This great explanation of the McCain version of GHG cap and trade (the permits would be traded) just came up on Grist. It's a stark warning, thanks for that DR. Let us imagine, how would a hedge fund set up a scam to incorporate the McCain plan? Following the past models of hedge fund bubble inflation market manipulation. Mainly the most recent bubble, that caused the global credit ctisis and our present economic problems here in the US.   more »

Is carbon permit trading by hedge funds likely to sabotage green energy revolution? Yep. Gar is right with this one. "...put a carbon tax in place or auction permits already. Forget game-playing CDM and the whole additional new carbon lobby that secondary carbon markets create." That secondary carbon permit market will be the ultimate GHG reducing policy killer. As hedge funds scam and energy prices to consumers rise, industry friendly politicians will say "See, we told you so, government intervention is destroying the economy."   more »

Here is an excellent dissection of a newspaper article on biodiesel and ethanol. Why does old style media get the story wrong almost every time? Bio-d, a tireless Gristmill opponent of biofuel farming, does the autopsy. If only 5% of our energy came from biogas/waste, the rest of the CO2 we emit would be offset. Effectively eliminating our collective carbon footprint. That would allow renewable/conservation energy revolution along with organic fertilizer byproduct from waste biodigestion to actually reverse GHG disaster. Biogas/waste farm projects could use heavy subsidies, politicians and eco-lobbyists please take note of this main component of green revolution.   more »

The fantasy of peak oil is not gloomy. Think about it. It is good for our side. Mother earth's side. The fear and gloom sets everything up for real GHG solutions. Peak oil? Bring it on!   more »

An article about Arnie and his relatives in the NYT. How do they run on forever?   more »

What a concept! Thanks to the sleep deprived mind of "Pathos" (a gristmill blogger) for this gem. "The best solution to both peak oil and global warming is to hawk renewables like they'll save us all by themselves, and alter our lifestyles like renewables won't do a damn thing."    more »

Hope springs eternal in the pants of man. Why not use that to push eco-revolution? Sex sells. Sex sells the message. No one would watch it without the sex. it wouldn't have been linked here without the sex. We wouldn't comment on it.   more »

So nuclear advocates insist that we renewable energy boosters give them an exact time/cost estimate to compare to their nuclear dreams? I am not claiming to know exactly what the eventual result of a 20 year move to renewable smart grid technology, conservation using geo heat exchange heating/cooling, biogas distributed generation grid backup (and organic agriculture), renewable electric powered mass transit, and plugin hybrids will look like.   more »

A very good interview here in Grist with Barack's energy advisor. Finally the source of confusion is loccated, excellent work by Dave Roberts of Grist, yet again! This guy talks like a computer. Reeling off complex language in theory laden terminology. Photographic memory is wonderful, but it doesn't help one's judgememt or understanding.   more »

Yes, the process of turning cellulose into charcoal and burning the wood gas for energy as a carbon neutral energy source is rendered defunct by this new study mentioned in Grist. Well don't worry about the failure of biochar to live up to sequestration expectations (but where is that nasty engineer-poet so I can say I told you biogas was better?). Biogas (from manure, garbage, and biomass waste) still offsets 20 times the effective GHG that it emits when burned.   more »

Rip and tear logging is still destroying salmon habitat on the west coast? Yep. In scandanavia the eco-friendly logging nations have come up with machines that don't destroy the soil and the forest, and yet still remove selected trees and brush. And even allow waste wood to be chipped for recycling, use in building materials, animal bedding, and energy recovery.   more »

A discussion in Grist this morning, features leters to the editor in the NYT by opponents of Brazilian sugar cane ethanol. They cite a couple of negatives of cane ethanol. Might as well cite all the reasons that fuel farming is a bad idea. They forgot starvation and food riots. And diversion from real solutions, like the following.   more »

Check out the video. It is peak GHG, not peak oil that is the main problem. Personally I think Jim is techno-phobic. He really wants to go back to a world made by hand. Did he really have a big Y2K fixation too? Hehey. Colbert's research staff (an intern who googled "Kunstler" and "Y2K") busted him? 'Fraid so. Check it, check it out now.   more »

