Monthly Archives: February 2011
U.N. Unveils Tool for Tracking Progress of Climate Talks
By JOHN M. BRODER/NYT We’ll always have Cancún. Online, at least. The United Nations office in charge of international climate change negotiations introduced a new online tool on Monday to track progress toward meeting the goals agreed to last December at an international climate conference in Cancún, Mexico. That meeting, remember, got the international talks […]
A Window Into the Nuclear Future
A Window Into the Nuclear Future TerraPower—with the backing of Bill Gates—has a radical vision for the reactors of tomorrow Bill Gates reshaped the computer industry by pumping out new versions of Microsoft Windows software every few years, fixing and fine tuning it as he went along. Journal Report Read the full Innovations in Energy […]
Regulation Is Lax for Water From Gas Wells
Wells for extracting natural gas, like these in Colorado, are a growing source of energy but can also pose hazards. Multimedia Natural Gas and Polluted Air Natural Gas and Polluted Air // Close Video See More Videos » Interactive Feature Extracting Natural Gas From Rock Interactive Feature Toxic Contamination From Natural Gas Wells Interactive Feature […]
Is the Move to Hybrids Hyped?
How popular will electric and hybrid cars be in 10 years? Depends on whom you ask. According to a new report by J.D. Power & Associates, the auto industry analysis firm, the sales potential of electric and hybrid vehicles is “over-hyped” and “more hope than reality.” Globally, electric and hybrid vehicles will make up little […]
A Tipping Point for Oil Prices
Associated Press A gas station in Topsham, Me., where prices had just risen on Thursday. With speculation calming, at least for the moment, oil prices are no longer soaring higher and higher every day. But prices are at a tipping point. The days of $100 a barrel oil are back. Most economists think that this […]
Taking the Risk out of Energy Efficiency Projects; How BAE outsourced its energy-use upgrade.
Green upgrade: BAE Systems is using a novel payment model for a retrofit of equipment including compressors like the one above. The amount of money it pays is based on the amount of energy it saves. Defense contractor BAE Systems is in the business of understanding extreme risks: it designs and makes a variety of […]
Designing the perfect renewable fuel.
Fuel for the future: Joule Biotechnologies’ genetically engineered microörganisms can turn sunlight into ethanol or diesel. Credit: Bob O’Connor Noubar Afeyan (Joule Biotechnologies) Solar fuels are produced directly by photosynthetic microbes fed carbon dioxideOTHERS WORKING ON SOLAR FUELS Synthetic Genomics, La Jolla, CA BioCee, Minneapolis, MN University of Minnesota BioTechnology Institute, St. Paul, MN <!– […]
MIT List of most Innovative Companies
Show All Private Companies Public Companies All CompaniesEnergy Transportation Computing & Communications Web & Digital Media Materials Biomedicine All Companies Public Companies A123 Systems Why: Lithium-ion batteries make electric cars possible at mass-market prices. Key innovation: Nanostructured electrodes result in lithium batteries more durable and safer than those in cell phones and laptops. Akamai Why: […]
Where Solar Power Meets the Oil Field
A startup tests a cleaner way to produce the steam needed for oil extraction. Extracting heavy oil from the ground carries a large carbon footprint, because the oil must be coaxed from the earth with steam. In California’s Kern County, where steam-hungry oil fields account for 9 percent of the state’s natural-gas consumption, GlassPoint Solar […]
Solar Projects Pit Green Against Green
As I wrote in Thursday’s Times, the fate of several multibillion-dollar solar thermal power plants to be built the Southern California desert is in question as conservationists and other groups sue to stop the projects largely on environmental grounds. The legal tussle over putting large solar power plants in often-fragile desert landscapes underscores the difficulty […]
Energy 