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- Canadian Oil Sands Flyover
An aerial/telephoto exploration of the Canadian Oil Sands operations. Two trillion barrels of oil in the ground. Pyramids of sulfur and coke. Lakes of oil stretching to the horizon. At $200k/yr, it's easy to understand how one might get roped in, gold rush style. - Clean energy will unfortunately be political
Conservative thinktanks step up attacks against Obama's clean energy strategy, as revealed by ALEC bills and other PR documents. This morning at the World Renewable Energy Forum, in response to a (long winded) question about how we might re-frame the energy discussion in light of the unfortunate hay which was made from Solyndra's failure, US Energy Secretary Stephen Chu re-iterated that clean energy should not be a political issue -- that it's just common sense. That may be true, but it doesn't mean it will remain apolitical. As Pericles once said... "Just because you do not take an interest in - The Dangerous World of Underground Chemistry
A look at the increasingly outsourced world of underground pharma. Domestic black-market chemists handle R&D and distribution, and the actual manufacturing is done in China. Seems that way with everything. - Google Street View for building energy efficiency
Essess is doing drive-by thermal imaging in high density urban areas across the US, hoping to target possible building energy efficiency opportunities. Another company is using urban satellite imagery to choose the best rooftops for solar energy siting. Big Brother may be watching you... but at least occasionally he's got the right idea. - The Neapolitan Mob’s Most Dangerous Family
A character sketch of Paolo di Lauro, one of the Neapolitan Camorra's former leaders. Southern Italy it seems, like some parts of Mexico, operates with more than one quasi-state organization governing in parallel. A tacit negotiation between the official and unofficial systems, which sometimes erupts into violence -- ironically, at those times when the so-called "criminal" organizations have become weak.
- Canadian Oil Sands Flyover
Twitterfeed
- Incredible photo essay on the Athabasca Tar Sands operations: businessinsider.com/canadian-oil-s… 4 days ago
- At a great talk about individual cities as the right scale for renewable energy systems innovation at #wref2012 1 week ago
- Heard rural Wyoming folk talking local Chinese coal/gas investments, hacking of their SCADA water system. I live in a @GreatDismal future. 1 week ago
- The tar sands have to stay in the ground. Stop the pipeline… again. And again. And again, if necessary. act.350.org/sign/kxl/ 3 months ago
- Roughly 2/3 of all the humans who have ever reached the age of 65 are alive today. 4 months ago
Incoming Memes
Tag Archives: coal
Picturing Coal
A great series of photos looking at the coal industry worldwide from The Big Picture. Even ignoring coal’s irreversible long term damage to the atmosphere and climate, it’s a pretty desperate business for a lot of people, who are still … Continue reading
Coal Finance for Climate Activists
I’ve been in New York since Monday for a short workshop on the finances of the coal industry and coal burning utilities. It was put together under the auspices of the NYU Law School’s Institute for Policy Integrity. The audience … Continue reading
Open Source Coal
Open Source Coal is a nice database interface to consolidated data from the EIA-923 and EIA-423 forms. Put together by Matt Wassen and others at Appalachian Voices.
Coal Exports a Bigger Threat Than Tar Sands
Eric de Place does some simple calculations, which demonstrate that the planned coal export terminals in the Pacific Northwest will be a larger climate catastrophe than the temporarily delayed Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry Alberta tar sands bitumen to … Continue reading
A Power Company President Ties His Future to Green Energy
Yale Environment 360 has an interview with the CEO of NRG Energy, a fossil fuel based, nationwide independent power producer (IPP) that sells their 22GW of generation into the wholesale market. He’s bullish on solar PV, much less so on … Continue reading
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Tagged climate, coal, energy, nrg, power, renewable, solar, utility
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Is an Energy Transformation Afoot?
Almost immediately after we empowered Boulder to form a utility, a spate of articles appeared in the national press talking about the relative costs of coal and renewables, and the trends in those costs. There was Krugman’s Here Comes Solar … Continue reading
Is Keystone XL Really Game over? | RealClimate
RealClimate looks at Hansen and McKibben’s statements that the Keystone XL is essentially “game over” for the climate. All that really matters in the big picture is the absolute amount of carbon we release. How fast or slow we do … Continue reading
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Tagged bill mckibben, canada, climate, coal, gas, james hansen, kxl, oil, pipeline, tar sands
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Appalachia faces steep coal decline
Appalachia faces steep coal decline. Peak Coal is the present day reality in all of the eastern coal basins. How will it affect eastern energy politics? The Powder River Basin has enough coal to power us… if we want to … Continue reading
The Coming Decline and Fall of Big Coal
The Coming Decline and Fall of Big Coal. Appalachian mountaintop removal mining has taken off in recent years in no small part because there’s not much left worth mining underground. All the eastern coal fields are in declining production, despite … Continue reading
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Tagged appalachia, coal, depletion, energy, environment, geology, peak, policy
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Former Xcel CEO Dick Kelly would be fine with no more coal
Former Xcel CEO Dick Kelly would be fine with no more coal. Unfortunately, the regulatory environment that his former employer works within in Colorado, and the company’s need to protect a couple of billion dollars worth of undepreciated coal assets … Continue reading