Climate Climate & Energy

Get Me Rewrite!

Part two of intergovernmental climate report no sunnier than part one No Monday would be complete without a dash of grim global-warming news, so here goes. Part deux of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is due out in April, and according to a draft, things are looking quite the opposite of good. The […]

Biofuels on Science Friday

For those who don't listen to Science Friday, shame on you. It's one of the best science shows around.

This week, they had an interesting segment on biofuels. Listen to it in mp3 format, Real Player, or Windows media.

2020 Vision

E.U. adopts ambitious renewable-energy goal It’s a banner day for the European Union: wrapping up a two-day summit, its 27 member states have agreed on an ambitious green-energy goal. The plan — to use 20 percent renewable energy by 2020 — will “establish us as a world pioneer,” says German Chancellor and summit chair Angela […]

CSM investigates

Mark Clayton at the Christian Science Monitor looks into it. This describes my position quite well: But for those energy experts who have done life-cycle analysis of nuclear power, the big concern is that policymakers may be misled into believing that just because nuclear CO2 emissions are low, the cost of nuclear as an option […]

Over global warming, of all things

As you’re probably aware, the old guard of the conservative evangelical movement has lashed out against the new guard over the subject of global warming. James Dobson, Gary Bauer, and Tony Perkins — has America ever puked up a more loathsome triumvirate? — are trying to pressure the National Association of Evangelicals to fire its […]

Oh, great

Look what the Twin Cities Pioneer Press discovered: The latest trend in the green world of ethanol is a surprising one: coal. Minnesota’s first coal-fired ethanol plant soon will begin operation in Heron Lake, and it won’t be the last. The high price of natural gas is enticing new plant owners to embrace coal power. […]

Doom and gloom gets it wrong again

Sure looks that way from the available evidence. It's comforting that, yet again, the doom and gloom crowd gets it wrong. Now, onto dealing with carbon emissions ...

Coal is still the enemy of the human race

When I talked to Rep. Jay Inslee, he specifically asked me to emphasize to readers the distinction between coal gasification (that is, producing electricity in IGCC coal plants) and coal-to-liquids (that is, producing liquid diesel fuel from coal via the Fischer-Tropsch process). The former might some day be environmentally tolerable, if accompanied by carbon sequestration. […]

What Goes Up Must Keep Going Up

Draft of U.S. government report says greenhouse-gas emissions on the rise A leaked draft of a U.S. government report shows that officials expect greenhouse-gas emissions to keep climbing under President Bush’s watch. The U.S. Climate Action Report — which was due to the U.N. over a year ago and comes with its own ironicalicious acronym […]

The green projects you don’t hear about

While the world wonders how much energy it takes Al Gore to trim his nose hairs, real progress is being made all over this gall dang country toward embracing green energy — and not only in Moneyville. Just today, two quiet examples from on-the-rebound Massachusetts cities blipped across my radar screen. Worcester is aiming to […]