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 August 10, 2010 and has No Comments
Image credit: Munts Family I once very publicly confessed my laziness in putting up a clothes line , and the battles over clothes lines and property values are well publicized by now. But whether you are an avid outdoor drier, or you wouldn't be seen dead hanging your undies up in public, all too often the issue of clothes ...
Read more...published August 6, 2010 and has No Comments
Image credit: Ecotricity When I asked whether environmentalism was socialist or not , I argued that legislative and fiscal support for renewables like cap and trade or feed-in tariffs were "little different to the direct and indirect subsidies that were used to get the fossil fuel, automobil... Read the full story on TreeHugger The rest is here: Subsidies for Renewables ...
Read more...published August 4, 2010 and has No Comments
photo: LBL Assessments of the state of the US and world wind industry are frankly a dime a dozen, however a new one by the Department of Energy and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory offers some insights not found elsewhere--particularly in growth of wind power at the state level, the amount of wind power manufacturing taking place domestically, and the ...
Read more...published August 3, 2010 and has No Comments
Southern pine wood chips, photo: USDA Southern Research Station . Biomass burning for electricity still looks to be a political and environmental black hole, presenting more dreadful questions than a tree hugger can shake a blog at: Why, for example, are 120 new wood burning power plants being planned in multiple US states? Are banks and managing utilities planning ...
Read more...published August 3, 2010 and has No Comments
Photo via divemasterking2000 Nitrates are commonly found in groundwater, ending up there after they're used for fertilizing crops or from storm-water run-off. Typically a contaminate to worry about, a group of engineers from Stanford University have figured out how to turn the problem of nitrates in the water in to a possible solution for energy generation. While their design ...
Read more...published August 2, 2010 and has No Comments
photo: John Davey via flickr I suppose it was only a matter of time... According to a new article in The New York Times some residents near the Shepherd's Flat wind farm in Oregon have been offered $5000 to not complain about the whooshing noise from the planned 338 wind turbines--apparently it's a preemptive effort to avoid the brouhaha ...
Read more...published July 30, 2010 and has No Comments
photo: jurveston via flickr Algae biofuels are probably the most touted future hope to replace large amounts of petroleum-based liquid fuels with a renewable source. However, a new study in Energy and Fuels shows that when you grow that algae in bioreactors made up of clear tubes, so much energy is required that the carbon footprint of the biofuel ...
Read more...published July 30, 2010 and has No Comments
John Bowron's Off-Grid Cottage Scott Huler, author of On the Grid , makes a very important point in a guest post on The Infrastructurist : Nobody is really off the grid. Well, maybe the Amish, but almost nobody. Everyone else is part of an enormous mesh of grids that every back-to-the-land off-gridder is dependent on.... Read the full story ...
Read more...published July 30, 2010 and has No Comments
Image via Dezeen The mantra of offshore wind turbine design seems to be "Bigger! Bigger!" in order to get more power out of single turbines. But going hand in hand with making turbines bigger is that they become heavier. British engineers are hoping that a new design that mimics the way sycamore seeds spin through the air will help ...
Read more...published July 28, 2010 and has No Comments
Ned Farquhar, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Land and Minerals Management, U.S. Dept. of the Interior, addresses the guests at Terra-Gen Power's ground breaking ceremony for Alta Wind Energy Center in Mojave, California. Photo: Rod Thornburg It's been a while since we've seen an honest to goodness gigantic wind power project actually start construction, so this is definitely worth noting: Terra-Gen ...
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Excerpt from: Today on Planet 100: Planet 100's Top 10 Most Outrageous Stories (Video)
Photo via Wired You may have heard of Simon Singh long before his name rose to the top of the list of those championing sound science: He'd written two bestselling books, Fermat's Enigma and the Big Bang . Despite ...
