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)
Henry Brean observes that Hoover Dam’s ability to generate electricity is down 20 percent with low lake levels, a reminder of the tight integration of water and power questions along the Colorado River. The history of the big dams on the Colorado River, and the question of who gets their water, is inextricably linked with questions …
A couple of months ago, Coco raised a great question when I was riffing about the amusing implications of shipping lettuce from the Imperial Valley to Albuquerque so I could feed it to ants: Not enough water to grow lettuce in the Middle Rio Grande? Maybe someday. Depends. Someday, not enough cheap oil for schlepping …
Continue reading ‘In the long emergency, how far will we ship our lettuce?’ »
Coal burning and water supplies are integrally linked in the southwestern United States. When the Central Arizona Project was built in the 1960s, planners hoped to build hydroelectric power plants on the main stem of the Colorado River to generate the power to lift the artificial river they were building up a total of nearly …
In this morning’s newspaper, on the hard-nosed national security types looking at ecosystem services as a core issue (sub/ad req): Environmental problems, from water shortages, pollution and climate change to disease and food scarcity, are at the core of national security, Passell argues. “They’re all related to the same set of problems,” Passell said in …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: The Ecology of National Security’ »