Category Archives: green economy

Joe Biden Is Turning Out To Be My Kind Of President

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Do I need to say more?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/08/business/energy-environment/biden-solar-energy-climate-change.html

From 4% to 45%: Biden Offers Ambitious Blueprint for Solar Energy

The Energy Department analysis provides only a broad outline, and many of the details will be decided by congressional lawmakers.

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Go there and read. More next week.

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Dangerous Oklahoma Wind Farm – That was gonna be the piece that I ran

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But the Oklahoma Newspaper put up a stinking pay wall that pissed me off. So here is the reference to that:

https://web.archive.org/web/20221108194553/https://www.oklahoman.com/story/business/energy-resource/2021/06/19/oklahoma-corporation-commission-concerned-panhandle-wind-farm-broken-turbines-poses-safety-threat/7523260002/

Here is a video peek:

 

So now I will have to post a more desultory post about how to properly maintain a wind farm and what that costs. But they had some cool pictures of things like a Turbine House destroyed at 300 feet. Turbine blades dangling and swinging in the wind. Everyone called it DANGERous. But here is the more mundane side of things. What the bad boys should have been doing.

https://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1010136/breaking-down-cost-wind-turbine-maintenance

Breaking down the cost of wind turbine maintenance

15 June 2010 by David Milborrow

Cutting costs by preventing failure instead of running wind turbines until they break lies at the heart of a new approach to operations and maintenance.

OR

http://www.renewableenergyfocus.com/view/21860/the-challenge-of-wind-turbine-blade-repair/

The challenge of wind turbine blade repair

07 November 2011
George Marsh

 

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Go there and yawn. More next week

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People Don’t Think NonCarbon Fuels Can Power The World – Well they can

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Again, I rarely publish Videos. Because this is a print blog. But this is a good one and it makes the point, that if you structure the infrastructure right you can power the world with Solar and Wind.

https://digg.com/video/heres-what-would-happen-if-you-covered-the-entire-sahara-desert-with-solar-panels

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HERE COMES THE SUN

Here’s What Would Happen If You Covered The Entire Sahara Desert With Solar Panels

RealLifeLore

With our climate crisis and other problems with fossil fuels, what if we attempted to cover the Sahara Desert with solar panels? Could we power the entire planet?

 

Wind Turbines In The Gulf Is A Great Idea – But

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This should have happened 10 years ago on every shoreline in America. Let me be clear. Not every spot off the coast is eligible for wind turbines. And I believe that factors like scenery and inhabitant acceptance are factors to be weighed with as much importance as wind force and need, none the less these evaluations need to be done and done quickly. Long overdue aside, they need to get moving. The man makes a very good point, that the oil and gas business prepared a workforce for this.

https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/opinion/article_5dcee9d2-ceab-11eb-a5d2-4b7bfb73d950.html

Michael Hecht: Wind power generation has a great future in the Gulf of Mexico

  • BY MICHAEL HECHT

This week, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM), federal lead agency for offshore wind, is holding the inaugural meeting of the Gulf of Mexico Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Force. Although the task force is composed of elected officials from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, it was Louisiana, under the leadership of Gov. John Bel Edwards, who launched the process for the establishment of this regional Task Force — thereby paving the way for the exploration of offshore wind

This is because we can capitalize on wind energy in two related but distinct ways: first, from the manufacturing and servicing of offshore wind structures along the Atlantic coast; and then, from the eventual deployment of offshore wind structures in the Gulf of Mexico.

Many of the assets and skills from Louisiana’s decades as a hub for offshore oil and gas exploration and production translate directly into offshore wind. These include our large port infrastructure; structural manufacturing expertise; world-class engineering; world-class vessel building; extensive offshore marine services; and an unbeatable workforce.

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Go there and read. More next week.

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How The Future Is The Future Of The Grid – The future where Grandpas never die

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And Tomorrow never comes. Yep, it is just like Flying Cars and all those other thing you saw on the Jetson’s and still haven’t happened yet. Why because the Power Structure doesn’t want them to happen. Imagine if you will – electricity is like a crude spear made of rock and a stick. Nuclear Power is the pointy rock on tip of the spear and society is a human body. That spear is plunged in to the human body NOT so that it dies, but so it heals. Now whoever controls the shaft of that spear controls the human. THAT is the way the power grid was DESIGNED. To change power grids you have to pull the spear out. The human dies.

https://www.theverge.com/22419206/smart-grid-renewable-energy-power-sector

The grid needs to smarten up to reach clean energy goals

Smart grids were supposed to come to the rescue a long time ago

By Justine Calma
Illustration by Alex Castro

In the future, our vehicles and homes will be in constant conversation with the power grid. Smart thermostats will send information about how much energy the home is using or potentially wasting to heat or cool itself. Solar panels will say how much energy they have on hand, while electric vehicles will share information about when and where they’re charging and how much juice they need for their travels. Solar and EV batteries might even offer up the energy they’re storing in case it’s needed elsewhere.

