energy – News Stories About energy - Page 10

May 30, 2007 4:01 PM CDT

A Steak-House View of the Economy

Ribeyes are grreat predictors of business performance, says Daniel Gross

(Newser) - High-end steak houses like Ruth's Chris and Peter Luger are a great place to study trends affecting the US economy, argues Slate's Daniel Gross. The price of sirloin, for instance, reflects the recent spike in energy prices, as demand for ethanol has raised the price of corn, which is what...

Booming India Is
Starved for Power

May 21, 2007 8:35 AM CDT

Booming India Is Starved for Power

Chronic electricity shortages belie booming economy

(Newser) - India's economy is growing so fast it has outstripped its electrical capacity, leaving burgeoning businesses, industries and homes to generate their own power with soot-belching diesel-powered generators for hours every day. Half of India's populace has no connection to the grid at all, and new construction often goes up without...

Coconut Oil Powers Papua New Guinea

May 8, 2007 4:17 PM CDT

Coconut Oil Powers Papua New Guinea

On one island, mini-refineries are turning coconut oil into diesel

(Newser) - It's the ultimate in energy independence. On Papua New Guinea's Bougainvillea island, residents are battling expensive and unreliable oil imports by making their own perfumed alternafuel—from local coconuts. The refined coconut oil functions as diesel, residents say, and has already generated inquiries from as far away as Iran.

UN's Take On Climate Change Grows Sunnier

May 4, 2007 10:05 AM CDT

UN's Take On Climate Change Grows Sunnier

Some measures may enhance global GDP

(Newser) - Policy and behavior changes can help limit greenhouse-gas emissions and slow climate change, say experts at a UN conference in Bangkok—and at a reasonable price. Some curbs on emissions may even enhance global GDP, but time is short. Within 10 to 20 years, global emissions should begin dropping to...

BP Chief Resigns Over Lies On Gay Lover

May 1, 2007 9:59 PM CDT

BP Chief Resigns Over Lies On Gay Lover

CEO met 27-year-old on gay fetish site, not a walk in the park

(Newser) - The chief executive of U.K. energy giant BP stepped down unexpectedly today, after a court ruled he had lied about details of his relationship with a 27-year-old man, and the House of Lords decided he couldn't keep a tabloid from printing them. Lord Browne of Madingley lavished the student...

The Battle
Of the Bulbs

Apr 30, 2007 2:00 PM CDT

The Battle Of the Bulbs

Men and women are light-years apart on the merits of compact fluorescents

(Newser) - She's from Venus, he's from Mars when it comes to. . . compact fluorescent light bulbs. Right-thinking men everywhere are boldly buying and screwing the environmentally friendly bulbs into sockets all over the house, the Washington Post reports, while women are, in turn, unscrewing them and going back to incandescent.

Plug-In Has Power to Spare

Apr 10, 2007 12:22 PM CDT

Plug-In Has Power to Spare

Higher-Capacity Batteries Open PossibilitiesMay Make Motorists Into Energy Traders

(Newser) - A souped-up plug-in hybrid unveiled yesterday has excited talk of a future in which cleaner-running cars are also profitable. With a new lithium-ion battery that can store up to nine kilowatt/hours of electricity, a hybrid owner could buy electricity at night, store it in the battery, and then sell it...

It's Not Easy Building Green

Apr 6, 2007 12:43 PM CDT

It's Not Easy Building Green

Say regulators, utilities are putting the breaks on clean energy

(Newser) - Despite the hype, the cool technologies and the new cachet, building green on a big scale is a very frustrating business, developers in New York tell the Observer. Exciting projects are hobbled by slow-moving regulators and greedy utility companies, they say. Their $100K natural gas "microturbines" are idle because...

School Buses Plug In to Hybrid

Apr 2, 2007 12:50 PM CDT

School Buses Plug In to Hybrid

Eleven states are rolling out Environmentally Sound fleets

(Newser) - School buses, usually in the slow lane, are passing automobiles by when it comes to converting to plug-in hybrid power, says the Christian Science Monitor. While plug-in hybrid cars are still a few years off, the buses are already rolling off assembly lines, and 19 have been ordered...

GOP Insiders Nuke Global Warming

Mar 27, 2007 1:28 PM CDT

GOP Insiders Nuke Global Warming

87% of Republicans on the Hill don't believe in climate change. The rest have a solution: nuclear power

(Newser) - The more powerful the evidence for global warming becomes, the more skeptical hard-line Republicans appear to be. Resistance to the case against greenhouse gases is hardening into conservative dogma, Jonathan Chait writes. Last year, 23 per cent of Congressional Republicans said they believed humanity’s contribution to global warming...

Global Warming:
Who Wins?

Mar 21, 2007 10:13 AM CDT

Global Warming: Who Wins?

(Newser) - Global warming is a looming planetary disaster, but there will be winners along with the losers, writes Brookings Institute Fellow Gregg Easterbrook. While arable regions turn into arid wasteland and coastal communities sink beneath rising oceans, climate change could trigger a real estate and mineral resources boom in balmier Alaska,...