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 …
My colleague Sean Olson had a story last weekend that captured the struggle facing those trying to implement state-level cap and trade regulations in New Mexico (sub/ad req): Republicans and many Democrats agree that a state cap-and-trade system would be a form of economic suicide for New Mexico. New Mexico is a member of the …
A lot of the discussion about the new “Bloom Energy Server,” which is having its 15 minutes of fame, is of the binary “is it or isn’t it” flavor. David Douglas has a more nuanced view of the way in which what happened here is an example of the sort of path forward me might …
Continue reading ‘Zigs and Zags on the Path to Lower Carbon Energy’ »
Emily Pierce has a story in Roll Call that illustrates the dilemma facing those who advocate greenhouse gas reductions. Action on climate change has become politically toxic, while action on energy legislation has not: Dorgan was upset that the so-far failed efforts of Kerry and Environment and Public Works Chairman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to craft …
Science magazine has two very interesting papers in Friday’s issue related to climate and energy. One looks at a potentially significant climate change problem, and the second looks at a potentially significant energy system solution. The first, by Natalia Shakova and colleagues, looks at the possibility that methane is venting faster than expected from the …
Continue reading ‘Climate Coverage: A Cheap Media Case Study’ »
The energy-water nexus is an issue all over the western United States. Many new sources of energy, from concentrating solar plants to oil shales, need water. New sources of water, whether pumping it long distances or desalinating brackish groundwater or ocean water, take energy. Few examples on the energy side are as interesting as the …
Green Gold? (more in Sunday’s paper)