8000 hrs/year (85% total CP)x 1 million mw (total US generating capacity)= 8 trillon kwh per year. Times 10 cents per kwh that would be 800 billion. Maybe 1 trillion dollars at retail, 11 to 14 cent per kwh actual range, that we pay for electric power every year. But the actual cost was 327 billion. Large customers pay much less, maybe 5 cents per kwh? I'm guessing that conservation can cut that figure to 200 billion, then with plugin vehicles it would go to around 300 billion. 50 billion in subsidy diversion could subsidize up to 20% of that over the first five years of renewable energy revolution. About right as far as buildout rates at the start. AWEA says that by 2015 20% of present grid power could come from wind.    more »

I finally get to use Albert Brooks' "nest egg" theory from his hilarious film "Lost in America". Chew on this corn ethanol apologists and your economist allies, hehey.   more »

Branson announced a 25 million dollar prize for the invention of a process that would remove GHG from the atmosphere. Since then I have tried several ideas. No check yet. Maybe he doesn't read my blog? Hehey. I put it up on Grist. Anyway, since the media has turned on ethanol in a big way and fuel farming in general, and rightly so. I offered this reality check and substitue farm based energy process in response. Farm biogas that actually cancels out GHG from other sources..    more »

A big giveaway plan for business as usual and pork barrel politics as usual? Of course, what else can be expected from lobbyist run governance?   more »

"...considering our country's largest energy and carbon footprints come from the predominantly coal-burning grid....Can somebody explain to me how using electricity to fuel our over-abundant needs to drive absolutely EVERYWHERE in our culture is an environmentally sound idea? " Yes I can, thanks for your question.   more »

So lighten your front wheel drive economy car by 300 to 500 pounds (replace most of the metal body with fiberglass?), add these batteries and one used golf cart motor for each rear wheel, and you got yourself a plugin hybrid. For about 3000 dollars in parts, and a lot of screwing around.   more »

I'm skeptical, this food crisis, complete with riots and mass starvation in the poorest regions, they are literally eating dirt cakes in Haiti, seems to be caused by corn ethanol gas guzzling. "In one report by an industry group, oil has a greater impact on food prices -- by a factor of 2 to 1 -- than ethanol." Was that an ethanol industry group or an agribizz industry group?   more »

The cleanest backup fuel for the grid? Biogas, second is natural gas. And both of these fuels are easily stored and distributed, on already existing gas pipelines. Biogas is more easily and efficiently generated in a distributed manner. Less transportation of farm waste and biomass, and the organic fertilizer byproduct.   more »

No wonder guys like Joseph Romm hardly ever respond to my stuff. Hehey. He has 14 wedges of energy policy that he says are the best way to head off climate disaster.   more »

Adam makes a fine point here. Values are the fractals by which we all interact in the symbiotic human herd. One buffaloe is frightened, it jumps and jostles another, the wave spreading by the fractal expressed in each individual buffalo's reaction, the herd start fleeing the supposed danger.   more »

How does this help fund renewable energy and conservation to end GHG climate disaster? I don't know. The government auctions off GHG emission permits. The money raised is distributed to everyone on the planet equally. Consumer energy prices rise as industry passes on the cost of the permits.   more »

So Google uses 103 mw for it's server farm? Here's the answer. From the article in Harper's: "the servers require a half watt in cooling for every watt used in processing." So solar powered geo heat exchange cooling would knock off 33%   more »

Now imagine carbon emission permits sold by the government. Who would aquire those permits? Who would trade those permits? Would electricity prices double or triple suddenly, soaring as gas prices have soared? Pushed by speculators manipulating markets with insider information?   more »

Just because NRDC's lawyer Hawkins, appears to oppose coal, does it mean that they want to do away with it as an energy source? Or do they really just want to boost "clean" coal? Hawkins, eff you and the "Ferrari" you rode in on.   more »

Las Vegan wing nut calls alternatives to coal powered gambling, air conditioning, lawns, pools, fountains in the desert and flying in the suckers to pay for it all on gas guzzling aircraft a commie conspiracy to destroy america? Yeah, pretty much. I would suggest that publications like this adopt a dancing duubya logo in the corner of each online page! Combine your moronic pronouncements with the image of the poster chimp of corporate feudal stupidity!!   more »

What is completely free and priceless all at the same time?   more »

It seems that Barack's refusal to join in flag lepal patriotism has become a key part of his political strategy. Dissing politics as usual, with a call for actual action. Whenever another personal tabloid political attack appears, he falls back on the same fact. So maybe we need a new lapel pin? How about a "blue marble" lapel pin? Symbolizing planetary patriotism. Do you love your planet? Spasceship earth, it's the only thing keeping us going.    more »

