Osha Gray Davidson, writing about yesterday’s Blythe Solar Power Project announcement, highlights a key issue: [T]he project will now have a much smaller “water footprint” thanks to a decision to use air cooling, which consumes no water, at the cost of somewhat reduced efficiency. Cynthia Barnett, a noted water expert and author, calls the Blythe …
Continue reading ‘Energy and Water in the California Desert’ »
Investors need to take long term water supply risks into account as they think about municipal bonds, according to a new analysis by the environmental-investor group Ceres published this week: The report shows that some of the nation’s largest public utilities may face moderate to severe water supply shortfalls in the coming years, yet these …
Re Dan Sarewitz’s Nature column of last April about the value of “Pentagon pull” to drive energy innovation, here’s Elisabeth Rosenthal in the New York Times: Even as Congress has struggled unsuccessfully to pass an energy bill and many states have put renewable energy on hold because of the recession, the military this year has …
From this morning’s newspaper, a column (sub/ad req) about the reasons energy efficiency may not save as much as its advocates frequently claim: In a new paper, a team led by Tsao has drawn international attention by arguing that, instead of leading to reduced energy consumption, super-efficient bulbs may instead lead to people simply using …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: The Jevons Paradox’ »
Caltech prof David Rutledge’s “peak coal” argument is getting a lot of traction of late, and came up in a discussion on twitter this morning. The question was posed: if Rutledge is right, does this mean greenhouse gas regulation is not needed? Rutledge, in a talk two years ago here in Albuquerque, said the answer …
Continue reading ‘Rutledge on Climate Change and Peak Stuff’ »
It’s hard to know how we’re doing to be able to address large scale global energy decarbonization needs when we’re still dealing with problems like this: Rising electricity prices are increasing the use of wood for heating in South Eastern Europe to alarming levels, posing a serious threat to health and the environment, experts warned. …
Because of my interest in energy, I follow news about Sasol, the South African company that makes liquid fuels out of coal. Sasol news is a good tracer of what’s going on in the coal-to-liquids field, which is important because of CTL’s role as an economic backstop to petroleum as vehicle fuel. Lots of important …
There was nothing geographically special about the farmlands surrounding the little Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg. It was an accident of history that Gettysburg was the place where Union and Confederate armies met in the summer of 1863. The metaphor isn’t perfect, but the epic political struggle over health care is similar. If it wasn’t health …
Continue reading ‘Climate Legislation as Partisan Battleground’ »
From this morning’s newspaper, a look at China’s race to capture the global renewable energy market (sub/ad req): If you want to see how green is done these days, China is where the action is. With a voracious appetite for fuels to power its rapidly growing economy, China’s energy sector is booming, and nowhere is …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: China’s Approach to Green’ »
Will it be the Pentagon’s purchasing power and needs that provide the impetus for the energy technology innovation we need to solve the energy and greenhouse gas problems? Dan Sarewitz, in this week’s Nature, argues thus (sub req I think): DOD’s infrastructure includes 500 fixed installations (some the size and complexity of small cities), 546,000 …