Imagine you are an exxonmob or peabody boardroomate. From that POV it would make sense to keep energy prices on the rise enough to sap the political and financial will from your enemies. But not boost energy prices quickly enough to make alternative energy sources cost competitive.   more »

Why rely on biogas digestion of the waste stream for that solution? Because biogas and natural gas can run in the same very efficient, low cost distributed cogeneration device. Namely solid oxide fuel cell/turbine generators. They are scalable from backup for a home to powering a plugin hybrid to a 100 mw power plant.   more »

Solar thermal power plants in the desert and on factory roofs can generate power all night long, after the sun goes down. How so? With heat stored in molten heat storage salt or in factory products like cooling glass or metal. With cogeneration, a turbine generator running on constantly rec-condensed, recycled refrigerant gas heated by the stored waste heat. Red hot metal or glass stores a lot of energy.   more »

Kinder gentler, friendly coal? Well if coal industry thugs are going to invoke "pony spirits" they need pony hawk 'do's. All coal industry officials, coal bribed politicians, and lobbyist/liars ought to be required to wear pony hawks then. Like that kid on American Idol. That would rule!   more »

Evidently it is too much to expect, that scientists remember their basic math education and take it into account in climate modeling. The only explanation I can think of is that politics must be effecting studies like this. Climate scientists MUST understand feedback effects and exponential change.   more »

And without adding on huge debt, to your already burdensome mortgage and credit card debt. I sure like add on greenhouses for retrofit. The best would be on the southside of an existing building. But to adjust to buildings that have no solar exposure, a greenhouse can be built on, extending into a good sunny patch of the property.   more »

Fold your tent and move on GM, you have officially lost. This announcement of the Prius triumph combined with soaring gas prices, makes your autopsy iminent and also completely boring. Good riddance to lobbyist trash.   more »

Incredible new statistics in this article, coinciding with a local news report of thousands of dollars per year in energy savings foer homeowners who install geo heat exchange heating/cooling systems. I have been using the 36% figure for percentage of GHG from building heating/cooling, the 48% firgure must be for lighting, water heating, cooking as well? 76% of electricity? Incredible.   more »

If only I had a real PHD now, maybe someone would listen to my pleas to subsidize farm biogas, hehey. It is looking better and better as a central part of ag and energy policy reform. Biodigestion not only takes care of the methane released by manure and fertilizer run off (organic fertilizer a byproduct of biodigestion, tends not to run off, as chemical fertilizer does), but also the nitrogen. 296 times the GHG effect of CO2.    more »

Now fertilizer prices and companies are on a similar tear, to oil? That boosted oil company profits and market cap? Yes. What will this do to food prices? Is it real scarcity that is driving this or merely human psychology? The fear of scarcity? Fear is becoming the main force in the market, for everything. Even greed gives way to fear.   more »

A great commentary on exactly why CBA should never rule environmental policy decisions. I still am fond of breaking down this analysis to family economics though. To fight the corporate economist mud hole of CBA justification for feudal corporate rule of planet earth, why not try to use CBA itself?   more »

That's a constant theme lately, it seems to lead to a vision of a culture thrown back into the pre-techno times of horses and endless human labor. But we really need to moderate the pessimism.   more »

It's the same commercial slogan for the anti-depressant, Effexor. If you voted for bush, twice! Wouldn't a drug that might cause suicide be kind of comforting? Thus the excellent GOP sloganeering!   more »

This is the right policy, for the wrong reason. Lower gas prices? Well it's the wrong reason to stop filling reserves. Refining and speculation are more powerful bottlenecks than crude oil supply in retail gas pricing.   more »

What would it take to restore enough of the ice cap to give polar bears a chance at survival? Maybe floating snow machines? Wind/wave powered pumping platforms floating in the arctic sea that spray sea water up into the 50 below zero arctic air.   more »

An interesting article in Grist. How do you get the CO2 coming out of our tailpipes and smokestacks back out of the air once it's been mixed together? Scientists and entrepeneurs are looking for a majic techno fix that does this. The main problem is that it takes huge amounts of energy, and with our present energy mix, where would that energy come from? Burning more fuel, producing more CO2.   more »

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 crisis 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 »