Grist List

The safest place in Japan right now might be inside a nuke plant

Just 75 miles from where workers try to stave off nuclear disaster at Fukushima, another nuke plant is doing double duty as a tsunami shelter. The nuclear facility at Onagawa is currently home to 240 people displaced from the local town, who are hanging around watching TV and making phone calls while they wait to […]

Dilbert on clean energy innovation

Wisconsin Gov. Walker rejected high speed rail but wants the money anyway

Before he was the guy who tried to kill Wisconsin unions, Scott Walker was the guy who campaigned on a promise to kill high-speed rail in Wisconsin. There wasn’t a lot of room for interpretation or anything — I mean, one of his campaign websites was NoTrain.com, for chrissakes. But now Walker is asking for […]

Obama to reduce oil imports by a third via magic

Obama's energy speech today promises to be mostly a re-hash of previous administration announcements regarding efforts to make America more energy independent, but at least one bombshell has already been leaked by the White House: Obama wants to reduce America's oil imports by a third in 10 years. It's hard to think of anything — […]

Every 2012 GOP candidate was for climate action before they were against it, says Pawlenty

Former Minnesota governor and 2012 presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty was for cap-and-trade and emissions reduction before he was against it. Inconsistent? Hypocritical? An example of throwing away his principles to pander to an ever more right-leaning base? Hardly, says Pawlenty: It’s just what the cool Republicans do these days. Pawlenty: Everybody in the race, at […]

Smize! You’re on America’s Next Top Energy Innovator

Sure, we’ve learned to harness the power of the sun and the wind for renewable energy, but have we harnessed the awesome power of reality TV? That may be what Secretary of Energy Steven Chu is going for with “America’s Next Top Energy Innovator.” Okay, you don’t get coaching from Solar Tim Gunn, or critique […]

Is Germany’s nuke shutdown a Pyrrhic victory for climate hawks?

Germany’s Green party staked its historic win on promises to accelerate the shutdown of the country’s remaining nuclear reactors. But Europe’s energy commissioner says their plans will only lead to more coal-fired power. Guenther Oettinger — who may have his own ax to grind, as he is also a “former premier of the Baden-Wuerttemberg state […]

Reactor 2 at Japan’s Fukushima plant in full meltdown, says expert

The radioactive core of the second reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant appears to have melted through the its steel casing, and is now pooling on the concrete floor below, Richard Lahey tells The Guardian. (Lahey is former head of safety research for boiling-water nuclear reactors at General Electric, so he would probably know.)

Americans worry less about climate change than drinking water, rainforests or sprawl

The good news is that 75 percent of Americans are worried about air and water pollution, and a majority are concerned about the extinction of plants and animals. The bad news is that Americans are less worried about all things related to the environment than they were 10 years ago. Oh, and for anyone who's […]