I’ve spent the last few days flying, coptering and driving around northern Alberta with the director James Cameron, taking a close look at the massive oil sands developments in the Canadian province. (As this 2008 piece from TIME shows, Alberta’s underground oil sands reserves have made Canada a world player on the global energy …
Energy
Cities: A Walled Green Utopia Rises in the Middle East
In Sunday’s New York Times—which I consumed along with a bagel on my iPhone—architecture critic Nicolai Ourousoff has a report from Masdar, the zero-carbon, ultra-sustainable city growing up in the deserts outside of Abu Dhabi. The Masdar project is the result of a government initiative by the sultans who control Abu Dhabi, the …
Energy: Why the U.S. Isn’t a Better Place
Ask Shai Agassi how his electric transportation startup Better Place is doing, and the Israeli-American entrepreneur will offer up an endless supply of good stories. The company’s trial in Tokyo—running several electric taxis in the Japanese capital, which can recharge and switch their batteries at a Better Place station—was recently …
Energy: Bringing Light to Darkness—and Curbing Poverty
Most of the focus on energy and climate in the developing world boils down to two words: India and China. The rapid growth of those two burgeoning economic giants is changing the pace of energy markets and adding much of the carbon that will be pumped into the atmosphere over the coming decades, speeding climate change. But there’s a …
Oil Spill: The Well Is Dead
Looks like Ecocentric may need to find something new to write about. On Sunday morning retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen—who may need to find a new job soon—made it official: BP’s blown Macondo well has now been killed. After the long-awaited relief well successfully intersected the original well a couple of days ago, it was …
Oil Spill: Some Long Awaited Relief
In what was possibly the most anticipated intersection between two shafts in U.S. history, the government announced late Thursday that BP’s relief well had finally connected with the company’s original blown well. That will allow BP to go ahead and place a final cement seal on the original well—finally, truly, really killing it. “The …
Oil Spill: “A Work in Progress”
If you’re curious about how the endgame of the oil spill is going—it’s still ending—check out a piece I had over the weekend on the Time.com mainpage. Now I’m beginning to think hockey season could get underway before the relief well is finally completed.
Energy: The White House Says No Thanks to Solar Panels
Back in 1979—when the economy was suffering and the U.S. was facing a serious energy crisis, a situation in no way similar to what’s happening now—President Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the roof of the White House. It was a symbol of Carter’s push to get the U.S. to face up to its energy problems, beginning with the most …
The San Francisco Explosion: Another Strike Against An Industry Under Scrutiny?
Unruly winds were still spreading the fires late into the night on Thursday in San Bruno, California, after an explosion in the San Francisco satellite community set more than 50 homes on fire. People in the area thought they had witnessed a plane crash, hearing a loud rumbling and watching a fireball lift up into the afternoon sky. …
Energy: Reducing CO2 Emissions Will Be Harder Than You Think
A little good news/bad news on the climate and energy front. In the Sept. 10 Science, Steven Davis and Ken Caldeira of Stanford University have a study that estimates what future carbon emissions—and consequent global warming—would be from existing energy and transportation infrastructure. (In other words, what would happen if we …