Climate Technology

Red Sox partner with NRDC to green Fenway Park

America’s national pastime is going green in Beantown as the Red Sox step up to the plate to make going to Fenway Park a whole new ball game. Under a five-year partnership with the Natural Resources Defense Council, the nation’s oldest active ballpark may vend beer in corn-starch-based cups, serve local, organic food from concession […]

On electricity deregulation

In The Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi advises that "It is good to know karate. It is good not to know karate. It is not good to know a little karate." With the price caps now coming off in the few states that partially deregulated their electricity grids, there is a rising backlash against competitive markets, with some of that backlash even coming from normally pro-market groups like The Cato Institute. This backlashers generally argue that partial deregulation has taught us that deregulation doesn't work in the electric sector. But we ought to remember Mr. Miyagi's advice, lest we draw the wrong lessons from our little bit of karate.

This subject deserves more discussion on Grist, as evidenced by some of the debate which followed my last post. Let's take a closer look.

Groups petition federal agencies to regulate air fresheners

Environmental groups petitioned the U.S. EPA and the Consumer Product Safety Commission yesterday to regulate air fresheners, which can aggravate asthma and often contain chemicals such as benzene and formaldehyde, as well as other compounds linked to developmental problems in kids. The eco-groups want companies to list all the ingredients in air fresheners and conduct […]

Ontario has higher capacity for renewable energy projects than the government estimates

The Toronto Star has been doing some excellent work on the environment and energy issues in Ontario lately -- I pointed to some not too long ago. Many of those stories come from the Roberts-endorsed Tyler Hamilton.

Yesterday, Hamilton had an excellent piece in the front of the business section. It's on the alternatives to nuclear construction that the province is ignoring; it tallies up all the missed opportunities. The conclusion is that Ontario could build ten times as much renewable energy as the government currently estimates, more than enough to displace the planned and allegedly necessary nuclear reactors.

Discover Brilliant: Smart grid R&D

Next up, a discussion of trends in energy industry R&D. Starring: Gridwise Council, Alison Silverstein (Moderator) PIER and California Energy Commission, Merwin Brown, Director of Transmission Research Modern Grid Initiative, NETL, Steve Pullins Bonnevile Power Authority, Terry Oliver, Chief Technology Innovation Officer Oliver: Electric utilities invest tiny amounts of money in R&D — "less than […]

The promise of governmental buyers’ clubs

We often wonder whether the government is better suited to solving many of our problems, or whether the market should take the lead.

The current issue of The Atlantic Monthly has an article concerning the efforts of Bill Clinton's foundation which addresses this issue. The article shows how governments can work with markets for the benefit of large numbers of people and the planet by guaranteeing demand for a particular product or service. By doing this in the long-term, the production of beneficial goods and services can achieve the economies of scale that will make them practical to use within a few years, instead of decades from now.

The Clinton Foundation used this powerful idea to cut prices for AIDS drugs in Africa and the Caribbean for hundreds of thousands of people. In Clinton's words, "All we did was take something that people would naturally do in a purely business market and apply it to the public-goods market."

I'm not sure if Clinton is referring to the technical definition of "public goods" here, which refers to a good whose consumption does not reduce any other's consumption of that good, and a good that all have access to, such as information or air.

The Earth's climate is most certainly a public good, and its radical warming would most certainly be a public bad. So the Clinton Foundation worked with a new group of cities, the C40, to create large-scale demand. If big cities could come together to provide a market to jumpstart new, energy-savings technologies, it would give quite a boost to efforts to mitigate global warming. As the author of The Atlantic article points out, cities have quite a source of demand at their disposal:

How to enable consumers to be responsive to electricity prices

I had an interview so I missed most of "The Emerging Models for Demand-Response Technology." I walked in about halfway through. Reliant Energy, Mark Jacobs, CEO EnerNOC, Scott McGaraghan, Director of Business Development–West Coast IBM, Ron Ambrosio, Global Research Leader–Energy & Utilities  PG&E, Janice Berman, Senior Director of Customer Generation and Emerging Technologies Tons of […]

Innovation from the nation’s most progressive electricity providers

First up today, a session on utilities: "Big Energy, Big Vision — Utilities Making the Climate Commitment." We’re starting off with a presentation from Janice Berman of PG&E, a northern California utility that’s way, way ahead of the pack on energy policy. Here’s an abridged list of what they’re doing: Funding renewables generation via solar, […]

15 Green Business Founders

Some of these eco-entrepreneurs you’ve likely heard of, some of them you surely haven’t, but all of them deserve kudos for starting up companies that strive for sustainability. Read about their accomplishments, then tell us about green business owners who’ve inspired you in the comments section at the bottom of this page. Yvon Chouinard, Patagonia […]

Looking at an industrial-meat giant’s China deal

While PETA roils Gristmill and other greenie sites by brandishing climate change to promote vegetarianism, Smithfield Foods just keeps cranking out industrial meat. As I noted in last week’s Victual Reality, the company recently announced a deal to sell 60 million pounds of pork to China. Since then, Smithfield has revealed details about how it […]