| Headline |
Author |
Published |
Section |
Technology begets technology Battery technology continues to improve |
biodiversivist |
07 Jan 2008 |
Gristmill |
| This is my hybrid bike charging at a 7-11 while I ate some lunch. I was hauling a heavy load and had been tormenting another cyclist who had been trying to close a 10-foot gap with me for a couple of miles on Sand Point Way. I took my batteries to their limit of 4.6 amp-hours, so I had to pull out of the dogfight to refuel with 14 miles on the odometer. Yet-Ming Chiang (formerly a researcher at MIT) combined lithium ion technology with nanocarbon particles to ... |
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| Topics: bikes, electric vehicles, energy, hybrids, tech (all these topics) |
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The year ahead What will it take to make 2008 great? |
Joseph Romm |
04 Jan 2008 |
Gristmill |
| The following guest post is by Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), originally published on Climate Progress. He is the co-author of Apollo's Fire: Igniting America's Clean Energy Economy. ----- Now that our New Year's Eve party hats are put away, it's time to look to the next year in the battle against global warming. In the year 2007, some good things did indeed happen on this front. Measures significantly improving car mileage standards and promoting the growth of re ... |
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| Topics: brilliance, carbon trading, climate, energy, George Bush, green living, innovation, politics, tech (all these topics) |
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My audiobook experiment The ear as an underutilized data input port |
biodiversivist |
28 Dec 2007 |
Gristmill |
| I've been experimenting with audiobooks, not only because they may one day replace the tree-eating variety, but also because I like the idea of listening to a book while performing other less entertaining tasks. Meetings fit that definition but turn out not to be good candidates for other reasons. My brain has two main data input ports: my ears and eyes. Of the two, my ears seem to be the least utilized. However, I didn't know if I could listen to a book and chew gum ... |
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| Topics: books, green living, tech (all these topics) |
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Yule Efficiency Why have a real fire when you can download one? |
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20 Dec 2007 |
News |
| Posted at 2:03 PM on 20 Dec 2007 Oh, the trials we face at holiday-time: A merrily burning Yule log is just so festive, but we can't even enjoy the warmth for our guilt over the pollution it causes. Enter iYule, a half-hour-long downloadable video of a crackling hearth. Which kind of makes us happy and sad all at the same time. From the Archives That'll Teach 'Em. Colleges around the country take green ste ... |
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| Topics: holiday, news, tech (all these topics) |
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Yes, EV batteries are durable! Menahem Anderman analyzes the state of car-battery technology |
Joseph Romm |
19 Dec 2007 |
Gristmill |
| The following is a guest post by Marc Geller, who blogs at Plugs and Cars, serves on the board of directors of the Electric Auto Association, cofounded Plug In America and DontCrush.com, and appeared in Who Killed The Electric Car. ----- Menahem Anderman, PhD, is Mister Battery Consultant. The California Air Resources Board, DOE, and Congress all seem to turn to him to analyze the state of battery technology. His reports always suggest batteries won't quite cut ... |
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| Topics: electric vehicles, hybrids, cars, tech (all these topics) |
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Pseudoscience The sad state of Bush's science advice |
Joseph Romm |
12 Dec 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Most science advisers have taken as their job to inform the president and his administration, as well as Congress, the media, and the public, of the thinking of the scientific community on key science issues of the day. Bush's advisor, John H. Marburger III, takes the opposite view. He believes his job is to inform (misinform? disinform?) the scientific community, as well as Congress, the media, and the public, of the 'thinking' of the Bush Administration on key s ... |
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| Topics: climate science, tech, energy, climate, politics (all these topics) |
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The NYT's Tom Friedman is wrong We are not yet the 'people we have been waiting for' to solve 'global weirding' |
Joseph Romm |
04 Dec 2007 |
Gristmill |
| In general, I am a big fan of New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, one of the few national columnists who writes regularly and intelligently on energy and climate matters. But his recent column, 'The People We Have Been Waiting For,' goes off track -- twice. First, he writes: ... sweet-sounding 'global warming' doesn't really capture what's likely to happen. I prefer the term 'global weirding,' coined by Hunter Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute ... |
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| Topics: politics, climate change mitigation, energy, climate, tech (all these topics) |
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Who's the true 'G'? Cheap, possibly green PC hot item at Wal-Mart |
Jerome Woody |
28 Nov 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Wal-Mart has always been a place of consumer frenzy at the beginning of the holiday shopping season, and this year is no exception. What's different is that one of the items flying off the shelf faster than they can restock it is the "Everex gPC," a cheap (less than $200) desktop computer. The tech news world has been buzzy about gPC's popularity, in particular questioning what the "g" stands for. It could stand for "green," thanks t ... |
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| Topics: consumerism, green living, green products, tech, Wal-Mart (all these topics) |
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Dream of hydrogen car goes down in flames Full-cell company bought by Daimler and Ford |
Joseph Romm |
