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Peabody Coal’s new site is too awful to be believed, but some of you believed it anyway
Hey, did you hear about Peabody Coal's unconscionable new site, Coalcares.org? They're offering free Dora the Explorer and Justin Bieber-branded inhalers to kids living near coal plants! They have a "Kidz Koal Korner" with these cartoon characters called "Puff" and "Ash," and they say clean energy will kill you, and they want to make kids […]
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Breaking the link between energy consumption and economic growth
Cross-posted from the Natural Resources Defense Council. There are skeptics of energy efficiency who claim that, paradoxically, all the energy and money we have been saving due to energy efficiency, across all sectors of the economy, has actually caused us to increase our energy consumption. This “economy-wide rebound” theory is a startling, but ultimately unsupportable, […]
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Critical List: U.N. is optimistic about renewables, U.S. studies ‘safe hydrofracking’
The U.N.'s climate change panel reports that, by 2050, 80 percent of the world's energy could come from renewables. The panel also issued this reassuring news: As long as we fulfill the most ambitious of renewable build-out plans and cut one-third of greenhouse gas, it is possible to keep the planet from nosediving into life-altering, […]
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Richard Burr introduces bill to abolish the EPA
It’s just a harmless cost-cutting measure!Cross-posted from the Wonk Room. Senate Republicans have introduced legislation to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, established 40 years ago by President Richard Nixon to give Americans clean air and water. The bill, introduced by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), would merge the EPA, which enforces environmental laws, with the Department […]
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Rwanda to power itself with plentiful, domestic geothermal energy
If the first thing you think of when I say "Rwanda" is "Don Cheadle looking worried while a radio booms 'Hutu Power!' in a basso profundo," it's time you updated your thinking. The country is currently looking into meeting its need for electricity by tapping into the hot rocks that underlie much of the country, […]
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Utilities and regulators design energy rates, regardless of the power source
We often talk about electric rates as if the only thing that goes into determining them is the power source. In some sense, this is right: If a utility’s power costs go up, and nothing else changes, the price they charge consumers will likely eventually go up. But, this understanding doesn’t fully appreciate the role […]
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Me and my beard, talking clean energy in Germany [VIDEO]
A few weeks ago, I visited Germany to learn more about its clean energy programs and progress. The folks at EnergyNow! called me up to chat about some of the things I saw, lessons I learned, and schnitzel I ate. Here’s the video: If you’re keen to read more, here are the posts that came […]
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New Chernobyl sarcophagus will dismantle itself from the inside
The "sarcophagus" that encases the site of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster was only ever supposed to be temporary, but it's been left in place for 25 years. It's no surprise that the thing could crumble if you looked at it funny (and a LOT of people look at it funny). So a new containment structure […]
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Report: Homebuyers willing to pay premium for solar
Okay, I’m a little slow on the uptake on this but I’ve been pursing a recent report from Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory on the effect of installing a rooftop solar array on the sale price of homes in California. (It makes for dense reading and unless you’re really into “hedonic pricing models” and “difference-in-difference model,” you […]
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The House wants to drastically expand offshore drilling
Additional drilling is not a solution to our problems; it is a way to create new ones.Cross-posted from the Natural Resources Defense Council. This week, the House could vote on three bills to expand offshore oil and gas drilling. It is remarkable enough that the House would take up such measures before Congress has done […]
