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Energy, Environment and the Land
45 posts, newest first (page 1 of 2).
China Refines the Minerals Behind Every Battery, and America Let It HappenAmerica has rare earths, lithium and copper in the ground but lets permits drag for years while China dominates processing, a strategic weakness we chose. Low-Flow Toilets and Banned Bulbs, How Washington Moved Into Your HouseFederal efficiency standards reach down to the toilet tank and the light bulb, and the trade-offs are rarely put to the people who pay for them. Twelve Questions About Rooftop Solar and Who Really Pays for Net MeteringTwelve plain answers on how net metering works, why rates and grid costs are the real fight, and what to read before you sign a solar lease or loan. Running Out of Oil Was Forecast for a Century, So Why Hasn't It HappenedA century of exhaustion forecasts, from World War I to the peak-oil books, failed because reserves are an economic idea that grows with price and technology. The 1980 Bet on Five Metals That Settled the Great Scarcity DebateIn 1980 Julian Simon bet Paul Ehrlich that five metals would be cheaper in 1990, won by a check in the mail, and showed why human ingenuity outruns scarcity. Right to Repair Splits Conservatives Between the Farmer and the ContractConservatives disagree over farm-equipment right-to-repair laws, and the cleanest answer may be to repeal one federal rule rather than add a new mandate. Detroit Bulldozed Poletown for a Car Plant and Michigan Took 23 Years to RepentIn 1981 Michigan's high court let Detroit condemn Poletown for General Motors, and in 2004 the same court overruled itself, setting the stage for Kelo. When the City Wants Your Home for a Developer, the Steps to Fight BackSince Kelo many states limited eminent domain, but blight findings still put homes at risk, and an owner who acts early has real options. Your Power Bill Is Going Up, So Here Is How to Speak at the Rate CaseA step-by-step guide to the public proceeding that sets your electric rates, and how an ordinary customer gets a seat at the table. How Fuel Economy Rules Killed the Small Pickup and Supersized the SUVFederal fuel economy rules meant to shrink vehicles pushed buyers into bigger trucks and SUVs, because trucks got gentler targets and size set the goal. Four Dams on the Snake River Make Clean Power, So Why Tear Them DownThe push to breach four lower Snake River dams for salmon would remove carbon-free hydropower and grain barging, a contradiction in climate politics. Willis Carrier's Machine Remade the South, and Made the Case for Cheap EnergyWillis Carrier's air conditioning made the South and Southwest livable year round and shows that abundant energy is a quality-of-life good, not a luxury. Lipstick, Aspirin and Asphalt, Everything a Barrel of Crude Oil BecomesGasoline is only part of each barrel of crude, and the rest becomes diesel, jet fuel, asphalt, plastics, medicines and fertilizer feedstock. We Raised the Empire State Building in About a Year, So Why Not a Power LineAmericans once built skyscrapers, dams and a Pentagon in a year or two, and the slowdown owes more to permits and lawsuits than to engineering. Pipe, Rail or Truck, Comparing the Ways to Move a Barrel of Oil SafelyOil gets to market one way or another, and blocking pipelines pushes it onto trains and trucks with worse records for spills and deaths. The Senate Voted 95 to 0 Against a Climate Treaty Before Kyoto Was WrittenIn July 1997 the Senate unanimously warned against a lopsided climate treaty, and Washington has kept such deals away from the Senate ever since. Straws, Bags and the Other Small Sacrifices That Only Make Us Feel GreenStraw and bag bans ask a lot of shoppers and deliver little measurable benefit, while the real source of ocean plastic goes largely unaddressed. The Spotted Owl Listing Emptied Timber Towns and Still Did Not Save the OwlA 1990 listing and a 1994 forest plan idled the mills of the Northwest, yet the owl kept declining, and the unthinned forests now feed the fires. Cattle Eat Grass, Grass Feeds Fires, and That Makes Grazing a Wildfire PolicyWell-managed grazing removes the fine fuels that carry range fires, so cutting it on public land can worsen Western wildfires. Here is the case and its limits. Farmers Saved the Soil After the Dust Bowl, Long Before Earth Day ExistedAfter Black Sunday in 1935, farmers and local conservation districts rebuilt the soil from the ground up. It is a model of stewardship that predates Earth Day. Keep the Farm a Farm With a Conservation Easement, Step by StepA conservation easement lets a family keep working its land while selling or donating the right to develop it. The steps, from choosing rights to the IRS rules. Hunters and Anglers Pay for American Conservation and Few People Know ItSportsmen asked Congress to tax their own gear to restore wildlife. Here is how duck stamps, Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson built the user-pays model. Theodore Roosevelt Made Conservation a Conservative Cause, and It Still IsRoosevelt, a hunter and rancher, treated conservation as stewardship of an inheritance. That is a conservative idea first, and the record shows why. Hot Day Means Climate Crisis, Cold Snap Means Weather, a Lesson in CoverageCoverage treats every heat wave as climate and every cold spell as weather. Here is the distinction scientists draw and how to check a claim yourself.
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