Water. We use a lot of it in California, and especially in Central Valley, one of the largest agricultural areas in the world. This area is inhabited by many wonderful folks, including Bill and George Longfellow, the dairy farmers we are visiting today, as well as thousands and thousands of ...

It wasn’t that long ago that newspaper headlines began calling our attention to claims that large computer server systems like those used by companies like Amazon.com, Google, Yahoo, and EBay (to name but a few) were consuming more than 10 percent of all electricity in the U.S. It sounds pretty ...

Think of Central Valley, California — an incredibly large agricultural area in the middle of a state, which is vital to the Calif. economy, but not exactly known for its regular and heavy rainfall. Our crops and our cattle require enormous volumes of water to be transported to this area ...

If you’re looking for a nice hotel that’s keeping a sharp eye on its carbon footprint, you’ll want to check out the Crown Spa Hotel. It’s in Scarborough, on the Yorkshire coast, but if you can get there, you’ll find that the management and staff at this hotel are ...

Western Canada is very rich in heavy oils. These thick oils that have the consistency of molasses or even peanut butter are rather tricky to produce in an environmentally friendly manner. However, with our strong dependency in the next several decades on petroleum, and the decline of easy to produce ...

We’re not running out of oil, but we may be running out of the oil in easy-to-reach places. That’s because oil doesn’t sit in a big pool just below the surface — it’s always been hard to reach, but the more we use, the harder it’s getting. In this second ...

The US imports 10 million barrels of oil per day. This is more than it is producing itself, and over half of its oil consumption. If the US keeps consuming oil as it is now, imports will make up an estimated 70% of consumption in 2025.

It has been suggested by ...

We visit Scott Elrod (PARC) again to have a look at the new concentrated solar PV system designed at PARC with Solfocus, a start-up incubated at PARC. It’s a clever device that is designed to reduce the amount of silicon needed in PV systems per Watt produced.

I like ...

I love this interview with Scott Elrod, manager of the hardware systems group at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC, for short). PARC, under the creative and enthusiastic leadership of Elrod, has ventured into the clean technology area. Recently, PARC worked together with the start-up SolFocus on the development ...

Burton Richter is professor emeritus at Stanford University, a 1976 Nobel Prize winner and an expert on nuclear energy. This is the last in our five-part series with Richter.

Part four of our interview with nuclear energy expert, Stanford University Professor Emeritus and 1976 Nobel Prize Winner Burton Richter.

The third installment of our interview with Burton Richter, professor emeritus at Stanford University, 1976 Nobel Prize winner and an expert on nuclear energy.

Listen to the second part of the interview with Burton Richter, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, 1976 Nobel Prize winner and an expert on nuclear energy.

Lauren Casey recently graduated from Stanford with a major in Earth Sciences. She is a wonderful example of young talent determined to make a positive contribution to the preservation of our environment. Listen to this phone interview with Lauren conducted by my students to find out how she found her ...

I know: nuclear energy has long had a bad name in the US. I believe, however, that it is an essential part of our future energy portfolio. Nuclear energy is clean, its generation is efficient, its resources are still abundant. Yes, nuclear waste treatment is a great concern. But, what ...

I’m always excited to find creative, DIY, ways to generate energy from waste. Jim Mason gives a wonderful example. Check out his informative website and enjoy his interview with my students. You may also want to check out the podcast with Adam Kreek, another “fuel from waste” enterpreneur.

After rowing across the Atlantic in 2006, Roz Savage is leaving San Francisco (her Website has updated departure dates) to conquer her next ocean: the Pacific.

Roz’s rowing vessel is fully self-sustained. During this two-plus months adventure, a total of 6 sonar panels and a wind turbine will provide power ...

A few facts: in the U.S., residential and commercial space accounts for 40 percent of our primary energy consumption and 38 percent of CO2 emissions are from operating buildings. Why, then, is so little attention paid to building energy efficient offices and residences? Prof. Gil Masters from Stanford University wants ...

We continue our discussion on carbon credits with Tom Arnold, chief environmental officer of Terrapass.

Meet Tom Arnold, chief environmental officer of Terrapass. The company sells TerraPasses. Buy one and sponsor renewable energy projects such as wind farms, thereby partly or fully counterbalancing your own carbon emissions. How does Terrapass guarantee that their passes indeed lead to carbon emission reductions? Who buys these passes? Is ...

Adam Kreek: olympic rower, Stanford graduate, former oilfield worker. After next year’s Olympics, he is determined to make his mark in the biofuel industry. Adam plans to start his own biodiesel production plants together with his wife, back in his home country of Canada. Adam is one of the many ...

On June 1, Silicon Valley profiled itself as the future epicenter of solar power, energy efficiency and clean technologies at the Energy Summit 2007. Jacob and Desirae, two of my students at Stanford, attended to see with Silicon Valley’s leaders were up to. They report on the conference in this ...

In this first in a series of discussons on carbon sequestration, we meet Marc Hesse, an aspiring graduate student at Stanford, who studies the physical processes that govern the movement of carbon dioxide once injected into the ground. Will it stay down? Will carbon sequestration really help in reducing the ...

John Hofmeister, Shell Oil president, sees an important role for his company in supplying the world’s energy in the future. Petroleum (oil and gas) will remain, at least for the near to medium future, the most important energy resource. Shell is also investing, as are many other energy companies, in ...