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Jason Dillon

Investing in Energy Efficiency Pays Off - NYTimes.com - 0 views

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/...-in-energy-efficiency-pays-off

shared by Jason Dillon on 07 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • The idea that money is available for the taking defies economic logic. But sometimes it’s true.
  • The opportunity is investing in energy efficiency. “The returns are tremendous, and there’s virtually no risk,” said Mark Orlowski, the founder and executive director of the Sustainable Endowments Institute,
  • Although no one is refusing to consider the idea, he explained, “People say, ‘We’re overloaded and this isn’t a fire that needs to be put out now.’ But if they actually did an energy audit, they would find millions of dollars in savings — and that money could be used for all sorts of things: scholarships, new faculty positions, even more pay for the university president.”
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  • David Bornstein is the author of “How to Change the World,” which has been published in 20 languages, and “The Price of a Dream: The Story of the Grameen Bank,” and is co-author of “Social Entrepreneurship: What Everyone Needs to Know.” He is a co-founder of the Solutions Journalism Network, which supports rigorous reporting about responses to social problems.
James Linzel

Ask Ethan: Why Don't We Shoot Earth's Garbage Into The Sun? - 0 views

www.forbes.com/...ot-earths-garbage-into-the-sun

shared by James Linzel on 06 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • there’s a certain amount of energy keeping us bound to our world (gravitational potential energy)
    • James Linzel
      James Linzel on 06 Oct 16
       
      Ep=mass x Acc-g x distance
  • For Earth, we’d have to move at about 7.9 km/s (17,700 mph) to attain orbit and at about 11.2 km/s (25,000 mph) to escape from Earth’s gravity.
  • Earth moves around the Sun at approximately 30 km/s (67,000 mph)
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  • If we wanted to escape from the Solar System completely, we’d only have to gain another 12 km/s of speed (for a total of 42 km/s) to get out of here!
  • There are two ways a spacecraft can take advantage of a gravity assist: To fly the spacecraft so that it comes from behind a planet, flies in front of it and gets gravitationally sling-shotted back behind the planet again. To fly the spacecraft so that it comes from ahead of a planet’s orbit, flies behind it and gets gravitationally sling-shotted back in front of the planet again.
  • There are two ways a spacecraft can take advantage of a gravity assist: To fly the spacecraft so that it comes from behind a planet, flies in front of it and gets gravitationally sling-shotted back behind the planet again. To fly the spacecraft so that it comes from ahead of a planet’s orbit, flies behind it and gets gravitationally sling-shotted back in front of the planet again.
  • in the first case, the planet tugs on the spacecraft and the spacecraft tugs on the planet in such a way that the planet winds up gaining a little bit of speed with respect to the Sun, becoming slightly more loosely bound, while the spacecraft loses quite a bit of speed (thanks to its much smaller mass), and becomes more tightly bound: transferring to a lower-energy orbit. The second case works the opposite way: the planet loses a little speed and becomes more tightly bound, while the spacecraft gains quite a lot of speed and transfers to a higher-energy orbit.
Jason Dillon

Bill McKibben to Obama: Say No to Big Oil | Moyers & Company | BillMoyers.com - 0 views

billmoyers.com/...ben-to-obama-say-no-to-big-oil

energy climate

shared by Jason Dillon on 27 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Jason Dillon on 27 Feb 14
     
    In the second half of this interview, McKibben addresses the need to make urgent modifications to our systems of energy production. Video and written transcript are accessible: "We've been given the warning by our scientists who have done a terrific job at reaching consensus on a different problem in physics and chemistry. They've told us that we're in deep trouble. They've told us what we need to do, get off fossil fuel. The question now is whether we're actually going to respond to that. And it's like a sort of, well, it's like a kind of final exam for the question, was the big brain a good adaptation or not, you know? We're going find out in short order."
  • Jason Dillon on 27 Feb 14
     
    http://billmoyers.com/spotlight/climate-change/ Moyers has gathered a whole bunch of journalism on climate change.
James Linzel

