Climate Energy

In dimwitted move, GOP set to repeal lightbulb standard that saves billions

Republican lawmakers want to repeal the Energy Independence and Security Act, which saved consumers money by setting lightbulb efficiency standards.

Exxon vs. state government: Yellowstone clean-up now has dueling command centers

A week after an ExxonMobil pipeline burst under Montana's Yellowstone River, spots of oil have been found more than 80 miles downstream from the original spill. Exxon is on the clean-up case; more than 500 Exxon clean-up workers are on the scene, and the company has put down 8,000 feet of absorbent booms and 150,000 pads to soak up the oil. But the company is also being so sneaky in their proceedings that Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and his team huffed out of the incident command center and set up their own clubhouse.

Dirty-money shills lie about renewables — here's the truth

Robert Bryce, who has made a career out of saying things that are popular with the petroleum industry, is a lying liar who lies, most recently in the pages of The New York Times. In a recent op-ed piece he claimed, basically, that natural gas is greener than renewables because he says so.

The U.S. gets more power from renewables than from nuclear

A new report from the Energy Information Administration shows that in 2011, renewable power in the U.S. surpassed nuclear for the first time. In the first three months of the year, renewable energy plants -- including geothermal, biomass, wind, water, and solar -- were responsible for about 12 percent of the country's energy production, while nuclear produced only 2 percent.

Should California adopt the German solar model?

When it comes to luxury cars, beer, chocolate, and solar power, we should just acknowledge that Germans do it better. But if sunny California adopts their tariff system, they could pay even less for solar energy than cloudy Deutschland.

Anatomy of a solar PV system

Solar photovoltaic gets a lot of attention compared to other forms of clean energy, but the attention is deserved.

Nuclear power is fine — it's corporate power that's dangerous

In the Guardian, George Monbiot argues that nuclear power was the least of Fukushima's problems. Sure, the nuclear industry is corrupt and regulation-resistant -- but name a power industry that isn't. When it comes to health threats, says Monbiot, the conscienceless scumbags in the nuclear industry are miles ahead of all the other conscienceless scumbags.

Despite recession, Californians install solar panels at record-breaking pace

While the drill-baby-drill contingent was bitching about reliance on foreign oil, that hacky-sack full of smelly Nancy-Pelosi-electing hippies known as California quietly installed more solar in 2010 than any other state, ever.

500 MW of distributed solar could have prevented blackout that affected 55 million

The massive blackout of 2003, which affected 45 million people in the northeast United States and 10 million more in Ontario, could have been prevented by just 500 megawatts of distributed solar, says John Farrell of the Institute for Local Self Reliance. For reference, California installed almost 200 megawatts of distributed solar in 2010 alone.

World's first fracking bans come through in France and New Jersey

While we were all distracted by the possibility that New York State will allow fracking for natural gas, two big milestones in the battle to restrict the notoriously environmentally destructive process arrived on successive days:

New Jersey bans fracking

On June 29, New Jersey became the first state in the Union whose legislature passed a ban on fracking.