Energy & Environment

Since 2007, California has experienced a solar boom. Photovoltaic panels rest on 107,159 rooftops, as of this writing (the numbers are updated here every Wednesday). Driven by incentives that are bankrolled by every Californian who pays a utility bill, Californians now have more than one Gigawatt of solar capacity installed over our heads That’s a lot: one Gigawatt is roughly the size of one of the state’s four nuclear power plants, although solar PV panels do not produce power at the steady, even rate that nukes do.

While winter is in full swing in Tehran with snow blanketing the capital, senior officials of the Islamic Republic can be forgiven for feeling hot. Over the past three weeks, the major powers have dramatically turned up the pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme. We have now entered the oil-squeeze phase.

Chest-thumping threats by senior Iranian officials in recent days to close down the Strait of Hormuz sound like the proverbial cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Iran's economy is overwhelmingly dependent on oil sales, most of which moves through the Strait to markets in Asia and Europe. A shut-down of the Strait would largely close the taps on Iran's own oil sales.

At some point in the coming months, the confrontation between the West and Iran over the Islamic republic’s nuclear program may reach a breaking point. Even assuming the two sides manage to avoid full-fledged military conflict, the crisis could still cause significant disruption to the world economy. An embargo against Iranian oil exports, or a move by Iran’s leaders to close the Straits of Hormuz—or both—could send the price of oil soaring and jeopardize the re-election hopes of leaders from Paris to Washington.

Yesterday, everyone involved in the support and opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline got what they wanted: Obama tossed a squib to environmentalist supporters whom he's previously disappointed, and Republican boosters of the pipeline got to turn the Obama's refusal (which they accelerated by attaching a February 21 deadline for approval to the payroll tax bill) into a talking point against Obama in the upcoming election. In a country without a greenhouse gas strategy or an energy policy, this is passing for political action, but it's really... nothing, a draw, a symbol of symbols.

The modern economy experiences two types of cyclical debt cycles: the short-term business cycle that produces the familiar oscillation between expansion and recession, bull and bear; and the long-term debt cycle that we are experiencing now. During the 75-year period of these cycles, the debt-to-income profile of the entire economy gradually builds up a stock of household, corporate, and government debt that income is insufficient to service. The credit reset from indebtedness to balance is called a deleveraging.

Look out, Minneapolis and Portland. Long Beach is making its move, aiming to surpass you as America's Most Bike Friendly City. Does that sound odd for a city whose chief claim to environmental fame has been its massively polluting port and offshore oil facilities—not to mention a city that, like the rest of Southern California, has long been in thrall of the car?
 

A different and more dangerous breed of climate denier commanded the stage at the recently concluded international negotiations in Durban, South Africa. These were not the usual cranks blathering fossil-fuel-industry talking points about how the science is all rubbish aimed at fostering a liberty-crushing world government. No, this breed is even more frightening, precisely because its members are not wacko outsiders. Rather, they are Serious People who actually run governments, or at least negotiate on behalf of those who do.

Gasoline-wise, 2011 has been a very expensive year. Who knows what gas prices 2012 will bring? Rather than giving lovely gadgets that will only consume more energy, like everyone else, here are three ways to stuff the gift of *less gas* this holiday season.

The 17th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change took place this month in Durban, South Africa. Two things to note: First, climate change shows no sign of abating; second, it’s the 17th meeting. This was also the Seventh Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, the only international agreement that legally binds some countries to agreed reductions in their greenhouse-gas emissions. The flaw in Kyoto is that it binds none of the world’s three largest polluters, which are responsible for nearly half of all emissions. The U.S.