Climate Technology
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View from Copenhagen: The Zero Sum Game
The deal being discussed in Denmark right now, in the name of climate change, is actually a framework for truth in advertising on a global economic scale. Think FASB on steroids. For example, we spend about three bucks for a gallon of gasoline in the US. In fact, we spend about ten, because of the […]
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A new world order: Automakers and Copenhagen
As world leaders meet in Copenhagen to seek consensus on ways to reduce carbon emissions, the world’s automakers are on the doorstep of a revolutionary change in how the vehicles we all depend on are designed and powered. From batteries, to plug-in hybrids, to next generation biofuels, clean diesels and hydrogen powered autos, to dramatic improvements in old combustion […]
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The economics of renewable energy certificates
Tom Stoddard, cofounder of carbon offset firm NativeEnergy, sent along the following response to a recent blog post by Auden Schendler: Auden: In your post entitled “Why Buying Cheap Energy Certificates Worsens Climate Change,” you take the position people shouldn’t buy what are now relatively inexpensive renewable energy certificates (RECs) because $2 per megawatt hour […]
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Grist correspondent heads to Copenhagen, looks forward to pickled herring
Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid statue, inspired by the Danish writer Hans Christian Anderson.Photo: julienponsI’m off to Copenhagen today, to spend 16 days sampling various pickled fish, shopping at the Christmas market, and, if there’s time, checking out some environment conference thing I’ve been hearing about. Seriously, I’ll be reporting on the climate talks, with a focus […]
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You don’t have to be big to go green
Greening Your Small Business is a new book out this month by Jennifer Kaplan, a partner in Greenhance, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm working with large and small businesses to gain better insight into their impact on the environment. She also teaches at Marymount University’s business school in Arlington, Va. Courtesy Jennifer KaplanI talked to […]
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EPA punts on raising ethanol ‘blend wall’
I have been following the Great Ethanol Blend Wall fight for some time. In a nutshell, ethanol companies have been struggling mightily during the recession. In response, industry group Growth Energy petitioned the EPA to allow gasoline to contain up to 15 percent ethanol rather than the current 10 percent. This demand also had the […]
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December 19 — the day after COP15
Tens of thousands of modern-day crusaders, charlatans, Nobel laureates, CEOs, quick-buck artists, earnest politicians, and assorted movie extras of every conceivable socio-political-ethnic-economic background will descend on Copenhagen for the next three weeks to participate in an orgy of carbon-bashing and flag-waving. The goal will be to agree on a blueprint — not quite the precise […]
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Why buying cheap energy certificates worsens climate change
Oh…my….God. I just received an email from a Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) vendor called Carbon Solutions Group (www.carbonsolutionsgroup.com) that took my already high (but controlled) blood pressure to new heights. RECs represent clean energy and can be purchased by entities wanting to claim to be powered by renewable energy. The gist of the Carbon Solutions […]
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GoodGuide scanner makes healthy food shopping point and click
Last year, a colleague suggested I check out a startup with the intriguing, and so-very-California, name of Tao It. Founded by Berkeley professor Dara O’Rourke, Tao It aimed to tap a multiplicity of databases to rank consumer products according to their health and environmental attributes. The idea: If people could instantly learn online whether there […]
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A Penny Saved Is…
California is at it again. State regulators just set energy efficiency standards for new TVs, mostly the big flat panel models that gulp kilowatts. As a result, consumers will save about $8 billion in the next decade in the form of lower electricity bills and carbon pollution will drop equal to removing 100,000 cars from […]
