Archive for the 'Carbon Dioxide' Category

Bill Gates Nukes the Environment

Friday, February 26th, 2010

Bill Gates was in the news a few weeks back taking climate change deniers to task.
I must admit I lean to the skeptical side myself. I’m for off-grid power for reasons such as the probable coming oil famine and hyperinflation. But I don’t have the expertise and inclination to go on a crusade on either […]

Nightmare on Fern Street

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Very Interesting. . .
Brad Linaweaver says he’s getting tired of the “Wall Street vs. Main Street” rhetoric, which he believes ignores the Empire as the dominant agency for the immiseration of the proletariat, comrade. (He wouldn’t put it like that.)
Brad suggested finding out if the Pentagon was located on a Street that could find its […]

Will a Frozen Europe Raise Earth’s Albedo?

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Digg front page item shows a very cool (sorry) NASA photo of Great Britain covered with ice from orbit.
Global warming promoters have long said that the gulf stream is at risk. For example, this 2002 Science Daily story, “A Current Controversy: Is Europe About To Freeze?,” excerpt:
“One of the odd possibilities that could emerge from […]

Plug-Ins Panned, But Supercaps Coming

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

ARS Technica describes a recent National Academies of Science report in an article, “New report offers grim assessment of plug-in hybrids.” Several commenters to the article naturally rejected the report’s fuel price assumptions as oil company fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD).
Which reminded me about the promising EEstor breakthrough that’s supposed to be demonstrated this year, […]

Food Plant Reforestation Is Cool

Saturday, December 12th, 2009

An item at The Permaculture Research Institute of Australia titled “How to Repair Our World” embeds a slick YouTube video about WeForest.
The video’s producer persuaded Stephen Fry to volunteer his time for narration during a chance meeting in Copenhagen (hence the “Fry-day” category and also because it’s still Friday in my local time zone).
WeForest encourages […]

What Freedom?

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Coca Cola was one of the companies listed on an often played TV ad in the U.S. that shows the word “Copenhagen” morphing into “Hopenhagen.”
Maybe Coke’s marketing department was thinking of their polar bear mascots.
The solution to stopping global warming proposed by scientist Saul Griffith, in his SALT talk in January of this year, […]

Kite Based Wind Power Generation

Saturday, December 5th, 2009

Harvard Gazette photo
If you’re confused why something tagged “Winds-day” is being posted on a day other than Wednesday, let me remind you that the universe isn’t tied to your homeworld’s orbital position. Not by a strong force anyway. Moving on. . .
Although the great Saul Griffith talks about global warming a lot, his Instructables site, […]

Power from Water Makes a Splash

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009

The BBC online story “Hydro-electricity in Wales: Turning streams into cash” describes micro-hydro turbines gaining popularity among farmers. The small systems are generating the amount of power used in surrounding communities.
For those who have streams, but without a steep waterfall drop that makes existing turbines worthwhile, Boing Boing’s Mark Frauenfelder reports something new, “Technology to […]

Objection to My Climategate White Feather

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

Here’s an excerpt from email I got from J. Neil Schulman:
“Frankly — as a subscriber to Permakent who has it as the only external blog on my blog roll at J. Neil Schulman @ Rational Review — I’d been waiting for you to make a statement on this for several days. Just as I was […]

$1/Watt, 10% Efficiency Thin-Film Solar

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

This Kurzweil AI item has a link to the Technology Review story, “Thin-Film Solar with High Efficiency.”
The article describes the San Jose based company, Solexant, in some detail including, “The company expects to sell modules for $1 per watt, with efficiencies above 10 percent.”
Nanotech leader Paul Alivisatos, of UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley Lab, sits […]

Dirt the Movie at Conscientious Projector

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

Conscientious Projector is hosting a free showing of Dirt the Movie in Tustin, CA this weekend (Sun., Nov. 9, 5 pm), which I plan to attend.
Here’s the Soul at Home location website with the Tustin address if you’re nearby and want to see the film.
There will also be a showing Wed., Nov. 18, 2009 […]

Mcgyan Breakthrough: Biodiesel in 6 Seconds

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

A description of a biodiesel making breakthrough, called the Mcgyan Process, from Minnesota’s Augsburg College and SarTec Corporation found its way into my inbox thanks to a Google Alert.
The name “Mcgyan” comes from the three inventors’ names–McNeff, Gyberg, and Yan.
Another article in WCCO describes the process and benefits in a concise nutshell:
“Taking an idea from […]

Will Brazil Oil Find Disrupt Alt Energy?

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

Brazilian Coast Oil Platform
ConsumerWatchDog published an article by Bradley Brooks from AP titled “Alternative Energy Powerhouse Brazil Finds Big Oil.”
To paraphrase a bit, Brazil currently leads the world in ethanol production and hydroelectric power. But the national company Petrobras, as well as partners such as BP, will develop the recent offshore oil find (deeper than […]

Wind Power Costs, Risks and Progress

Sunday, August 30th, 2009

The cost of permits for a wind power system from various local government agencies may multiply the money you have to spend compared to just buying an installed system. Yikes!
Check out this outrageous item about Ventura County, California, “Will Red Tape Stop Green?”
Also, since finding out that the PVC cut-out blades for some homebrew designs […]

Hemp Biofuel Test Underway in Canada

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

Hempcar.org
Alan Bock posted an item on Orange County Register’s “Orange Punch” online, “Testing hemp for biofuel,” with a link to the original story in Canada.
Bock wrote, “Think maybe this would be worth trying in California? Even on a pilot basis to see if Jack Herer’s claims about hemp hold water?”
ArsTechnica recently published a general summary […]