This is earth shaking good news for mother earth and all her green asociates. We sure need it. The "Oracle of Omaha", Warren Buffet (the most successful investor in history?) speaks, but Gates and others ignore him? At their financial peril.   more »

Barack points out that people whose jobs were outsourced facing real world inflation (higher prices in stuff real people actually buy), are bitter. In their frustration and fear for their future (if any) they tend to cling to guns, religion, and zenophobia. So the media goes bat shit crazy over it. Then Hillary takes advantage of it, with NRA friendly "learning to shoot as a child" hunting stories. Reminiscient of the Kerry "hunting trip".    more »

Mass delusional media is doing it's job too well. Those Mayan cities where everyone suddenly dissappeared or the population of ancient Rome suddenly going from millions to thousands after destruction of the aqueducts. These are the forgotten warnings. Is our future history already written? We died off because humans couldn't "get the math" of exponential change?   more »

Might scary! "...can it overcome the ick factor?" Mega agrichem, agripoison, GMO ICK factor. It's much more than icky! In a natural living organism, evolution designs robust, self protecting (as in immune system) systems. We have seen artificial confined animal feeding operations (CAFO) destroy these immune systems, producing anti-biotic resistant disease breeding food chain problems. Is GMO soon to add genetic disease to the equation? It messes with the very evolutionary design down to the bacterial, viral, cellular, DNA level. ICK!!!!   more »

This is the sort of real free market trading that will finally eliminate fossil, nuclear, and ethanol fuel farming energy. Forget cap and trade hedge fund manipulation, that's the wrong kind of trading to get markets to respond to the realities of GHG climate disaster and economic ruin from soaring energy costs and oil war.   more »

After a narrow defeat in the senate, the concept of diverting subsidies, tax breaks given to big oil monopolies, is actually getting some notice. A modest propsal to divert a measly 13 billion over 10 years in oil company tax breaks (only 1.3 billion per year out of the 18 billion per year total) and apply them in part to renewable energy subsidies was just too hard to get by oil lobbyist controlled legislators. But it's a start.    more »

As the total backup solution for a renwable distributed smart grid, how much GHG can biogas help eliminate? All of it we now produce and even more, to actually reverse climate disaster.   more »

Without some important enlightenment on the right GHG free energy and ag policy, even a democratic sweep will just boost the wrong stuff. Namely ethanol fuel farming, nuclear power, and clean coal. I'd say the time frame to get to all our democratic incumbents and democrats about to be elected with the real cure for climate disaster is about the same as the time to the next election.   more »

Received this announcment from the Sierra Club: "Conservation Congress: All Wisconsin citizens have the unique opportunity to attend the Conservation Congress meeting in their counties this Monday, April 14, 2008 at 7 p.m. and the Sierra Club should have a presence across the state. The Conservation Congress is unique to Wisconsin, and provides every citizen a voice on important conservation issues. This meeting will ask citizens their input on allowing a hunting season on wolves."   more »

The profits from local organic ag don't buy enough muscle for protection. So do we send our soldiers in to protect the families who grow those crops and start up civilization again?   more »

There's a gossip site and everything! Already missed the casting call for extras. They will film at "Little Bohemia" in Manitowish Waters, where the orginal bullet holes from the federal assault on the lodge are carefully preserved.   more »

Check out this NYT article on "The Emperor's club". This was a mom and pop outfit, not mob connected, with a paltry income. Plenty of sex slave trade is ongoing in the same metro areas that need FBI investigation a lot more than this operation, one of thousands of escort services routinely overlooked by law enforcement.   more »

Yep, according to former Sierra Club president Adam Werbach, recently a Walmart consultant on greening their image. Youngest president of the club at 23, way back in '96. He joined on the bandwagon, declaring environmentalism dead a few years back. Where is he really coming from?   more »

Of course these are rough guesses, but informed by the results from actual application of these technologies. This could all get going as fast as needed to convert our energy and agricultural and manufacturing sectors within the next 20 years. just in time to have a pretty good chance at turning GHG climate disaster around. If the rest of the world buys into our energy revolution.   more »

So some of us decided to fight a seemingly hopeless battle to save the planet from corporate greed. Young, old, or inbetween, we are vastly outnumbeed and underfunded. We need each other, from that two year old with her crayons, protesting the river run hydro project in BC. To the enviro blogger typing from a hospital bed, fighting for decades and about to pass the torch. And pass on into the great unknowable.   more »

