The NY Times has an article today describing recent developments in graphene, which is a carbon based material with amazing properties. Carbon is of course the basis for life on earth and when emitted into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide it warms the earth (as do other greenhouse gases like
Read moreFor those interested in a real world account of using Tesla’s supercharging network to drive long distances, check out my friend Chris Calwell’s blog posts here, here, and here. The superchargers worked well, and as they become more common, it will get even easier. I suspect strongly (though
Read moreAs I wrote in Cold Cash, Cool Climate, one of the most important ways to achieve breakthrough innovation is through integrated whole systems design. That means not settling for incremental change, but redesigning devices as whole systems to help them accomplish tasks as well as any human or machine could
Read moreI had the honor of speaking at a Clean Tech Open event in San Francisco two days ago, which was a terrific event focused on Climate and Clean Tech. There were more than 60 eager and interested folks in attendance, and there were lots of great questions from the audience.
Read moreLast Friday March 28th, 2014 saw an event commemorating the 35th Anniversary of Three Mile Island at Dartmouth, sponsored by The Thayer School of Engineering The John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding The Steyer‐Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance at Stanford The video for the entire event
Read moreI’m appearing on a panel Thursday evening April 3rd, 2014 on the Commonwealth Club’s Climate One program: “Nuclear power: Meltdown or revival?” It’s open to the public, so please join us. Here’s the program description, which can be found at the event page at http://www.
Read moreHere are the details on the April 2nd, 2014 event: Clean Energy and Climate Change, a Cleantech Open business briefing at Impact Hub in SF Wednesday, April 2, 2014 from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM (PDT) Location: Impact Hub San Francisco 925 Mission St San Francisco, CA 94103
Read moreI had a wonderful interview today about data center efficiency on Bloomberg West today, which you can watch here. The focus was on our case study of eBay’s management practices, which came out last September. The interviewers were really prepared which is always gratifying. Let me know what you
Read moreMy friends at CO2 Scorecard just released a short data analysis demonstrating that coal exports from the US have more than offset carbon emissions savings from switching from coal to natural gas in the US electricity sector. This result is one important piece of evidence that an “all of the
Read moreMax Auffhammer at UC Berkeley brings his formidable economic talents to bear on the Keystone XL question, and finds that not approving the Keystone XL Pipeline will keep at least 1 billion barrels of bitumen in the ground. It is a nice counterpoint to the circular reasoning that still pervades
Read moreThe financial markets are starting to realize that the “booked” reserves of the fossil fuel companies are based on a fallacy: these estimates assume that those fossil fuel resources can be burned and still maintain a stable climate. As I and others have written for years, we must keep a
Read moreCheryl Katz at Yale Environment 360 wrote a nice article on energy harvesting in which I’m quoted. Here are the two intro paragraphs: Computers feasting on their own exhaust heat. Super-efficient solar panels snaring lost thermal energy and recycling it into electricity. Personal electronics powered by stray microwaves
Read moreThe Corporate Eco Forum (CEF) just posted a new essay of mine titled "Bringing Enterprise Computing into the 21st Century: A Management and Sustainability Challenge". Here are two key intro paragraphs: Most companies view IT as a cost center, but the most effective users of these new technologies
Read moreI gave a talk on energy and the information economy at the Physics of Sustainable Energy Conference on March 8th, 2014. The event was sponsored by the American Physical Society, which has been doing this conference for at least three cycles. It was a great event, and I got to
Read moreGreenBiz just posted video of my keynote interview with Joel Makower of Green Biz from last fall’s VERGE conference in San Francisco, which took place on October 16, 2013. The key message: Information technology is our “ace in the hole” when it comes to facing the climate challenge. In
Read more