21 Nov 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Ballard -- the Canadian fuel-cell company that once hoped to be the 'Intel Inside of the hydrogen car revolution -- has sold off its automotive fuel-cell business to Daimler and Ford. You can listen to a good CBC radio story on it, which includes an interview of me (click on 'Listen to the Current,' Part 2). You can read Toronto Star columnist Tyler Hamilton on the story here. A Financial Post post piece headlines the story bluntly: 'Hydrogen highway hits dead end: B ... |
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| Topics: business, cars, energy, hydrogen, scientific research, tech (all these topics) |
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The inaugural California Green Innovation Index New report summarizes clean tech in California |
Joseph Romm |
20 Nov 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Everything you could possibly want to know about clean technology in the Golden State can be found in an excellent new report, the California Green Innovation Index, published by Next 10, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. The report tracks the state's economic and environmental performance and analyzes key indicators to better understand the role green innovation plays in reducing emissions and growing the economy. California is a state where growth has alwa ... |
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| Topics: California, climate, energy, greenhouse-gas emissions, tech (all these topics) |
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Plug-in reality check The debate on plug-ins begins |
biodiversivist |
19 Nov 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Alan Durning's article makes a lot of good points about the need to do more than just improve the efficiency of our personal transport. It's a great article, but it also contains a few inaccuracies that I feel obligated to clear up before the global warming deniers (among others) try to use them. I can tell from the comments on Alan's post that some readers are under the mistaken impression that his conclusions are a reflection of the EPRI/NRDC (PDF) report cited, but ... |
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| Topics: cars, tech, Prius, hybrids, energy, innovation, electric vehicles (all these topics) |
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Technology alone won't alleviate climate change NYT's Andy Revkin and E. O. Wilson get suckered by Newt Gingrich's phony techno-optimism |
Joseph Romm |
16 Nov 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Newt Gingrich is an anti-environmentalist who spreads disinformation and has done more than any politician in the last two decades to thwart a sensible climate policy that includes a major clean technology component, as I have explained. Absent serious regulations, no technology-only strategy can possibly avoid catastrophic global warming (as we should have learned in the 1990s). Some well-meaning people, like The New York Times' first-rate climate reporter Andy ... |
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| Topics: books, climate, energy, Newt Gingrich, politics, tech (all these topics) |
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Who will reincarnate the electric car? Automakers want to delay the transition to electric vehicles |
Joseph Romm |
13 Nov 2007 |
Gristmill |
| The following is a guest essay by Marc Geller, who blogs at Plugs and Cars, serves on the board of directors of the Electric Auto Association, cofounded Plug In America and DontCrush.com, and appeared in Who Killed The Electric Car. ----- The IEEE Spectrum Magazine for November 2007 touts on its cover: 'Battery or Fuel-Cell Cars? A California Cabal Will Decide.' Interesting choice of headlines. Surely a strong argument can be made that something approaching a caba ... |
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| Topics: business, consumerism, hybrids, cars, energy, electric vehicles, innovation, tech (all these topics) |
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Zero to sixty in less than one second ... and vice-versa Electric motorcycle delivers man to side of van |
biodiversivist |
11 Nov 2007 |
Gristmill |
| 'I'm the owner, not the driver, so this is going to be interesting to say the least.' Indeed: Note the woman straddling the Killacycle. Note, shortly thereafter, the Killacycle embedded in the side of the van. Middle-aged men should not be driving Killacycles. May you have a full and speedy recovery, Bill. As for my A123 batteries, they just crossed the 1500 mile mark with no detectable performance loss. I'm also getting pretty good at popping wheelies. |
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| Topics: tech, innovation (all these topics) |
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It's the PC Thing to Do Kansas, Minnesota pledge to green up government computer systems |
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09 Nov 2007 |
News |
| Posted at 7:29 AM on 09 Nov 2007 Think of states that are environmental frontrunners, and Kansas and Minnesota may not leap immediately to mind. But it's those two that are taking the lead in reducing energy use from government computer systems. Teaming up with the industry-backed Climate Savers Computing Initiative, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius (D) -- whose states each ... |
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| Topics: business, greening biz operations, Kansas, Minnesota, news, politics, state politics, tech (all these topics) |
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McKibben on waste-heat recovery A very promising climate change solution with an image problem |
Erik Hoffner |
01 Nov 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Bill McKibben's new column in Orion magazine reports on one of the most effective ways to cut carbon emissions that we've got, a mature technology which stands ready to recycle enormous amounts of waste heat into electricity. It boggles my mind that we're not doing this everywhere, instead of discussing new coal plants or nukes. Talk about low-hanging fruit! The article centers on the fine work of the Chicago company Recycled Energy Development, piloted by frequ ... |
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| Topics: recycling, energy, business, energy efficiency, tech, climate, Bill McKibben (all these topics) |
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'MidEast Oil Forever?': Part I Drifting toward disaster |
Joseph Romm |
01 Nov 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Eleven years ago, I wrote an article for the Atlantic Monthly with various predictions and warnings on oil and energy technology and climate. Since those subjects remain hot today -- concern over oil prices and peak oil is at a three-decade-high, and Shellenberger and Nordhaus have reignited the technology debate with a variety of historically inaccurate claims about the clean energy R&D message -- and since this is probably the best thing I wrote in the 1990s, I ... |
