Group Bookmarks shared by Jeff Johnson
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Before being selected as John McCain’s running mate, Palin took a stronger stance against the notion that humans are to blame for global warming. When Newsmax asked for the Alaska governor’s “take on global warming” this summer, she said, “A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute it to being manmade.” According to the Associated Press, in December 2007, Palin said to the Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner, “I’m not an Al Gore, doom-and-gloom environmentalist blaming the changes in our climate on human activity.”
more from features.csmonitor.com
Given the steady drumbeat of news about climate change, water shortages, food riots and high oil prices, many of us are pretty well-versed in the basics of protecting the environment. What's lacking, particularly for us tech-lovers, are the tools to help us live our on-grid, totally Wired lives with the smallest possible impact. And we do need some help. If everyone lived like North Americans, we'd need at least five planets to support our lifestyles. Here are some online actions you can take to "plug in greener." This article is a wiki. Got extra advice? Log in and add it.
more from howto.wired.com
Solar power, with its promise of emissions-free renewable energy, boasts a growing number of fans. Some of them, it turns out, are thieves. Just ask Glenda Hoffman, whose fury has not abated since 16 solar panels vanished from her roof in this sun-baked town in three separate burglaries in May, sometimes as she slept. She is ready if the criminals turn up again.
more from www.nytimes.com
It looks like a scene from an old episode of The X-Files: As a red-tailed hawk circles overhead and a wild pronghorn sheep grazes in the distance, a dozen people in dark sunglasses move methodically through a vast field of golden barley, eyes fixed to the ground, GPS devices in hand. They're searching for bodies. In this case, however, the bodies belong to the endangered blunt-nosed leopard lizard, and the crew moving through the knee-high grain are wildlife biologists hired by Ausra, a Silicon Valley startup that's building a solar power plant for utility PG&E on this square mile of central California ranchland.
more from money.cnn.com
The Amazon is being deforested more than three times as fast as last year, Brazilian officials said Monday, acknowledging a sharp reversal after three years of declines in the deforestation rate. Brazil's Environment Minister Carlos Minc said upcoming nationwide elections are partly to blame, with mayors in the Amazon region turning a blind eye to illegal logging in hopes of gaining votes locally. Non-government environmentalists blame the global spike in food prices for encouraging soy farmers and cattle ranchers to clear land for crops and grazing.
more from www.cnn.com
Spain is one of the world's hottest markets for solar panels and Sebastian said he expected capacity by the end of this year to be five times a target of 371 MW that the government had originally set for 2010 in a renewable energy plan.
more from www.enn.com
Chrysler plans to sell either its all-electric sports car or one of two plug-in hybrid models sometime in 2010.
more from www.truthdig.com
Ford's Fiesta ECOnetic gets an astonishing 65 mpg, but the carmaker can't afford to sell it in the U.S.
more from www.businessweek.com
The We Campaign is a project of The Alliance for Climate Protection -- a nonprofit, nonpartisan effort founded by Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore. The goal of the Alliance is to build a movement that creates the political will to solve the climate crisis.
more from www.wecansolveit.org
The type of solar energy capture system you put on your home depends on your needs. If you want to go full tilt and generate usable electricity from your home’s rooftop – and even possibly contribute power back to the larger grid – tried-and-true photovoltaic arrays might be just the ticket. A typical installation involves the panels, which are constructed of many individual silicon-based photovoltaic cells and their support structures, along with an inverter, electrical conduit piping, and AC/DC disconnect switches.
more from features.csmonitor.com
Genetically engineered bacteria could make cellulosic ethanol cheaper to manufacture, researchers report. The finding could unlock more energy from the waste products of farming and forestry. Ethanol from cellulose, the kind of sugar in cornstalks and sawdust, is being promoted as an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels, with the advantage that it does not use food crops such as corn as raw materials.
