Photo via the New Republic It's a widely held notion that politicians have long been in the pocket of Big Oil. And there's good reason for that perception: oil companies' huge campaign donations, vast lobbying power, and close ties to politicians have ensured that their taxes remain low , that hidden subsidies are around to provide extra funding, and that they receive preferential treatment in US energy policy. But there could be a new, ... View original post here: The Next Big Oil: Big Smart Grid?
So there really isn't anything that deep to this image. It's just a (more or less) life-sized blue whale eye. And on the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society site you can educate yourself/be mesmerized/ waste some time for a while staring at it while the entire life-sized animal scrolls across your browser window. Believe me, it's way cooler than you might think:... Read more from the original source: Ever See a Blue Whale Life-Sized on Your Computer? Now You Can
published September 2, 2010 and has No Comments
Image: Google Maps Thankfully, No Deaths This Time An offshore oil platform exploded and caught fire today in the Gulf of Mexico. It is located about 80 miles off the Louisiana coast, west of the site of BP's massive oil spill. All 13 people who were on the rig were evacuated and only one was injured, reports the U.S. ...
Read more...published September 2, 2010 and has No Comments
Photo: New Flyer What's the Difference Between CNG and Diesel? The Board of the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (the "MTA") has awarded New Flyer of America a contract for up to 475 buses. The contract is for 135 40-foot compressed natural gas ("CNG") heavy-duty transit buses with options for up to an additional 340 CNG buses. We know ...
Read more...published September 1, 2010 and has No Comments
photo: Martin Abegglen via flickr All the regulatory paper shuffling required to get the 240 MW Cape Wind project started is finally coming to an end. As Renewable Energy World reports, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that the state can give the project a "composite certificate" superseding local regulatory agencies, some of which do not look favorably ...
Read more...published August 31, 2010 and has No Comments
photo: Pete Birkinshaw via flickr Now that we've got some distance from the 'biofuels are going to save us, oh wait they're going to kill everything else' hysteria of a couple years back and some sane skepticism has emerged, how well are we doing? As the BBC reports, in the UK at least it's a mix bag: Volume targets ...
Read more...published August 31, 2010 and has No Comments
Advocates say harnessing the Gulf Stream could create one-third of Florida's energy needs. Image: NASA While most marine power projects rely on turbines or other power-generating devices in relatively shallow water, researchers from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University are attempting a new spin on the concept: Creating swarms of floating turbines, tethered to the sea floor or on movable undersea platforms, ...
Read more...published August 31, 2010 and has No Comments
Image credit: lydurs /Flickr The heat in the upper six miles of the earth's crust contains 50,000 times as much energy as found in all the world's oil and gas reserves combined. Despite this abundance, only 10,700 megawatts of geothermal electricity generating capacity have been harnessed worldwide.... Read the full story on TreeHugger Here is the original post: Tapping the ...
Read more...published August 30, 2010 and has No Comments
photo: Forest Peoples Programme Take this one as reinforcement of what plenty of environmental NGOs have been saying for some time: The commercial palm oil industry in Indonesia and Malaysia is trampling the rights of indigenous people and destroying rainforests as it rapidly expands. A new report from the Forest Peoples Programme details the damage.... Read the full story ...
Read more...published August 30, 2010 and has No Comments
Image credit: OedipuSphinx (Creative Commons) A few years ago I got into a heated debate about Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth with a green-minded friend of mine. My hippy friend couldn't stand the movie—not because of anything it said, but because of the 'hypocrisy' of flying around the world to preach about climate change. "Doesn't he know this sends his ...
Read more...published August 26, 2010 and has No Comments
Images via Voltaic Systems We usually hear about new solar-charging bags from Voltaic Systems, known for its very high quality backpacks, laptop cases and messenger bags. However, the company is bringing us something new -- stand-alone chargers. They have three new models available, each boasting about four times the charging power of most solar chargers out there on the ...
Read more...published August 26, 2010 and has No Comments
Image via Earthtechling When we see personal chargers, they're almost always based on absorbing energy from the sun . Once in a great while, we also hear of new personal wind-powered chargers . But we almost never hear about water-powered personal chargers. This concept device, called the Vena Microhydro System by designer Danial Hull, bridges a gap in options ...
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photo: Graham Racher via flickr Go chimps, go! An interesting new paper in the journal Primates documents how a group of chimpanzees in Bossou, Guinea have been successfully deactivating snares set by human bushmeat hunters. Though not always successful, ...
Image credit: MASONS via The Telegraph From police on Vectrix electric scooters to cycling proficiency courses for cops , the British police are clearly willing to think outside the box when it comes to more efficient, and effective, transportation. ...
