Ecomodernism in Paris

The biggest news this week was the announcement by President Obama, Bill Gates, and other world and industry leaders that both the private and public sectors would step up their commitment to advanced energy R&D. Bizarre wet blanket skepticism from Joe Romm and Mark Jacobson nothwithstanding, this is huge.

President Obama couldn't have been clearer in his repubidation of the "we have all the technologies we need" position, saying "if we adapt existing technologies and make them cheaper and faster and more readily available– if we improve energy efficiency–we’re still only going to get part of the way there and there’s still going to be a big gap to fill." I'll have more to say about this elsewhere, but for now, check out Michael Shellenberger at USA Today and Teryn Norris at Greentech Media.

...

Speaking of Michael, he and I are featured in a great article on ecomodernism by Julie Kelly at National Review. I never thought I'd be described as "Reaganesque," but I'll take it! Kelly describes how an ecomodern approach can cut through the conventional dogma on climate change, which is exactly what we hope it will do.

...

Josh Freed was a guest on NPR's OnPoint last week, talking about nuclear power's role in climate mitigation. Check it out:

HT to David Unger from Christian Science Monitor, who was also a guest.

...

Climate scientists Jim Hansen, Ken Caldeira, Tom Wigley, and Kerry Emanuel were in Paris last week advocating nuclear power. Readers may remember their open letter on the subject to environmental organizations. See coverage of their efforts at the Guardian, Scientific American, and World Nuclear News.

...

In (another) great post on nuclear power, AEI's Jim Pethokoukis cites Breakthrough's history of the shale gas revolution to make the case for public-private collaboration on technological innovation.

...

Man, it really was quite a week for nuclear power. Don't miss Peter Thiel's phenomenal op-ed in the New York Times calling for a 'New Atomic Age.'

...

Nate Johnson has a good post at Grist about an unfortunate increase in the United States' Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS), writing

Some policymakers have suggested that we should get 20 percent of our energy from biofuels by 2050, but in a World Resources Institute Paper Searchinger calculated that “that amount … is roughly equivalent to the total amount of biomass people harvest today — all the crops, plant residues, and trees harvested by people for food, timber, and other uses, plus all the grass consumed by livestock around the world.”

There is an interesting squabble about how much biofuel we can realistically take into our vehicles. But when it comes down to it, most renewable fuels aren’t green now, and aren’t likely to be in the future.

...

'Ecomodernist Manifesto' coauthor Stewart Brand joined Twitter. The future is here (or, as Brand might say, the Long Now continues).

Photo credit: Terrestrial Energy