Articles by Sarah Laskow

Look! Up in the sky! It's an inflatable wind turbine!

In the department of cool inventions you'll probably never use, the inventor of the Segway has come up with an idea for an inflatable wind turbine.

Its main advantage is that it's mobile: imagine parking your EV and sending your inflatable wind turbine up into the sky to charge it while you're at work. It could be moved to take advantage of the best winds as they shift, and, more to the point, It could also be mounted on top of a building or on the side of the road in order to double as a billboard.
 

Critical List: DOE’s loan guarantee head out; some beluga whales are toxic

Jonathan Silver, DOE's loan guarantee czar, is the first government employee to lose his job over Solyndra. leaving the government because the loan guarantee program doesn't have any money left, anyway.

Solyndra's also screwing the rest of the cleantech industry.

The BP spill is still affecting Louisiana, where the oyster season could be delayed and shrimp harvests dropped 99 percent.

A judge ruled that the EPA was a little too excited about regulating West Virginia coal mines and should have gone through more formal rulemaking on guidelines to dump coal waste into streams. Another part of their work, on water quality, is still at issue, which means coal companies could lose in the long run.

Koch Industries stands to profit off Keystone XL

Every step the Obama administration takes towards approving the Keystone XL pipeline means a step towards putting more money into the pockets of Koch Industries. Although the company has denied having an interest in the pipeline (it has "nothing to do with any of our businesses," company reps have told Rep. Henry Waxman's staff), Inside Climate News has uncovered documents proving that a Koch Industries subsidiary has a business interest in the approval of the pipeline.

Critical List: Enviro groups sue over Keystone XL; Energy Dept. considered second Solyndra loan

The Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, Inc., and Western Nebraska Resources Council sued the U.S. for starting work preemptively on the Keystone XL pipeline.

The Department of Energy thought (but not that hard! Really!) about giving Solyndra an additional $469 million loan.

The mystery of why the FBI kept British environmentalist John Stewart from entering the country: Explained. Apparently the bureau was concerned he would super-glue himself to Sarah Palin.