Climate Change

Here’s a story that I wanted to flag to you quickly.  It hearkens back to what I wrote recently about some sublime and ridiculous aspects of offshore wind development.  Regarding the sublime, I reported that the United Kingdom’s Crown Estate had leased offshore areas for a series of massive wind power projects.  What the Crown […]

I wrote about The Brouhaha Over the Science a month ago, saying, among other things, that the premise, as posited in a particular “NY Times” article, that there are “two sides in the climate-change debate” is way off the mark.  There is deep, broad and unequivocal science that has long since ended any reasoned contention […]

Tom Friedman’s latest column, Dreaming the Possible Dream, touches on some companies and their promising technologies that we’ve seen here, namely Calera (cement) and Bloomenergy (fuel cells.)  Everybody has seen the hype for Bloomenergy.  I sincerely hope they live long and prosper. I quoted Bill McKibben here a while ago in his review of a […]

I don’t write about fossil fuels much here because I consider them, well, to be fossils.  The fossil fuel industries are rather large dinosaurs lumbering to their long, drawn-out deaths as the earth continues to get hotter.  It’s a scene from “Fantasia.”  Unfortunately, so is my vision.  Coal, oil and gas are going to be […]

I have the pleasure of teaching at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU, in both the graduate and Continuing Education programs.  Every month, the MS in Global Affairs folks have a discussion (followed by a lunch) and this past Friday the topic was “New Directions in News Reporting.”  Veteran reporter and professor of journalism, […]

As you might imagine, I subscribe to a number of feeds on climate, energy and sustainability.  Here are a few that I highly recommend to you. Nature Reports Climate Change, from the Nature Publishing Group, is an excellent resource on climate science and related matters.  Its companion blog, Climate Feedback, has timely and compelling coverage […]

I would be remiss in not pointing you to a blockbuster paper by Amory Lovins from September that I’ve only just now read.   I scanned his article in Grist at the time in which he thoroughly debunks Stewart Brand’s support for nuclear power.  Here are the four myths he shatters: variable renewable sources of electricity […]

John Kerry gave a speech this past week in which he said that he is “on a short track” to introducing climate and energy legislation that can be passed.  Kerry said he’d been working with key administration officials and Senators to create a package.  In a Reuters article on this, Carol Browner is quoted as […]

I wrote last month about The Reaction to EPA’s proposed regulations on greenhouse gases.  The virus of fear is spreading.  People who should know better, in my opinion, namely eight Democratic Senators from coal, oil and industrial states, wrote to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson warning her, for all intents and purposes, to back off.  Coal-State […]

The Department of Energy has announced substantive backing in the form of loan guarantees for an exciting concentrated solar power (CSP) project in California.  The plant will generate 400 MW of electricity using the same “power tower” approach I saw when we were on vacation in Spain this past August.  For backing this project, I […]

Here’s a not-unexciting little story, courtesy of the good people at Green Energy Reporter, on a potential breakthrough in distributed generation.  The Bloom Box is a super fuel cell.  It’s super because it’s so small, so efficient and, if they get the price down, can penetrate markets just about anywhere.  Google and eBay are satisfied […]

With abject apologies to the Bard, this is just a note on the potentially enormous question of how much do we want to get at the vast amounts of shale gas available, worldwide, and what price is there to be paid.  I’ve written about the implications for greenhouse gas reductions in exploiting the enormous reserves […]