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| Topics: climate, energy, oil, tech (all these topics) |
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The meaning of global warming, part two Stabilizing climate means embracing technology, public investment, and global economic development |
Grist |
11 Oct 2007 |
Gristmill |
| The following is a guest essay by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, the latest in the ongoing conversation about their new book Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility. ----- This week saw a watershed moment for those of us committed to moving environmentalism from a politics of limits to a politics of possibility. Senator Barack Obama proposed a $150 billion investment to develop and deploy clean energy technology on a ... |
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| Topics: business, climate, energy, politics, tech (all these topics) |
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Storage in the spotlight Congress finally pays attention to energy storage tech |
David Roberts |
09 Oct 2007 |
Gristmill |
| I missed this when it happened, but (via Hill Heat) it's nice to see that the House science committee recently held a hearing on energy storage technology. It's a woefully underappreciated piece of the energy puzzle and overdue for some concerted attention. In the context of the hearing, the Subcommittee also discussed draft legislation entitled Energy Storage Technology Advancement Act of 2007, a bill soon to be introduced by Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (D-T ... |
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| Topics: energy, energy storage, politics, tech (all these topics) |
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The meaning of global warming, part one Stabilizing the climate requires technology, public investment, and global economic development |
David Roberts |
05 Oct 2007 |
Gristmill |
| The following is a guest essay by Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, the latest in the ongoing conversation about their new book Break Through: From the Death of Environmentalism to the Politics of Possibility. ----- Thank you to everyone here who has participated in this discussion. We are grateful to Grist to making the space for this debate, and to everyone who has chimed in. Through agreement and disagreement alike, it is inspiring to find this man ... |
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| Topics: business, climate, climate change mitigation, energy, politics, tech (all these topics) |
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Debunking Shellenberger & Nordhaus -- Part III What Californians know that Shellenberger & Nordhaus don't |
Joseph Romm |
05 Oct 2007 |
Gristmill |
| 'The kind of technological revolution called for by energy experts typically does not occur via regulatory fiat' claim Shellenberger & Nordhaus. Actually, that is typically the only way it occurs. I defy anyone to name a country that has successfully adopted alternative fuels for vehicles without employing some kind of regulatory mandate. This is also true in the electricity sector. Consider that in terms of electricity consumption, the average Californian gen ... |
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| Topics: California, cars, climate, electric vehicles, energy, energy efficiency, greenhouse-gas emissions, hybrids, tech (all these topics) |
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Debunking Shellenberger & Nordhaus: Part II Breaking the technology breakthrough myth |
Joseph Romm |
04 Oct 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Do we need 'disruptive clean-energy technologies that achieve non-incremental breakthroughs' to solve the global warming problem, as S&N (and Lomborg, and Bush, and his advisors) argue? Let's hope not -- for the sake of the next 50 generations. Why? Two reasons: Such breakthroughs hardly ever happen. Even when they do happen, they rarely have a transformative impact on energy markets, even over a span of decades. Consider that solar photovoltaic cells ... |
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| Topics: climate, climate change mitigation, energy, politics, tech (all these topics) |
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Techno-obsession
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David Roberts |
03 Oct 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Renewables still represent only a tiny fraction of our electricity generation. Everyone seems to assume, without much argument, that the reason for this is technological. Why? |
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| Topics: energy, renewable energy, tech (all these topics) |
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No news is good news The Solar Power Conference revealed no breakthrough solar tech -- and that's a good thing |
David Roberts |
03 Oct 2007 |
Gristmill |
| The following is a guest essay by Jim Raras, Jr., COO of Inpower Systems. ----- Every year the biggest players in the solar industry convene at the Solar Power Conference in Long Beach, Calif., to discuss the latest advancements in solar technology. This year, one of the most notable facets of the meetings was what was not said. During a 90 minute CEO panel discussion about the current and future state of the solar industry, the word "breakthrough" was ... |
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| Topics: solar voltaic power, energy, tech (all these topics) |
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'Technology, technology, blah, blah, blah' Bush climate speech follows Luntz playbook |
Joseph Romm |
29 Sep 2007 |
Gristmill |
| Bush has given us a new drinking game: Down a shot whenever the President uses the word 'technology' in a climate speech. You'd get 19 shots for yesterday's 21 minute speech! As predicted, Bush closely follows the Frank Luntz playbook on how to seem like you care about the climate when you don't. Bush stated the basic do-nothing message well: Our investments in research and technology are bringing the world closer to a remarkable breakthrough -- an age of clean en ... |
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| Topics: climate, energy, George Bush, politics, tech (all these topics) |
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