Grist | Topics | 1840 Results

RESULTS		Results 1 – 25 of 1840
Page:1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 74
Headline	Author	Published	Section
Notable quotable Killing people to save a little money: Not reasonable conduct	David Roberts	15 Jan 2009	Gristmill
'TVA's failure to speedily install readily available pollution control technology is not, and has not been, reasonable conduct under the circumstances.' -- U.S. District Judge Lacy Thornburg, in a ruling instructing TVA to clean up air pollution from four coal plants close to North Carolina
Topics: business, coal, environmental justice, quotables (all these topics)

Bustin' a USCAP Business/enviro alliance unveils climate plan, attracts critics	Kate Sheppard	15 Jan 2009	Gristmill
The United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a coalition of businesses and environmental groups, today released its Blueprint for Legislative Action [PDF] at a press conference on Capitol Hill, and then presented it to the House Energy and Commerce Committee. With climate legislation appearing imminent, USCAP members want a voice in shaping it -- and they seem to want to make sure it isn't too stringent. 'Today, cap-and-trade legislation is a crucia ...
Topics: US CAP, business, energy, climate, politics, news, Muckraker (all these topics)

Convenient facts about an inconvenient truth, part 2 A detailed look at building, industry, transportation, and land-use greenhouse-gas emissions	Jon Rynn	15 Jan 2009	Gristmill
Greenhouse gases come in two basic flavors: carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, and emissions from land use -- agriculture, forests, peat bogs, and waste management. Fossil fuels are primarily used for energy in three sectors: buildings, industry, and transportation. Transportation is almost entirely oil-based -- according to the International Energy Association, about 0.1 percent of transportation energy currently comes from electricity. Just to make things complicat ...
Topics: agriculture, business, climate, energy, fossil fuels, greenhouse-gas emissions, oil, placemaking (all these topics)

Big Oil: 'World has reached peak petroleum' Half of oil and gas CFOs say we are peaking	Joseph Romm	15 Jan 2009	Gristmill
It's amazing enough that the normally staid International Energy Agency recently said we've run out of time. Now Business Wire reports: According to a new survey by BDO Seidman, LLP, one of the nation's leading accounting and consulting organizations, 48 percent of chief financial officers (CFOs) at U.S. oil and gas exploration and production companies agree that the world has reached its peak petroleum (liquid hydrocarbon) production rate or wi ...
Topics: Big Oil, business, energy, fossil fuels, greenhouse-gas emissions, oil (all these topics)

From Detroit with love A photo tour of the green concepts and cars from North American Int'l Auto Show	Sara Barz	13 Jan 2009	Gristmill
The North American International Auto Show opened in Detroit with a bang. Literally. Apparently, the Chrysler Pentastar fell from the ceiling and startled a cluster of journalists as well as billionaire investor Wilbur Ross and his entourage. No one was hurt, but the portentous crash may be more than symbolic for the American auto industry if their bets on electric and hybrid vehicles fail to deliver, or if China's BYD motors beats them to the punch with their plug-in F3DM ...
Topics: Big Auto, business, cars, electric vehicles, green living, hybrids, multimedia (all these topics)

Tempest in a stock pot White House chefs and the limits of personal choice	Tom Philpott	13 Jan 2009	Gristmill
About a month ago, high-profile foodies got pretty amped up about whom Obama would choose as White House chef. Three of them -- Berkeley sustainable food doyenne Alice Waters, Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl, and New York City restaurateur Denny Mayer -- even got together to pen a letter urging the incoming president to replace the current White House chef with someone who chooses locally grown, organic food -- preferably sourced from an on-site vegetable garden. According t ...
Topics: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, business, food, George Bush, local food, organic food, White House (all these topics)

Coal-fired power: Still expensive Another rate increase in the name of cheap coal	Sean Casten	11 Jan 2009	Gristmill
Duke Energy just got approval to raise rates 18 percent to cover the continued rising price tag for its 630-MW planned coal plant in southwestern Indiana. The new price tag? $2.35 billion, or $3,730/kW. By my highly unscientific but quixotically regular analysis, that's a new record, just topping AEP's $3,700/kW proposed facility in Virginia. Way to go, Duke! One note: This plant will not sequester its CO2, and $2.35 billion does not represent the full cost being bo ...
Topics: business, carbon sequestration, coal, economy, energy, utilities (all these topics)

Nuclear cost study, part 3 Responding to Heritage's staggeringly confused 'rebuttal'	Joseph Romm	09 Jan 2009	Gristmill
Part 1 presented a new study by power plant cost expert Craig Severance that puts the generation costs for power from new nuclear plants at from 25 to 30 cents per kilowatt-hour -- triple current U.S. electricity rates! Those ideologically promiscuous folks at the Heritage Foundation have replied with 'New Study on Staggering Cost of Nuclear Energy, Staggeringly Pessimistic.' Craig's point by point response follows a few of my comments. Heritage is a leader of the ...
Topics: business, energy, energy subsidies, nuclear power, politics (all these topics)

