Blogs & Ecology

On this week’s episode: It’s coming to a street corner near you. The localization of nuclear power may become a reality. Decorate your pad with the latest in sustainable art.

photo: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

What spawned that title is not just Friday speculation, but an article at SustainableBusiness.com which says exactly the opposite. I’m taking liberties a bit, as the article confines the silver bullet talk to clean energy:

The March/April issue of Mother Jones set a high water-mark for coverage of clean energy. The latest issue, which includes contributions from Al Gore, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz, Bill McKibben and Grist's David Roberts, does the same for climate change and the green economy; as they usually do, the editors of the magazine will slowly release its full contents online over the coming weeks, but that's no reason not to get the print version right now.

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While it’s not exactly an answer for a question I put to Al Gore in a recent post, more details have come out about how the clean energy vision Gore articulated in his Repowering America speech can be made a realit...

If you’re anything like me, you’re both thrilled and relieved that the 2008 presidential elections will actually be happening tomorrow, and on Wednesday we will finally (barring technical, judicial malfunctions...fingers crossed) be able to, as fellow TreeHugger Lloyd Alter puts it, get back to green instead of red and blue.

But we’re not quite there yet, and in the spirit of helping out the handful of TreeHugger readers who haven’t yet made up their minds and to stimulate post-election policy discussion, I’d just like to again point out and summarize some of the differences between Barack Obama and John McCain on energy and climate change policy:
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It's the time of year for scary and spooky things, so I came up with a list to meet the requirement. Here are my:

"Ten Things That Scare Me More Than A Horror Movie"

1- John McCain mocking Barack Obama on nuclear power safety.
Senator McCain is very pro-nuclear power, and it gives me the heebie-jeebies that the safety of it is not important to him. Senator McCain's quote:

"You know, the other night in the debate with Senator Obama, I said his eloquence is admirable, but pay attention to his words. W...

photo: Jason Hickey

In a press conference call yesterday that’s how Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute described nuclear power, “the economics are just not there”. In the hour long briefing Brown went on to describe the myriad challenges facing expanding nuclear power and, the real, serious environmental issues aside, how it simply does not make financial sense compared to investing in renewable energy. Here’s the rundown on Brown’s argument:
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There are no shortage of plans coming out lately that lay out the path towards a green energy future: T. Boone Pickens, Google,

Architecture 2030 is at it again with their great graphs, this one showing what a minimal impact the 45 nukes proposed by McCain will make, but it is a bit deceptive......

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Power generation giant, NRG Inc has just confirmed they received a tempting proposal from the largest nuclear energy company in the US, Exelon Corporation. Exelon have offered $6.2 billion to acquire all NRG Energy’s outstanding shares following the dismal performance of stock prices recently. Since the financial turmoil began, New Jersey-based NRG has lost half of its market value in two months.

photo: jag9889

Last week when I posted on Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, I promised John McCain would get the same treatment. As much of his speech focused on his past record of service and pointing out differences between his campaign and Obama’s, his relevant passages (other than passing remarks) in regards to the environment were pretty much given in one go. So, here ther...

Many of you have probably seen, heard or read about Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last night. For those who haven’t seen it and who have 45 minutes to spare, a video of the entire speech is embedded above. However for those with less time on their hands, here are the relevant portions in regards to what Mr Obama has said in regards to energy policy. ...

photo: Maki_C30D via flickr

I went on a tour this weekend at the world's largest nuclear plant in Kashiwazaki Kariwa in Niigata prefecture, western Japan. It has seven nuclear reactors that are currently all undergoing repairs after the massive earthquake in July, 2007. The PR from Tepco, the electricity company that runs the plant, was confusing at first, and it is clear that damage was more severe than initially reported.