Last summer, I visited America's first commercial carbon capture plant in Tracy, California. Heirloom Carbon use ground up limestone to capture 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year. It's a trial run for a plant planned for Louisiana that could ultimately capture 300,000 tons each year when fully developed. The strangest thing about a technology …
The Decision To Electrify Your Life
I could be one of those annoying people you love to hate. I’m vegetarian, I grow food in the backyard, and I have solar panels on my roof. I offset the natural gas I use for heating each year and keep the thermostat low in winter. I proselytize regularly about the dangers of climate change …
Putting Carbon Back Where it Belongs
Once you start dipping into the literature on animals and the carbon cycle, it's hard to stop. The relatively new field is packed with eye-popping numbers. A paper published in February notes without drama that “....the total carbon stored in wild mammals and birds is equivalent to roughly eight hours of current anthropogenic fossil fuel …
Wizards, Prophets, and Profits…. (on the Way to Clean Energy)
While everyone has been preoccupied with Covid-19, clean energy technology's rapid advance has continued. A thirty-year contract for a giant solar plant planned in Abu Dhabi got a record low bid of $0.0135 per kWh in April this year. This latest benchmark continues a shocking decline in renewable energy prices over the last decade. The …
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Crucible or Nightmare
Albert Borgmann returns for another guest post on The Plastocene. He investigates whether the temporary reductions in carbon emissions due to coronavirus lockdowns can be made to last. Covid-19 could be a crucible for American culture, and it could be a nightmare. If a crucible, it will refine the gold of our lives from the …
Walking a Cod Across a Mountain
I can’t get out of my mind the image of two men in wool sweaters, each with a giant cod slung over their shoulder, walking across a snowy Norwegian mountainside in a late winter storm. The image was placed there by my friend Erik’s kindly mother. She had just served lunch to us in her …
Christopher J. Preston 