The sporadic nature of renewable energy, wind and solar in particular, poses a great challenge to wider adoption.  Storage systems, even in stationary applications, are not sufficently developed.  But rather than depending on creating a massive battery industry to facilitate a decentralized electricity grid reliant on wind and solar sources, why not develop thermal storage?  [...]

We had a comment a few days ago from someone taking us to task for letting up on Biofuel.  Yet haven’t we been beating the drum the loudest?  In our post “Reforesting vs. Biofuel” the reader will see links to just a few among dozens of reports posted here, warning how carbon credits fund rainforest [...]

There is a 9 minute video on www.youtube.com entitled “Most Terrifying Video You’ll Ever See,” posted by a “johnq5″ back in Sept. 2007, and already viewed by over 3.3 million people.

A spectre of rising seas can awaken primal
fears in even the most rational among us.

In the video, a very articulate man with a white board presents a [...]

The recent launch of Tata’s “Nano,” along with the high interest in the Smart ”Fortwo” micro-hybrid car, indicate rapid steps towards a scenario where hundreds of millions of affordable, gas-sipping vehicles are sold over the next 10-20 years - a most welcome development.  After all, the independently owned automobile is probably one of the most liberating innovations in the history [...]

Nine European partners (including BMW) representing the industrial and research sectors have done something clever.  Working with the University of Bath, the collaboration has given birth to a new kind of vehicle for crowded, polluted, urban driving environments.  At one-meter wide, incorporating the maneuverability of a toyota or a motorcycle - including the ability to [...]

It’s been a long time since land development in California was governed solely by market forces.  For decades, and especially in the last 10-15 years, myriad regulations and agencies have had a hand in land use decisions.  To some extent, of course, this is appropriate.  There are legitimate reasons why we empower our government to [...]

It has never been easy to get figures for actual rainforest area - and our estimates based on what we could find had settled as follows:  There were about 8.0 million square miles of tropical rainforest in the world 150 years ago, and we’re now down to around 3.0 million square miles.

Absolutely devastated former forest,
hopefully [...]