Global warming

Shell CEO's oil-centric view on energy, climate change

Jeroen van der Veer, the CEO of oil giant Royal Dutch Shell, sees easy oil coming to an end and a potential worldwide "scramble" to mitigate climate change.

Van der Veer outlined to potential scenarios for energy usage and extraction over the coming century in a speech published Friday on the company's Web site.

Regardless of whether countries "scramble" or take in a more orderly approach to adopting low-carbon fuels and renewable energies, getting oil and gasoline will not be as easy as it once was, he said.

"We are experiencing a step-change in … Read more

Alberta to invest big in carbon capture

The Canadian province of Alberta wants to cut greenhouse gas emissions by half by 2050 through a big push into carbon capture and sequestration.

Under a new plan unfurled by the government today, Alberta will spend up to $500 million on technology and initiatives to reduce greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. In all, the government hopes to prevent 200 million tons of gases from getting into the atmosphere. If it hits its goals, emissions will be lower in 2050 than in 2005.

A whopping 70 percent of that reduction will likely be accomplished by capturing the gases and storing it … Read more

Are people changing geologic time?

For some 4.5 billion years, natural forces such as volcanic eruptions, asteroid strikes, and earthquakes have shaped the Earth.

Now, however, human activity is rewriting geologic history, according to scientists in the February issue of GSA Today, produced by the Geological Society of America.

They blame the industrial revolution for a new geologic epoch, dubbed the Anthropocene. Stresses to the planet's atmosphere, oceans, life forms, and very surface are dramatic enough to end the Holocene epoch, the geologists say. That period began about 12,000 years ago as the last Ice Age melted and the planet warmed enough … Read more

Documentary fuels greening of Sundance

This entry was updated on January 28 to reflect the film's award status.

PARK CITY, Utah--On one end of the documentary spectrum, you have films that are akin to extended works of journalism. They are in-depth, objective examinations of issues, personalities or phenomena that often leave you thinking that truth really is stranger than fiction.

On the other end are advocacy films, which seem increasingly popular here at the Sundance Film Festival, particularly when it comes to politically charged issues such as the war in Iraq and the environment.

The latter type of documentary can be just as informative … Read more

Big technology: Geo-engineering

For a while now, I've been reading bits and pieces about the concept of geo-engineering: undertaking macro-scale actions in the atmosphere to counteract the impact of increasing greenhouse gas emissions. From what little I'd read, it seemed like the ideas of crackpots.

That was until my Cleveland Foundation colleague Kathleen Cerveny sent me a most intriguing link to a videoed lecture by David Keith from the University of Calgary on the Web site TED.

No kook, professor Keith argues that it's very possible to inject large quantities of sulfates high above the stratosphere, and in so doing … Read more

Bringing seapower to the fight against global warming

The cleantech sector has developed as a major player in the fight against climate change. One of my friends, Dan Whaley, has founded a company called Climos to attack global warming in a new way, sinking massive amounts of carbon into the ocean depths using ocean iron fertilization. The approach has seen significant scientific study, but as he acknowledges, still has a ways to go to prove its effectiveness. That is where Climos comes in. The exciting part is the sheer scale of the potential carbon sequestration (on the order of a billion tons) and the low cost (possibly on … Read more

Transonic merging diesel engines with gas

It's sort of like an organ transplant for cars.

Transonic Combustion, which has been relatively secretive until now, has created a fuel injection system that will let diesel engines run on regular gasoline. Diesel engines get better mileage than regular gas engines, explained CEO Mike Cheiky in an interview. However, diesels typically emit more particulates. Gas is also far more readily available than diesel in the U.S. Insert Transonic's components into a diesel engine and you get the best of both worlds.

Additionally, the company's fuel injection system dramatically increases the internal compression in an engine, … Read more

Why is Finland Europe's technology leader? The prime minister explains

Although it's on the fringe of Europe geographically, Finland has for years been at the center of the continent's tech industry.

The country gave birth to cell phone leader Nokia and has emerged as a place where multinationals like to recruit and erect labs. The government and local entrepreneurs are now moving into clean technology.

It can be traced back to policies set up in the early 1980s, said Matti Vanhanen, the country's prime minister, during an interview with CNET News.com on Wednesday afternoon. The country saw the dawning of globalization and realized it would have … Read more

Poll: Young adults hip to green new year's goals

Many young adults are willing to make lifestyle changes in 2008 for the good of the environment--as long as the efforts are relatively easy, a consumer survey indicates. Fifty-eight percent of adults age 24 or younger plan to make a "green" new year's resolution, according to marketing firm Tiller.

Among all ages surveyed, 49 percent said they would aim to be greener next year. Older respondents were less likely to set such goals, with half of those aged 50 to 64 and 40 percent of people of retirement age claiming they would change their habits for ecological … Read more