Category Archives: burn free generation

Healthcare Upheld – But that is not what I am going to post about

Posted on by
Reply

It has been the shipping industry’s wet dream for a hundred years, Wind Power. They dream back to the days when the only costs for shipping was the ship and port fees. I do not know if this is the system that will catch on but it is pretty cool nonetheless.

http://cleantechnica.com/2011/02/28/wind-powered-cargo-ships-make-a-comeback/

Wind-Powered Cargo Ships Make a Comeback

February 28, 2011 By

Sailing ships once carried much of the world’s cargo across the seas, until canvas sheets were replaced by low-grade “bunker” oil. Now it appears that wind power is about to make a comeback, in the form of rigid “sails” that double as solar panels. The patent-pending technology, called the Aquarius Solar and Wind Marine Power System, is being developed by a company called Eco Marine Power. The dream of a high tech, sustainable energy cargo ship has been percolating for a number of years now, but it hasn’t caught on in a big way, so let’s see if this new system is The One.

Wind Power for Cargo Ships

At first blush, wind power for today’s ultra-huge cargo ships looks like a nice idea, but just not possible. The scale alone makes it seem impractical. However, that hasn’t stopped anyone from trying. In recent years a German company has come up with a parachute-like design for cargo ships that includes sails the size of football fields, and a British company has developed a more traditionally styled, rigging-free sail system for smaller cargo ships.

:}

Go there and read the rest. More tomorrow.

:}

Solar Power In The Mohave Desert – What a great use of a resource

Posted on by
Reply

It doesn’t hurt that they got an environmental award as well. This the way it should be done.

http://www.brightsourceenergy.com/the-ivanpah-solar-project-named-2012-energy-project-of-the-year

The Ivanpah Solar Project Named 2012 Energy Project of the Year

April 24, 2012

Project recognized for its innovative approach, job creation and scale of clean energy production

(LOS ANGELES, Calif.) April 24, 2012 – NRG Energy, Google, BrightSource Energy and EPC partner Bechtel announced that the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (Ivanpah SEGS) received the 2012 Energy Project of the Year Award by the USC CMAA Green Symposium. Ivanpah SEGS in California’s Mojave Desert is currently the world’s largest concentrating solar power (CSP) plant under construction. When completed, it will nearly double the amount of solar thermal electricity produced in the US.

“The sheer magnitude of the Ivanpah project is reinforcing California’s position as the leader of renewable energy in the United States,” said Caroline Fletcher, USC Green Symposium Co-Chair. “The project has demonstrated an innovative approach to partnerships and is significantly contributing to job creation in the region. We’re very pleased to honor this important project with our 2012 Energy Project of the Year Award.”

“Ivanpah is a flagship project, widely recognized for its environmentally-responsible design, and lauded for its role in helping to grow Southern California’s High Desert economy,” said Joe Desmond, SVP of Government Relations and Communications, BrightSource Energy. “We look forward to completing this important solar power facility and help California meet its economic and clean energy goals.”

“We are pleased to be a part of this award-winning project. The innovation applied to the engineering and construction of Ivanpah will help advance the renewable energy industry and make solar energy a viable option for more people,” said Jim Ivany, president of renewable power at Bechtel.

:}

Go there and read. More tomorrow.

:}

Finally A Plausible Tidal Energy Program – If it is not Scottish it is rubbish

Posted on by
Reply

I skip the light fandango.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-06/15/scottish-undersea-turbines

Technology

Largest tidal arrays in the world to be built in Scotland

15 June 12

Scotland will see the world’s largest tidal arrays constructed off its coast, as the first large-scale rollout of tidal energy generation.

A trial with one 30m turbine, the HS1000, anchored to the ocean floor in a fast-flowing channel near the Orkney Islands, raised one megawatt of electricity — enough to power around 500 homes. Now, Scottish Power is planning on building two farms of turbines off the Scottish coast.

