Articles by Adam Browning

Make ’em spend it all

The money is lining up against Prop 87 in California.

Prop 87 is a ballot initiative that would impose a small fee on oil drilling in the state. The fee is indexed to the price of oil, making it essentially a tax on oil company profits. Those wells that went in when oil was $25 a barrel? They still cost the same to run. If they were profitable then, they are goldmines now.

Over 10 years, Prop 87 will raise $4 billion. The money will go toward kicking our oil addiction.

<pSounds good. And it is good.

Rev. Pat Robertson converts on global warming

WWJD? From Reuters:

Conservative Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson said on Thursday the wave of scorching temperatures across the United States has converted him into a believer in global warming.

"We really need to address the burning of fossil fuels," Robertson said on his "700 Club" broadcast. "It is getting hotter, and the icecaps are melting and there is a buildup of carbon dioxide in the air."

This week the heat index, the perceived temperature based on both air temperatures and humidity, reached 115 Fahrenheit in some regions of the U.S. East Coast. The 76-year-old Robertson told viewers that was "the most convincing evidence I've seen on global warming in a long time."

Next step: doing something about it.

Auto X-Prize

The same folks that put up $10 million for the first private vehicle to enter suborbital space are at it again, this time for something less pie-in-the-sky: a prize for a super-efficient, low-emission vehicle.

Let's hope they are just as successful this time.

Check out the details, in development, here.

Vicious circle

Records are falling all around in California.

A heat wave has been setting record temperatures. And then on Monday, California set a record for all-time peak electricity usage. From the NYT:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered state agencies to reduce electricity consumption by 25 percent, acting on a prediction from the state's power grid managers that demand would peak at 52,000 megawatts, a mark they had not expected to reach until 2011. Demand peaked at 50,270 megawatts at 2:44 p.m. Pacific time, breaking the record of 49,036 megawatts set last Friday.

More heat = more electricity usage.
More electricity usage = more carbon emissions.
More carbon emissions = ... you get the idea.