Tuesday, March 09, 2010

American Petroleum tells lawmakers it supports carbon fee because it’s easier to demonize | Grist
the American Petroleum Institute’s Jack Gerard explained that the “support” from the oil industry for a carbon fee on petroleum will come in the form of “signs at the gas pump letting people know they’re paying more because of U.S. efforts to deal with climate change”
Technology Review: Ultra-Efficient Gas Engine Passes Test
Transonic Combustion, a startup based in Camarillo, CA, has developed a fuel-injection system it says can improve the efficiency of gasoline engines by more than 50 percent. A test vehicle equipped with the technology gets 64 miles per gallon in highway driving, which is far better than more costly gas-electric hybrids, such as the Prius, which gets 48 miles per gallon on the highway.
The Wrong Kind of Green
I have stood in half-dead villages on the coast of Bangladesh while families point to a distant place in the rising ocean and say, "Do you see that chimney sticking up? That's where my house was... I had to [abandon it] six months ago."  [Is this guy really suggesting that carbon dioxide caused coastal Bangladesh water to rise maybe 10+ feet in six months?]
....
An insider who is employed by a leading green group and has seen firsthand how this works explained the groups' motivation: "It's because they will generate a lot of revenue this way. If there are national targets, the money runs through national governments. If there are subnational targets, the money runs through the people who control those forests--and that means TNC, Conservation International and the rest. Suddenly, these forests they run become assets, and they are worth billions in a carbon market as offsets. So they have a vested financial interest in offsetting and in subnational targets--even though they are much more environmentally damaging than the alternatives. They know it. It's shocking."

1 comment:

dearieme said...

I like the sound of the ultra-efficient gasoline engine. It doesn't use spark ignition, though, so I do hope they pay particular attention to how to turn it off when the vehicle develops a mind of its own.