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 February 4, 2011 and has No Comments
Photo: Telefunker Purdue University has just announced that it's scuttling plans to build a coal plant to provide power to its campus in Indiana. That closure, the Sierra Club tells Reuters, marks something of a happy milestone: It's the 150th coal plant to be abandoned in less than a decade. So what's spurred the spree of ditching coal? ... ...
Read more...published February 4, 2011 and has No Comments
The December 2008 Tennessee coal ash spill. Photo Credit: Lyndsay Moseley, Sierra Club The words "hexavalent chromium" may not be ones you come across everyday, but they have made the news before. The deadly toxin first made headlines after Erin Brockovich sued Pacific Gas & Electric because of poisoned drinking water from hexavalent chromium . Now, new information from ...
Read more...published January 14, 2011 and has No Comments
Image: wnca.org Coal ash never ceases to amaze: despite being radioactive and loaded with mercury , not only does the EPA claim it reduces greenhouse gas emissions, its use in construction is also a source of See the rest here: Should Coal Ash Be Getting LEED Credits?
Read more...published December 30, 2010 and has No Comments
Image: essg.com The EPA has said that coal ash recycling is worth more than $23 billion [PDF] a year, based on the pollution avoided and energy saved. The problem with that estimate? It's more than 20 times higher than the actual number—$1.15 billion—found in the government's own data, say a coalition of environmental groups that reviewed the numbers. It ...
Read more...published December 14, 2010 and has No Comments
A pistol at the shooting range. Paper targets, not turbines. Credit: Foxtongue via Flickr. So I heard a TV news report about gunfire that shut down a wind turbine park in Michigan's Thumb. And I went looking for more information on the Internet. It wasn't an easy find, though. Seems shooting bullets at wind farms is nothing new. The ...
Read more...published December 10, 2010 and has No Comments
Image: GOOD Ever wonder how much electricity it takes to keep a single light bulb running for the year? The folks over at GOOD did, and they produced this great infographic to make the answer (alarmingly) clear. The short of it? It takes way more than you'd think. Here are a few of the more surprising revelations from the ...
Read more...published December 7, 2010 and has No Comments
Image: Screenshot, Craigslist You may have heard that the infamous CEO of Massey Energy, Don Blankenship -- who presided over the company during the worst mining accident in decades and racked up a list of safety violations so long it would impress BP -- is going into retirement. So the question is, who's going to step up and take ...
Read more...published December 1, 2010 and has No Comments
Photo: Wikipedia , CC A Lesser Evil? It's time for a round of "good news, bad news". The good news is that some U.S. utilities with aging coal plants are looking at the costs of installing anti-pollution equipment on them and at the future cost of carbon regulations (the details are uncertain right now, but at some point it's ...
Read more...published November 8, 2010 and has No Comments
photo: Rodrigo Suriani / Creative Commons If you want a decent overview of all the issues that go into the pricing of solar power --from technological issues to comparisons with fossil fuels (when will solar power be less expensive than burning fossil fuels?)--a new piece over at View post: Is Asking When Solar Power Will Reach Grid Parity Addressing the ...
Read more...published November 5, 2010 and has No Comments
Image: Flickr via Steven Damron For all their environmental woes, most coal mines in the U.S. at least capture the methane released when the coal is mined. It can then be used for fuel, which in terms of greenhouse gas emissions is tons (ha) better than simply releasing it freely into the atmosphere. However, 12 mines do not capture ...
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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 ...
