The next big breakthrough in oil extraction?

Oil executives are fond of saying, It was all but left for dead until a few years ago, when suddenly the US independents came up with new ways to get natural gas out of ground. The US natural gas industry took off, and estimates have grown from 30 years

'Eco-Therapy' for Environmental Depression

Depressed people often need someone to hug. On occasion, that someone may just be a tree. A new and growing group of psychologists believes that many of our modern-day mental problems, including depression, stress and anxiety, can be traced in part to society’s increasing alienation from nature. The solution? Get outside and enjoy it. While […]

Radio host and author Thom Hartmann talks about Threshold

Thom Hartmann, a former Air America radio host, currently hosts The Thom Hartmann Program, which claims to have more listeners than any other progressive talk show in the nation. Hartmann’s book, The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, inspired Leonardo DiCaprio’s movie The 11th Hour. I talked to Hartmann about his most recent book, Threshold: The […]

India pays couples to put off having children

First cash payouts to families who delay having a child as India’s population threatens to overtake China’s Thousands of couples in India who agreed to put off having babies for at least two years after their wedding will collect cash payments this month as health officials attempt to curb the country’s rapidly growing population. While […]

The Homely Costs of Energy Conservation

Snowmass, Colo. – A quarter-century ago, in the wake of America’s first energy crisis, a young scientist named Amory Lovins came to the Rocky Mountains and built himself a radical house based on a radical idea. The country could save both energy and money, he believed, by combining common sense and unconventional technology. Mr. Lovins […]

Wind Promises Blackouts as Obama Strains Grid With Renewables

(Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama Without more investment, cities can

Microbial Fuel Cell Cleans Wastewater, Desalinates Seawater, and Generates Power

Desalinization technology has long been trapped between two competing nightmare scenarios. Without desalination, fresh water resources run out and large swaths of the earth suffer crippling water shortages. But if we desalinate on a large scale, we keep burning fossil fuels, the earth warms, the ice caps melt, and sea levels rise to wreak havoc […]

Energy underlies all the hot issues

People argue about climate change, about peak oil, biofuels, carbon footprints, about, well, almost everything. But at the core seems to be energy So many of the things we hear or read about have energy as a subtext. It

Are we about to hit Peak Oil?

Fears that the world is running out of crude oil have just resurfaced after a new International Energy Agency warning, says David Stevenson. So how worried should we be? What are the latest jitters about? Crude oil is what makes our modern lifestyles possible. As well as providing the world’s main transport fuel, it’s also […]

Dark days ahead: The looming electricity crunch (UK)

A shortage of power-generation capacity could lead to blackouts across Britain The private sector is less optimistic. EDF (a state-owned French firm that wants to build nuclear plants in Britain) puts the size of the hole at 32GW, and E.ON, a German competitor, reckons it will be 26GW. One survey of experts before the recession […]

Peak coal: Coming to Appalachia sooner than you think?

Peak coal is an important topic for coalfield communities, and one that we Now, the U.S. Geological Survey has published its new National Coal Resource Assessment Overview, a detailed report that examines such issues. Erica Peterson over at West Virginia Public Broadcasting had a nice piece that explained parts of the study. But it didn

FTC Issues Rule to Block Manipulation of Oil Market

(Bloomberg) — Fraudulent or deceptive actions in the wholesale oil market may draw fines of as much as $1 million a day under a rule issued today by the Federal Trade Commission. The rule sets definitions for conduct that could manipulate wholesale petroleum markets. It targets false public announcements about planned pricing or output decisions, […]

Peak oil: Should I be worried?

Imagine one of those fine hotel buffets, with lots of food and places to sit, drinks to order and generally a good old time is being had by all. You’ve probably been there. Imagine the people just keep streaming into the restaurant steadily and the food just keeps being renewed, replaced, new tables get set […]

How Is America Going To End?

Slate’s “Choose Your Own Apocalypse” lets you map out the death of the United States. If and when America expires, we probably won’t agree on the cause of death. For proof that autopsies of empires are inconclusive, consider the case of Alexander Demandt, the German historian who set out in the 1980s to collect every […]

McKibben: Four years after my pleading essay, climate art is hot

That pleading little essay I wrote in 2005? It was probably the last moment I could have written it. Clearly there were lots and lots of people already thinking the same way, because ever since it Artists, in a sense, are the antibodies of the cultural bloodstream. They sense trouble early, and rally to isolate […]

What energy crisis?

Zurich – General Motors vice chairman Bob Lutz said in a newspaper interview published on Thursday that US consumers still wanted to buy big, gas-guzzler cars and suggested that GM had to respond to that demand. Lutz told the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger that the ailing US auto giant had decided this week to ramp up […]

Britain's energy crisis: How long till the lights go out?