In a very familiar false dilemna fallacy, the corporate friendly sides in the climate debate are attempting to marginalize a very different approach. An approach that pays we the people directly for installing solar panels on our homes and using geo heat exchange heating/cooling and plugging in plugin hybrid cars to our own home energy systems.   more »

Why oh why does NRDC shun reason and GHG free wind energy in favor of agribizz fuel farming, that actually doubles GHG compared to guzzling gasoline? NRDC, why do you hate our planet?   more »

It is hard to believe this still goes on. Is there even a fur market anymore?   more »

So these frantic bloggers killed themselves blogging 24/7? Please NYT Quality not quantity   more »

Isn't corporate greed what got us into this dilemna? Many in the politically connected end of the environmental movement seem to have an unwritten disdain for the less practical end of the community. We who tend to distrust cap and trade carbon pricing.   more »

She called Hillary a "big fucking whore". Check out the video.   more »

Check out this story about grease rustling. "Police suspect the Illinois man, who worked for Restaurant Oils of America in Las Vegas, intended to recycle the oil at an Atascadero refinery for $1.35 a gallon. A full tank would have been worth $6,750."   more »

Penn evidently was caught lobbying for the Columbian government for a free trade agreement, and now he must go. Why? Because "lunch pail" democrats oppose free trade agreements like NAFTA. And Hill has decided her last hope resides with them.   more »

Remember that estimate before the Iraq invasion from the bushco administration? Not many do. Wolfowitz claimed it would cost taxpayers 1.7 billion, whoops.   more »

Incredible! Starvation for oil (corn ethanol) now? Along with blood for oil in Iraq?   more »

Now this ought to be considered terrorism, but we know the CEO of a coal company would never be held responsible for a threat like this, even on camera.   more »

Internet search engine that searches the future? A crazy notion? Hehey. "Let's do the time loop again!"   more »

Here is Nathaneal's response on his blog at NRDC to our objections to his original comments in favor of cellulosic ethanol. And here is my attempt to convert him and NRDC to switch to backing plugin hybrids instead of fuel farming:   more »

Is this deep ocean thermocline sound transceiver, the SOFAR channel (SOund Fixing And Ranging channel), discovered by submariners, a conduit for a kind of whale internet? Distributed organic computing using whale sonic extra sensory communication, directly mind to whale mind?   more »

Where are my royalties, call my patent attorney! technically since this invention was revealed publicly on my blog a few years ago, is it even patentable? Not sure, but I'm glad they did it.   more »

Who knew that these two morons, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, were nothing but corpoRATS looking for industry cash in return for delaying any government action on GHG climate disaster? Me. That's who.   more »

Fighting the (farm fueled) gas guzzling that men do! NRDC, evil or merely misguided, you be the judge. Here the forces from Gristmill take them on, including your own dangerous, agent of chaos, mwhahahahaha..hehey. It's a gang fight blog style. Look out!   more »

You just have to see this documentary, "Garbage Warrior". It's about "Earth Ship" architect and eco-revolutionary, Michael Reynolds. Sundance showtimes here. Next ... Sunday April 6 at 3:40PM. It details his battles with the authorities over his architecture of mistakes method of progress. it works! But zoning and utilities and lawyers never liked it.   more »

Press release on fossilfoolsday protests!! Take your carbon and shove it. Keep it (safely) in the ground and the soil. Where it won't effect our atmosphere and damage the GHG climate balance.   more »

What will the guys that actually took the Monty Python skit about "The department of Silly Walks" and ran with it, do next? (Yes under Poindexter they developed software to record the walking patern of terrorists to detect them.) Hives of wireless internet connected bees to surveil the enemy?   more »

Really amazing show at the Weill Theater in Sheboygan. Peter Case opened the evening. Actually reading from his excellent book, at one point. The fantastic Prine audience responded wonderfully   more »

Check out this eagle rescue story. Wonderful!   more »

Adapt this! The latest scam from the think tank free marketeerians. "It's just too expensive to stop GHG climate disaster, let's all just adapt to it." They still want to fly around in their executive jets. Here's the fly in their ointment.   more »

That's what we keep on hearing from the doom crowd, oil is running out, we better go back to 19th century horseless carriage, hard labor, agrarian living that supports an even thinner prosperous class in luxury. Ridiculous. The green technology, to replace oil; is here already, we just need to get it mass produced.   more »

Tarrifs start trade wars. Really bad economic juju. Just what made the great depression really great. Tarrifs and trade war. we gots to remember our history. Never fear, cheaper, cleaner energy will create jobs and bring them back. A double job booster.   more »