Nuclear warning to taxpayers, investors, part 2 Nukes may become troubled assets, ruin credit ratings	Joseph Romm	08 Jan 2009	Gristmill
Part 1 presented a new study that puts the generation costs for power from new nuclear plants at from 25 to 30 cents per kilowatt-hour -- triple current U.S. electricity rates! Nuclear plants with such incredibly expensive electricity and 'out of control' capital costs, as Time put it, obviously create large risks for utilities, their investors, and, ultimately taxpayers. Congress extended huge loan guarantees to new nukes in 2005, and the American people will be stu ...
Topics: business, economy, energy, investing, nuclear power, utilities (all these topics)

VRB Power files for bankruptcy VRB's long-life flow battery was a reliable electricity storage alternative for renewable energy	Gar Lipow	07 Jan 2009	Gristmill
VRB Power applied for insolvency in November [PDF]. A combination of a bad economy and a product that was more suited for future markets than today's electricity generators dealt VRB the final blow. This is bad news for the green energy community. VRB built flow batteries -- utility scale batteries that could last for over 10,000 full charges and discharges. Cost was from $650 per kWh for small-scale systems to as a little as $300 per kWh for large-scale systems.Admitt ...
Topics: business, eletricity, energy, tech (all these topics)

Bailing out Bidder 70 Tim DeChristopher and Utah stand up to Big Oil	Steve Kretzmann	07 Jan 2009	Gristmill
I've never been big on rules.Neither, apparently, is Tim DeChristopher. He's the young activist who just completely derailed the Bush administration's plans to sell more of our public lands to the oil companies. He sat in the lease sale in Salt Lake City on Dec. 19 and 'bought' 22,500 acres of public lands right out from under the suits from Chevron and Exxon. One small problem -- Tim doesn't actually have the money. It almost doesn't matter, though, because he's m ...
Topics: Big Oil, business, environmental movement, George Bush, grassroots activism, oil, public lands (all these topics)

The market myth Wherein I ramble on about markets and regulations	David Roberts	06 Jan 2009	Gristmill
If I could persuade everyone in America to read a single paragraph, it would be the second 'graph in Dean Baker's new piece in the Boston Review: 'Free Market Myth.' Here it is: In general, political debates over regulation have been wrongly cast as disputes over the extent of regulation, with conservatives assumed to prefer less regulation, while liberals prefer more. In fact conservatives do not necessarily desire less regulation, nor do liberals necessarily desi ...
Topics: business, economy, politics (all these topics)

Another step forward Dynegy pulls out of coal-fired power plant partnership	David Roberts	02 Jan 2009	Gristmill
Today Dynegy announced the dissolution of its partnership with LS Energy, formed in 2006. The goal of the partnership was the construction of up to eight new coal-fired power plants -- as part of its dissolution, Dynegy has abandoned plans for six of the eight. Here's the key bit from the release: "The development landscape has changed significantly since we agreed to enter into the development joint venture with LS Power in the fall of 2006," said Bruce ...
Topics: business, coal, electricity, politics (all these topics)

Not so cheap when you have to clean up your own mess Stiffer regulation of coal ash would cost the industry billions	David Roberts	02 Jan 2009	Gristmill
If I've said it once I've said it, oh, around eleven kazillion times now: "coal is cheap" because the coal industry externalizes costs. Take, for instance, coal ash. It contains several substances that are classified as toxics individually, but the ash itself isn't thus classified. That means it can be stored in enormous pools with no liners, behind earthen dams that, as the disaster in Tennessee illustrates again, periodically fail. What would happen if a ...
Topics: electricity, coal, business, politics, regulation, toxics, economy (all these topics)

Change: hard Psychosocial barriers to efficiency	David Roberts	30 Dec 2008	Gristmill
Two recent blogospheric discussions can be applied, via the magic of Strained Analogy, to the climate/energy woes that so consume us here in Gristland. Both have to do with the social context of knowledge and action -- only not in the boring way that sounded. First, Ezra Klein brought us comments from economist Dean Baker: The honchos in the profession (Paul Krugman excepted) said everything was fine. Agreeing with the honchos will never get you in trouble. You wil ...
Topics: business, climate, energy, environmental movement, progress (all these topics)

Brit's Eye View: Wise after the event The insurance industry is making strides on climate, but has further to go	Ben Tuxworth	28 Dec 2008	Gristmill
Ben Tuxworth, communications director at Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe. ----- After another year full of unpleasant surprises, you'd think the insurance sector would be ratcheting up its response to big risks like climate change. The U.K. industry has about $15 trillion of assets under management, so the potential to play a significant role in getting others to factor in climate change looks s ...
Topics: United Kingdom, climate change mitigation, business, climate (all these topics)

