Only an extreme libertarian would claim there is no role for government.  In the face of population growth, aging infrastructure, and myriad new, cleaner and more sustainable ways to deliver energy, water and transportation resources, there is much to be done by the public sector.  Green public works will create wealth and resource abundance.  Green public works must include [...]

For years the conventional wisdom among environmentalists and policymakers has been the following:  Desalination is too expensive, too energy intensive, too environmentally dangerous, and not scaleable.  We disagree emphatically with all of these notions.

A small desal system on the California coast.
(Photo: NOAA)

The environmental impact of desalination is negligible if the brine is released into a [...]

Now there’s a mouthful.  A relatively unheralded study released nearly two years ago by scientists at UC Berkeley explains the significance of this phenomenon on forests and climate.  In a report on the UC Berkeley news website entitled “Deep-rooted plants have much greater impact on climate than experts thought,” hydraulic redistribution is defined as the [...]

Today we caught up with Dr. Dickson Despommier, a professor of environmental health at Columbia University, who is arguably the world’s leading proponent of “vertical farming” or, if you will, industrial scale hydroponic and aeroponic crop production within high-rise buildings.  If you go to his website www.verticalfarm.com, you will find a very in-depth body of [...]

Our top feature this month on EcoWorld is an in-depth report on India’s hydroelectric power by Avilash Roul entitled “India’s Hydro Power.”  Within this article the reader is provided a comprehensive survey of India’s current hydroelectric generating capacity, their potential hydroelectric capacity, as well as the current plans India has to develop more of their potential [...]

The tiny nation of Luxembourg is home to a company, Epuramat, with a very big idea - they have a technology that promises to revolutionize wastewater treatment.  This is a big deal - in the United States, for example, over 60 cubic kilometers per year of wastewater are processed, and less than 5% of this wastewater [...]

We’ve just waded through the “California Water Plan,” 2005 update, which is produced by the California Dept. of Water Resources and is the most comprehensive source available on California’s water.  Some interesting facts pop out immediately:

California has the most extensive system
of water reconveyances in the world.

(1) Here are the overall quantities:  In a normal year, about [...]