Keeping leftovers from meals and collecting free plastic bags from supermarkets have been some of the most common ways of saving households money by recycling.
The challenge is to make a profit by going green. (more…)
Today happens to be my birthday, and I share it with Franz Kafka (pictured here), best known for his short but surreal and deeply disturbing novels of the early 20th Century, in which he so ably points out the absurdity and pointlessness of human life. For those who haven’t gotten into Kakfa, I recommend The Trial–but I warn you not to expect a “feel good” reading experience.
To be sure, there are numerous absurd and inescapable elements in our modern life, in particular, that many of our most powerful people who made their money in fossil fuels are so ardent about doubling and redoubling their billions of dollars of net-worth at the expense of the well-being of all life forms here on Earth. For every one of them, there are millions of people like you and me, but we’re struggling to turn this around before it’s too late.
In particular, we don’t need an “all of the above” energy policy; we need one that leads us sanely and methodically away from fossil fuels and into renewables. But does it seem likely we’ll get there?
As Kafka put it in The Trial, “Do you know that your case is going badly?”
Biomass briquette or white coal is a biofuel made from biomass waste materials with the help of biomass briquetting machine. Nowadays, through this machinery biomass waste converts into new coal which is known as white coal. Biomass briquetting is the process of convert these low density biomass waste into high density and energy concentrated bio fuel briquettes without harming environment life cycle.
White coal has calorific value up to 4200kcal/kg. (more…)
Two weeks ago, SolarCity joined competitors SunEdison, First Solar and SunPower as the fourth vertically integrated solar company in the United States. In order to achieve this status, they acquired California-based Silevo, a manufacturer of hybrid solar panels combining thin-film and crystalline silicon solar cell technology.
SolarCity’s acquisition sure occurs at an interesting time. (more…)
Yesterday, I came across skyTran, a rather futuristic idea for mass transportation —a concept designed to relieve urban congestion and reduce the eco-footprint associated with transportation generally. Here’s one of dozens of illustrations they have on the website: (more…)
I’ll be in San Francisco next Tuesday and Wednesday for the InterSolar show, primarily to engineer a deal between my client PlexiSun (building integrated solar thermal hot water heating) and a prospective OEM. Of course, while I’m there, I’ll be checking out the many hundreds of incredible developments happening in the solar industry, conducting interviews, etc. — and perhaps having a beer or two Tuesday evening.
What a terrific city; I don’t know a single person who doesn’t have fun in San Francisco.
If you happen to be in the vicinity and want to meet, please let me know.
It’s a shame that we in the U.S. have only two viable political parties. Sadly, the Independents, the Greens, and so forth tend to attract only small fringes of voters, and this isn’t particularly good for a country trying to maintain a healthy democracy.
But the circumstances are even worse now than ever before, as it’s looking more and more like the Republicans are losing touch with voters and may be relegated to a status of also-rans. (more…)
Wow, these people who do the “Exxon Hates….” videos sure don’t mince words. Those who recall “Exxon Hates Your Children” will see much of the same style in their current effort, “Exxon Hates America.”
Although the western regions of Argentina get about twice the solar radiation that Germany does and Argentineans are blessed with great wind resources, the “Sun of May” country has the least renewable energy installed in all of Latin America.
Part of the reasons behind the current electricity generation mix can be traced back to the country’s economic crisis in the late 1990s. (more…)
Here’s an article that ponders the question: Should we be focusing on a strong (i.e., resilient) grid, rather than a smart (i.e., green) grid? Personally, I think the two are so similar that I see no reason to split hairs. We need to completely rethink what we’re asking our power utilities to do for us, and how they do it. All parties, the utilities, the power producers, the providers of ancillary services, and the rate-payers need to have incentives to produce/consume less electricity, especially on-peak, and to migrate to renewables at the maximum rate possible. If we are successful in this endeavor, we’ll have enormous amounts of distributed generation that will be both green and resilient.
