energy policy
Japan Nuclear Situation Now May Be “Stable,” Not “Critical.”
There is now some reason to think that the situation in Japan has stabilized. According to Bloomberg, Japan’s efforts to cool reactors at the crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant had some success, with reports two of the six reactors are under control and a second electric cable has been connected to the station. Tokyo Electric Power …
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CONTINUE READINGObama’s 80% “Clean” Energy Goal: Ambitious or Inevitable?
In a recent post on Grist, Keith Schneider found President Obama’s 80% “clean” energy goal rather incredible: Arguably the central provision of President Obama’s State of the Union address last night was the proposal to generate 80 percent of the nation’s electricity from clean energy sources by 2035 — including nuclear energy and “carbon capture and …
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CONTINUE READINGMajor Berkeley Conference on Climate and Energy
Today and tomorrow, Berkeley is hosting a major conference featuring leading scientists, engineers, and policy analysts. The keynote speakers include: Ralph Cicerone, President, National Academy of Sciences Chris Field, Co-chair, IPCC Working Group 2: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability Arun Majumdar, Director, Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy, DOE A live webcast is available here.
CONTINUE READINGChilly in Baltimore: Energy Efficiency and Wind Power
I heard an interesting story on NPR today about “district cooling” in which a company in Baltimore uses ice to produce chilled water, which is transported to a number of building in the city for supplemental cooling. What really struck me as cool about this (sorry about the pun) is the fact that this system …
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CONTINUE READINGWill the Future Be “Made in China”?
America used to b a place where the future happened first. Now we seem to be fight any kind of change, whether the issue is immigration, health care, the financial system, or energy.
CONTINUE READINGGOP Will Filibuster the PACE Bill, Unless…
A prediction: the Republicans will filibuster Mike Thompson’s bill concerning PACE once it gets to the Senate. At this point, the Republicans (led by Senator Mitch McConnell, pictured right) are simply uninterested in principles or policy. That’s particular true in the shadow of the upcoming midterms: stopping the bill will simply be another way to …
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CONTINUE READINGUtilities-Only Carbon Cap
The proposed utilities-only cap-and-trade system could be a step in the right direction, although it’s far from ideal.
CONTINUE READINGGiving Nuclear Power a Blue Ribbon
In his State of the Union address last week, President Obama did not equivocate on the topic of nuclear power. He talked about the importance of green jobs, and then added, “But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation …
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CONTINUE READINGRiding the Energy Efficiency Wave
At the “Beyond Copenhagen Conference” at Berkeley yesterday, one of the clear messages was that energy efficiency is one of the most feasible routes forward on climate change. Energy efficiency has great interest not only to U.S. consumers, but also to countries like China that are concerned about energy security. The energy security issue is …
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CONTINUE READINGPriming the Political Pump for Climate Legislation
Dan, Rick, and Jonathan have all discussed the implications of the political events of the last week for climate change policy. Certainly, it seems clear that both from a vote-counting perspective and from a political momentum perspective, the special election last week made passage of a climate change bill through the Senate generally harder. And …
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