technology
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Removing roadblocks to the growth of renewables
On Friday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration released new monthly statistics for renewable energy output as well as output of traditional forms of power. The good news is that renewable energy in May, the latest month for which statistics have been compiled, is at its all-time highest level, accounting for 13% of total power. The […]
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If the site is right, researchers could bring tidal energy to Puget Sound
The problem with wind power—one of them, anyway—lies in the phrase “fickle as the wind.” Ocean tides, by comparison, are a paragon of reliability. They come and go twice a day, like clockwork. Seasonally, they’re strongest at the solstices in June and December and weakest at the equinoxes in March and September. That predictability is […]
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Tally of interests on climate bill tops a thousand
This post was originally published on the website of the Center for Public Integrity and is reposted on Grist with CPI’s kind permission. More than 460 new businesses and interest groups jumped into lobbying Congress on global warming in the weeks before the House neared its historic vote on climate change legislation, a Center for […]
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Tony Blair, Climate Group, and CAP call for strong technology deployment policy
Tony Blair and the Climate Group have written an excellent report, “Breaking the Climate Deadlock: Technology for a Low Carbon Future (PDF).” While they endorse strong investment in technology development – as the Center for American Progress (CAP) and virtually everyone else does – it is squarely focused on the crucial role that strong government […]
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Mass. startup uses biotech smarts to take the corn out of ethanol
On Monday, the latest entrant in the biofuels sweepstakes takes the wraps off a solar-powered technology designed to transform C02 and sunlight into ethanol. “We capture the energy of the sun into a solar converter,” says Bill Sims, CEO of Cambridge, Mass.-based Joule Biotechnologies. “Inside exists a solution of brackish or gray water, nutrients and […]
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Can we really make the drive-thru a source of power?
My father believes that the one modern invention above all others to contribute to the downfall of the planet, not to mention our civilization, is the drive-through — or, in the spirit of efficiency on which it’s based, the drive-thru. Your idling could light this sign!Not only does it encourage laziness and obesity by tempting […]
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Better ways to spend $1 million on plastics
The American Chemistry Council will spend more than $1 million to fight a 20-cent fee on plastic shopping bags in Seattle, hoping voters reject the proposal in August. Or send the Bag Monster and all his friends to Copenhagen this December!Photo by Bag Monster via FlickrIf it seems absurd to spend a cool mill defending […]
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Silicon Valley VC sees bright future for green tech — and a need to engage policy makers
A BrightSource Energy solar thermal project.Photo: BrightSource EnergyDrive around the San Francisco Bay Area and you can see the emerging corporate infrastructure of the new green economy. In a downtown Oakland office tower, you’ll find the headquarters of BrightSource Energy, a solar thermal power-plant developer that has scored contacts to build more than 2,600 megawatts’ […]
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Twenty ideas that could save the world
Ask Chris Rapley, the ebullient physicist and director of the Science Museum in London, why he seems more sanguine about our prospects of taming climate change than many of his peers, and he’ll tell you about the day he first toured the museum’s library and archives. Surrounded by the thousands of designs and patent applications […]