The project at the Sound of Islay should hopefully generate 10MW, and then the later project off Duncansby Head (the most northeasterly point of Scotland) should generate around 95MW. While individual turbines have been trialled across the world, the arrays will be the largest of their kind, with local communities having their power provided by renewable tidal sources.

The turbines — built by Andritz Hydro Hammerfest, a Norwegian firm — represent a tricky engineering challenge. Considerations for wild plants and fish means that the blades can’t move too fast, and the turbines must be located in areas where there is a reliably fast current travelling at at least 2.5m/s (such as the Sound of Islay, a narrow passage between the Scottish mainland and the island of Jura).

:}

Go there and read. More tomorrow.

:}

Summer Solar Fun – Some useful toys too

Posted on by
Reply

Not much to say about this. As the founding father’s said, “We hold these truths to be self evident”.

 

http://www.savingpower.com/three-new-fun-renewably-powered-gadgets-to-get-you-saving-energy/

There seems to be no end of interesting and innovative renewably-powered gadgets coming on the market these days, some more affordable and useful than others. But they all have one thing in common: making it easier for you to power-up your various portable electronic devices on the go with clean energy, like solar energy, kinetic energy, and even doggie-powered energy!

Take the Scosche solBAT II for instance. It’s a solar charger that hooks up to most portable devices using a USB connection. It has a 1500mAh capacity battery with a 5-volt output. You can hook it to your backpack, hang it from your car window with a suction mount, or just put it on your desk. Wherever you put it, just be sure to leave it where it will get direct sunlight. You can charge up the onboard battery within about five hours (after an initial charge that takes 4-5 days). And the best part is that it is only $30.

Then there’s the new Neon Green solar bag. Now, we know that there are a ton of solar bags around these days, but this company has put together a wide range of styles and shapes so that there’s something for almost any renewable energy enthusiast looking for a new bag. From the Piggy Back Soular Back-Up Pack (attach it to your existing backpack), to the full-sized Centurian backpack, to the Big Piggy (for powering up gadgets), they’ve got all kinds of options.

:}

Go there and read. More tomorrow.

:}

Being An Environmentalist Is Not Limited To Earth – Transit of Venus

Posted on by
Reply

My ability to post videos is limited by my technological inadequacies. However, we care about the environment exactly because we care about the solar system and the universe. So since it will not happen again in my lifetime here is a short clip of the transit of Venus across the face of the sun.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iDjo9D4t78&feature=colike

Published on Jun 5, 2012 by

Transit of Venus
6/5/12 7:17pm with 8″ Telescope and Canon Rebel T2i
Wake Forest, NC

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

License:

Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)

:}

Go there and gaze lovingly. More tomorrow.

:}

Oh If This Were True – Humans voluntarily give up fossil fuels

Posted on by
Reply

How cool would the world be if we actually stopped raping the Earth and started responsible stewardship instead. But I am suspicious around humans, so we will just have to see.

http://www.wheels.ca/news/peak-oil-are-we-looking-at-it-all-wrong/

Peak oil: Are we looking at it all wrong?

By as early as 2015, global demand for oil will begin to decline, some scientists say. Not because we’ll have run out of the fossil fuel, but because we just won’t need as much of it.

Published May 31, 2012

I don’t know about you, but when I’m skimming around on the Web and I catch sight of the phrase “Scientists now say” or “Some analysts find” I usually just click right on by. Because that article is going to be a bummer. Those analysts will find that the U.S. educational system is actually removing knowledge from children’s minds, and those scientists will turn out to say that pizza consumption is related to early-onset dementia. So I keep going until I find something about psychic twins or a baby raised by goats.

But it’s a good thing I broke with tradition when I came to the New Scientist article “Dump the pump: When oil will lose its luster.” Guess what these scientists and analysts now find? You know that whole problem with oil, how eventually it’s going to run out and trigger a global depression and maybe a breakdown of civilization and is it really such a good idea to bring children into this crazy world? Well don’t sweat it, everything’s going to be totally fine. It’s all going to be one hundred percent a-okay.

