Articles by John McGrath

Seems like a dead end

Last week, Erik Hoffner posted about H2CAR, a process developed at Purdue University that would allegedly dramatically improve the productivity of coal or biomass gasification by adding hydrogen to the mix.

I was intrigued by the idea, and read the article. Unfortunately, I think this is a dead end.

Just doesn’t (or shouldn’t) make sense for conservatives

During his marathon live-blogging yesterday, David "Boss-man" Roberts wrote about the GOP love of nuclear power: "Why are Republicans obsessed with this? It's mystifying. Don't they have anything else to talk about?"

Well, they love clean coal too. The question to me has always been why alleged conservatives have so much time for nuclear when it doesn't align with one of their cherished principles: If "big-government nanny-state market interference" had a poster child, the cooling towers of a nuclear plant would be it.

Not just a green issue, but certainly it is one

Matthew Yglesias, in The American Prospect:

The time is right, wonkish Washington seems to feel, for ambitious new thinking, for new grand bargains, for new initiatives and big ideas. I'm just wondering why.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but: Don't you know there's a war on? Or, rather, two -- one in Iraq, one in Afghanistan -- and the United States is losing both.

Woe, Canada

Canada, as has been pointed out on this blog before, does not have the greatest record when it comes to climate change -- or the environment generally, for that matter. Dramatically increasing production of tar-sands oil has meant that Canada, while signing the Kyoto Accord, actually has a worse record on CO2 emissions (relatively speaking) than the U.S., which famously didn't sign.

Worse than the Americans! Well, we can't have that. There's nothing we Canadians love more than our high horses. Today, Liberal Party leader Stéphane Dion -- elected leader of his party with a promise to clean up Canada's act -- made his proposal to restore our smugness public.

A bit of wonky analysis, plus a bit of background for Canadian political neophytes, follows.