“You just plug it in, and somehow it automatically talks to its nearest neighbors,” explains Ben Kroposki, a director at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “[It] says, ‘Hey, I just want to let you know I’m out here. I can provide these kinds of services back.’”

That conversation is the backbone of what’s called a “smart grid.” While America’s aging grid system was built to send electricity in one direction — from power plants to homes and businesses — smart grids are a two-way street. Homes and buildings send information and electricity back to the grid or to other homes and buildings. An electric vehicle battery, for example, might be able to provide power to an area in the middle of a blackout. A smart grid also listens for directions from the utility, so that it charges whenever solar or other renewable energy is most abundant.

It’s a simple enough idea that for more than a decade has been sold as a way to improve the efficiency, environmental impact, and resiliency of the power sector. But electricity grids still have a long way to go to get “smart.” They’ve managed to fail spectacularly under the stressors of climate change and more extreme weather.

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Go there and read a whole lot of extra stuff. More next week.

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Bill Nye Thinks We Can Beat The Heat – I have never been this upbeat

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I do not know what to say. I have never argued against Bill Nye and I do not propose to start here. If Bill Nye thinks we can beat climate change by a combination of Massive investments and New technology. Then today I believe him. Tomorrow will be something else.

https://news.yahoo.com/bill-nye-to-congress-im-scared-too-about-climate-change-205114192.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9sb2dpbi55YWhvby5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMm1u5c7vwGY8bbrr24UhPXel7HWK3P-VSFsYW_Td-hoOHSkcldT4qMeksmSKF0P3nM-08WaNE9ujFXwZr_fFvDQnm9ACKQh2nrSm7JQw6puItFU8VgE8B8J8HT0qYIGQjAXLgmdQaY6gJpTreqfz_ySThTJuAvWJgm1ZFzM3qrH

That is the biggest header I have ever seen.

Bill Nye to Congress: ‘I’m scared too’ about climate change

David Knowles

·Senior Editor
·3 min read
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Testifying before the House Committee on Homeland Security on Tuesday, Bill Nye told lawmakers that he was “scared too” about climate change, and that the U.S. needed to “invest in a big way” to solve the problem.

Nye, whose public television program “Bill Nye the Science Guy” has helped educate children in the U.S. on a wide range of scientific topics, testified on his own behalf. Asked by Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, how the nation could address climate change when so many people did not believe it was real, Nye recounted his own dealings with skeptics.

“I’ve fought this for 30 years: trying to get people to accept the science of climate change. I offered four bets to two notorious climate deniers. I offered them $10,000 that 2016 would be the hottest year on record, 2010-2020 would be the hottest decade on record. Neither one of them would take either one of the bets,” Nye responded.

He added: “They wouldn’t take the bets because they’re scared.

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Go there and read happy thoughts. More next week.

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We get requests for links all the time, so readers this is a link for Black Owned Businesses:

https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/support-black-owned-businesses/

This one is for people wishing to buy a Husky Dog:

https://yourdogadvisor.com/alaskan-husky/

Do Carbon Credits Work – In some cases, NOT

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Mitigation efforts always sound sensible to sensible people. There are always people who have a knee jerk, industry involved NO WAY reaction. Just like with cigarettes: doesn’t cause it -you can’t prove it, to ok maybe it exists but there is nothing you can do about it, to those methods won’t work, to if you outlaw it you will put people out of work. But most people (as far as the carbon economy goes) Carbon Taxes, Carbon Trading and Carbon Reduction methods all seem OK. But how can you tell if they work, or in this case DON’T?

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-climate-solution-actually-adding-millions-of-tons-of-co2-into-the-atmosphere?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Environment

The Climate Solution Actually Adding Millions of Tons of CO2 Into the Atmosphere

by Lisa Song, ProPublica, and James Temple, MIT Technology Review
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New research shows that California’s climate policy created up to 39 million carbon credits that aren’t achieving real carbon savings. But companies can buy these forest offsets to justify polluting more anyway.

