Posts

May 01, 2013

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3:00 PM | Update to ‘IPCC systematically low-balling climate estimates?’

Four months ago I wrote a post about how several speakers at the AGU 2012 Fall Meeting suggested that the IPCC may be systematically underestimating several key climate change-related parameters (total anthropogenic GHG emissions, Arctic ice melt rates, sea level … Continue reading →

April 18, 2013

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3:00 PM | Quality control in Excel spreadsheets- a serious and universal issue!

Via Paul Krugman’s blog, I’ve been following a fascinating online discussion about the importance of spreadsheet error-checking and independent replication of modeling results in the economic research sector: Holy Coding Error, Batman Researchers Finally Replicated Reinhart-Rogoff, and there are Serious … Continue reading →

March 27, 2013

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3:00 PM | CSU’s Dr. Diana Wall wins the Tyler Prize!

A big congratulations to our own Dr. Diana Wall, University Distinguished Professor and Director of the Colorado State University School of Global Environmental Sustainability, on winning the 2013 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement! http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/bc-asr031113.php If you want to learn more … Continue reading →

March 25, 2013

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3:00 PM | Renewable energy companies sustain collateral damage in Washington budget battles

Thanks to Sam for passing along the following article highlighting how Paul Ryan’s House Republican budget document makes an explicit, unsubstantiated attack against two solar energy companies – both of which are alive and well – as examples of wasteful … Continue reading →

March 20, 2013

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3:00 PM | More on automotive fuel efficiency

EPA just released a big report on vehicle fuel mileage, summed up in this WonkBlog entry http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/16/cars-in-the-u-s-are-more-fuel-efficient-than-ever-heres-why/ A few comments: A) I’m struck by how response fleet mileage seems to crude oil prices in their figure in point #1. In … Continue reading →

March 18, 2013

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7:08 PM | Ignore Keystone XL, focus on clean coal?

An update to the previous entry on challenges to scientists doing advocacy: Nocera’s latest editorial (A Real Carbon Solution) is about a coal gasification project in Texas that he bills as a fossil-fuel-industry-friendly contribution to combating climate change (as opposed … Continue reading →

March 11, 2013

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5:35 PM | More on scientific neutrality vs. advocacy

The latest salvo in the debate over the relative importance of scientific neutrality versus public advocacy from climate scientists comes from Joe Nocera at the New York Times: A Scientist’s Misguided Crusade The op-ed columnist takes James Hansen, director of … Continue reading →

March 06, 2013

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4:00 PM | For renewables but against biomass? Sounds fishy to me…

Public energy policy discussions tend to be highly polarized between widely divergent worldviews; those that believe climate change is real and that we need aggressive state support in the grand challenge of remaking the world energy economy, versus those that … Continue reading →

March 04, 2013

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4:00 PM | UPDATE on ‘Energy access as a life-or-death issue’

In the comment section following my recent post on Energy access as a life-or-death issue, Paul comments on the plot showing a clear positive correlation between energy use and life expectancy, making the point that correlation does not imply causation. … Continue reading →

February 15, 2013

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4:00 PM | Energy access as a life-or-death issue

We’ve devoted a fair amount of space on this blog to issues of energy access in developing countries, including examining whether Clean Development Mechanism projects are being preferentially established in the countries with the lowest energy access (apparently not), and … Continue reading →

February 05, 2013

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4:00 PM | The RFS- basket case, or just a few years ahead of it’s time?

When Congress established the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) through the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, one of the primary goals was to grow the fledgling cellulosic ethanol sector from laboratory scale up to an industry surpassing corn ethanol, via … Continue reading →

January 28, 2013

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4:00 PM | Colorado goes cellulosic!

Via Paul, and article in Biofuels Digest highlighting how our local corn ethanol plant (Front Range Energy in Windsor, CO) will soon be transitioning to cellulose-derived sugars for a fraction of its feedstock: http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2013/01/16/sugar-rush-sweetwater-front-range-ink-100m-cellulosic-biofuels-deal/ This is a very exciting development! … Continue reading →

January 21, 2013

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4:00 PM | Assisted migration- ecosystem protection versus unintended consequences

This morning, just a quick post to highlight some of the work being done over at the Early Career Ecologists blog. I found their recent entry on assisted migration fascinating: http://earlycareerecologists.wordpress.com/2013/01/16/trees-on-the-move-debating-assisted-migration-in-climate-change-mitigation/ The idea is simple- if climate in many places … Continue reading →

January 09, 2013

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4:00 PM | Can scientists be simultaneously ‘engaged’ and non-partisan?

I find myself very irked reading Roger Pielke Jr.’s take on a recent op-ed piece in Nature on the need for scientists, and more importantly, scientific institutions, to project an image of non-partisanship and being ‘above the fray’ in public … Continue reading →

January 07, 2013

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4:00 PM | Pb and crime?