The de-greening of America and China How the U.S. and China can help, not harm, each other	Jon Rynn	27 Dec 2008	Gristmill
So this is how it worked: Instead of greening our manufacturing base, amping up our recycling system, and competing on the basis of better production technology, we shipped our production to China, which is busy polluting itself and spewing carbon dioxide. In return, the Chinese took the hundreds of billions from sales to the U.S. and reinvested the money here, helping to make our sprawl even spawlier and our military even more wasteful. According to an article from The ...
Topics: United States, economy, China, business (all these topics)

Coal blogging is fun! Coal front group sets up 'Blogger Brigade' to fight reality	Brad Johnson	24 Dec 2008	Gristmill
Originally posted at the Wonk Room. The coal industry is attempting to organize bloggers to promote their false 'clean coal' propaganda. The Reality Coalition, a group of national environmental organizations, have begun airing the message that 'There's no such thing as clean coal,' to counter the hundreds of millions of dollars spent by coal-powered corporations to pretend that coal is a 'clean' fuel. So the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) and ...
Topics: blogosphere, business, coal, energy (all these topics)

Goodbye to the clamshell?	David Roberts	24 Dec 2008	Gristmill
I rarely buy be-clamshelled merchandise any more, but I remember it with horror, so this seems like excellent news:
Topics: business, green living, greening biz operations, video (all these topics)

Tricks of the Trade Obama says trade agreements must protect environment		22 Dec 2008	News
Posted at 1:50 PM on 22 Dec 2008 Any trade agreements signed by soon-to-be-President Barack Obama must "[preserve] the planet we all share," the president-elect declared Friday. Chief trade negotiator nominee Ron Kirk concurred: "[A] values-driven agenda that stays true to our commitment to ... environmental sustainability is not only consistent with a pro-trade agenda, but it's also necessary for its succes ...
Topics: Barack Obama, business, news, transition talk (all these topics)

Baked On, Caked On On eco-friendly detergents	Umbra Fisk	22 Dec 2008	Ask Umbra
Dear Umbra, Like a good guilt-ridden liberal, I've switched to supposed earth-friendly dish detergent. And, on the basis of previous Ask Umbra columns, I don't rinse my dirty dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. Here's the thing: About 10 percent of items are still dirty when the dishwasher pronounces things clean. So then I rewash these items, either by hand or (perhaps futilely) in the dishwasher. Doesn't seem ter ...
Topics: advice, Ask Umbra, business, consumerism, ecological footprint, energy at home, energy efficiency, green living, green products, shopping (all these topics)

Idaho's progressive utility rules Rewarding utilities for conservation success through 'decoupling'	Alan Durning	21 Dec 2008	Gristmill
Photo: thomas.merton. Utilities are among the few remaining large companies that are relatively solvent and profitable. Harnessing their might to offer retrofits for all would be a powerful step toward economic stimulus. But most utilities in Cascadia are conflicted about helping their customers save energy. On the one hand, they're legally obligated to do it. On the other hand, if they do it successfully, they don't make as much money. Resolving this confl ...
Topics: business, energy, energy efficiency, Idaho, politics, utilities (all these topics)

Financing retrofits for all, II Mysteries of on-bill financing revealed!	Alan Durning	20 Dec 2008	Gristmill
In my last post, I described a nonprofit bank's program for financing building energy retrofits, as a way to speed the green-collar recovery. Here, I describe two new, innovative approaches to financing efficiency upgrades in buildings -- meter loans and local improvement districts -- and one old-school, utility-run approach that may be the best bet of all. First, though, a couple more points about the challenges of financing energy efficiency improvements in build ...
Topics: business, electricity, energy, investing, local politics, state politics, utilities (all these topics)

Detroit goes green If the automakers won't, the city leaders will	Katharine Wroth	19 Dec 2008	Gristmill
Introducing the Detroit Office of Energy and Sustainability. Who woulda thunk it?
Topics: green building, placemaking, greening biz operations, politics, business (all these topics)

Where is this bridge leading, exactly? Cellulosic ethanol's bumpy ride	Tom Philpott	19 Dec 2008	Gristmill
The so-called Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 lays out ambitious targets for production of cellulosic ethanol: a gradual increase to 16 billion gallons per year by 2022. Rounding off to the nearest 10 million, producers are churning out approximately zero gallons of the stuff today. That had better change quickly. By 2010, the act mandates that 100 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol be mixed into the car-fuel supply, rising to 250 million gallons by ...
Topics: business, cellulosic ethanol, ethanol, agriculture, biofuels, energy, economy (all these topics)

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