Green Cars In The News

Friday, August 7th, 2009

L.A. Times reports Jay Leno’s New Show to Include a Green Car Segment.
“One idea for a recurring comedy bit includes a ‘green-car challenge,’ in which celebrities would race electric or hybrid cars. Tom Cruise has already asked whether he could do some practice runs before competing, Leno said. (The host told him practice runs are […]

FreedomFest: Oil, Hemp, and Collapse

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

OCAW union
FreedomFest in Las Vegas had good attendance for a libertarian event. Read more about it at J. Neil Schulman’s FaceBook page (log in required).
The list of exhibitors leads off with energy and mining companies. They probably get hassled by Atomic unions lead by the likes of Homer Simpson. OCAW is an actual really for […]

Windancer Combines Art and Power

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

Wind Simplicity’s WindancerTM
One objection to wind power is the ugliness of the turbines.
Even T. Boone Pickens said he wouldn’t have one of the turbines for his own Pickens Plan on his property for that reason.
If small wind systems became decorative and attractive, maybe homeowner associations (HOA) wouldn’t resist them so much, as is discussed in […]

Cheap Wind Power Choices

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

TriplePundit reports “Small Wind Beginning to Make a Big Difference.” For those of you concerned with U.S. trade balance, there’s good news:
“What’s even more encouraging is that U.S. manufacturers–such as Mariah Wind profiled here on 3P–accounted for about half of total worldwide small wind turbine sales.”
For the cheap DIY folks, while I am skeptical of […]

e-fficiency: Google in perspective

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

An ARS Technica article titled “Google: 15,000 searches = 1 cheeseburger (hold the fries)” discusses the problems of Google’s analysis of the energy used to produce its internet search results, but otherwise praises the educational value of its Clean Energy information page.
“Early this year, a newspaper story made the rounds when, after extrapolating from some […]

Plants Clean Air, Lose Weight, Control Pests

Monday, May 4th, 2009

LifeHacker has a story about Kamal Meattle’s TED talk video on three common houseplants that clean indoor air.
Some wit remarked at the YouTube video page that a simpler way is to open the window. But seriously, if you’re in the bowels of a high rise cube farm, there ain’t no stinkin’ window.
And at a place […]

Solar Heated Rainwater Demo in RV

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

YouTube video of SolTrekker RV tour in Portland, Oregon on Earth Day, 2009, according to the video description at the creator’s channel.
The green SolTrekker RV uses photovoltaics, contains no PVC, burns biodiesel but no petroleum or propane, and of particular interest on Thirst Day, collects rainwater and has a super insulated solar water heating system.

Spare Change, Acceleration & Limits

Saturday, February 21st, 2009

Wildman Steve Brill
A Slashdot post reports that Space Energy, Inc. claims to have a rock solid business model for their plan to beam down power via microwaves from solar energy collectors in space. I’ll get to survivalism and foraging in a minute, stay with me.
In a page linked from that article, at Universe Today, “aerospace […]

MAX MPG Car Escapes From Berkeley

Friday, February 13th, 2009

Mother Earth News reports that a DIY homebrew car, “MAX Wins 800-mile Race, without Gas.”
The challenge was to drive from Berkeley to Las Vegas without using petroleum based fuel, and without buying any fuel directly. This is a step in the MAX team’s attempt to win the $10 million automotive X-Prize for a 100 MPG […]

Freeway BioFuel, Daryl Hannah’s New Car

Sunday, February 8th, 2009

BioPro automation YouTube
From the Freeways To Fuel website, linked from Green Tech Media coverage of the National Biodiesel Conference in San Francisco this month:
. . .we estimate that 10 million acres of non-traditional agronomic lands are available to grow about 1 billion million gallons of biodiesel feedstock on our country’s rights-of-way.
Daryl Hannah made news at […]

Winds-day

Thursday, February 5th, 2009

Here’s a direct link to the Instructables page for a thousand watt wind turbine project.
“We built a 1000 watt wind turbine to help charge the battery bank that powers our offgrid home. It’s a permanent magnet alternator, generating 3 phase ac, rectified to dc, and fed to a charge controller. The magnets spin with the […]

Ice Age Sunspot Shortwave Solar Installations

Sunday, February 1st, 2009

Do I win a prize for the most bizarre headline? While we’re digressing, what’s up with “Cardinals” as a football team name? I think it’s fine for Abner Doubleday and Cooperstown, but on the gridiron a tweety bird is like a boy named Sue. Now give me some more tofu.
First some good news for energy […]

Virtual Bike Lane Lasers

Saturday, January 17th, 2009

This Sat-urday item (what I’m calling satellite and other green/off-grid tech news) is from Cory Doctorow’s Boing Boing post about LightLane, a concept device that paints bike lanes using portable lasers from the bicycle.
Quoting the Good Magazine blog post “Superb Idea: Bike Lane That Travels With You’:
“While ridership is increasing every year, bicycle safety remains […]

Winds-day: Jay Leno’s Wind Turbine

Wednesday, January 7th, 2009

Yesterday, there was a Boing Boing post about Leno’s Garage and a video featuring a magnetic levitating wind turbine, which will be delivered to Ed Begley, Jr.’s house. Jay took great pride in his own larger wind turbine. He bragged: “Mine is bigger than Ed Begley’s.”
Oddly enough, perhaps due to the “carbon footprint” needed for […]

Tidal Power Record Breaking Milestone

Friday, December 19th, 2008

BBC reports that the SeaGen tidal power generation project has reached its full power goal in a system test on December 18th. A Belfast Telegraph article headline proudly proclaims its local achievement “Northern Ireland tidal turbine breaks world energy record”.
Also, a front page item on Digg links to a CleanTechnica blog post titled “SeaGen Shatters […]