As the Guardian reports, DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency says it is just months away from producing a jet fuel from algae for the same cost as its fossil-fuel equivalent. This is astounding news, and I’d like to know what assumptions are operating here. As I’ve discussed previously here, there’s evidence that the [...]
Archive for February 2010The Olympic medals have a “small” amount of metal content extracted from electronic waste, as discussed here at Philly.com, which is considered a good thing. It would be a better thing if they were 100% from recycled waste. Electronic waste is a big problem, given all the stuff we toss away: computers, cell phones, old [...] It seems pretty cynical to be bragging about all the jobs that will be created by providing federal loan guarantees to build nuclear power plants, when the waste issue is still not solved (and probably never will be). And when this industry is likely to be plagued with the same problems as in the past, [...] Walden Pond results show species changes from climate change, as noted here in Scientific American. Thoreau had wide influence, not just for his documentation of conditions at Walden Pond, which helped with this study. A huge, 10 Megawatt turbine is in planning stages in Norway, as reported by AFP news service here.The blade diameter is a whopping 475 feet. One hundred of these things would be equivalent to a typical electrical power plant (1,000 MW). Coffee production may be adversely affected by global warming. Now things are getting serious. As noted in a report by Reuters, Climate change has affected Kenyan coffee production through unpredictable rainfall patterns and excessive droughts, making crop management and disease control a nightmare, a researcher said on Thursday. … Coffee grows best within certain specific [...] This idea is so simple that it just might catch on. The ICE process uses excess electrical energy produced during off-peak times to make ice in a freezer. Then, during peak hours, run air across the ice to cool a building. This approach shaves peaks and saves energy. It can also help make solar and [...] We’ve been told this week that China has completed a county-wide pollution inventory (or census). This news sounds promising, but, for the present, as Mother Nature Network reports detailed census results remain out of the view of an increasingly vocal Chinese public. Only the government and officials at relevant ministries have access to it. It [...]
Feb
12
2010
Wired reports on a phishing scheme in which hackers managed to get account information for firms trading cap-and-trade carbon credits at the German Emissions Trading Authority. With that information, they ripped off carbon credits and sold them for something in the range of $4 million. It’s not certain whether the perpetrators will be caught. Do [...] Oh, Utah! Now the Utah House of Representatives has gone and passed a (non-binding) resolution which questions climate change science. Science by legislative fiat doesn’t look pretty. It’s one thing to debate ways to address the problem, but it’s quite another to throw credibility out the window.The resolution … urges the United States Environmental Protection [...] |
||