|
|
President Obama laid down a bold challenge to America in his State of the Union speech last week: get to 80% clean energy by 2035. Clean energy is a deliberately vague goal, since it will likely include nuclear, natural gas and (not really existing) clean coal in the mix. But traditional renewable energy like wind [...]
It’s impossible to say what exactly the next few days will bring in Egypt, both for the protestors and for the government. It seems clear that the days of the administration of President Hosni Murbarak — at least in its present incarnation — are numbered, and tens of thousands of demonstrators on the streets of [...]
A government-run institute in Malaysia announced this week that it had released 6000 genetically modified mosquitoes into an uninhabited patch of forest in December to combat dengue fever. The experiment, which is now over, was aimed at controlling the local mosquito population by having altered male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes mate with wild female mosquitoes, which [...]
We’re only a couple of months shy of the one-year anniversary of the Gulf oil spill, but there’s still a great deal of uncertainty over just what happened—and what might be left over. As I’ve written before, recent studies seem to jibe with the government’s earlier reports suggesting that much of the oil in the [...]
The first generation of any innovation—be it a new mobile phone or computer system—always comes with glitches and flaws. But still it’s tough not to feel frustrated this week by news that Europe’s carbon trading market–the first of its kind, and designed as a model for cap-and-trade schemes around the world–has been closed following a [...]
The story went up on the home page a couple of days ago, but wanted to put it on the blog as well. I wrote about my tour of the first phase of Masdar City, the low-carbon settlement being built on the edge of Abu Dhabi. It’s a long way from being truly sustainable, but [...]
Tonight’s State of the Union may be remembered as the moment when the White House stopped working on climate—and started working on energy. Of course, it’s not quite that simple. Whatever initiatives President Obama chooses to launch with his annual speech, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will likely keep working on greenhouse gas regulations, the [...]
While American society has bickered on climate and energy, the White House has dithered and Congress has been deadlocked, the U.S. military has been busy going green. The Pentagon has spent some $300 million in economic stimulus financing and research money to improve the military’s energy efficiency and develop alternative fuels. The Air Force, which [...]
As Politico first reported last night, Carol Browner will be stepping down from her post as White House climate and energy czar. Browner, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator in the Clinton Administration, was a key member of the “Green Dream Team” of cabinet appointees and White House aides who accompanied President Obama into office [...]
