Category Archives: energy education

Illinois Senate SB 1585 Is A Bad Bill – It is worse than the original bill

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The original BAD idea behind this bill was that Excelon’s Nukes were not profitable so they needed a subsidy from the State of Illinois or they would have to shut down. That subsidy would come from including the Nukes as part of Illinois’ Clean Energy Portfolio. Yah right, like Nukes are a clean source of energy. But this 2016 version rolls Clean Coal, Renewable Energy and Nuclear Power into the same package. Just how bad is this Bill? There is no such thing as Clean Coal.

http://www.illinoispeoplesaction.org/uploads/1/2/6/2/12620849/update-_kill_sb_1585.pdf

HELP US KILL EXELON’S BAILOUT BILL!
Less than a week ago, Exelon– the owner of Illinois’ nuclear power industry and one of the largest energy companies in the world– introduced a new bill to the Illinois Senate. SB 1585 is disguised as a “new generation” energy plan for our state, but is nothing more than a giant bailout for Exelon.
To make things worse, Exelon is using their energy monopoly to strongarm our lawmakers, threatening to close 2 nuclear power plants if the bill doesn’t pass by May 31st.  SB1585 takes tax dollars out of our
hands, and puts them straight into the pockets of Exelon.
Our tax dollar should not be used to keep dangerous nuclear energy in business. Instead, our tax dollars should be invested in the clean energy future that our state and planet needs!
BEAT BACK THE EXELON SHAKEDOWN!
3 Things YOU can do THIS WEEK!
1. Electronically
Submit a Witness Slip AGAINST this bad bill!

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Go there and read. More important, do everything they say and show up at the State Capitol if you can. More next week.

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Zen And The Art Of Lawn Tractor Maintenance – hummmmmmmmm

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Yes I am a Headline Whore. But this is a very real nitty gritty get your hands dirty post. Most of the posts here are about environmental theories, or solar power writ large. But many environmental issues involve a compost pile and turning them, or washing off crud from recyclables. In this case if you have grass, and live in town you have to cut it. That means you have maintenance things to attend to. So here they are.

http://www.familyhandyman.com/automotive/lawn-mower-repair/lawn-tractor-maintenance-tips/view-all

The Family Handyman

Lawn Tractor Maintenance Tips

Professional tips that prevent expensive repairs

Following the lawn tractor maintenance advice in your tractor’s manual is the best way to keep it humming along smoothly. But owner’s manuals usually only tell you basically what to do and when to do it—they seldom include the tips and real-world wisdom gained through experience. So we asked veteran mechanics which steps are the most important and how to make lawn tractor maintenance and tubeless tire repair faster and easier.

You’ll save too. Dealers typically charge more than $200 for routine maintenance that includes an oil change and new spark plugs and filters. But you can do all these things—and more—in just a few hours. A lawn tractor maintenance kit from your dealer (less than $75) might cost a few bucks more than buying parts separately but ensures that you get all the right stuff. And new tubes for a tubeless tire repair cost from $5 – $15.

Clean the mower deck

Remove the belt guards and blow off the debris that wrecks belts and pulleys. Scrape away any debris buildup under the pulleys with a screwdriver.

(thus it starts)

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Go there and read a heck of a lot. More next week.

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Berta Caceres – She was murdered for the environment

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Sure everybody in power down there says it was a robbery gone bad but she was assassinated. I mean the cops that were suppose to be guarding her were guarding the wrong house blocks away in another neighborhood. Damn those damn dams.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/03/gunmen-murder-honduran-environmentalist-leader-160303181349473.html

Politics

Honduras: Environmentalist Berta Caceres shot dead

Berta Caceres, who won the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize, has been shot dead at her home in the town of La Esperanza.

| Politics, Human Rights, Environment, Latin America

Honduran environmentalist leader and winner of the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize Berta Caceres has been shot dead at her home in the town of La Esperanza.

Caceres was killed early on Thursday by two assailants who broke into her home, a member of her group, the Indian Council of People’s Organizations of Honduras, said.

“Honduras has lost a brave and committed social activist,” fellow activist Tomas Membreno said in a statement.

Caceres, a mother of four, led opposition to a proposed dam on the Gualcarque river, considered sacred by the Lencas.

She had previously complained of receiving death threats from police, soldiers and local landowners because of her work.

Activist Carlos Reyes described the assassination “a political crime by the government”.

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Go there read. More next week.

