Climate Climate & Energy

Grains become fuel at the world’s first cellulosic ethanol demo plant

Our plant supplants your plant: a real-life cellulosic ethanol refinery. Photo: Iogen Sometimes it seems virtually anything can be made into fuel. As though, if we had the right technology, we could throw together old T-shirts, bumper stickers, and pine cones to make a magical elixir to run the millions of cars on North America’s […]

Read and be dazzled by the techno-futurism

David asked contributors for end-of-year lists. Since I normally focus on conservative assumptions, I thought I'd use it as an excuse to look at future breakthroughs and cost improvements.

I was going to weasel by calling these "possibilities," but instead I decided to use the time-tested technique of public psychics: I'll call them predictions, crow over any that come true, and pretend the rest never happened.

1. Power storage that will make electric cars cheaper than gasoline cars.

Ultracapacitors, various lithium systems, lead carbon foam (PDF), and aluminum are among the candidates. The first storage device with a price per kWh capacity of $200 or less, mass-to-power ratio as good or better than LiOn, and ability to retain 75% or more of capacity after 1,000 cycles in real world driving temperatures and conditions wins.

Santa’s Gonna Be Pissed

Arctic summer ice could melt nearly completely by mid-century, study says The Arctic Ocean could lose nearly all of its summer ice by 2040, says a study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Research suggests that Arctic ice will begin retreating rapidly around 2024; by mid-century, far northern Canada and Greenland may claim the […]

Alternatives to oil must take climate change into account

Let me engage in a piece of meta-wonkerific self-reference and quote myself:

"Energy security" is a lopsided way of framing our energy problem, and left un-balanced, will do more harm than good.

I said that in the context of talking about coal -- the enemy of the human race -- but this week brought another piece of evidence from a different quarter.

An interview with David Pimentel

Any worthy idea can withstand and even be improved by naysayers; scolds and skeptics play the useful role of pointing out obvious flaws. The biofuels industry has no more persistent, articulate, and scathing critic than David Pimentel, professor emeritus of entomology at Cornell University. David Pimentel. Photo: Chris Hallman / Cornell University Photography. In 1979, […]

Three perspectives on the biofuels debate

Imagine how amazing petroleum must have seemed back when it was an emerging alternative fuel in the U.S. Drill a hole in the ground in some parts of Texas and Pennsylvania, and rich black stuff would come gushing up, loaded with energy. What could possibly be the problem with such bounty? In some quarters, biofuels […]

Native Shun

Representatives of more than 50 U.S. tribes gather for climate conference This week, representatives of more than 50 Native American tribes met in Arizona for a first-ever tribal climate-change conference. The crisis is hitting home on U.S. reservations, as species migrate and weather patterns change. “We basically have two seasons now,” said Robert Gomez of […]

Eco-tech stuff

In one of my other lives, I'm a bit of a tech/computer/gadget geek, though by the high standards of online dorkdom, a mere amateur. Those interests don't overlap with my gristmillian preoccupations all that often -- but today, twice:

First, an amusing post on ForeignPolicy.com reveals that the avatars used in MMORPGs use as much energy -- in hardware and server cycles -- as the typical Brazilian. (If the preceding sentence means nothing to you, well, perhaps it's time to go outside and shout at the kids to get off your lawn.)

Second, ecogeek draws our attention to a truly drool-worthy new piece of hardware: the LG Ebook, which just won a Red Dot Award for design. Its display uses organic light-emitting diodes (OLED), which use much less energy than today's LCD monitors. And it's powered by methyl alcohol rather than lithium-ion batteries; the alcohol is stored in a blue-tinted cylinder that also serves as the hinge. Have a look:

Flex-fuel vehicles greenwash Detroit’s SUV addiction.

David mentioned something about it when it came out a couple of months ago, but as Grist wraps up its first week of biofuel coverage, it's worth pointing to again: after much testing and comparing, Consumer Reports finds the whole live-green-go-yellow, E85 thing pretty much a sham.

As Grist readers will know, the government gives automakers a credit against their mileage requirements for every flex-fuel vehicle (able to run on ethanol, gas, or a mix).

CR's conclusion: Detroit is using it a lever to help it churn out more gas-guzzling SUVs, and the policy is working to increase fossil fuel consumption, not stem it.

The most depressing finding, for me: the greenwash appears to be sticking with the general public:

A handy biofuels glossary, and videos to boot

With all the talk of biofuels swirling around, things can get a bit confusing. So we’ve put together this handy glossary for your reference. Now you can pontificate at cocktail parties with the best of ’em. And just to keep you awake (yeah, we remember second grade too), we’ve included some explanatory videos thanks to […]