My advice: recognize that, to the degree that the U.S. government’s investment in fostering cleantech innovation is successful, it will have dozens of far-reaching effects, only one of which is mitigating climate change. (more…)
I’m extremely lucky to have a mother who remains quite active both mentally and physically, with whom I can have fun little conversations on subjects that few other people would possibly care a whit about, like the dictionary.com “word of the day.” It’s common for one of us to write to the other upon checking our email when we get up in the morning, commenting on the featured word, like this one from earlier in the week: “circumvolve,” meaning to revolve or wind about.
Below are a few lines on the telecommunications industry that I urge readers to explore further; based on what I’ve been able to find, they seem completely correct to me. (more…)
One option you should consider for heating your home is geothermal power. Geothermal energy comes from deep within the earth and is produced by things like molten magma. There are many great benefits to tapping this amazing source of energy to heat your home. (Editor’s Note: This sense of the word “geothermal” is different from they type of geothermal that is used to heat a home. As noted here, the engineering and scientific communities prefer the terms “geoexchange” or “ground source heat pumps” to avoid confusion with traditional geothermal power, which uses a high temperature heat source to generate electricity.)(more…)
I try to help readers keep their fingers on the pulse of all the different flavors of renewable energy as they come along—even relatively obscure concepts like ocean wave. Extracting energy from the ocean waves has been a dream of hydrokinetic researchers for many decades, and here’s an article on the grand opening of a new project in Washington State (the Mecca of hydro), the first of its kind to come online.
Relevance: As my colleague Mike Conley writes: Fear and paranoia are the two most common forms of radiation sickness. (Part of the answer) The Fukushima Cs-137 in California coastal water adds about 5 becquerels per cubic meter of seawater. Clean seawater normally contains 1400 Bqs. per cubic meter.
Here’s a conversation between members of the pro-nuke group of which I’m a part. It demonstrates a peculiar aspect of all this, i.e., that the group feels a need to beat up on renewable energy at every turn. At the very best, that is self-defeating, as I’m sure most people find it tasteful and unfair. You don’t see Coors commercials trying to communicate that Budweiser is skunk urine, yet what’s happening here is not too dissimilar. (more…)
I was referred to you by Mr Gustavo Rojas from AFD Colombia….CENTRAL ELECTRICA will be the first utility-scale power plant implementing the groundbreaking ECS-SOLAR technology (solar with mechanical induction). With a total of 19.9-megawatts of installed capacity, the grid connected power plant will generate clean and renewable energy to feed the Colombian power grid in South America providing a source of power that addresses energy security and climate change…..(business plan here). (more…)
On the phone just now, I learned that these folks are trying to get a patent for what they claim to be a unique catalyst that electrolyzes steam, the heat for which uses only 12% of the hydrogen they produce, powering a fuel cell. When I told them that this violates the first and second laws of thermodynamics, they said that they were aware of this, and understood my skepticism.
No surprise: They need funding to build and commercialize this, and wondered if any of the investors in my database would be interested. (more…)
The main culprit, needless to say, is the proliferation of coal-fired power plants that billow out chemical and radioactive toxins in enormous concentrations, and, as show above, make it difficult for people in many cities to see across the street under certain wind conditions. The baby shown below developed pneumonia before he ever left the hospital, and the local people are no longer willing to tolerate these conditions.
Now, it’s common knowledge that the Chinese government does not take kindly to expressions on the part of its people that may be considered “hostile” or “combative” or “subversive,” and we also know that the law of the land in China contains nothing that even vaguely resembles our First Amendment, i.e., the singular item we have in the U.S. that guarantees our freedom of speech. Thus an important question here is: what’s the fate of the brave people featured in a video that calls for the public outrage against the way their government is going about its business?
I don’t have an answer for that, but, obviously, I hope for their safety. Actually, my real hope is that they’re as far from China as one can get on this planet. I’m guessing that would be Bermuda, but I’d have to check a globe to verify that.
“Climate funding?” Really? Yes, according to this article, Obama’s budget calls for expenditures of $10 billion or so (out of the $3.99 trillion total) for things like renewable energy incentives, cleantech R&D, etc. But who’s calling this “climate funding?” Its opponents?
