I just added Operation Plowshare to the long list of stuff I never knew about.

Following links, I ended up at 1967 Recklessness in PA Equals Destruction? at How Should We Do the Mountain blog: [Read more]

In hindsight, the plan seems impossibly audacious: Explode a 24-kiloton atomic bomb in the thick shale beneath the Sproul State Forest near State College to create a massive cavern for storing natural gas. Known as Project Ketch, it was a partnership between the Columbia Gas System Service Corp. and the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, which was hungry to find peaceful purposes for nuclear technology. (Another commission brainchild of the era: to nuke its way across Panama to create a second canal.)

Back then, Harrisburg had the red carpet out for any nuclear project, no matter how bizarre, and the proposal caught on. Why not put all that empty forest land to good use? Pennsylvania could cash in big, because the industry and the AEC hoped to detonate as many as 1,000 nuclear bombs to allow gas storage in the Northeast.

While the plan had the blessing of lawmakers from downstream districts along the Susquehanna, the reception wasn’t as enthusiastic upstream. Among those opposed were the residents of Renovo, which was ground zero for Project Ketch.

Back in the 1980s, no one could replicate Pons and Fleischmann's claims about cold fusion, and the idea of controlled fusion without tremendous costs became a sort of atomic snake oil. ITER's tremendously expensive controlled "hot" fusion is still decades away from practicality, but the hydrogen bomb seems to suffice as proof of concept. Cold fusion has crept back into the news, but not into peer-reviewed discussion. Skeptics attack the few articles published with a fury. Peak Oil guru Tom Whipple is used to doubt, and has followed the issue dispassionately in a handful of articles. His Cold Fusion Update discusses the current claims of Italian entrepreneur Andrea Rossi: [Read more]

Even though Detroit is hurting, the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) is still a big deal in the industry. The historically Big Three did fairly well in 2011, particularly Chrysler, which increased sales some 26% more than 2010. I hated Chrysler's product line at last year's Baltimore show, but their Imported From Detroit campaign included several redesigned models. I read one article that attributed Chrysler's comeback to a patriotic fervor stimulated by the 2011 Superbowl advertisement featuring Eminem. That would be ironic, because since June, Fiat owns about 58% of Chrysler Group, LLC. [Read more]

I'm hoping Nissan shows the Leaf at the next Auto Show. I recently looked more closely at the specs. When the Leaf was first released, forced-air cabin heating was standard, and a cold weather package was optional. In chillier areas, the cold weather package was standard. In summer 2011, Nissan offered the cold weather package as standard throughout the US. It seems that cabin heating draws 3 to 5 KW and reduces the 75 or 100 mile range (depending on who you believe), which is already a source of concern for American drivers. Presumably front and rear heated seats, a heated steering wheel and a rear HVAC duct draw much lower wattage and eventually heat the cabin air. The package also includes a battery heater and heated outside mirrors. [Read more]

I got another Keystone XL (KXL) email this morning, but it wasn't from Duncan Meisel or Bill McKibben: [Read more]

Dear Friend:

Thank you for writing.  President Obama has heard from many Americans concerning the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline project, and we appreciate hearing from you.

The President is committed to creating the most open and transparent Government in American history, and values your input.  Given your interest in this matter, you may be interested in reading a recent official White House response to a petition on this issue.  To learn more, please visit: www.WhiteHouse.gov/Energy.

Thank you, again, for writing.

Sincerely,

The White House

In Robert Redford's profound Quiz Show, a parable about America in the form of the story of fixing the game show Twenty One, Scorsese in a rare acting turn portraying Geritol executive Martin Rittenhome explains that game show's appeal:  "You see, the audience didn't tune in to watch some amazing display of intellectual ability.  They just wanted to watch the money."   That quote sums up most of the commercial appeal of Walter Isaacson's best-selling biography of corporate titan Steve Jobs:  Americans are obsessed with billionaires.  From the insipid The Social Network to last week's 60 Minutes profiling Warren Buffett's kid (He's not getting most of the billions!  Can you believe it?) to Trump, to Bloomberg, we can't stop watching the money.  The book reflects many of the flaws of our culture, and of celebrity journalism.  While playing to wonderful reviews, it is ok, but could have been much more. [Read more]

I watched Val Kilmer in Red Planet again last night. It's 2056 and Earth has been seeding Mars with algae because our blue marble is almost toast. The acting and SFX are OK, but the plot is contrived. I like scifi enough to overlook small errors, but some of the science in the fiction doesn't make a lot of sense. Spaceships swoosh as they go by, but just about every show does that. A helper robot ignores Asimov's three laws and decides to be a ninja assassin. A scientist calls some exoskeletoned Martian insects, "nematodes," which I recall as being simple roundworms. But hey, it's escapist fantasy.

