China, as you would expect with all those people, is the world's biggest energy guzzler. They are also the world's biggest polluter.Nothing wrong with being the biggest energy user, it would be elitist to declare a hard stop on air conditioners now that Chinese people can afford them, but with 75% of that energy coming from coal, which is cheap but dirtier than natural gas, they would like...
read moreLike people who approach geopolitics with the attitude of "If people would just talk to each other, we would all along", there are a lot of naïve assumptions about just dumping gasoline.We know it causes emissions, and emissions are bad, we know a lot of the money paid for oil goes to fund Middle Eastern terrorism, and that is bad - those things should cause both the left and the right in...
read moreNo one is asking the Department of Energy to play venture capitalist with taxpayer money again, but basic research in dye-sensitized solar cells may bring the cost of solar down enough to allow for mainstream acceptance - primarily because dye-sensitized solar cells (also known as DSCs) are less fragile than panels that use crystalline silicon, also a benefit of thin-film panels, and don't...
read moreSometimes declaring bankruptcy is a good thing. In the case of Abound Solar Inc., a U.S. solar manufacturer that had American taxpayers on the hook for $400 million, the good thing is they closed the doors after only losing us $70 million in Department of Energy funds.Chump change, I know, since we have committed $72 billion on alternative energy in the last few years, but $330 million here...
read moreThere are 20,000 miles of pipeline in Nebraska criss-crossing the Ogalalla aquifier. A company wanted to add 400 more but President Obama overruled scientists and declared the addition environmentally risky. So the Keystone XL extension did not happen and the president who promised to promote more domestic oil came across as a political obstructionist for blocking it due to…why exactly?...
read moreSolar photovoltaic (PV) mass-market polycrystalline panels are typically about 15% efficiency. Pretty terrible, right? Maybe, maybe not. Cars - both gasoline and electric vehicles, despite what the electric car hype machine claims - are only slightly more efficient at 15-25%, as is eating, and biology had all of existence to perfect that process. Ethanol and other biofuels, which were...
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