I’ve always loved the minimalism of the desert. Like everything, it’s more complicated than you think, but it’s easier in the desert to see how the pieces fit together. Nora captures that brilliantly in a little bit of business from her novel that she posted on her blog: “When I was growing up, I read …
Can one of my European readers help with a currency conversion? How does Euros per MWh translate into dollars per ton of carbon? The context: RWE will proceed with the construction of two, 1,530 MW coal-fired plants in Germany, believing that the units will make money even if carbon dioxide costs of up to Eur30.00/MWh …
Continue reading ‘A Little Help Please With A Conversion?’ »
I was, by coincidence, in the midst of reading Bjorn Lomborg’s book this week when Andrew Revkin’s New York Times piece on the sloppy center came out. There is much to like about the book, and much to disagree with (more on that later, when I’ve finished it). But the most important thing is that …
A couple of handy graphics from the Energy Information Administration that answer questions I’ve had:
Sometimes the line between Onion and Not Onion is a bit confusing. But the Disaster News Network is apparently not a joke. Some headlines: UN: Planet in peril, time to act is now Long road seen for wildfire recovery ‘Superbug’ not new, danger remains After fires, sifting through the ashes Blog categories include (really, I …
Kim Hannula, who teaches earth sciences to undergrads, raises an interesting question: can the “benthic bacteria” global warming hoax paper be used as a teaching tool? If you showed this fake paper to students, what would you ask them to look out for?
Japanese Garden, Albuquerque botanical gardens Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. No doubt there’s a rich literature out there about the idea of the “park,” a human-created faux natural setting, so I won’t try to reinvent it here. This is the new Japanese Garden at the city of Albuquerque’s beautiful botanical gardens. It just opened, it’s lovely, …
Continue reading ‘Water in the Desert: Japanese Garden Edition’ »
The discussion of nuclear energy’s role in combating anthropogenic climate changing continues to be one of the most interesting bits of the political dynamic around this subject. The latest bit comes from Platts (my new favorite energy news source – great at stripping away the he-said/she-said and just explaining the underlying economic forces): A Delaware …
Not: “If all starch, sugar, fat and natural oils were used to make liquid biofuels and none went to food, feed or other industrial uses (…) biodiesel could meet 8% of diesel demand,” Tony Regan, principal consultant with Singapore energy consultancy Nexant, told a gathering held by the British Chamber of Commerce in Singapore. With …
Climate science is fun and all, but I think we pretty much know what we need to know at this point. I’m thinking maybe I need to start paying more attention to global energy economics: As China and India’s energy consumption grows, coal stands to make the largest gains from shifts in future fossil fuel …