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Vancouver’s Olympic village aims for green, runs into problems
Vancouver’s vision for its Olympic village looks dazzling from afar, like the city itself. Up close the details get hairier.Photo: ecstaticistThe city of Vancouver, British Columbia, has a lot to brag about. It’s got an enviable location, wedged between the Strait of Georgia and the snow-capped Coast Mountains. It’s a perennial winner of “most livable […]
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“Smart” appliances that talk to the grid are coming your way soon
Sure, it’s smart, but is it a good conversationalist?So the oven says to the refrigerator, “Don’t be so cold.” That line will soon be more than a bad joke. The Jetsons are coming to life as dishwashers, washing machines, and other home appliances begin to talk to each other and to the electricity grid in […]
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Sen. Alexander calls for 100 new nuke plants, won’t work with Dems on climate bill
Lamar Alexander unveils his plan.Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) on Monday called for 100 new nuclear power plants over the next 20 years as the central element of a climate and energy plan that Republicans intend to introduce in the Senate. In presenting the plan, he shot down the possibility that he would work with Democrats […]
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What the heck is CCS and can it really help fight climate change? An expert explains
Artist’s rendering of a power plant with CCS technology.Image: Prosjektlab/BellonaIt is conventional wisdom among People Who Matter that burning coal is going to continue, even accelerate, no matter what kind of legislation is passed or international agreements are forged. That’s why carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) — technology that buries power-plant carbon dioxide emissions underground […]
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San Francisco solar energy incentive program shines bright in first year
Last July, the City and County of San Francisco launched the first local solar energy incentive program in the nation. The results are in, and the program is an unequivocal success. In the year since our solar energy incentive program GoSolarSF launched, we have seen a 450% increase in applications for solar installations in San […]
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Green jobs: debunking the debunkers
Energy markets are neither free nor efficient, so traditional economic arguments against regulation and other government interventions do not apply. In response to my recent article digging into green jobs, a reader sent me a copy of a March paper by Andrew Morriss et al at University of Illinois that attempts to debunk green jobs […]
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Intersolar gathering
Fifteen thousand solar devotees from around the world are expected to meet in San Francisco this week in an event that organizers hope will “create strong global relationships.” Actually, the sun worshippers will be fully-clothed (many in suits, no doubt). These movers and shakers, metaphorically speaking, will be attending the continent’s largest business-to-business solar trade […]
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Washington state may soon be home to world’s largest PV solar project
About four miles from the town of Cle Elum, Wash., there is a large, flat piece of land surrounded by a ring of 50-foot-tall Ponderosa Pines. The area has been repeatedly logged over the last few decades and is now relatively treeless. But it may soon be home to an entirely different sort of renewable […]
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Energy industry sways Congress with misleading data
This story was written by ProPublica’s Adam Lustgarten. The two key arguments that the oil and gas industry is using to fight federal regulation of the natural gas drilling process called hydraulic fracturing — that the costs would cripple their business and that state regulations are already strong — are challenged by the same data […]
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Carbon trading: Worthy of Feinstein’s ire?
“Deregulation shifts the major burden of consumer protection to the competitive market, and therefore, in important measure, to the enforcement of antitrust laws.” – Alfred E. Kahn, Lessons for Deregulation: Telecommunications and Airlines after the Crunch. I’ve always found the above to be one of the wiser quotes about deregulation. (Kahn, for those who don’t […]
