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 November 10, 2010 and has No Comments
What Next? This short animated film made by the Post Carbon Institute gives a quick and entertaining history of our use of fossil fuels to power most of our lives, and what the ... Read the full story on TreeHugger See the original post here: A Brief History of Fossil Fuels (Video)
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 ...
Read more...published October 16, 2010 and has No Comments
Photo: Sara Novak As Styrofoam begins to cover our planet in the same way that it has long covered our consumer products, innovative thinkers like Eben Bayer are looking for responsible materials that don't require fossil fuels and more easily biodegrade. Could mushrooms be the answer? His team has been testing mushrooms for some time now to successfully invent ...
Read more...published September 13, 2010 and has No Comments
Image credit: EcoHouseAgent Back in 2008 Lloyd stirred up controversy with his post blowing hot and cold on ground source heat pumps , and his stance was later validated when Green Building Adviser concluded that groundsource heat pumps were not as efficient as claimed , and way too expensive to be a sensible response to climate change. Now a ...
Read more...published September 9, 2010 and has No Comments
Image: Wikipedia , CC This Document Was Not for Public Consumption A leaked study by the German military reveals that the Bundeswehr is taking the possibility of peak oil (the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, leading to a gradual decline) very seriously. The authors of the study, led by Lieutenant Colonel ...
Read more...published September 9, 2010 and has No Comments
Photo: Say goodbye to San Rafael Falls, Ecuador? (via listafterlist.com ) Ecuador made waves not too long ago as the first country to not only recognize the constitutional rights of ecosystems , but also for demanding money in exchange to not drill into their rich oil reserves -- located under their equally-rich rainforests. Now,... Read the full story on ...
Read more...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 August 30, 2010 and has No Comments
photo: sbamueller via flickr Contradicting previous industry- and government-backed studies about the source of pollution occurring downstream from Alberta tar sands projects, a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says that high levels of lead, mercury, cadmium, zinc and other pollutants are not naturally occurring. As Cree elders have said for some time, See ...
Read more...published August 26, 2010 and has No Comments
photo: Ben Carter File this one in the maybe someday category: At the national meeting of the American Chemical Society scientists have presented work on the potential of so-called 'dry water' to store gases, with an eye to store carbon emissions as well as act as a fuel carrier. Here's the gist of it: ... Read the full story ...
Read more...published August 19, 2010 and has No Comments
photo: Jennifer Woodard Maderazo via flickr TreeHugger has covered the uncomfortable and largely under-publicized topic of peak coal on a number of occasions, but David Roberts over at Grist just brought it up again--and it's a topic certainly worth revisiting as the future implications are great. I'll take the question out of R... Read the full story on TreeHugger ...
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Contrary to previously held notions of how whale songs are shared between neighboring populations, a surprising study finds that whales living the same ocean basin are singing different songs. Read the original post: Study: Humpback Whales Living in Same Ocean ...
"The technology that we have here gives us a first-ever look at the Amazon in its full three-dimensional detail, over very large regions," says the study's lead researcher. Here is the original post: Lasers Used to Generate Remarkably Detailed 3D ...
