Energy

Kunstler: Rebuild the Passenger Rail System

In his forward to James McCommons' new book, Waiting on a Train: The Embattled Future of Passenger Rail Service, James Howard Kunstler lays out the case for investing in a revival of passenger rail.

4 November 2009 - 2:00pm

AlterNet

CA Cities Switching to LED Lighting

Following the success of programs in LA and San Francisco, more cities in California are making the switch to LED lights to save on energy costs and provide more sustainable street lighting.

16 October 2009 - 7:00am

SF Streetsblog

Food and Urban Form

Carolyn Steel gives a talk inspired by her new book "Hungry Cities," about the history of feeding urban areas, and the ways in which food might reach increasingly urban populations in the future.

12 October 2009 - 10:00am

TED.com

Matthew E. Kahn

A Low Cost Way to Learn About the Future of China

Sun, 09/13/2009 - 03:01

During my first week in China, I have spoken to dozens of people and toured all over Beijing. I even have a map listing the locations of all of the McDonalds in Beijing. Spatial theorists need to write down a model to explain how a uniform distribution of McDonalds is what we observe.

While I am quite happy to be here, this is not a low cost trip. The flight over was literally a pain in the neck. I'm in trouble with my wife

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Steven Polzin

How Much Green for the 'Green'?

Tue, 06/23/2009 - 13:15

As attention to energy efficiency and climate change continue to pervade the thinking and planning of the future transportation system, we are increasingly challenged to make very real decisions about the prudence of various investments. The current context for decision-making offers perhaps the greatest uncertainty regarding the future witnessed in the lifetimes of people in the planning profession today.

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older posts

The "Greenest" Consumers

Consumers in India, Brazil, and China scored the highest (and those in the U.S. the lowest) in a survey conducted by National Geographic and Globescan for green behavior.

2 June 2009 - 11:00am

THE DIRT

Making Cities Net Producers of Energy

Professor David Godschalk, City and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina -Chapel Hill, discussed the need to initiate 'positive development' strategies in cities during a National Building Museum symposium.

2 June 2009 - 9:00am

THE DIRT

A Whole New World

Sara Robinson of the Campaign for America's Future outlines in the first of a series of articles why we simply won't be able to "return to normal."

8 April 2009 - 12:00pm

Campaign for America's Future

The Planetizen News Brief - 2/19/09

4:05 minutes (3.75 MB)

How the stimulus plan affects transit, energy, infrastructure and the environment, and how Obama plans to save America's housing -- all on this week's Planetizen News Brief, airing every week on the nationally-syndicated radio program "Smart City". Read, listen or download.

19 February 2009 - 5:00am

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Download audio file

Predicting the Future of U.S. Suburbs

No drastic changes will occur in American suburbs over the next quarter century, Columbia University professor contends.

9 February 2009 - 12:00pm

Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy--Rutgers

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7 comments

A Major Step Toward An Ambitious Energy Goal

The City of Austin is set to take in a record amount of solar power to advance towards a goal of deriving 30% of local energy from renewable sources by 2020.

2 February 2009 - 8:00am

Austin American-Statesman

The Tortoise and the Glare

Plans to scrape hundreds of thousands of acres of the Mojave Desert for solar panel installations may endanger wildlife and are pitting environmentalists against each other.

23 January 2009 - 6:00am

Salon.com

Rick Abelson

Affordable And Efficient Communities for 2013

Sun, 01/18/2009 - 15:02

Just getting started here, so I hope you’ll give me time to set my voice and you will tune in to provide a thoughtful dialogue. Like many of you, I am an urban planner with a distinguished background. My current emphasis is on new community development that will begin to emerge in the United States by 2013. Over the past two years, I was lucky enough to have a patron who sent me all over the world to see and record the best places, and meet with experts in energy efficiency, health care delivery, workplace transformation, learning and transportation demand reduction.

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Coal Ash Dumps Unregulated, Pose Health Risks

The catastrophic spill of coal ash sludge in Tennessee is a wake-up call: there are more than 1,300 such dumps across the U.S., and, as a result of coal industry lobbying, no federal regulations for safe storage, reuse or disposal of the waste.

8 January 2009 - 8:00am

New York Times

Getting Off Oil Without the 'C' Word

Amory Lovins, co-founder and chairman of Rocky Mountain Institute, believes that governments and the private sector need to identify and remove barriers to energy efficiency, rather than simply promoting "conservation."

6 December 2008 - 9:00am

AlterNet

From a Zombie Economy to a New Economy

The stream of Washington bailouts is a doomed attempt to revive a 'zombie economy', argues James Howard Kunstler. He believes we need to start organizing new, local economies built around growing food, making things and transporting them by rail.

29 November 2008 - 7:00am

James Kunstler's Blog

'Gold Rush' for Geothermal

Warren Buffett, Google and others are investing heavily in geothermal energy development, spurred on by state incentives for renewables and higher gas prices.

7 November 2008 - 8:00am

The Los Angeles Times

Steven Polzin

Energy Crisis Solved

Fri, 10/24/2008 - 07:18

Technology innovation – that’s all we need to solve the energy crisis! Unleash American ingenuity and we’ll be able to cope with higher energy costs. The Windmillmobile, should go a long way toward reducing petroleum consumption. It seems to work fine unless there is a strong tailwind. The engineers are still working on the sensor to fold down the windmill for garages and overpasses.

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