EnvironmentApril 13, 2014
How to Solve Global Warming: It's the Energy Supply
Carbon storage has to expand rapidly, or coal burning has to cease, if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change
Coal
EnvironmentFebruary 24, 2014
A Natural Gas Power Plant with Carbon Constraints—and an Expiration Date
Massachusetts approves the construction of a new power plant to burn natural gas, but only if it reduces emissions over time and shuts down by 2050
New Issue: Orbital Catastrophe Ahead? Read Now
EnvironmentFebruary 10, 2014
How Many More Coal Ash Spills?
What is the largest type of trash produced in the U.S.? It’s not whatever you’re thinking, most likely. It’s coal ash. Burning coal produces more than 100 million metric tons of coal ash per yearthe gray or black sooty aftermath of our fossil fuel habit.
January 31, 2014
12 Graphics that Contain Everything You Need to Know about Climate Change
Climate change is real, it’s here and it will be affecting the planet for a long, long time. That’s the lesson of the latest iteration of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change‘s state of climate science report, released in its entirety on January 30.
EnvironmentJanuary 27, 2014
Can Fracking Clean China's Air and Slow Climate Change?
China is drilling ahead for shale gas, but the country faces economic, environmental and geologic challenges in tapping the resource
EnvironmentNovember 22, 2013
What Do China’s New Policies Mean for the Environment?
BEIJING—A Chinese high speed train whispers into the station, before finally engaging the brakes and coming to a stop with a sound like the tinkling of breaking glass.
November 19, 2013
Drunks and Gravediggers Wax Poetic about Climate Change
Want to know what climate change really means to people? Emily Hinshelwood found out in a most unusual way. For days on end the Welsh poet and writer walked the 121-mile train route known as the Heart of Wales Line and asked every single person she met the same three questions: What images come to [...]
November 2, 2013
Explaining Appalachia’s coal woes – in two charts and a map
Cheaper Wyoming coal has been displacing more expensive Appalachian coal for decades.
EnvironmentSeptember 25, 2013
Market forces have been hurting coal long before the EPA’s CO2 rules
War on coal? Not really. More like climate policy tai chi by the EPA.
September 20, 2013
Don’t just blame the EPA – coal exports are down, too
It’s important to understand that not all of the bad news for the coal industry is coming by way of the EPA. While the CO2 limits for new coal and gas plants complicates domestic power generation, the global market for U.S.
September 20, 2013
Running the numbers on EPA’s new CO2 regulations: combined cycle stacks up well
Existing technology like combined cycle generation could be used to meet EPA's stricter CO2 emissions limits
EnvironmentAugust 27, 2013
"All of the Above" Energy Means More Fracking, Renewables, Nukes and Clean Coal
There is no technical issue with fracking, the controversial technique of fracturing shale rock with high-pressure, chemically treated water to release natural gas.