I haven’t had enough brainshare lately to track energy issues the way I was last spring and summer when thinking about $4 gasoline was such a teachable moment, but on popping in over at the EIA this evening, I note that we New Mexicans are continuing our frugal ways: By my quick calculation, consumption in …
My Albuquerque Journal colleague Mike Coleman has a post this morning that illustrates the complexity of the science-politics-policy interface surrounding the cap-and-trade legislation now slogging through Congress. It’s about Harry Teague, a newly elected conservative Democrat from New Mexico who represents a very conservative district with a strong oil and gas component to its economy. …
Does solar energy have a water problem? That’s the question I tried to address in this story (sub. req. sorta) over at the day job: Look at any map of U.S. solar energy resources, and you will see a band stretching from southern New Mexico across Arizona and into California that shows promise. Solar energy …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Solar Water Edition’ »
I’ve got this energy-water hammer, and they all look like nails right now. Today’s nail is jatropha, one of the next-gen bio-energy darlings. Or not: Jatropha, a biofuel crop favoured for its ability to grow in areas not suitable for food, may be about to become less popular. A new Dutch study shows it uses …
I recently finished up a piece at the day job on the connection between water and energy, and perhaps as a result, everywhere I turn these days I’m seeing stories on the linkage. Today’s example comes from Cynthia Barnett: Matthew Cohen, a professor in UF’s School of Forest Resources and Conservation, and post-doctoral researcher Jason …
My Albuquerque Journal colleague Mike Coleman has a nice example in today’s paper (might be behind paywall, a bit of a crapshoot there) of the horse trading now underway in an attempt to win passage of the Waxman-Markey climate bill: Rep. Harry Teague, a southern New Mexico Democrat, this week persuaded the authors of a …
Continue reading ‘Waxman-Markey Horse Trading, a Case Study’ »
On counting to 60 votes in the U.S. Senate.
I just got a new cell phone. When I unplugged it after its first charge, the phone’s screen displayed a message reminding me to unplug the charger to save energy when not in use. Yes!
“The Saudi Arabia of X” is a common new energy meme that has been applied, among many things, to the oil shales of the western United States. But its invocation requires some significant arm-waving over the question of water, as this report by Jeremy Miller points out: But it is water – or more specifically, …
Continue reading ‘“insufficient water to meet needs”, energy edition’ »
The European Union has released its latest greenhouse gas emissions report, and on paper it looks good. Emissions are 9.3 percent below 1990 levels. But if you look closely at the data, there is perhaps less reason for optimism than the number, on its face, suggests, as Roger Pielke Jr. notes, the largest reductions in …