Infrastructure

Short circuits

Our old electric grid is no match for our new green energy plans 4
Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago To understand how electricity gets from a coal plant or wind turbine to our living rooms and cubicles, Amanda Little descended below the heaving streets of Manhattan for a first-hand look at the power grid. It wasn't pretty -- and it doesn't bode well for our transition to a clean energy future.
That smarts

MacArthur genius award winners include climate and ocean researchers 0
Posted 2 months, 1 week ago Some of the MacArthur Foundation “genius award” winners are doing work related to climate change. And they now they each have $500 grand, no strings attached.
On the faux mathematics of large decisions

Could we replace the nation’s pavement with solar panels? 30
Posted 3 months ago
A while back I mentioned Solar Roadways, a clean energy idea that appears kind of kooky, at least on the surface. (See what I did there?) The notion is to replace paved surfaces with rugged, specially built solar panels.

The Solar Road Panels would contain not just solar panels but LED lighting (to enable real-time communication with drivers), heating units (to prevent icing), high-voltage power transmission lines, and even electric vehicle recharging stations. It's transportation, power, and grid infrastructure in the same place.
Removing roadblocks to the growth of renewables 0
Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago
Stop the madness!

Congress reverses Chu’s decision, flushes $100 million down the toilet pursuing hydrogen cars 39
Posted 4 months, 1 week ago
There are only three sure things in life -- death, taxes, and you're never going to buy a hydrogen fuel cell car. Congress should stop wasting your money pursuing Bush's phony dream.
Putting the economy in the green

New studies tout the economic benefits of green jobs 0
Posted 5 months, 2 weeks ago
Investments in clean energy -- such as those encouraged by the American Clean Energy and Security Act -- would produce several times as many jobs as the same amount of money spent on traditional fossil fuels, according to new studies released Thursday by a coalition of environmental groups and research institutes.

Lower-income Americans in particular would benefit, according to a report from the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, which was commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council and Green for All.

Upgrading the U.S. economy to rely less on fossil fuels would create a surge of manufacturing and construction jobs that would include renovating homes and buildings to be more energy efficient, tapping clean energy sources such as wind and solar to produce more electricity, and building better transit systems and other infrastructure improvements.
Eat the rich with organic greens

Let millionaires pay to solve our twin environmental and economic crises 10
Posted 7 months, 3 weeks ago
Economic and environmental problems are two consequences of one mistake, a mistake every farmer used to know the folly of: eating our seed corn
A flawed strategy: Why environmental groups should not be chasing carbon dollars 4
Posted 7 months, 3 weeks ago
The strategy of using carbon permit auctions to fund the green agenda is deeply mistaken, and it risks pushing serious action against climate change many more years into the future -- a delay we earthlings can ill afford.
Myth: Climate policy is primarily about putting a price on carbon 9
Posted 8 months ago
Raising the price of carbon will lead to the cheapest, fastest emission reductions only if all else is equal, and in the real world, all else is not equal.