Climate Technology

Discover Brilliant: Intro

I’m here at the introductory talk at the Discover Brilliant conference. The focus of the three-day event is on those areas where entrepreneurial energy and profit overlap with lower environmental impact. Everyone is here to figure out who’s making money, who’s investing where, and what the next big tech will be. The vibe is refreshingly […]

As long as GE funds coal, its net impact is far from green

Let me pull a few excerpts from a recent WSJ story on the progress of GE’s much-touted "ecomagination" campaign: “I don’t want to change the economic flow of the company,” [CEO Jeffrey] Immelt says. So GE continues to sell coal-fired steam turbines and is delving deeper into oil-and-gas production. Meanwhile, its finance unit seeks out […]

New York attorney general subpoenas energy companies over disclosure of coal-plant risks

A new weapon has been brought to bear in the war on coal, and it’s aimed right at the corpulent industry’s soft underbelly: risk. New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo just sent out a round of subpoenas to energy companies. He wants to see internal documents demonstrating that the companies — AES Corporation, Dominion, Dynegy, […]

Greenwashing is getting more subtle

This article in Slate got me thinking. I'm usually inclined to believe that any greening of business is good, but it seems like "greenwashing" is getting more subtle, with the media playing right into it with their lavish features on new "green" initiatives, regardless of their content and effectiveness. Take-home point: better government policy is much more significant than any voluntary greening by business. Something we've always known, but always worth a reminder.

Why small may be more beautiful than ever

I spent the afternoon doing something I almost never get to do anymore: read the papers, namely The New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Here are some of the things I learned: Oil prices are testing new highs. The dollar continues its slide against the Euro, hitting an all-time low. A weak dollar means […]

Peter Barnes looks at carbon-capping methods

Peter Barnes has a guest post on the Step It Up blog giving a good brief description of how a Sky Trust would work:

It’s a mistake to view the economy as an abstraction

From a Seattle P-I story comes this gem of a quote about declining housing affordability: "It's going to affect people more so than the economy."

Uh, what's that again? The economic outlook is still rosy -- it's just, y'know, people who are in trouble.

Creative use of wind saves cargo vessels fuel

While sailing ships are unlikely to make a comeback anytime soon for oceanic shipping, adding sails to fossil-powered cargo vessels is definitely "on the horizon." This not-new idea is now compatible with the needs of shipping companies, and the savings make both climatic and economic sense:

Lenders offering mortgages that reward energy efficiency

Shocking news: an element of everyday American life is going green! Yes, now you too can pay off your house with a green mortgage. While many lenders have long had offers of bigger loans and discounts to buyers whose homes meet energy-efficiency standards, such plans are now being marketed more aggressively, and many homebuyers are […]

‘Carbon-friendly’ utilities may not necessarily be in the public interest

Following the discussion under David's latest post about Edwards' position on carbon capture at coal plants, I thought it appropriate to point out a few things about the electric business that are critical to this debate -- but not widely appreciated.

An electric utility is a weird amalgam of lots of historic political philosophies -- most of which are in direct contradiction to modern ideas, but are difficult to repeal.

According to the modern pro-market ideal, businesses should have profit incentives in competitive markets, so that Adam Smith's invisible hand will create consumer value. But to an early 20th-century regulator (who wrote the rules under which most modern electric utilities were formed), certain public goods were so important as to mandate government intervention. (One of the best examples is Einstein, who thought that Karl Marx had some really good ideas, in large part because he saw the problems of the world so clearly that he couldn't conceive of an unregulated market rising to address them. See here.)

This is indicative of an era in which socialism was a live concept rather than historical record, when regulators and academics could debate the pros and cons of central planning without any evidence of the excesses such systems could create. It was also an era when the excesses of the mercantilist Gilded Age were becoming evident, and smart, well-intentioned folks were looking for a better way.