Today, I’d like to write about two fairly different books related to limited energy supply. Both are excellent, but intended for fairly different audiences, and focusing on different aspects of our dilemma.

1. “Power Plays: Energy Options …

British authorities are meeting with their Icelandic counterparts to consider powering the UK with geothermal electricity.  It’s a terrific, low-carbon solution.   Take the heat the earth naturally brings to the surface in places like Ic…

This is a guest post by Tom Murphy. Tom is an associate professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego. This post originally appeared on Tom’s blog Do the Math.

Who hasn’t enjoyed heat from the sun? Doing so represents a direct …

In the United States, we have been working on scaling up wind energy but not getting very far. In 2010, wind energy supplied only 2.3% of electricity purchased.

Figure 1. Wind energy (dark green) is barely visible in a graph of US energy consumption b…

This is a guest post by Tom Murphy. Tom is an associate professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego. This post originally appeared on Tom’s blog Do the Math.
The Earth started its existence as a red-hot rock, and has been cooling ev…

This is a guest post by Tom Murphy. Tom is an associate professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego. This post originally appeared on Tom’s blog Do the Math.
For me, the most delightful turn of events in the ultimate nerd-song &#822…

Dear Readers; I have to admit that I’m a big fan of Ezra Levant. Ever since I first saw him on Michael Coren’s show a few years ago his comments on political and social issues are insightful and astute with a minimal amount of hyperbole, so when I read his comments on the Keystone pipeline [...]

As Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver explained to reporters after Question Period today, the Conservatives are appalled that New Democrat MP’s would give a negative opinion about the Keystone pipeline within earshot of Americans.There ya have it kids, when it comes right down to it, the NDP would rather play politics than create much needed [...]

My partner and I have been reading the interesting if somewhat unusual book “Meditation and the Art of Beekeeping” by Mark Magill. One particular paragraph in the book struck me as a compelling analogy for the difference between biofuels and oil. It be…

Photo credit: Eric Smith/Creative Publishing International

When distilled to their essential parts, solar ovens are really very simple devices. Using little more than a container and reflective surface, they intensify the rays of the sun to the point…

A guy closing in on retirement can speak uncomfortable truths that he might not have felt as free to share before.
John Rowe, the soon-to-retire CEO of the giant utility Exelon, rolled out a few grenades about energy politics in a recent interview published in the October 22nd Wall Street Journal.
Rowe argues that market-friendly Republicans are as [...]

The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program, created under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, mandated that increasing volumes of ethanol must be blended into the nation’s gasoline supplies. The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act accelerated and ex…

Image credit: Ingy The Wingy, used under Creative Commons license.

During our live chat with Solarcentury’s Jeremy Leggett yesterday, we started out by discussing the high profile solar railway bridge his company is helping install in central London …

Testing Hydrostor model, University of Windsor

Tyler Hamilton recently wrote Mad Like Tesla: Underdog Inventors and their Relentless Pursuit of Clean Energy, and while the book may be out, he keeps looking for those crazy ideas that might change ever…

Posted by Erica van Wyngaarden in International Affairs Recently, EthicalOil.org released a series of ads decrying the extraction of oil in politically oppressive and unstable nations, suggesting instead the support of Ethical Oil in the Canadian Oil Sands. These ads, as well as Ezra Levant’s concept of Ethical Oil, propose a choice: choose human rights [...]

Image credit: Land Rover Our Planet, used under Creative Commons license.

When I wrote about the new UK Carbon Reporting Framework which connects potential project funders with CO2-cutting initiatives, I noted that they were not calling it offsets. I…

Image credit: ATR

One of the most common criticisms you hear from clean energy naysayers is that renewables suffer from too much variability. But from the world’s first 24/7 solar power plant to large-scale energy storage, that problem is now being t…

Photo: Flickr, CC

Madness! And I don’t mean the British band…
The corn ethanol supporters are probably not very familiar with the concept of opportunity cost. Either that, or the subsidies and high corn prices are just to juicy to give up. Only abo…

photo: Dan Terzian/CC BY

Considering how energy-intensive it is, aviation is really the hard nut to crack in greening transportation, but Virgin Atlantic says it has a way to do it–and, importantly, without using biofuels. As The Independent reports…

photo: m.prinke/CC BY SA

A massive new offshore wind power project, to be located in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, has taken a procedural step forward. Plans for the 1 GW Deepwater Wind Energy Center, being developed by Deepwater Wind, have officia…