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Recycling For Kids – Though it is funny that they call garbage rubbish

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So, right off the bat I have to say that this is a for profit business in the waste handling business. The part of their website about recycling is excellent. There business practices may not be. I have never been to Britain and I do not intend to start. Readers will have to judge for themselves. I f they are really bad folks or really good folks let me know.

http://www.kenburn.co.uk/recycling-for-kids/

Recycling for Kids

Did you know that recycling helps save the planet from things like global warming and rubbish? That’s right, by recycling things such as food packets and old toys, you are reducing the amount that gets put into the rubbish bin. This is a very good thing, because rubbish is full of nasty bugs that spread diseases and gases that increase global warming.

But what is recycling? How are things recycled? And what can you do to get more people to recycle?

Read through this leaflet, and by the end of it you will be able to teach your parents a thing or 2 about recycling.

 

What is Recycling?

bin3Fun Fact: If we took all of the UK’s rubbish and put it in its biggest lake, it would take 8 months to fill it!

Recycling means making rubbish into something new. Every time you throw something away it gets sent to a landfill. More and more rubbish is piled on top until it is too big and the landfill has to be closed.

The great thing is that most things can be recycled. Every day, clever scientists come up with new ways to make use of things we usually consider rubbish. But what exactly do they do with the recycling?

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Go there and read. More next week.

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Energy Conservation In The Developing World – Stoves can change the world

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Cooking food. In the US that would not be considered either energy efficiency or even news. Yet for humans, cooking is totally necessary. In poor countries, it is a huge issue. This is good news.

India sees clean cooking as climate action that saves lives

Associated Press
By KATY DAIGLE

GANORA SHEIKH VILLAGE, India (AP) — Kamlesh feeds the flames of a crude clay cookstove with kindling, kerosene and sunbaked discs of cow dung. She breathes in the billowing smoke, as she does for hours every day. Her eyes water and sting. Her throat feels scratchy and sore.

Kamlesh is one of hundreds of millions of Indian housewives who, with the simple act of cooking family meals, fill their homes every day with deadly airborne pollutants. The constant exposure to indoor air pollution kills some 4.3 million people every year across the world — 30 percent of them in India.

The menace of cookstove pollution, which contains high concentrations of tiny particles known as black carbon, does not stop in the home. It compounds many environmental problems as well, from glacial melt to falling crop yields.

India, the world’s third-largest climate polluting nation, has spent decades encouraging cleaner cooking technologies, with limited success. Such a shift would have little impact on India’s emissions of climate-warming greenhouse gases, and many of the alternatives pollute as well.

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Go there and read. It’s fascinating. More next week.

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Remember Tepco – You know that little nuclear disaster thing

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Well, the disaster is still around but Tepco is jumping back into the bond market. Oh, and thanks to the Japanese Government for selling off assets.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-19/tepco-considers-return-to-japan-bond-market-as-profit-increases

Tepco Mulls First Public Bond Sale in Japan Since Fukushima

sstapczynski

October 18, 2015 — 10:08 PM CDT
Updated on October 18, 2015 — 11:14 PM CDT

Tokyo Electric Power Co. is considering returning to Japan’s bond market next September in the first public offering since the disaster at its Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear power facility in 2011.

Tepco, as the utility is known, plans to raise a total of 330 billion yen ($2.8 billion) in the fiscal year starting April 2016, the Nikkei newspaper reported Monday. The company has hired five sales managers including SMBC Nikko Securities Inc., according to the report. Tepco spokesman Tatsuhiro Yamagishi said the utility is considering bond sales from September but couldn’t confirm other details when reached by phone.

A public debt offering would be Tepco’s first in six years after it halted bond sales following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that caused a triple meltdown at the Fukushima site. The disaster put Tepco on the verge of default, with the head of Japan’s biggest stock market saying in 2011 that the company should file for bankruptcy protection. Tepco was saved by a 1 trillion yen infusion from the government the following year, the nation’s largest bailout since the 1990s.

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Go there and read a little teeny bit. More next week.

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Reliable Tidal Power – If we do this right we may avoid global warming

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I am not kidding. Can you imagine the impact that a couple of thousand of these power plants could have. Not only that but the highest tidal differences are in the places where the impact of global warming will be the greatest.

http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/poetry-in-motion-power-plant-will-use-ocean-tides-to-power-155k-homes/

Poetry in Motion: Power Plant Will Use Ocean Tides to Power 155K Homes

by Terry Turner –

This planned power plant in Wales may look like the Guggenheim Museum but its benefits far outweigh the beauty: it will use the rise and fall of ocean tides to generate enough renewable electricity to power 155,000 homes for 120 years.

