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  • Meet America’s most extreme energy geeks

    Photo courtesy PNNL via FlickrJet-engine wind turbines, fuel made from big batches of algae, enzymes that trap power plant CO2. Sound seriously far-fetched? They may be. But these concepts are fetching serious investment dollars from the Department of Energy. DOE Secretary Steven Chu — a Nobel Prize-winning inventor himself — has launched a new program […]

    Amanda Little Technology

  • This week in comically evil corporate behavior

    Updated It’s only Wednesday and we’ve already got way more than a week’s worth of comically evil behavior from the fossil-fuel sector. Item the first: A Chinese coal freighter tried to take a shortcut through Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and rammed into the world-reknowned ecological treasure. The stranded ship remains in danger of […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Technology

  • Americans eat more processed food than, well, anyone

    The New York Times had a small article and a big graphic recently on America’s love affair with processed, packaged food: Americans eat 31 percent more packaged food than fresh food, and they consume more packaged food per person than their counterparts in nearly all other countries. A sizable part of the American diet is […]

    Tom Laskawy Technology

  • Larry Summers serves up compelling economic case for comprehensive energy and climate legislation

    Larry Summers, the Director of the National Economic Council, used his luncheon speech at today’s Energy Information Administration Annual Energy Outlook Conference to lay out a compelling case for comprehensive energy and climate legislation. The text of his remarks should be posted on the conference website soon and will be worth a read as he […]

    Dan Lashof Technology

  • Farm saved by community featured on CNN

    In “Chewing the Scenery,” we round up interesting food-related video from around the Web. ——— Back in November, Grist’s own Bonnie Powell wrote a piece for the Ethicurean about the plight of Soul Food Farm, a Bay Area farm destroyed by a wildfire: Around 1:30 a.m. on the night of September 3, engineer-turned-chicken farmer Eric […]

    Tom Laskawy Technology

  • America’s most bike-friendly cities and big green pledges

    Bicycling Magazine released its annual list of America’s most bike-friendly cities today, and Grist’s hometown Seattle comes in at No. 4. Great, right? Well, sort of: The mag bases its praise on the city’s 10-year, $240-million bike master plan, which is intended to triple the number of journeys made by bike and add 450 miles […]

    Jonathan Hiskes Technology

  • KFC: Who needs buns when a chicken-bacon-chicken sandwich will do?

    The buns should have bread the writing on the wall: They’re nothing but the vehicle for Americans’ daily meat-to-mouth resuscitation. Which is why KFC said buh-bye to bread in order to shove even more gross industrial chicken Double Down hungry throats. KFC is shooting for a more manly vehicle for getting meat to the gullet, […]

    Ashley Braun Technology

  • Massey’s mine in Montcoal has been cited for over 3,000 violations, over $2.2 million in fines

    Cross-posted from Think Progress. Massey Energy is actively contesting millions of dollars of fines for safety violations at its West Virginia coal mine where disaster struck yesterday afternoon. Twenty-five miners were killed and another four are missing after a explosion took place at 3 pm Monday at Massey subsidiary Performance Coal Co.’s Upper Big Branch […]

    Brad Johnson Technology

  • Sustainable urban farming ideas that think inside the box

    Photo via .hello foto of FlickrIn my last Green State column, I wrote about Agriculture 2.0. The conference, held in Silicon Valley recently, brought together venture capitalists and sustainable ag startups in an effort to jump start a market for the regional distribution of fresh food. This week I take a closer look at some […]

    Todd Woody Technology

  • Filling our short-term fossil-fuel needs

    Like many Americans, I battle with my waistline, watching the same twenty pounds come and go year after year. Eating everything from Tootsie Rolls to asparagus, at times the healthy fare wins over the junk food, but usually the other way around. No food is either good or bad, because consumption isn’t measured against a […]

    Terry Tamminen Technology