Climate Technology

Coal is the enemy of the human race, mainstream economics edition

Coal-fired power is a gigantic, blood-sucking parasite that's enriching a few executives and shareholders at the public's expense, a new report suggests.

Here’s a win-win: Geothermal power can make lithium for electric vehicles

Existing geothermal power plants are powered by a hot brine from deep within the earth's crust, which is just lousy with dissolved minerals -- literally "half the periodic table," reports Scientific American. One of those elements is lithium, which can be extracted from the geothermal fluid that existing power plants in California's Salton Sea are already pulling out of the ground.

This is remarkable on many levels at once.

Guitar Antihero 3: How Congress fell for Gibson's bunk crusade

Asian logging interests have become the latest cause célèbre for the Tea Party. Thanks to Gibson Guitar, Republicans seem eager to jump on board.

In Solyndra's wake, polling finds support for clean energy remains strong

Tea Party conservatives have tried to use the Solyndra faux-scandal to tarnish the image of clean energy, but new polling finds that it isn't working.

'Peak Coal' comes to Appalachia

By 2015, coal production in Appalachia will be half what it was in 2008. Some coal industry advocates argue that such a drop is due to increased regulation by the Obama administration (go figure). But geologists and others who work in the industry say it's actually the result of a much more basic fact: Appalachia is running out of coal.

Company makes fuel from wood using nothing but water

A company called Renmatix says it can make ethanol from wood and woody biomass using nothing but water. If they're right -- and they just cut the ribbon on an R&D facility in Pennsylvania in order to find out -- it could mean the unlocking of a vast reserve of biomass previously untouched by the cleantech industry.

Guitar Antihero 2: Lawless logging and slaughtered wildlife didn’t stop Gibson Guitar

A federal action accuses Gibson Guitar of importing wood from Madagascar, even after Chinese logging gangs pillaged the country's national parks.

Guitar Antihero 1: How Gibson Guitars made illegal logging a conservative cause célèbre

Republican leaders are bashing well-respected trade regs that protect American jobs. Behind the coup: Tea Party groups and Gibson Guitar.

Navy Secretary says getting off fossil fuels is just like ditching sail power

Ray Mabus, Secretary of the U.S. Navy, has a refreshing historical perspective on the Navy's efforts to end its dependence on our increasingly expensive and environmentally destructive supplies of oil. From a speech he recently gave at the National Clean Energy Summit 4.0:

In the 1850s, we went from sail to coal. In the early 19th century, we went from coal to oil, and in the 1950s, we pioneered nuclear.

Critical List: Energy Dept. picks more winners; natural gas boom comes to Ohio

The Department of Energy, always picking winners, you know? The first Quadrennial Technology Review, to be released today, favors technologies that could come into commercial use in 10 years — i.e. consumer goods you can spend money for. This could mean DOE favors EVs over new clean energy technologies.

This company, Renmatix, will probably make it under the wire, though. It says it has the right technology to make commercially viable biofuels from biomass and just opened a plant to forward development of the technique.

The natural gas boom comes to Ohio.

Although Beijing usually gets a bad rap on pollution, Central and South Asia are not great places to live if you like inhaling clean air, either.