There are two ways to reduce carbon in the atmosphere: curtail emissions going in or pull existing CO2 out. The former is the focus of the vast majority of practical efforts, such as replacing fossil fuels with renewable and nuclear power and replacing internal combustion engine vehicles with EVs. Frankly, this is the easier side of the problem, but it’s not proving to be so easy, after all. Carbon capture looks like even a tougher nut to crack.  Nevertheless, the next big advance might be out there. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded five companies a total of $1.5 million to ..read more

Fort Bliss in Texas is one of the largest U.S. military bases, covering about 1,700 square miles. Home to the U.S. Army’s 1st Armored Division, it is also a site for the Pentagon’s efforts to develop clean energy generation and microgrids for delivering electricity at its installations.  Sage Geosystems, a Houston-based developer of geothermal energy and storage technologies, has a Department of Defense contract to examine the feasibility of installing a geothermal power system for Ft. Bliss. The U.S. Army Climate Strategy has a target of reducing greenhouse gasses from its facilities by ..read more

The legendary football coach of Ohio State University, Woody Hayes, is famed for saying, “There are only three things that can happen when you pass, and two of them are bad.” For private jet card flyers, all three things that can happen on peak days are bad. So our first recommendation is, avoid flying on peak days. Of course, that is only sometimes possible, and that’s why it’s essential to understand peak days, or what some companies call high-demand days. Whatever the name, there are three significant challenges you have to reckon with during those periods. 1. Peak Day Surcharges Many priva ..read more

In 1970, a middle-aged senator and a college student joined forces to make up a new national holiday for April 22. Gaylord Nelson and Denis Hayes led a coalition that created Earth Day to focus attention on a rapidly deteriorating environment. The problems were obvious: Skies and rivers were brown and noisome, toxic waste sites littered the landscape, and the U.S. Surgeon General declared lead poisoning a “national health problem.”  Earth Day 1970 brought people (mostly white, young, and liberal) together on college campuses and in school auditoriums. High schoolers biked through smog-cho ..read more

In 1970, a middle-aged senator and a college student joined forces to make up a new national holiday for April 22. Gaylord Nelson and Denis Hayes led a coalition that created Earth Day to focus attention on a rapidly deteriorating environment. The problems were obvious: Skies and rivers were brown and noisome, toxic waste sites littered the landscape, and the U.S. Surgeon General declared lead poisoning a “national health problem.”  Earth Day 1970 brought people (mostly white, young, and liberal) together on college campuses and in school auditoriums. High schoolers biked through smog-cho ..read more

Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently sent a company-wide email stating, “We have made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by more than 10% globally.” That comes out to over 14,000 employees.  Musk stated that this new batch of layoffs is due to a “duplication of roles”; however, there is a more plausible culprit. For the first time in the company’s history, its stock has been down over 31% year-to-date, as reported by Business Insider. Furthermore, Fast Company reports that sales have fallen by 8.5% each year since 2020. The company’s analysts describe this as a disaster, as some of Te ..read more

This week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk sent a company-wide email stating, “We have made the difficult decision to reduce our headcount by more than 10% globally.” That comes out to over 14,000 employees.  Musk stated that this new batch of layoffs is due to a “duplication of roles”; however, there is a more plausible culprit. For the first time in the company’s history, its stock has been down over 31% year-to-date, as reported by Business Insider. Furthermore, Fast Company reports that sales have fallen by 8.5% each year since 2020. The company’s analysts describe this as a disaster, as some of ..read more

Nuclear-fusion power plants have gotten a bit closer to reality—specifically 10 centimeters closer. That’s the new “standoff” range at which Oxford, U.K.-based First Light Fusion says it can bombard a hydrogen fuel target accurately with the goal of igniting a reaction. This is a 10-fold increase for the company’s “electric gun” to fire its small metal projectiles accurately. “There are many challenges associated with a concept power plant, and the standoff distance was one of them,” said Ryan Ramsey, First Light’s chief operations officer. “This result has now given us a clear and simpler pat ..read more

By the time my mom and I stepped onto our flight to Paris, all the work was done. It was time to sit back and see where our careful blend between planning and no planning at all would lead us. We were returning to the City of Light after nine years and a pandemic. Knowing we would be surrounded by a good portion of our shared interests, we were tempted to hit the ground running—galleries, patisseries, fromageries, that wine cellar we read about last year, etc. But that was not what either of us needed amid a very busy spring. We needed to tack.   Paring back our ambitious to-do list ..read more

Decades ago, we were in Beaune, Burgundy, trying to track down organic wine producers. We happened upon a leading wine shop and asked the owner to identify his organic selections. His hand swept the room, indicating nearly all were. We were incredulous, partly because none were labeled as such. He politely explained that most of these families had lived and farmed on their small estates for centuries and knew enough not to poison their soils, or their families. They had never abandoned their traditional methods, which, coincidentally, were now in vogue (as organic). These producers have always ..read more