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 April 23, 2009 and has No Comments
Photo: Bruce Logan, Pennsylvania State University It Smells in Here... Who Shocked the Microbes? Using microbes to generate energy, or convert it from one form to another, has a long history. We've written about it many Read more: Microbe-Powered 'Fart' Machine Could Help Store Wind and Solar Energy (For Real!)
Read more...published April 22, 2009 and has No Comments
Image via Earth Aid Last week Earth Aid launched a free online service that encourages households to conserve energy wherever possible. The service looks at the home's energy bills, calculates the energy savings, bundles it to be sold as a carbon credit, and then sends cash payments to consumers. The more a user saves, the more they're paid. If ...
Read more...published April 21, 2009 and has No Comments
Photo via the New York Times Designed to coincide with Earth Day, Congress has begun three full days of hearings on climate and energy bills in the House and the Senate—according to Politico , it's the "mother of all climate weeks." A parade of 54 witnesses, including EPA head Lisa Jackson , Energy Secretary Steven Chu, trout fishermen, Catholic ...
Read more...published April 21, 2009 and has No Comments
Notwithstanding their Screw Earth Day campaign, Grist has the grace to publish posts like this one by Bill Christofferson, entitled Screw Earth Day? Not so Fast. He quotes Earth Day founder, Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson. Our goal is an environment of decency, quality and mutual respect for all human beings and all other creatures—an environment without ugliness, without poverty, ...
Read more...published April 21, 2009 and has No Comments
photo: SRS Energy If you want to put solar panels on your roof but live in an area where either historic district regulations or just aesthetic concerns prevent you from installing conventional panels there are already building integrated photovoltaic panels available. But if you've got a clay tile roof, they only sort of blend in. Now SRS Energy has ...
Read more...published April 19, 2009 and has No Comments
Consider this: 95% of the urban growth over the next 20 years will be in the less-developed world, where migrants from rural areas are already busy building precarious homes in “informal” slum settlements, often without any legal rights to the land they occupy. Today, a full third of the world’s population lives in places defined by the UN as ...
Read more...published April 16, 2009 and has No Comments
With his planes, helicopters, and other fuel-hungry pets, Dean Kamen admits that he takes a lot out of the world. This just means that, in keeping with his immigrant grandfather’s advice, he has to put more back in. In the second part of our conversation, Kamen shares his obsession with the Sterling engine, telling about the one rigged into ...
Read more...published April 16, 2009 and has No Comments
Photo by Jaymi Heimbuch In all the hubbub of Earth Day, it's easy to get caught up in land-bound activities and conservation, and forget about the oceans. But here is one announcement that the oceans will particularly be thankful for. The United Nations, after 16 years of tabling it, have finally made June 8 World Oceans Day. ... See ...
Read more...published April 14, 2009 and has No Comments
Photo via Taipei Times Here's a troubling plan—the ironically named US company EnergySolutions is seeking approval to import 20,000 tons of radioactive waste from Italy. The waste would be processed in Tennessee, then shipped on over to Utah, where it would be buried in the desert. Given that Yucca Mountain is such a controversial issue, it's surprising that this ...
Read more...published April 14, 2009 and has No Comments
Image: Environmental Science and Technology University of Minnesota Researchers Find Huge Differences Between States We already knew that corn ethanol production used lots of water , but according to a new study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology , it's both worse than we thought, and more confusing then we suspected. Read on for more details.... Original ...
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The office building, going for LEED Platinum, is built on top of a brick factory from another era. It rises to the challenge. Go here to read the rest: The Centre For Green Cities At Evergreen Brickworks Demonstrates How To ...
"The stakes are very high and scientists are not the best people to deal with the social, ethical or political issues that geoengineering raises." View original here: Geoengineering is a Technical Fix for a Political Problem
