It’s that time again:  sifting through the detritus of a calendar year to sum up what’s happened over the past 12 months.  Everybody’s doing it — for news, sports, movies, books, notable deaths…and now even for cleantech:  here’s the scoop from MIT’s Technology Review, and here’s a post on GigaOM. So, my turn [drum roll, please], here’s [...]

Last week, at the stunning student union of The Ohio State University, Battelle convened a meeting entitled 21st Century Energy & Economic Summit on behalf of Ohio Governor John Kasich, who both opened and closed the conference with some observations.   The agenda covered a wide spectrum of energy issues facing Ohio, and didn’t lack for interesting moments. [...]

…someone invents an economically-competitive energy storage technology that could be deployed at any electricity substation at megawatt-hour scale? …the power grid were brought up to 21st Century standards to match the true power quality needs of our increasingly digital society? …high-speed rail was not the exclusive province of Europe and Asia? …customers had real choice [...]

The natural gas market has always been a roller-coaster.  It’s a very seasonal fuel, typically experiencing price spikes during the winter heating months.  So, it’s important to begin any discussion about natural gas with a statement of the obvious:  natural gas prices are very volatile. A few years ago, natural gas prices exceeded $12/mmBtu (as [...]

Cleantech has a very short history, and an even shorter memory.  I’ve written over and over again about how it’s all about policy, and that there is no disruptive technology in cleantech.  Now I’m telling you that’s not quite true, the exception proves the rule. I’d like to ask you to do some reading on [...]

For Gasland Director, Josh Fox, this has been a busy week. On Sunday, he was in Hollywood attending the Academy Awards, where Gasland was nominated for an Oscar as Best Documentary and on Tuesday he was back at work speaking at Hendrix University in Conway, Arkansas about the environmental damage taking place in Arkansas and around the country due to natural gas drilling, also known as fracking. With hundreds of worried and angry Arkansans ready to tell how their land has been damaged by natural gas drilling and the…Read the full story on TreeHugger

“Future.” “Take the Future by your Hand. Who else can do it?” HKD
Image & title credit:Flickr, h.koppdelaney’s photostream

Think tankers and lobbyists have had a hard time envisioning the unintended consequences of their diverse fossil fuel-defending tactics, tactics that have been intensifying for 12 years, culminating in an ‘eliminate EPA‘ frenzy, as mapped by The Newt. Here’s a fun example of the huge, unexpected adverse impact on coal, caused by the synergy of colliding fos…Read the full story on TreeHugger

“A natural gas rig in southwestern Pennsylvania.” Image credit:New York Times, via Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg News

The Pennsylvania natural gas ‘fracing’ royalty settlement described in the post headline is explained concisely in this opener from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette coverage: “Some 2,000 landowners in Pennsylvania will receive a share of $1.75 million and could get as much as $20 million over the next few years as part of the settlement of a federal class…Read the full story on TreeHugger