As someone who writes and speaks about alternative and renewable energy, I often get asked about climate change.  What do I think about it?  What is true?  Who to believe? There is so much noise about it.  The media knows it is an important topic to many and they know that controversy prompts viewership so […]

Last week the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved the most ambitious energy and global warming legislation ever debated in Congress.  That is very good news and a good first step.  Of course, since Congress has never been anything close to providing leadership in the areas of alternative energy and climate change, the comparison to […]

The Great Recession of 2008-2010/11 is going to be a very tough time economically.  As I wrote in my Forecast for 2009, this economic collapse brings four words to mind. The first word is contraction, which is the standard way to view a recession.  Economic activity contracts and we are in a recession, economic expansion […]

The year 2008 will obviously go down as one of the most eventful years in recent history.  It was the year that Barack Obama was elected President of the United States.  It was the year that the Internet replaced print and TV as the driving force in a presidential election. It was the beginning of […]

The last 50 years of humanity’s mindless consumption of fossil fuels has helped accelerate global warming. The total lack of a cohesive energy policy and program in America has given us $4 a gallon gasoline with $5 and $6 a gallon a practical certainty. There are millions of new riders on our mass transit systems […]

Well, it finally has happened. The price of gasoline has increased enough to cause pain to Americans so that they are changing behavior. The approach of $4 a gallon gasoline has, in the last month produced two positive results. First, after gasoline consumption increased 1.4% in March over the same month last year, it declined […]

The magnitude of the energy crisis we now face in the U.S. cannot be overstated. It is not just about cutting the emission of greenhouse gases, the increasing price of petroleum or the fact that we are dependent for oil on countries that only hold us in high regard as customers. It is about the […]

Regular readers know that I have often written about energy conservation, alternative energy and innovative ways that people are working to make all that we do more energy efficient.  I recently wrote here about how a simple keycard technology employed around the world could save the U.S. hotel industry money and conserve a great deal […]

It is generally accepted that America could immediately reduce energy consumption by at least 20% if intelligent conservation efforts were implemented at all levels. As a country, we established energy use habits decades ago when all forms of energy were relatively cheap. Lights on in high rise building at night, corridors in hotels and office […]

China was struck by a historically unprecedented snow storm last week.  Just the sheer amount of snow completely paralyzed all types of transportation, ground and air.  Power lines were snapped, cutting power to tens of millions of people.  Power was cut so that a significant portion of China’s railroad system was powerless to move people […]