In case you missed the story yesterday in the Economist: How long till the lights go out? North Sea gas has served Britain well, but supply peaked in 1999. Since then the flow has fallen […]
Answering Reader Questions 2009: Part 3
This was supposed to be the final installment of answers to the questions recently submitted by readers, but the answer to the first question went a little long. Here are the links to the previous […]
Rate Crimes: Impeding the Solar Tipping Point
The following guest essay was written by Paul Symanski. Paul is an electrical engineer with expertise in solar energy, and shares his views on why solar power often faces unnecessary headwinds. —————- To anyone who […]
What’s 72 Million Gallons Anyway?
I just read a story this morning suggesting that the “Cash for Clunkers” program is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by only a trivial amount: ‘Cash for clunkers’ effect on pollution? A blip While […]
Answering Reader Questions 2009: Part 2
In this installment, I continue to work my way through the list of questions recently submitted by readers. This post picks up where Part 1 left off, and covers coal-to-liquids, technology hype, green gasoline, refining […]
Answering Reader Questions 2009: Part 1
Before I took a recent trip to Canada, I opened up the floor for questions. Getting them answered has taken longer than I intended. Fortunately, other readers answered a lot of them in the comments […]
King Corn and Big Oil
Over the weekend, I watched the documentary King Corn. It was released in October 2007, but I just now got around to watching it online at Netflix. The premise is that a pair of college […]
Engineering Rules
Average Starting Salaries for This Year’s Graduates From a CNN story this week, that graphic represents a landslide. To the person who asked in the recent Q&A (OK, the “A” is still pending) what they […]
The Gold in the Oceans
There was an announcement this past week that Solix Biofuels has started oil production at a facility in Colorado:Solix Biofuels begins production of oil made from algae Solix Biofuels Inc. said Thursday it has started […]
Looking for Help After a Difficult Week
I am coming to the end of the most difficult week of my career, which is why I haven’t written much for the past few days. I had to sit across the table from some […]