What if all the ice melted?
Sea level would rise 216 feet and create new shorelines and inland seas.
Stories by David Wogan
Explaining Appalachia’s coal woes – in two charts and a map
Cheaper Wyoming coal has been displacing more expensive Appalachian coal for decades.
Comparing Apple’s and Big Oil’s profits – in one chart
Apple is blowing and going.
Drown your town: real life Austin, Texas edition
A flooded Austin, Texas as seen from the air and water.
When, not if, China taps into shale gas
Think of China as an energy consumption behemoth, but also an energy production behemoth.
A Q&A on the value of solar
Karl Rabago discusses how to fairly compensate utilities and customers who provide solar energy.
Environment
Smog shuts down Harbin, China, as seen from space.
NASA’s Aqua satellite captured an image of smog that paralyzed the northeastern Chinese city of 10 million.
Environment
This massive underground complex protects Tokyo from floods
A system of oversized shafts and channels ushers flood waters away from the Tokyo metropolitan area.
Is the U.S. Air Force the answer to Nigerian pirate attacks?
Analysis by the RAND Corporation suggests that the U.S. Air Force could provide security for strategically valuable Nigerian oil.
China enveloped in smog, as seen from space. Again.
Heavy smog that paralyzed eastern China is visible from space in this satellite image from NASA.
Sealing leaky homes could save Americans $33 billion a year
Americans can shave nearly 4% off their total energy consumption through weatherization measures.
No shenanigans here, U.S. carbon emissions are down
U.S. energy-related carbon emissions are down in 2012 according to the Energy Information Administration: Now there are several ways to say that carbon emissions are down.
Meet the super efficient Lego® brick-like solar panel
Solar panels can be made more efficient by adding nanoscopic aluminum studs to trap light.
Environment
Vanadium Flow Batteries Could Become a Cost Effective Solution for Balancing Texas’ Power Grid
An emerging technology called a vanadium redox flow battery could become a cost-effective solution for balancing electric grids.
Environment
Another oil train derails in Canada
Posting here primarily to document the stresses and constraints associated with North America’s newfound oil and gas wealth (via Wunderground): Canadian National spokesman Louis-Antoine Paquin said 13 cars — four carrying petroleum crude oil and nine loaded with liquified petroleum gas — came off the tracks around 1 a.m...
Environment
Ask an engineer: grid-level batteries
We’re holding a live Ask Me Anything (AMA) on Twitter right now with Robert Fares, PhD student in Mechanical Engineering at UT Austin, about his research in grid-level battery storage...
Environment
Drown your town: what does your hometown look like with sea level rise?
A Google Maps hack provides a sneak peak at sea level rise.
Environment
What we really mean is energy security
We can't insulate ourselves from global oil markets, but we can have more control.
Environment
Will oil companies become carbon capture ones?
I pose this question in the larger context of “how we will get from here to there” (that is, from a carbon-intensive economy to a more efficient, low-carbon intensity economy)...
What if the Chinese consumed as much oil as Americans?
China has an opportunity to leapfrog the oil-intense Western lifestyle. Will it?
