Get Energy Smart! NOW!

Low Carbon Kid is the spoofer that much of the Global Warming Denier wing of the Flat Earth Society fell for the other day.

[Read more →]

Well, Al Gore is taking on another venture.  As Fortune phrased it,

 The recovering politician, environmental activist, and Nobel laureate is adding another title to his résumé: venture capitalist.

[Read more →]

and, well, they’re extremely good … amazing at what a shot at a free GreenWashing gas guzzler (a Toyota Highlander) as motivation can produce.

 In all seriousness, some great videos … check them out at Current TV.

Hybrids are too often thought of simply in terms of personal vehicles.

They are also penetrating the big vehicle market space. Consider the average delivery truck and all its starts/stops. There is a lot of energy to capture there, which is why UPS is pursuing hybrids. And, as per Walmart and its hybrid trucks, they are hitting the semi-trailer world. There are also efforts to apply hybrids to trash trucks and offer the opportunity to silence those squealing brakes at 5:45 am. Ann Arbor, Michigan, has started to get hybrid buses as is London.  And, well, now they’re coming to a school system (maybe) near you.  [Read more →]

In traditional international politics, the most prominent “races” between states have been “arms races”.  In turning to serious coping with the challenges of a warming world, we have the potential for a far more productive and healthy race:  a race to true carbon neutrality.  Several nations have already signed the entry forms …

[Read more →]

Oh, the violins are playing, the tears are flowing.  Rush Limbaugh chose to headline with a false paper proving that Global Warming is a Hoax. (For a moment, one must imagine that James Inhofe’s heart was beating …)

[Read more →]

Thanksgiving is almost here.  Mukasey is now Attorney General.  Forces are still in Iraq.  And … the Democratic Party base looks to the Hill and wonders: what is going on?  The leadership, it seems, wants to ensure that there is movement, somewhere, prior to the holidays. With $100 oil staring us in the face, a new Energy Bill seems to be a great opportunity to have a triumph to celebrate with Thanksgiving turkey.

What we must fear, however, is that last minute compromising to ensure ‘something’ could make a turkey out of the bill … or, at least, make it far less attractive than what might have been the case without a holiday on the schedule.

[Read more →]

When people speak of the need for an energy version of the Manhattan Project, for the Apollo Project for Energy, the analogy is far from perfect. What is often missed, when conceiving this, is the client issue (who buys the nuclear weapons or the lunar landing module, eg, not your average homeowner) and the question of development. Truth be told, a tremendous amount of what we required to turn around our reckless rush over the Global Warming tipping point to catastrophic climate change already exist, they’re on the shelf: whether literally at your local hardware store or figuratively in having completed testing and available for deployment.  Renewable power systems; smart growth; public transport; energy efficiency; so much is already on the shelf to be taken advantage of to provide a more Energy Smart society and economy.  And, well, every day there are new things added to the shelf.

[Read more →]

Truthiness too often reigns in reporting and editorializing re energy issues. Sometimes it is simply energy illiteracy, a lack of knowledge. Sometimes it is failing to understand some complexity or fundamental factors at play. Sometimes, clearly, and likely often, it is malicious and malelovent, seeking to mislead, confuse, and sway with false information.  And, well, sometimes it could simply be from sloppiness.

[Read more →]

Okay, pessimistic-optimist, realist-idealist are constantly at play in my personal ying-yang struggle. Of course, one shouldn’t be surprised at this, but horse-trading is making Lieberman-Warner weaker as it moves along, not stronger.

David Roberts, at Grist, has an important post, Permits for Me but Not for You. Senators Baucus and Warner have secured roughly $4 billion worth of special exemptions for carbon emissions for the rural electric cooperatives (RECs) in their states, to allow even more coal-fired electricity emissions than the already weak bill would have allowed.

An item that brings out the Pessimistic Realist …