In America's New Energy Security, Daniel Yergin jumps on the tight oil bandwagon, claiming that everything's going to be fine because we're finding plenty of new oil in the good old US of A. [Read more]

I just read that John Neville, who played Baron Munchausen in The Adventures Of ..., and the Well-Manicured Man on The X-Files, has died. In stories, Munchausen was a comical hero able to lift himself to the moon by his own bootstraps, or out of a swamp by his own hair, and so on.

In the 1970s, I wanted an EV so I could avoid sitting in gas lines. On the one hand pretty girls would walk up and down the line selling coffee, doughnuts, and Washington Posts but on the other there were fistfights and guns drawn over one's place in line. I bought a 120 mpg moped and filled it from my car's tank, so my fingers smelled like gasoline but I only had to refill every 1000 miles. [Read more]

The greenest car in America still runs on fossil fuel: Compressed Natural Gas (CNG).
 
Honda Civic Natural Gas Named 2012 Green Car of the Year [Read more]

The all-new 2012 Honda Civic Natural Gas – the only factory-built, CNG-powered car produced in America – was named 2012 Green Car of the Year® at the Los Angeles Auto Show today. The award was presented to Honda by the editors of Green Car Journal representing a diverse panel of environmental experts and automotive enthusiasts who annually select a single vehicle for its outstanding environmental performance.

 
I found a blog called Triple Pundit - People, Planet, Profit - which purports to discuss sustainable business practices. As a reflection of the difficulty of practicing both sustainability and profitability, some articles impress me and some depress me.
 
After attending a presentation by BMW’s Manuel Sattig at Opportunity Green 2011, a guest author rethinks some reservations TriplePundit has expressed about other EVs in The BMW i3: Advancing Automotive Sustainability:  [Read more]

The Post Carbon Institute's Energy Bulletin has reposted an Oil Drum wrapup of ASPO Day One, my ASPO article and a reassuring article from PRNewsWire:

Ricardo Study Suggests Global Oil Demand May Peak Before 2020

Ricardo today announced the results of a landmark multi-client research study conducted by Ricardo Strategic Consulting in association with Kevin J. Lindemer LLC, and involved participation of some of the world's leading energy and technology companies and organizations. The research challenged the concept that "Peak Oil" will be a supply side phenomenon and predicts that the demand for oil may well peak before 2020 and then fall back to levels significantly below 2010 demand by 2035.

IOW, we needn't worry about fuel prices because we're going to need and want less and less of the nasty stuff anyway. If why that will be true isn't obvious to you, read on. [Read more]

I just attended the Saturday session of the 2011 ASPO USA conference. I had been hoping to take a few personal days and attend Thursday and Friday as well, but it is hard to predict the future. I had to get some drawings out on Thursday, and had to do a code study for a Monday meeting. At least commuting was easy on Saturday. I took Metro to Union Station, walked out past Bike Station and about three blocks to the Hyatt Regency.
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An unexpected deadline foiled my plans to attend the Solar Decathlon last weekend, and I'm not sure I'm going to make it back. But DOE has posted a photo gallery of interior shots for each entry, which are certainly better than any picture I could have snapped among a crowd of observers. To the left is Team Canada's master bedroom.


 

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In, Saudi woman's lashing drives home differences in oil, a Calgary Herald writer supports the mining of tar sands to produce synthetic oil by leveraging sympathy for the powerlessness of Saudi women. [Read more]

... Sheima Jastaniah was sentenced by a Saudi court to 10 lashes for driving her car in July. In Saudi Arabia, it is against the law for women to drive, or to leave their homes without the permission of their husbands or other male relatives. What's really sad about Jastaniah's story, besides the obvious fact that she is a woman living in Saudi Arabia, is that she took part in a similar act of civil disobedience in, get this . . . 1990! A full 21 years have passed and not a thing has changed for her or any other female in that woman's maximum security prison called Saudi Arabia.

The Solar Decathlon felt like a small Olympic village today as team members from Canada, New Zealand, Belgium, China and the US hustled to finish their houses by Tuesday evening. Wearing Red Wing boots, I trudged the 1.3 miles from the Smithsonian Metro station to West Potomac Park. Because the nineteen small structures are still under construction, visitors were required to wear hard-soled boots, long trousers, a shirt with sleeves, safety glasses and a hardhat.
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Writing The Prize (1991) , and winning a Pulitzer for it, brought Daniel Yergin automatic creds in the energy industry. Through Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA), he has consistently maintained a cornucopian viewpoint about the future availability and price of oil, to the point that the energy depletion community has defined a Yergin unit as the $38 per barrel that in 2005, Yergin predicted would be the steady price of oil. Oil reached two Yergins in 2006, spiked to 3.6 Yergins in 2008, and currently Brent crude is trading at 3 Yergins.  [Read more]

Solar Decathlon: A sneak peek at the houses from Mother Nature Network offers a quick look at each entry. Assembly started yesterday, and the event is open to the public starting September 23rd through October 2nd at the National Mall's West Potomac Park, near the FDR memorial, and not too far from the MLK memorial. [Read more]