This story was co-published with MIT Technology Review.

Along the coast of Northern California near the Oregon border, the cool, moist air off the Pacific sustains a strip of temperate rainforests. Soaring redwoods and Douglas firs dominate these thick, wet woodlands, creating a canopy hundreds of feet high.

But if you travel inland the mix of trees gradually shifts.

Beyond the crest of the Klamath Mountains, you descend into an evergreen medley of sugar pines, incense cedars and still more Douglas firs. As you continue into the Cascade Range, you pass through sparser forests dominated by Ponderosa pines. These tall, slender trees with prickly cones thrive in the hotter, drier conditions on the eastern side of the state.

All trees consume carbon dioxide, releasing the oxygen and storing the carbon in their trunks, branches and roots. Every ton of carbon sequestered in a living tree is a ton that isn’t contributing to climate change. And that thick coastal forest can easily store twice as much carbon per acre as the trees deeper inland.

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Go there and read probably a gazillion words. Take a weekend. More next week.

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Ban Cars! Ban Cars! Ban Cars! – We will try anyway

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It seems really weird that we all started out on bikes after horses and before cars were really affordable. There was a real love affair with bikes in the modern urban environment around the 1900s. Especially women who had never been allowed to get about. Bikes came on strong before mores or laws could be erected (so to speak) and women just went bonkers. Now every envirofreak (no offense intended) wants to go back to them. We shall see. We shall see.

The City Where Cars Are Not Welcome

As automakers promise to get rid of internal combustion engines, Heidelberg is trying to get rid of autos.

By Jack Ewing

HEIDELBERG, Germany — Eckart Würzner, a mayor on a mission to make his city emission free, is not terribly impressed by promises from General Motors, Ford and other big automakers to swear off fossil fuels.

Not that Mr. Würzner, the mayor of Heidelberg, is against electric cars. The postcard-perfect city, in southern Germany, gives residents who buy a battery-powered vehicle a bonus of up to 1,000 euros, or $1,200. They get another €1,000 if they install a charging station.

But electric cars are low on the list of tools that Mr. Würzner is using to try to cut Heidelberg’s impact on the climate, an effort that has given the city, home to Germany’s oldest university and an 800-year-old castle ruin, a reputation as a pioneer in environmentally conscious urban planning.

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Go the read – once you catch your breath. More next week.

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Woman Makes Recycled Plastic Bricks – It solves a huge problem

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The creation of construction materials like concrete and steel are maybe a third of all green house gases. This approach may cut down on that greenhouse gas production and recycle plastics at the same time. It could cut the cost of such materials in developing economies. This is a smile/smile development.  I like that phrase better than win/win.

Kenyan Woman Recycles Plastic into Bricks that are Stronger than Concrete!

By Eliza Erskine

Nzambi Matee is turning recycled plastic into bricks that are stronger than concrete! According to Reuters, Matee’s bricks can be thrown against a wall and do not crack.

Matee is the founder of Gjenge Makers, in Nairobi. “Our product is almost five to seven times stronger than concrete. There is that waste they cannot process anymore; they cannot recycle. That is what we get,” she told the outlet, showing off loads of plastic waste that can’t be recycled.

She produces 1,500 bricks every day, using a mix of different plastics. She gets packaging from factories for free but pays for plastic from recyclers. To make the brick, Matee heats sand, plastic and compresses them into different bricks, which are sold for construction purposes.

Matee is a materials engineer and has been at work on this business since 2017. Her factory has recycled 20 tonnes of plastic waste since she founded the company. She is planning to add a larger production line and plans to break even by year-end. Her factory was set up to help solve plastic pollution, after waiting for the government to take act

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Go there and read. More next week

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Little House Off The Grid – What could be better than that

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I rarely ever do videos. I am a Print man. But this is a great “How To” video. They have a composting toilet and solar panels so they got the TOP and the BOTTOM covered hahahaha. The sleeping loft is amazing. I would prefer a king bed but i sure you could get it in if it was part of the early design. They do live outside alot but there is nothing wrong with that. That would not work in an Illinois winter.

https://digg.com/video/this-ultramodern-off-the-grid-tiny-house-will-blow-your-mind

It is a 150,000 dollar house with 20,000 dollars worth of solar but it is off the grid. So it is worth every penny. Infrastructure for a lifetime is not cheap.

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Go there an watch for 18 minutes. More next week

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