IPCC finally weighs in on how to avoid further climate change | Ars Technica - 0 views

arstechnica.com/...o-avoid-further-climate-change

shared by James Linzel on 15 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • growth is accelerating.
  • from 1970-2000 was about 0.4 billion tons more each year
  • three-quarters of these emissions come from fossil fuels
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  • rest come from things like deforestation, livestock production, and industrial pollutants.
  • much is due to economic growth and the rising use of coal in places like China.
  • population growth
  • Combining all anthropogenic climate forcings—including greenhouse gases, land use changes, and sunlight-reflecting aerosol particles—gives a net result equal to a CO2 concentration of around 430 parts-per-million
  • it must come back down to 450 parts-per-million by the end of the century
  • it’s clear that low-carbon options like renewables, nuclear energy, and fossil fuels with carbon capture will need to account for more than three-quarters of all electrical generation by 2050 if we’re going to meet that two degree Celsius target
  • Despite strong urban growth in many places, energy use in buildings could level off or decrease by the middle of this century if the right choices are made in terms of efficiency
  • long-lasting infrastructure we put in place now can determine, to a large degree, how much energy residents of a city will need to use
  • And while we’ve made some progress on deforestation, there’s potential there as well—forests and agricultural lands could be pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere, rather than releasing more, by the end of the century
Jason Dillon

China Confronts Its Coal Problem - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...onfronts-its-coal-problem.html

china energy policy

shared by Jason Dillon on 17 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • tate-owned news outlets reported this month that the government would ban the use of coal in Beijing and other urban areas by 2020 in an effort to reduce the noxious air pollution that chokes many cities. In July, a Chinese academic who is also a senior lawmaker said the government was considering a national cap on coal use as soon as 2016.
  • But he and other officials have provided few details — and, indeed, have sent conflicting, even disturbing, signals about their plans. Some measures China is considering could actually exacerbate climate change. One particularly misguided plan, for instance, would involve building 50 large industrial facilities in western China to convert coal into synthetic natural gas.
Jason Dillon

Germany, the Green Superpower - NYTimes.com - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...many-the-green-superpower.html

shared by Jason Dillon on 07 May 15 - No Cached
  • what the Germans have done in converting almost 30 percent of their electric grid to solar and wind energy from near zero in about 15 years has been a great contribution to the stability of our planet and its climate.
  • “In my view the greatest success of the German energy transition was giving a boost to the Chinese solar panel industry,” said Ralf Fücks, the president of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, the German Green Party’s political foundation. “We created the mass market, and that led to the increased productivity and dramatic decrease in cost.”
  • A German foreign policy official put their dilemma this way: “We have to get used to assuming more leadership and be aware of how reluctant others are to have Germany lead — so we have to do it through the E.U.”Here’s my prediction: Germany will be Europe’s first green, solar-powered superpower. Can those attributes coexist in one country, you ask? They’re going to have to. 
Tom Musk

Solar Water Pumps Wean Farmers From India's Archaic Grid - Bloomberg - 0 views

www.bloomberg.com/...from-india-s-archaic-grid.html

design solar energy india

shared by Tom Musk on 08 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • “Irrigation pumps may be the single largest application for solar in the country.”
Jason Dillon

Don't Sell Cheap U.S. Coal to Asia - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ell-cheap-us-coal-to-asia.html

coal energy trade US-China economics health pollution

shared by Jason Dillon on 13 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • pollution contributed to 1.2 million premature deaths in 2010, according to the Global Burden of Disease study, published in The Lancet, a British medical journal.
    • Jason Dillon
      Jason Dillon on 13 Feb 14
       
      This study might be a good source.
  • Faustian bargain
    • Jason Dillon
      Jason Dillon on 13 Feb 14
       
      What does it mean to say the US is arranging a "Faustian bargain" with China? Is this depiction of China fair?
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  • Michael Riordan, a physicist, is the author of “The Hunting of the Quark.”
James Linzel

Tesla seals landmark deal to mass-produce EV batteries in the US - 0 views

www.engadget.com/...sla-panasonic-gigafactory-deal

nasa climate sustainability economics project based design energy technology batteries deal tesla

shared by James Linzel on 04 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • James Linzel on 04 Aug 14
     
    Elon Musk keeps looking more and more like Tony Stark
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