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 March 17, 2009 and has No Comments
Mountain top removal in action. Via: YouTube If you've never seen what mountaintop-removal coal mining looks like, watch this short video. Coal companies clearcut forests on ancient Appalachian mountains, blow apart the mountain itself to get to pockets of coal, then shove the dirt and debris over the side where it fil... Original post: Don't Destroy People To Power Homes
Read more...published March 16, 2009 and has No Comments
Image via Global Warming Art Dear Pablo: I've heard that we don't have enough remaining fossil fuels available to burn in order to reach the carbon dioxide concentrations that the IPCC scientists are predicting. What would happen to the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and the global average temperature if we were to burn all remaining fossil fuels? ...
Read more...published March 16, 2009 and has No Comments
Where is Your Clean Coal Now? We all know that burning coal is a very dirty source of energy . Just the act of mining it out of the ground causes a fair amount of destruction (and costs the lives of many miners, especially in poorer countries), and burning it produces more CO2 than any other source of energy, ...
Read more...published March 14, 2009 and has No Comments
Natural Resources Defense Council has done some sleuthing to help USEPA get a fast start on regulating coal-plant generated fly ash, especially the fly ash "stored" in open impoundments. The NRDC website has a clear explanation of need: looking beyond existing fly ash sources. " More than 80 new coal-fired power plants have been proposed around the country. If ...
Read more...published March 13, 2009 and has No Comments
Want to reduce pollution and fight climate change? Coal-to-liquid fuel won't do it. Photo: Addictive Picasso via flickr In addition to all of the oral presentations and the Copenhagen Climate Congress over the past couple of days, there were dozens of poster presentations. These are just what they sound like, a large poster summarizing a piece of research. One ...
Read more...published March 12, 2009 and has No Comments
Image credit: Libra Rising , Centaur, Art and Myth: a pictorial The last sighting of this beast was during US Congressional testimony, during 2008:- Mythical Hybrid Beast To Battle Climate Change . Recent news indicates a growing interest in co-locating wind turbines and large scale solar thermal plants with fossil-fueled electricity generators. See below for an excerpt from the ...
Read more...published March 11, 2009 and has No Comments
Image via Center for American Progress The high-profile FutureGen project in Illinois was pioneering carbon capture and sequestration--the controversial effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions in coal plants--when it was shut down last year after the US Department of Energy found that the expected cost of the project had doubled. But it loo... Go here to see the original: $500 ...
Read more...published March 10, 2009 and has No Comments
Image: Google After 3 Times It's Officially a Trend, Right? Good thing that the EPA is getting more serious about keeping an eye on coal ash , because it sure doesn't seem like the current system is working. Just in the past few months we reported two big spills: 2.6 Million Cubic Yards of Toxic Coal Ash Slurry Released ...
Read more...published March 10, 2009 and has No Comments
USEPA is requiring large scale coal burning operations and their corporate owners to self-report on approximately 300 US fly ash impoundments. This is only round one, but takes the necessary first step toward harmonized national regulations and enforcement standards for impoundment design, operation, maintenance, and closure. Recipients have ten days to respond to EPAs letter of request. It's going ...
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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 ...
