version of Flash.)

On the energy potential of geothermal power

Like solar thermal power, geothermal power is too often neglected. Indeed, the Bush administration has proposed zeroing out the geothermal energy program for two years running.

But a major 2007 study sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, "The Future of Geothermal Energy" (a 372-page PDF), reveals the potential if we redouble our efforts toward this zero-carbon power source. The MIT-led panel of scientists, economic experts, and engineers found that Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) that use "heat-mining technology, which is designed to extract and utilize the earth's stored thermal energy" could contribute 10 percent of baseload power by mid-century:

Mooney on hurricanes and climate change

Chris Mooney has a piece in the L.A. Times about the current hurricane season and the connection between hurricanes and climate change. It echoes the sensible line taken in Chris’ book. This is the crucial bit: When it comes to the hurricane-global warming relationship, neither outright alarmism nor dismissive skepticism are warranted. Rather, taking the […]

Al Gore will pen a solutions-focused sequel

Al Gore is writing another book — and you can bet that climate change is shakin’ in its boots. The Path to Survival, a solutions-focused sequel to the groundbreaking Inconvenient Truth, is slated to hit shelves on Earth Day 2008. (Where was that impeccable timing when you were campaigning, Al?) Billed as “part scientific manual, […]

Notable quotable

From a Washington Post article about the transcendent potential of switchgrass: But such efforts [to persuade farmers to grow switchgrass] have hit a snag: Scientists haven’t perfected the process that turns switchgrass into ethanol. So for today, the Crop That Could Change Virginia is just hay with better publicity.

On how electric utilities should become carbon neutral

Since my first post dissing PG&E's offset program, I've had phone calls with PG&E, NRDC, members of PG&E's ClimateSmart External Advisory Group, plus a call with a forestry expert who consults with those who oversee the van Eck forest, which is featured on the "Our Projects" page of the ClimateSmart website. I have four basic conclusions:

EPA determines coal waste raises cancer risk

The waste from burning coal — coal combustion products, or CCPs, like coal ash and boiler slag — contains toxic heavy metals like mercury and cadmium. But don’t worry, the coal industry says that the concentrations aren’t high enough to do anyone harm. Taking the coal industry’s word for it, the U.S. EPA decided in […]

New full-page ad makes the case against coal

Ah, this kicks ass! The group Architecture2030 is putting a full-page ad in the next issue of the New Yorker. You can download the PDF here. I’ve reprinted the text below: —– GLOBAL WARMING Think You’re Making a Difference? Think Again. There are 151 new conventional coal-fired power plants in various stages of development in […]