Climate Energy

Tokyo is cutting electricity use by 15 percent

Japanese people are already kicking Americans' butts when it comes to energy efficiency: they use half as much energy as we do already, despite their proclivity for gadgets like automatic toilets. But since the Fukushima meltdown, they've gotten even more hyper-aware of the need to save energy.

In Tokyo, the government is hoping to cut electricity use during work hours by 15 percent compared to last year, and they're on track to do it.

We can save $78 billion by ending oil and gas subsidies

We could save $78 billion by ending oil and gas subsidies.

Obama fuel efficiency deal could leave loophole for Detroit

New fuel efficiency standards, expected to be announced tomorrow, give auto manufacturers a chance to re-negotiate after 2021.

CBO: Clean energy standards are an affordable way to cut emissions

The Congressional Budget Office found that shifting to cleaner electricity generation is an affordable and effective way to reduce carbon emissions.

DeChristopher case begs question: What if enviros were allowed to bid on oil leases?

What if instead of landing him in jail, Tim DeChristopher's bidding was welcomed? What if enviros were allowed to bid for federal land leases?

People living near mountaintop-removal mines have way more cancer

Mountaintop-removal mining is not only bad for the environment, it's bad -- very bad -- for the health of the people who are exposed to it. A new study, based on a door-to-door survey, found that in communities exposed to this type of mining, cancer rates were twice as high as in communities that weren’t exposed. That's after controlling for all of those other cancer-causing factors: age, sex, smoking, occupation, etc.

After hundreds of earthquakes, Arkansas shuts down fracking disposal wells

Here's a novel idea: if your local extraction industry is causing hundreds of earthquakes, make them stop doing whatever it was that was causing the earthquakes.

That's exactly what the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission did yesterday, when its members voted to shut down a fracking fluid disposal well and ban the drilling of new ones. The Associated Press explains:

Crazy ideas for next-gen wind turbines

Is there any image that represents a renewable energy future better than a stately white wind turbine turning on a hillside? Well, don't get too used to it! Researchers are coming up with all sorts of crazy ideas to improve on the current turbine model, the Los Angeles Times’ Tiffany Hsu reports. Here’s what future wind turbines will look like:

The $50,000 playhouse that oil built

Ever wonder what oil executives do with all the money they make from wrecking the planet? Well, take a tour with me through the playhouse that oil exec John Schiller ($7.7 million in compensation in 2010, including a $2.6 million bonus) had built for his 4-year-old. That's an artist's conception above, not the actual blueprint, but all the features -- air conditioning, running water, fireplace, 32-inch flat-screen TV -- are for real. (The New York Times has pictures, too.)

Is this the greenest college campus ever?

California's Butte College has a 928-acre wildlife refuge. It promotes ride shares. It uses goats for landscaping, and worms for composting. It has LEED-certifiable buildings. And now it's going off the grid -- the first college in the country, the school claims, to be energy independent.