It seems like much of the interest in the environmental impact of energy systems these days is focused entirely on greenhouse gas emissions (or maybe that’s me being biased by my own research? . However, a recent piece in Mother … Continue reading →

January 02, 2013

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4:00 PM | The EIA Energy Outlook seriously bums me out

The US Energy Information Administration, a great source for all kinds of domestic energy use data, just released a preview of their Annual Energy Outlook 2013, as written up by Biomass Magazine: http://www.biomassmagazine.com/articles/8392/eia-releases-annual-energy-outlook-2013-reference-case Of specific interest to those of us … Continue reading →

December 06, 2012

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10:49 PM | IPCC systematically low-balling climate estimates?

I’ve had the great opportunity to spend the week at the American Geophysical Union annual conference in San Francisco. It’s apparently the largest annual scientific conference in the world (with ~20,000 registered attendees this year!), covering a vast array of … Continue reading →

November 20, 2012

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9:38 PM | Food and Energy Security

Another one for the list: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/%28ISSN%292048-3694 First issue came out only 4 months ago. Methinks it’s going to be a good one… here’s a excerpt from the chief editor’s op-ed in the first issue: I am delighted to welcome you … Continue reading →

October 31, 2012

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1:58 PM | Debt versus climate forcing

I found this (very short) entry on financing climate mitigation efforts really fascinating, given all the current debate about the national debt (and its associated moral overtones)- http://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2012/10/more-on-climate-change-and-budget_30.html To break it down even more succinctly: the status quo is that … Continue reading →

October 28, 2012

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9:02 PM | Political perils of low-cost geoengineering

From ocean iron fertilization to stratospheric sulfur injection, there’s been a lot of geoengineering news in both the scientific literature and the public media lately- one of us is probably due to write a roundup of the most recent happenings! … Continue reading →

October 17, 2012

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12:48 AM | Collegian op-ed

Thought that I would re-post this op-ed I wrote which was included in today’s Collegian. Paul and I both sat through the event last Wednesday, and were very disappointed that ASAP would choose to spend several thousand dollars to bring … Continue reading →

October 14, 2012

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12:01 AM | Another journal added to the list: EPSE

… which is short for Environmental Progress and Sustainable Energy, a publication of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). Each issue is arranged around three topics: 1) environmental remediation, 2) sustainability science, and 3) renewable energy advances. It looks … Continue reading →

October 10, 2012

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12:27 AM | Some quick blogging inspiration

This blog has been looking a little sparse lately, now that the fall semester is in full swing (Paul’s been doing okay, having contributed the last three posts; the rest of us have been MIA!). I just came across this … Continue reading →

September 06, 2012

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3:00 PM | Doubling automobile fuel efficiency

Last week our humble little university got a visit from this handsome guy, and Paul and I were lucky enough to attend and even get seats in the bandstand (thanks to Paul for the great photo!). The speech was carefully … Continue reading →

September 05, 2012

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3:00 PM | Shifting or stretching the climate bell curve?

Just a quick follow-up to the previous post on attributing extreme weather events to climate change. Joe over at It’s Okay to Be Smart has posted a nice little gif illustrating the trend in summer temperature extremes over the last … Continue reading →

September 04, 2012

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3:00 PM | … and Jatropha responds.

It just so happens that a few days after that NPR report on jatropha came out, Energy for Sustainable Development (one of my favorite bioenergy-relevant journals) released an issue with not one, not two, but three articles on jatropha bioenergy. … Continue reading →

August 27, 2012

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3:00 PM | A new record. Unfortunately.

Apparently, the decade-plus-long decline in arctic sea ice extent has continued this year, reaching a record low extent with about a month-ish of additional melting expected to occur. Check out It’s Okay to Be Smart for a great animation illustrating … Continue reading →

August 21, 2012

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6:00 PM | Jatropha panned on NPR

An interesting report on the bursting Jatropha bubble in Africa on NPR (via Paul): http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/08/21/159391553/how-a-biofuel-dream-called-jatropha-came-crashing-down There were two thoughts that I debated while reading this: Is it irresponsible for leaders and policymakers to promote feedstock crop cultivation before the fuel … Continue reading →

August 15, 2012

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7:00 PM | Perverting the CDM

There’s a great recent New York Times piece on the massive perverse incentives created by the Clean Development Mechanism: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48578898/ns/world_news-the_new_york_times#.UCgKX1TmRsQ A bit of background: for most of the history of refrigeration, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) were used as the … Continue reading →

August 13, 2012

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6:00 PM | Attributing individual extreme weather events to climate change?

The conventional wisdom has been that you can’t do that. However, a new study in PNAS by Dr. James Hansen and colleagues argues that several dramatic heat waves in different parts of the world over the last decade are statistically … Continue reading →