Category: Energy53
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(Almost) Ten things I learned at GROCC-6
The sixth meeting of the Global Roundtable on Climate Change (GROCC) took place on February 26 and 27. Around 150 corporations, non-governmental organizations, and government groups have been meeting since 2005 to discuss the science, technology, and economic considerations required for sound public policies on climate change. Some commenters to our posting to announce the meeting wondered…
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Paying extra for electricity, feeling like a sucker
I couldn’t have been happier when, back in October, my local electricity company offered me the chance to switch to alternative energy. The colorful advertisement from Consolidated Edison was festooned with windmills and said the switch would lead to only a 10 percent increase in the average family’s electricity bill. Here was a chance to…
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Orange you glad we counted the carbon?
There’s an article in today’s New York Times about PepsiCo’s effort to calculate the carbon footprint of its products, starting with Tropicana orange juice. A half-gallon of Tropicana represents the equivalent of 3.75 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions. This is roughly the same amount of carbon dioxide emitted by a 5-mile drive to the grocery…
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A Quick Guide to Obama’s Climate Picks, Part 1
There’s been a lot of buzz lately (for example, here and here) about President-Elect Obama’s picks for key science and environment positions, many of who are advocates for a robust response to climate change. Who are these people and what will each of them be responsible for in the new administration? In part one of…
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China, coal liquefaction, and more…
The NYT’s Andy Revkin notes that China opened its first large-scale coal-to-liquid (CTL) facility on December 30. CTL technology, which converts coal into liquid fuel such as gasoline or diesel, has been around since the early 20th century, but has only been widely used twice – in Germany during World War II and in South…
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Prescriptive science?
This is just a short post to draw your attention to John Tierney’s New York Times column on John Holdren’s appointment as Obama’s science advisor. Tierney contends that: “Dr. Holdren is certainly entitled to his views, but what concerns me is his tendency to conflate the science of climate change with prescriptions to cut greenhouse…
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Biofuels, food security, deforestation, and loss of biodiversity
Biofuel use is one of the strategies to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that has already been incorporated into policy and regulatory frameworks. However, it has become increasingly evident that biofuel production has unintended consequences that extend beyond national boundaries and beyond the energy sector. Chief among these are concerns for food security. The food…