All right, that might be a somewhat simplistic rendering of the argument. What the scientists and analysts are arguing – and presenting evidence for – is that although we’ve been worrying this whole time about peak oil supply, the operative force will actually be peak oil demand. Due to a variety of factors – the article focuses mainly on advances in automotive fuel efficiency – global demand for oil is only going to keep increasing for a few more years, after which it will begin to decline and will continue on a downward path.

:}

I just printed the premise. Go there and read the rest. More Next week.

:}

Milwaukee Has A Pretty Phenomenal Transition Movement – Maybe this post will stay

Posted on by
Reply

I tried to post about the Transition Movement in Milwaukee last year or the year before and got slammed for it by some editor/publisher woman there for using “too much” copyrighted text. She also dissed my unorthodox style. So I took the post down and replaced it with one about transition groups in Boston or Los Angeles. Maybe even the mothership in England. Let us see how this goes this time around.

http://onmilwaukee.com/living/articles/transitionmilwaukee.html?viewall=1

Transition Milwaukee: “we’re all in this together”

By Royal Brevväxling RSS Feed
Special to OnMilwaukee.com

E-mail author | Author bio
More articles by Royal Brevväxlin

Published May 30, 2012 at 5:31 a.m.

Transition Milwaukee (TM) is part of an international movement formed, in part, in response to the peak oil crisis and more generally around issues of climate change, economic security and permaculture principles.

Peak oil is a non-controversial acknowledgement from government, academic and industry experts that fossil fuels, a finite resource, reach a peak moment of production and necessarily begin to decline.

Any controversy that peak oil generates is from determining when this peak production will occur, from a few decades into the future to it already peaking in 2007. Bigger questions about what a society that can’t rely on fossil fuels looks like also stir up debate – and emotions.

Permaculture principles are those that inform design and systems theories about how to develop not only sustainable but self-maintained and regenerative ecological systems. Modern agriculture and societies based on oil consumption are not regarded as sustainable.

TM’s goals involve a “whole-systems” approach toward making our economies sustainable and regenerative for seven generations into the future.

“Right now, Transition Milwaukee acts as a network of concerned activists who are working toward reducing the radius in which we get our goods and services, food, water and shelter,” says Jessica Cohodes, TM steering committee leader, press contact and “big-picture synthesizer.”

Members of TM don’t really have official titles. Although it has a steering committee, TM is organized non-hierarchically.

“Transition Milwaukee has always been a group, grass-roots endeavor about the community, from the ground up. Part of its founding philosophy is that it isn’t someone else’s job to get us off oil, but our job,” says Erik Lindberg, a former TM steering committee member who regularly gives presentations on energy and the environment.

:}

Go there and read. More tomorrow.

:}

Solar Power From Dyes – May the force be with you

Posted on by
Reply

It’s a joke son..I say I say It’s a joke son. You know dyes and clothes. I know it is not that kind of dye but it is a joke.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120510113719.htm

Solar Power to Dye For: Flexible Lightweight Inexpensive Dyes Could Harvest Energy from Sun

ScienceDaily (May 10, 2012) — Researchers at the University of Turku believe that flexible, lightweight and inexpensive dyes could be used to harvest the power of the sun rather than our relying on costly and fragile semiconductor solar panel that use crystalline silicon

Writing in the International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management this month, Jongyun Moon and colleagues Aulis Tuominen and Arho Suominen, explain that dye-sensitised solar cells (DSCs) are set to become a ubiquitous source of energy without the complex and expensive clean-room manufacturing processes associated with current solar panels. They point out that the rapid increase in research into novel solar energy conversion technology looks set to revolutionise the industry making electricity generation accessible to all without government or other subsidies.

