Kevin Bullis

A Closer Look at Obama's Plan to Pay for Energy Research With Drilling Fees

dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com — As was discussed here last Friday, President Obama has proposed using a tiny portion of federal revenues from offshore oil and gas production to build an " Energy Security Trust" to pay for the kinds of tough or longer-term energy research projects that the private sector tends to neglect.

Infographic: Energy Security Trust

whitehouse.gov — In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama called on Congress to create an Energy Security Trust Fund, which would free American families and business from painful spikes in gas prices.

MIT Technology Review

technologyreview.com — Suntech, a Wuxi, China-based company that as recently as 2011 was the world's largest producer of solar panels, is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. It's running low on cash, owes bond investors half a billion dollars (which it failed to pay Friday), and is saddled with payments on billions of dollars in loans as it struggles to make money in a market flooded with solar panels.

MIT Technology Review

technologyreview.com — A Science article suggests a framework for monitoring research on how to cool the earth. Efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions worldwide aren't working, so some researchers think we may need to resort to spraying reflective aerosols into the upper atmosphere to shade the earth and cool it off a little.

Will Alternative Energy Growth Tank During New Fossil-Fuel Glut? [Slide Show]

scientificamerican.com — Abundant natural gas may undermine alternative energy sources, whether nuclear or electro-fuels Image: Courtesy of Department of Energy Photo Album NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.-The artificial leaf promised to revolutionize the world by bringing reliable modern energy to those mired in poverty.

MIT Technology Review

technologyreview.com — A human-computer interaction luminary rifles through his massive electronics collection to prove today's hottest gadget isn't so new after all. With the $150 Pebble e-paper watch starting to ship, and Apple rumored to be making an iWatch, these wrist-mounted computers are being hyped by some as revelations in how people can interact with their devices.

Obama admin placing big bet on small reactors

eenews.net — The Obama administration is promoting a bold, long-range plan for building dozens of small, factory-built reactors capable of replacing coal-fired power plants that are expected to be retired in the coming decades, a Department of Energy official said yesterday.

MIT Technology Review

technologyreview.com — Transatomic, an MIT spinoff, is developing a nuclear reactor that it estimates will cut the overall cost of a nuclear power plant in half. It's an updated molten-salt reactor, a type that's highly resistant to meltdowns. Molten-salt reactors were demonstrated in the 1960s at Oak Ridge National Lab, where one test reactor ran for six years, but the technology hasn't been used commercially.

Cellulosic Ethanol Inches Forward

technologyreview.com — The technology for making fuel from wood chips and grass is late, but still on the way. A few years ago, large scale, billion-gallon-a-year cellulosic ethanol production seemed around the corner. Instead we've seen companies fail, or scale back and delay their plans, as they find it hard to secure financing or bring down costs.

MIT Technology Review

technologyreview.com — Some studies suggest we can easily drop nuclear and fossil fuels, but they raise serious questions. Every once in a while someone will publish a roadmap for running the world (or a state) on 100% renewable energy by some date, say 2030 or 2050.