Thomas Homer-Dixon (whose book, The Ingenuity Gap, intriguingly suggests some serious general problems with our modern world) and S. Julio Friedmann write about clean coal - specifically coal gasification and CO₂ sequestration. Gasification could make a huge difference in more efficiently using the coal we have, though their suggestion on using hydrogen from coal as a transportation fuel is probably a bad idea, as we've discussed.

Oliver Sacks, a wonderful writer on science of various sorts, points out the logic in converting to hybrid cars now - enough oil could be saved that way to replace the expected content of the ANWR reserve every few years.

The April issue of Wired magazine also has an excellent cover story on hybrids and the new generations of efficient cars coming along, with their opionated comparison of the vehicles available (a little too heavily weighted in favor of performance over efficiency).

Meanwhile, back at the NY Times, Thomas Friedman fills out his geo-green strategy with a specific suggestion on gasoline taxes in the US: add federal taxes to keep pump prices fixed at $4 a gallon. This would still be less than Europeans pay, but could make a huge difference - though he wants the taxes to pay down the deficit, not necessarily fund energy research; he also advocates more nuclear power, probably a dead end.

Worldchanging and slashdot both discuss new super charge battery hardware developed by Toshiba - the batteries apparently use some "nanotechnology" to allow very fast recharge times (minutes) and high energy density. If this plays out commercially as a successful product, it could make a huge difference to the battery market - exactly the sort of innovation needed!

At least a few of these are about real actions that could indeed help solve our energy problem - kudos to the NY Times for starting to pay attention!

Comments

oil-price super-spike, $105-135 Written by FDDoty on 2005-04-04 01:23:36 Goldman Sachs says oil price likely to super-spike to $105 to $135/bbl over the next several years.  http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_10001159.shtml  This is considerably higher than I've been expecting within this time frame, but there is logic to their projections. They believe the economic impact of the price must at least match that seen in the 1973 spike to force the kind of reductions in consumption necessary to keep demand in line with production. I suspect they're somewhat overestimating the pain required and the rate at which efficiency and alternatives will mitigate demand.     It's also worth noting that 40% of the rise in the price of oil in $ over the past four years has been due to the fall in the dollar, and few economists expect the dollar to continue to fall at that rate over the next four years.

Fall in the dollar Written by apsmith on 2005-04-05 04:03:17 Good article at the economist on this too:  http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3831358    including a rather alarming graph of oil prices:      Some economists seem to think the dollar has a lot further to go:    http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3761805

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