more from www.enn.com
What will happen when the gas runs out, when the deepest oil well of the Arabian peninsula finally runs dry, when the giant drills of the offshore platforms reach nothing but dry rock? Will we face a future of blackouts and electricity rationing, or will we find a way to avert the doomiest scenarios and continue living lives in which energy consumption is crucial to everything we do. Think of the electricity you use in a day. You are woken by the clock radio buzzing into life, and you turn the bathroom light on as you climb into your power shower. After dressing you head downstairs, where you turn on another radio, put some bread into the toaster and turn on the kettle, getting the milk from your fridge to put in your tea. After breakfast you head to work, where the lights are burning - and on go the computer and desktop fan.
more from www.guardian.co.uk
An update on the latest production numbers from the EIA along with graphs/charts of different oil production forecasts.
more from www.theoildrum.com
The molecules, known as fluorocarbons, are found in plastics, clothing and refrigerants. At their heart is a union of carbon and fluorine -- a union that, thanks to their atomic configurations, is one of the strongest molecular unions known in nature. Under standard conditions, fluorocarbons are impervious to acids and bases. They don't give or receive electrons, the very currency of molecular reconfiguration. Breaking them down is possible only at temperatures approaching 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. In some situations, that stability is a blessing: Teflon is made from fluorocarbons. But so are the hydrofluorocarbon coolants in refrigerators and air conditioners -- and when released, those become greenhouse gases that can circulate for thousands of years.
more from blog.wired.com
Cogeneration of electricity and heat is one of the most promising means of using existing technologies for sustainable ends, but it is also one of the most neglected and least understood. Cogeneration can dramatically increase energy efficiency, slash carbon emissions, and save money. Using cogeneration in combination with heat-pump technology and plug-in vehicles as part of a renewable electric grid, we could say goodbye to gasoline and to coal electricity generation and have a real chance in 10 to 20 years for an 80 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. This transition will not require rocket science but simply the integration of existing technologies.
more from www.enn.com
[A] New Jersey company plans to announce on Tuesday [8/27/08] that it is working on a solution to this perennial problem with wind power: using wind turbines to produce compressed air that can be stored underground or in tanks and released later to power generators during peak hours.
more from www.nytimes.com
It's gone before you even knew it was there: As energy is unlocked from fuels at power plants, two-thirds of the energy consumed to create electricity is lost. The laws of thermodynamics dictate that conversion efficiency will never be 100 percent, because heat is lost at every step of the conversion process. But new technologies may be able to greatly increase conversion efficiency, moving from an overall rate of 36 percent to closer to 50 percent. At present, coal — in all its carbon-belching inefficiency — is king because it's cheap. Still, the use of natural gas to create electricity has been rising rapidly, in part because of more-efficient gas turbines. Natural gas prices have been climbing, however, and coal prices could rise as well.
more from www.nytimes.com
When the builders of the Maple Ridge Wind farm spent $320 million to put nearly 200 wind turbines in upstate New York, the idea was to get paid for producing electricity. But at times, regional electric lines have been so congested that Maple Ridge has been forced to shut down even with a brisk wind blowing. That is a symptom of a broad national problem. Expansive dreams about renewable energy, like Al Gore’s hope of replacing all fossil fuels in a decade, are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.
more from www.nytimes.com
Automatic cameras have captured images of a clouded leopard in Borneo's Sebangua National Park, an area where the cats have not been recorded before. Researchers say confirmation of the leopards' presence highlights the need to protect the region's habitat. The park is one of the world's largest deep peat-swap forests, but is at risk from illegal logging and forest fires.
more from news.bbc.co.uk
Despite increasing green awareness and steadily rising gasoline prices, Americans and other denizens of the developed world – not to mention millions of new Chinese and Indian drivers hitting the road every week – are loath to give up the freedom and privacy of their personal automobiles. But snarled traffic, longer commute times, and rising pollution levels have given city transportation planners new ammunition in their efforts to encourage the use of clean, energy-efficient public transit. One of the newest tools in their arsenal is so-called congestion pricing (also called variable toll pricing), whereby cars and trucks are hit with higher tolls if they access central urban areas at traditionally congested times.
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