The Ferris Files

Silicon Valley leads solar, hypermilers go electric, and British Airways makes jet fuel from trash.

Why is it that many solar panels are the size of a hallway rug, while a typical wind turbine is the size of an office building? I’ve always wondered whether we would ever learn to harvest wind on a smaller, simpler scale. Turns out we can.

The very idea of a solar refrigerator is a contradiction: Use the hot sun to keep things cold. How could such an oxymoron possibly work?

In parts of India they’re called chulhas, in Malawi chitetezo mbaula, in Central America the Lorena, and in East Africa the jiko. The names and designs vary, but the principle is the same: a low-cost, efficient stove that replaces the open fire.

Near the Smithsonian building in Washington, D.C. stands a house with a wall of Coke-bottle plastic. Sandwiched between two layers of plastic is water. The wall’s surface conserves heat and also plays tricks with the light, so you can’t help but reach out and touch it.

On the deck of this house, a black kettle [...]

Today, as part of the Society of Environmental Journalists annual meeting, I hopped a bus and toured three of Wisconsin’s leading renewable-energy projects. Heartened as I was to see innovation in action, I could also tell we’re still in Mile One of a long marathon away from fossil fuels.
First we visited a Wisconsin Energy coal-fired [...]

My current reading is “Climate Change as a Security Risk,” a sort of threat dossier on a warming world. Amid mountains of dry data, the authors take a few imaginative leaps to picture how the world looks if we start preparing now, and what happens if we don’t.

I just finished reading “The Long Summer,” a book by archaeologist Brian Fagan about how climate change has affected the course of human history. With my home state of California heading into a serious summer drought, a long view of the weather seemed wise.