Thanks to its posturing politicians, Britain will soon start to run out of electricity. What should it do? IN THE frigid opening days of 2009, Britain Many of Britain

Breaking the jam

The Kyoto process has failed to deliver meaningful reductions in emissions and the Copenhagen climate meeting is doomed to failure. The only solution is to abandon the cap-and-trade approach, re-frame climate change as an energy issue rather than a “green” issue, and persuade governments to invest massively in clean technology to provide increasing energy in […]

U.S. fuel sanctions to hurt Iran, a boon for traders

DUBAI/LONDON (Reuters) – U.S. sanctions against suppliers of fuel to Iran would drive up the price the Islamic Republic has to pay for imports and provide a big money-making opportunity for oil traders able to flout the measures. Sanctions busting has proved lucrative in the past for the less scrupulous in the opaque world of […]

Water Problems From Drilling Are More Frequent Than Officials Said

When methane began bubbling out of kitchen taps near a gas drilling site in Pennsylvania last winter, a state regulator described the problem as “an anomaly.” But at the time he made that statement to ProPublica, that same official was investigating a similar case affecting more than a dozen homes near gas wells halfway across […]

Heinberg: Temporary Recession or the End of Growth?

Everyone agrees: our economy is sick. The inescapable symptoms include declines in consumer spending and consumer confidence, together with a contraction of international trade and available credit. Add a collapse in real estate values and carnage in the automotive and airline industries and the picture looks grim indeed. But why are both the U.S. economy […]

Arctic Ocean may be polluted soup by 2070

WITHIN 60 years the Arctic Ocean could be a stagnant, polluted soup. Without drastic cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions, the Transpolar Drift, one of the Arctic’s most powerful currents and a key disperser of pollutants, is likely to disappear because of global warming. The Transpolar Drift is a cold surface current that travels right across the […]

Hunger hits Detroit's middle class

Food has long been an issue in this city without a major supermarket. Now demand for assistance is rising, affecting a whole new set of people. DETROIT (CNNMoney.com) — On a side street in an old industrial neighborhood, a delivery man stacks a dolly of goods outside a store. Ten feet away stands another man […]

Permafrost Could Be Climate's Ticking Time Bomb

…Jacobson, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at Northwestern University, extracts soil and water samples in search of clues to one of global warming’s biggest ticking time bombs: the melting of permafrost. Permafrost, or frozen ground, covers approximately 20 to 25 percent of the land-surface area in the northern hemisphere, and is estimated to […]

'The Great Squeeze' joins long list of doomsaying eco-films

Our planet’s supply of safe drinking water is rapidly diminishing. We have reached peak oil (according to some experts). The polar ice caps are melting, causing sea levels to rise and threatening coastal areas and island nations everywhere. The Great Squeeze, a documentary by director Christophe Fauchere (of 2007’s film Energy Crossroads), is full of […]

Southern Africa: New Energy Projects Blowing in the Wind

The market for renewable energy equipment in southern Africa is likely to see revenue increase 10 times to $262,3m by 2015, according to consultants Frost & Sullivan. The prediction augers well for SA, which is anxious to get the renewable energy industry off the ground. The government has set a target of 10000GWh of renewable […]

Battle Brewing Over Giant Desert Solar Farm

Tessera Solar plans to plant 34,000 solar dishes — each one 40 feet high and 38 feet wide — on 8,230 acres of the Mojave Desert in Southern California. Although the lengthy licensing process for the Calico solar farm remains in the early stages, several environmental groups are already raising red flags about the massive […]

Hot Streak for Solar Power in Spain

After positioning Spain as the third-largest wind power producer after the U.S. and Germany, renewable energy companies are now racing for a foothold in the country’s fast-growing “solar thermal” market. Government figures show Spain has close to 30 solar thermal plants under construction. Companies are seeking clearance for projects that would add 4,300 megawatts of […]

Nuclear Must More Than Double In UK Energy Mix

The U.K. needs to more than double the amount of electricity generated by nuclear power in addition to boosting renewables, energy efficiency and gas storage to guarantee energy security, an independent report commissioned by Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Wednesday. Nuclear power should provide between 35% to 40% of the U.K.’s electricity after 2030 from […]

Psychology is to blame for humans not acting on climate change: psychologists

If you ever wondered what is to blame for the world’s sluggish reaction to climate change, wonder no longer. The American Psychological Assn. has concluded in a 225-page report that the culprit is… …human behavior. That’s right! Human behavior. Read all about it here. The panel of eight psychologists is slated to present its findings […]

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