Blog Post: Transformational Energy Agency Funds A Couple of Quotidian Ideas

Podcast: Water is essential to life, but sometimes a threat as well.

Video: Millionaire inventor Dean Kamen takes his private island off the electrical grid

Blog Post: Today's most advanced data centers house tens of thousands of servers. What would it take to house 1 million?

Blog Post: President Obama gathered auto executives, auto workers, environmentalists, and top federal and California officials at the White House this week to unveil a new consensus on fuel economy standards. His plan will harmonize the federal government's Corporate Average Fuel Economy or CAFE standards with tougher tailpipe standards for CO2 poised to take effect in California and 17 other states. Obama traded up, according to close Detroit observer Jim Motavalli, who writes in the New York Times' Wheels blog that the new-and-improved CAFE is "roughly equivalent to those proposed under Californiaâ¿¿s tailpipe greenhouse-gas program." …

Blog Post: The time is ripe to use some of the Economic Recovery Act monies for conversion of trails back to their original mass transit use.

Blog Post: Prospects for a "cash-for-clunkers" bill to stimulate new car sales in the U.S. are dimming amid dissatisfaction with the law's slim environmental benefits. As Energywise reported, representatives in the House led by Michigan Democrat John Dingell converged on an automotive scrappage bill earlier this month that would provide cash vouchers worth up to $4,500 to buyers of new cars and trucks that get at least 22 miles to the gallon if they scrap an …

Blog Post: For decades, ever since fuel cells provided electricity to the Apollo spacecraft, their design and manufacture has been a niche businessâ¿¿one in which small startups or somewhat obscure divisions of big companies made the electrochemical devices and most of their ingredients in-house, almost by hand. But on Wednesday, May 6, the German chemicals company BASF cut the ribbon at a new plant in New Jersey where it will make the key components used in high-temperature methanol fuel cells, without actually making or selling fuel cells as such.

Blog Post: One doesnâ¿¿t want to make overly direct and invidious comparisons between coal-generated and nuclear-generated electricity, for fear of being called a vulgar environmentalist. But itâ¿¿s hard not to wonder, sometimes, why such a fuss is being made about hypothetical dangers that nuclear wastes could pose 100,000 years from now, when coal wastes are wreaking havoc right now, right before our eyes.

Blog Post: Those formulating the U.S. cap-and-trade climate bill appear to have converged this week on a â¿¿cash for clunkerâ¿¿ formula: those driving cars or trucks that get 18 miles to the gallon or less will be entitled to trade them in for more fuel-efficient vehicles, entitling them to a cash voucher of up to $4,500, depending on how much better the new vehicle is. Taking into account the elementary fact that it takes a lot of energy to make a new car, does the formula make sense? IEEE Spectrumâ¿¿s automotive editor John Voelcker addresses the question critically in a recent …