When completed, the structure will produce electricity enough to displace more than a quarter million barrels of oil each year— while leaving virtually no carbon footprint.

Power plants have been generating electricity using the tides since 1966, but the Swansea project is the first to employ a radically new method of harnessing the natural forces. The secret lies in its nearly six-mile-long barrier wall that will enclose a huge amount of water in an artificial “tidal lagoon”.

The lagoon captures and holds seawater at high tide. As the tide goes out, water in the 4.5 square mile lagoon will be as much as 27 feet higher than the water outside its walls. This tremendous pressure will be routed through 26 turbines, rushing out to sea until the water level equalizes on both sides of the lagoon. At high tide, the flow is reversed, keeping the sea out of the lagoon until it reaches maximum height, then letting the water rush through the turbines again until it fills up the lagoon.

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Go there and read. More next week barely.

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Coal Is Dead – Well eventually maybe sometime well maybe

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I mean what can you expect? Coal was sitting at the table as was oil and gas. But at least they heard the words for a change.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/08/04/only-one-loser-in-obamas-clean-power-plan/

James Conca Contributor

Energy 14,666 views

Only One Loser In Obama’s Clean Power Plan

President Obama announced EPA’s new Clean Power Plan at the White House yesterday, citing the need to reduce carbon pollution from power plants as an historic step in taking real action on climate change.

Natural gas, renewables, nuclear and efficiency are the winners. Coal is the loser.

The President stated that the final Clean Power Plan is fair, flexible and designed to strengthen the fast-growing trend toward cleaner and lower-polluting American energy.

“With strong but achievable standards for power plants, and customized goals for states to cut the carbon pollution that is driving climate change, the Clean Power Plan provides national consistency, accountability and a level playing field while reflecting each state’s energy mix. It also shows the world that the United States is committed to leading global efforts to address climate change.”

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(hip hip hurray, oh) Go there and read. More next week.

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Smart Energy Labs – We need this in every State

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I don’t care if you are a Red State or a Blue State. Who could be opposed to something like this?

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/New-York-to-Build-Worlds-Most-Powerful-Smart-Energy-Lab

New York to Build World’s Most Powerful Smart Energy Lab

Superior computing power will help drive New York’s REV.

Katherine Tweed
March 26, 2015

The New York Power Authority and SUNY Polytechnic Institute will partner to build the world’s largest research and development facility focused on energy technology innovation.

New York State has goals of eliminating electricity peaks, enabling distributed energy resources and incorporating more large-scale renewables as part of its Reforming the Energy Vision proposal.

The yet-to-be-built facility, the Advanced Grid Innovation Laboratory for Energy (AGILe), will allow the New York Power Authority, distribution utilities and private companies to test everything from sensors on the grid and automation technology to novel power electronics and cybersecurity across the entire power grid.

“This is new and innovative and will allow New York state to lead the country in energy development, smart grid and other technologies and provide economic benefit to the state,”

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Go there and read. More next week.

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Carbon Capture On The Roadside – Maybe even in your backyard

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This is such a cool idea. I do not know which plants take in the most carbon. Probably young tree saplings. So they would not be good to use because their uptake slows down as they age. Maybe switch grass? Anyway this is about the concept and the New Mexico experiment to attempt it.

http://www.boulderweekly.com/article-13275-your-next-roadside-attraction-carbon-storage.html

Thursday, August 28,2014

Your next roadside attraction: Carbon storage

By Marianne Lavell

As you watch the miles roll by on family road trips this summer, look just behind the guard rails to see what some scientists believe is a significant untapped resource in the battle against climate change.

Roadside soils and vegetation on federal lands and along U.S. highways are already capturing nearly 2 percent of total U.S. transportation carbon emissions

The land alongside the 4 million miles of U.S. public roadways, already being maintained by federal, stat, and local governments, could be planted with vegetation that helps transfer carbon from the atmosphere into the soil, say scientists. Road banks and berms, in other words, could be managed as valuable “banks” for carbon sequestration.

“We’re talking millions of acres,” says biologist Rob Ament, of the Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University, who led a recent study to gauge carbon storage potential on just a fraction of that real estate — roadsides on federal lands.

Shrubs, grasses and other plants already along roads in U.S. National Parks, wildlife refuges and other public lands currently are capturing about 7 million metric tons of carbon each year, Ament said in a report on his findings at this month’s North American Congress for Conservation Biology. That’s equivalent to the annual carbon emissions of 5 million cars — without any effort made to optimize the mix of plantings and soil management practices for carbon storage.

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Go there and read. More next week.

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