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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 […]

    Jess Zimmerman Energy

  • 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 […]

    Todd Woody Energy

  • 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 […]

    David Goldston Energy

  • Why EIA funding cuts may disrupt energy efficiency investments

    This post was written by R. Neal Elliott, associate director for research at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy and a contributing author at the ACEEE blog. Last Thursday, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) announced cuts in Energy Data and Analysis Programs resulting from the fiscal year 2011 budget deal. While the 14 percent […]

    A.C.E.E.E. Energy

  • The U.S. budget slashes information-gathering on energy

    In times of rising gas prices and uncertainty about the nation's overall energy future, it would seem that obtaining information on energy would be a top priority for our government. But not so. The Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the Department of Energy, is facing a 14 percent cut in the 2011 spending […]

    Dan Watson Energy

  • Students successfully rally to juxtapose Exxon arch-nemesis with Exxon CEO as commencement speaker

    The CEO of America's largest and most profitable company is invited to be the commencement speaker at one of the country's oldest technological universities — you would think everyone would be pumped! But no, the students at Worcester Polytechnic Institute responded to the secret deal to bring the head of WPI mega-donor Exxon Mobile to […]

    Christopher Mims Energy

  • An underwater grid for offshore wind, funded by Google

    I have a feature story in the latest issue of Popular Science: “Hundreds of Miles of Wind Farms, Networked Under the Sea.” It’s about the Atlantic Wind Connection, a new project (funded, in part, by Google) that would lay high-voltage transmission lines beneath the sea floor along the mid-Atlantic coast, opening the area up to […]

    David Roberts Energy

  • Now that we’ve killed Osama bin Laden, let’s kill oil

    The U.S. military’s killing of Osama bin Laden is a huge victory in the war against terror and on behalf of a safer, freer world. But if this is to be the beginning of the end for al Qaeda and repressive governments everywhere, we have to make it our national mission not just to hunt […]

    Glenn Hurowitz Energy

  • What would a Chernobyl or Fukushima disaster at Indian Point mean?

    Twenty-five years ago, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, sending plumes of radiation around the planet and devastating the area surrounding the plant to this day. The world learned firsthand then about the dangers of nuclear power. Today, the ongoing nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant is a tragic reminder of the threat that […]

    Philip Radford Energy

  • DOE shocker: the future will be like the past, but more so

    Last October, I had some fun looking at the Department of Energy’s historic predictions of natural gas prices and noting their consistent failure to, uh, predict. From 2004 to 2010, natural gas prices were massively volatile, ranging from $4 to $11 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) (on an annual, inflation-adjusted basis). Not only did […]

    Sean Casten Energy