John Rigdon in the June 2007 Physics Today has a fascinating article on “Eisenhower, scientists, and Sputnik.” Here are James Hansen’s comments on the article:

President Eisenhower was arguably the last United States President to seek and value advice of scientists. As discussed by John Rigdon in June 2007 Physics Today, scientists played important roles in the World Wars, but they did not have substantial access to and influence upon policymakers. The brief window of influence under Eisenhower was in the wake of Sputnik, being preconditioned by Eisenhower’s tenure as President of Columbia University, where he grew to respect I.I. Rabi. Following Sputnik, Eisenhower established the President’s Science Advisory Committee with Rabi as chairman.

Rigdon describes a conversation of James Killian with Eisenhower in Walter Reed Hospital shortly before Eisenhower’s death, with the former President surrounded by instruments relevant to cardiac care, and his heartbeats visible on an oscilloscope. Eisenhower asked about “my scientists” and said “You know, Jim, this bunch of scientists was one of the few groups that I encountered in Washington who seemed to be there to help the country and not to help themselves.”

Rigdon is probably right about the lack of substantial influence of scientists on national policymakers today. Congress does not call on the National Academy of Sciences for broad assessment on how to deal with global climate change, nor does the President call on a Science Advisory Committee. Unless the public becomes sufficiently concerned to demand otherwise, it seems that special interests will continue to have undue sway in energy/climate policies.

Google got a lot of great press for its new plan to “voluntarily cut or offset all its greenhouse emissions by the end of the year.” But was it all deserved?

The Boston Globe reported the story as “Google aims to go carbon-neutral by end 2007. ” The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) reprinted the story, as did Greenwire and others. Buried in the story was this gem:

Separately, Google is planning to spend $600 million to build a data center in western Iowa that will receive power from a MidAmerican Energy Co. plant fired by coal, the fuel that emits the most carbon dioxide. A Google spokesman told Reuters all emissions from its Iowa project were accounted for in its carbon neutral plan.

Ouch! A company that wants to be green needs to take every cost-effective measure to reduce its own pollution before paying other people to reduce their pollution as an offset. In general, I am a fan of Google’s environmental action (and you can read all about what they are doing at their blog).

But carbon offsets are very over-rated (see here and even here). And coal plants last for more than 50 years. Worse, NASA’s James Hansen explains, “one quarter of the carbon dioxide (CO2) put in the air by burning fossil fuels will stay there ‘forever‘, more than 500 years.”

Data centers are electricity hogs, and Google should not be designing one that runs on coal power. You can’t go green by burning coal and buying offsets. A cutting-edge company like Google needs to do better!

The UN Environment Programme reports on the astonishing recent growth in clean energy funding. Here are the most quotable factoids:

Sustainable energy investment was $70.9 billion in 2006, an increase of 43% over 2005.

Venture capital and private equity have increased from $2.7 billion in 2005 to $7.1 billion in 2007.

Research and Development increased to $16.3 billion in 2006, from $13 billion in 2005.

New asset financing in renewable energy generating plants in 2006 was $27.9 billion, an increase of 23% over 2005.

Carbon funds now total $11.8 billion.

The investment climate changes as the planet’s climate changes. One conclusion is worth singling out:

Energy efficiency is a significant, but largely invisible market, which is now attracting an increasing share of the limelight as investors realise its role in addressing growing global energy demand.

Kudos to UNEP for not focusing purely on clean energy supply, as so many reports do.

So PG has a typical post attacking Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) for trying to drag the car industry into the 21st Century with fuel economy standards.

The post is notable for a double howler. PG’s Henry Payne starts by attacking Reid’s history of the auto industry, saying “Reid presumes to lecture automakers on their own history.” And then he presumes to claim:

Of course, it’s Ford’s ingenuity that invented the gas engine, a vastly superior technology to steam and electrics that has given Americans unprecedented freedom. It remains superior today (along with oil-cousin diesel) even against new challengers like biofuel.

Uhh, no. Not even close. ROTFLMAO, as they say. Ford’s big contribution was inventing the moving assembly line around 1913, decades after the gas engine was invented. And it would probably stun Payne to learn that

Henry Ford’s Model T was the first flexible-fuel vehicle, running on gas, ethanol or both, and the automaker foretold the future when he said fuel could be gotten from fruit, weeds, sawdust, or anything else that could be fermented.

PG just makes stuff up to support their position. They should spend even a few seconds with Google fact-checking before lambasting Reid with mistakes that egregious.

So who did invent the gasoline engine? A lot of folks claim credit, but I’d vote for three people.

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