Solar power is an essential part of the green energy mix, but adoption has been limited in many parts of the world where government subsidies and financial incentives have not been in place. However, as part of a sustainable approach to electricity generation, it offers a clear view of a future in which domestic supply relies less and less on grid power systems or else provides a localised grid for remote places, particularly in sunny climes. Photovoltaic solar cells based on poly-crystalline silicon are the most commonly used devices, having first been used as space satellite technology back in the 1950s and 1960s.

:}

Go there and read. More tomorrow.

:}

The Military Sheds Its Dependence On OIL – Shouldn’t we be doing the same thing

Posted on by
Reply

I know this week and next week, maybe all summer, may look like a chaotic mish mash of subjects but to rejuvenate my sense of purpose I am only blogging about stuff that I find interesting today. I find the military’s attitude towards peak oil to be much more pragmatic then the capitalists they serve.

http://grist.org/renewable-energy/u-s-military-kicks-more-ass-by-using-less-fossil-fuel-energy/?fb_ref=.T7uRMi_E9bl.like&fb_source=home_multiline

 

David Roberts

Energy, politics, and more

 

U.S. military kicks more ass by using less fossil-fuel energy

By David Roberts

This is my contribution to a dialogue on the military and clean energy being hosted by National Journal.

To understand the promise of renewable energy for the U.S. military, it helps to start as far from Washington, D.C., as possible. (This is true for most forms of understanding.) Start far from the politicians, even from the military brass, far from the rooms where big-money decisions are made, far out on the leading edge of the conflict, with a small company of Marines in Afghanistan’s Sangin River Valley

Not long ago, for a three-day mission out of a forward operating base in Afghanistan, each Marine would have humped between 20 and 35 pounds of batteries. One of the reasons Marines are so lethal in such small numbers today is that they are constantly connected by radios and computers. But radios and computers require a constant supply of batteries, brought by convoy over some of the deadliest roads on earth and then piled on the backs of Marines in highly kinetic environments.

In late 2010, India Company, from the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, tried something new. They packed Solar Portable Alternative Communications Energy Systems, or SPACES — flexible solar panels, 64 square inches, that weigh about 2.5 pounds each. One 1st Lieutenant from India 3/5 later boasted that his patrol shed 700 pounds.

:}

Go there and read. This guy writes well. More tomorrow.

:}

Culture Wars – The geezers and the cranks against the future

Posted on by
Reply

It is clear that we have to prepare for a future with only clean energy sources in it. Well we used to think everyone agreed with that. But now comes the rich billionaires who have taken over the Republican Party and sucked in all the people who can’t or won’t tolerate change. They want their incandescent lights back.

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/05/16/is-clean-energy-yet-another-culture-war/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+IM-cleantechnica+%28CleanTechnica%29

Is Clean Energy Yet Another Culture War?

May 16, 2012 By

Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/1c0hi)

David Roberts of Grist had a great post the other day portraying clean energy as a culture war. I think it’s highly worth a read, so I’m reposting it in full from Grist to make it easy as pie to not pass up (note: there’s also a Part II linked at the bottom of the post that is worth a read):

by David Roberts

Not that long ago, some folks were arguing that clean energy — unlike climate change, which had been irredeemably stained by partisanship (eww!) — would bring people together across ideological lines. Persuaded by the irrefutable wisdom of wonks, we would join hands across the aisle to promote common-sense solutions. It wouldn’t be partisan, it would be … post-partisan.

Some day, I will stop mocking the people who said that. But not today. The error is an important one and it is still made regularly, especially by hyper-educated U.S. elites. They think clean energy is different from climate change, that it won’t get sucked into the same culture war. They are wrong.

On clean energy, the material/financial aspects of the conflict are the easiest to understand. Wind, solar, and the rest threaten the financial dominance and political influence of dirty energy. Last week, the Guardian broke the story of a confidential memo laying out a plan to demonize and discredit clean energy, meant to coordinate the plans/messages of several big right-wing super PACs funded by dirty-energy money.

At the bottom of that same piece, though, is one of the best expressions I’ve ever seen of the cultural and psychological aspects of the conflict

:}

Go there and read. More tomorrow.

:}