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 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 ...
Read more...published August 24, 2010 and has No Comments
Photo: PG&E Currently the Largest-Scale Form of Grid Storage Available Last week, California's PG&E filed a request with regulators to study the feasibility of building a new "pumped hydro storage" facility in the Mokelumne River watershed in Amador County. It would store energy by pumping water from a low reservoir to another one that is at a higher elevation. ...
Read more...published August 24, 2010 and has No Comments
Image: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Look at How Much Energy is Wasted! The image above (see the full size version in this PDF ) is a snapshot of energy use in the United States in 2009. On the left, the different sources (solar, nuclear, hydro, wind, etc) and how many quads of energy they contribute, and then by following ...
Read more...published August 24, 2010 and has No Comments
Photo: NASA Who Knew Deserts Were Dusty? Dust is annoying enough to clean in my small apartment, I can't imagine the headaches that it must give the owners of large solar farms. Dusty solar panels capture fewer photons and thus produce less power, so keeping them clean is important. Thankfully for solar developers, help is coming... all the way ...
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A Finnish designer has made a working surfboard from broken skateboards. Read the original here: Hollow Surfboard Is Made from Broken Skateboards
How to grow tastier tomatoes and how to make food taste sweeter without sugar: just two amazing discoveries from a study of the chemical interactions underlying tomato flavor preferences Read the rest here: The Secrets of Tasty Tomatoes Discovered - Can ...
