fossil fuels
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Keystone ‘victory’ is nothing of the sort, say testy wonks
Enviros’ opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline has succeeded in delaying or possibly even deep-sixing a project that would have carried oil from the tar sands in Canada to refineries in Texas (and over a drinking water aquifer and the epicenter of a bunch of earthquakes). But not everyone is celebrating. Professional wet blanket Michael […]
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How’s it feel to already be living in a post-peak oil apocalypse?
The International Energy Agency says peak oil came and went — in 2006. The only reason we're not already paying $10 a gallon for gas and generally Mad Maxing it up is that there was this thing called a recession. Well, that, and cough cough the tar sands saved our asses cough cough. Unconventional sources […]
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Keystone XL would be right on top of latest Oklahoma earthquakes
Red: proposed route for Keystone XL Orange star: epicenter of Saturday's magnitude 5.6 earthquake in Oklahoma, which buckled a highway and cracked a building. The state is currently recovering from the quake and bracing for storms. A decade hence, if Keystone XL were running straight through the state, would they also be dealing with a […]
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Each American consumes as much energy as a 40-ton dinosaur
Yesterday, at the annual conference of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas, where retired petroleum geologists talk about how we're all going to end up like Viggo Mortensen's character in The Road, emeritus professor William Catton pointed out that every American uses so much fossil fuel energy that if it were […]
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The GOP brain explained: Why Cliff Stearns wants to subsidize successful companies
Your brain on conservatism.Yesterday I sketched the sort of personality type most likely to identify as conservative: those who prefer stability to change, order to complexity, familiarity to novelty, and conformity to creativity. This sort of personality type is drawn to clear lines separating in-groups from out-groups, highly aware of social hierarchies, suspicious of change, […]
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Solar cheaper than fossil fuels in a decade, says Steven Chu
Solar power will be cheaper than fossil fuels at some point between the end of this decade and 2026*, said U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu at the Washington Post's Smart Energy conference this morning. (For more on what Chu said, check out Guardian reporter Suzanne Goldenberg's tweets from the conference.) The date at which […]
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Did Germany screw the planet by deep-sixing its nuclear plants?
Germany’s phaseout of nuclear power was a boneheaded move that has wreaked havoc with its power grid and cost consumers dearly, and it will hurt the planet by leading to more coal-fired power, says a feature by Aaron Wiener in The New Republic. But wait, says Grist’s own David Roberts! Germany did no such thing! […]
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Republicans critical of Solyndra sought loan guarantees for coal, nuclear
There's ample evidence that pretty much everyone in Congress — even vocal critics of the government’s investment in Solyndra — is into loan guarantees for energy, whatever they tell the cameras after a few of these relatively risky ventures inevitably fail. Rep. John Boehner, for instance, requested loans to enrich uranium under the same loan […]
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Is the Keystone XL pipeline actually worse than the alternatives?
Believe it or not, intelligent, informed people who are passionate about preserving a livable climate disagree about whether or not the Keystone XL pipeline is a target worthy of environmental ire. Keystone XL has been called "game over for the climate" by none other than NASA climate scientist James Hansen, and Bill McKibben (full disclosure: […]