Yes I know it is ironic that a total anti-atomic energy advocate has some shoved up his butt. Yet I am hoping good things will come of. What I can honestly say is sitting here is painful. So no post this week.
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More next week.
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I thought about posting a story about how cheap alternative energy has become, especially wind power. Much cheaper than coal. I also considered posting a story about how Costa Rico ran its entire country on renewable energy for 300 days or even about the energy plight of Puerto Rico. But I fought against the subsidies for Excelon because the nukes are dangerous boondoggles and because the lost jobs could be replaced with renewal energy jobs. This proves that the State of Illinois wasted 285 million dollars on this crap. I am infuriated.
Radioactive waste continues to pour from Exelon’s Illinois nuclear power plants more than a decade after the discovery of chronic leaks led to national outrage, a $1.2 million government settlement and a company vow to guard against future accidents, an investigation by a government watchdog group found.
Since 2007, there have been at least 35 reported leaks, spills or other accidental releases in Illinois of water contaminated with radioactive tritium, a byproduct of nuclear power production and a carcinogen at high levels, a Better Government Association review of federal and state records shows.
No fines were issued for the accidents, all of which were self-reported by the company.
The most recent leak of 35,000 gallons occurred over two weeks in May and June at Exelon’s Braidwood plant, southwest of Chicago. The same facility was the focus of a community panic in the mid-2000s after a series of accidents stirred debate over the safety of aging nuclear plants.
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Go there and read. More next week.
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Jennifer works at someplace called the Public Health Library, which I suppose is a great place to work.They apparently push plant based diets. I am not aq vegetarian because i do not have the discipline…plus I love pork and fish so it ain’t happening BUT it is important for as many of as can to switch. Just think of me as your lovable hypocrite. She sent along a bunch of resources and I don’t normally post those, but she is so nice :+}
New Research Says Plant-based Diet Best for Planet and People
As cities grow and incomes rise around the world, more and more people are leaving gardens and traditional diets behind and eating refined sugars, refined fats, oils and resource- and land-intense agricultural products like beef. This global dietary transition is harming the health of both people and the planet, says new research.
But the study also shows that shifting away from this trajectory and choosing healthier traditional Mediterranean, pescatarian or vegetarian diets could not only boost human lifespans and quality of life, but also slash emissions and save habitat for endangered species.
And we better hurry; the scientists project that if the trend continues, the situation will be worse yet with greenhouse gas emissions up by 80 percent by 2050.
Examining almost 50 years’ worth of data from the world’s 100 most populous countries, University of Minnesota Professor of Ecology G. David Tilman and graduate student Michael Clark illustrate how current diet trends are contributing to ever-rising agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and habitat degradation.
On top of that, they write: “These dietary shifts are greatly increasing the incidence of Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease and other chronic non-communicable diseases that lower global life expectancies.”
Culinary Resources for Vegetarianism
11 Facts About Meatless Monday That Will Inspire You To Reach For The Veggies
How To Transition To A Plant-Based Diet
10 Helpful Tips for Beginning Gardeners
Grow Food At Home: 7 Tips For Growing Food In Small Spaces
Garden Better With Biodiversity & Wild Pollinators
The Buzz on Beekeeping: A Guide to Bringing Up Bees in Your Own Backyard
http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/blog/author/jennifermcgregor/
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Go there and read one hell of a lot. More next week.
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I agreed to publish this here because it is such a different perspective then the one I have or CES has. We tend to blame builders for not just serving up top notch energy efficient residences. Then there is the issue of retrofitting. As always this is no endorsement of Ryan or his Real Estate firm. Believe me I have no intention of buying a home in Alaska.
Ryan Tollefsen REALTOR®
Unity Home Group at Keller Williams Realty Alaska Group
101 W. Benson Blvd. Suite 101
Anchorage, AK 99503
Check out my all new Great Alaskan Getaway Guide
http://www.constructiondive.com/news/more-buyers-want-green-homes-real-estate-agents-say/439944/
https://www.akhomeshow.com/blog/green-building-technologies-for-new-homes.html
http://www1.cbn.com/books/a-room-by-room-guide-to-making-your-house-%09%09-eco-friendly
/
More Buyers Are Looking for Energy Effcient Homes in the US… But is it
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Go to the web links and read. More next week.
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This is a really really long good article. So I am going to shut up and let you read. I have not felt this good in a long time.
London (Platts)–31 Oct 2017 1239 pm EDT/1639 GMT
There is an increasingly inescapable sense that an energy transition of enormous proportions is taking place. The number of ‘bans’ announced on Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles is growing, even if governments are placing them relatively far out on the political horizon.
More and more car manufacturers are taking note and shifting R&D spending into Electric Vehicles (EVs), a move which has profound implications for the development curves, and thus future cost, of EVs versus ICE vehicles.
In October, US automaker General Motors said that it would launch two new pure electric models in 2018 and a further 18 by 2023.
Its competitor Ford announced the creation of a new internal team to “think big and move fast” in order to accelerate the electrification of its auto production. Both are some way behind their European counterparts.
It is not hard to see why such decisions are being made now. While the number of EVs on the road remains just a fraction of the total parc, global sales are growing by about 40% year-on-year, making EVs the biggest growth story in the auto market in decades.
And, if governments are going to regulate against ICE vehicles and subsidize EVs, thereby changing the consumer choices which otherwise might be made, then what other path is there to tread?
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Go there and read. Rejoice. More next week.
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Really? No Bid. Nothing. We had experience in the mountains and no one else wanted the contract. That is all they have to say? A company from the Secretary of Interior’s hometown. Zinke had nothing to do with it? WHAT!
For the sprawling effort to restore Puerto Rico’s crippled electrical grid, the territory’s state-owned utility has turned to a two-year-old company from Montana that had just two full-time employees on the day Hurricane Maria made landfall.
The company, Whitefish Energy, said last week that it had signed a $300 million contract with the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority to repair and reconstruct large portions of the island’s electrical infrastructure. The contract is the biggest yet issued in the troubled relief effort.
Whitefish said Monday that it has 280 workers in the territory, using linemen from across the country, most of them as subcontractors, and that the number grows on average from 10 to 20 people a day. It said it was close to completing infrastructure work that will energize some of the key industrial facilities that are critical to restarting the local economy.
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SIGH. Go there and read. More next week.
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I think this report says it all. There is 15 pages here, but it is a good read.
https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/energy-environment-report-2017.pdf
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Go there and read. More next week.
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The head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, announced in Tennessee that the “War On Coal” was over. This during his announcement that the EPA was with drawing the Clean Power Plan proposed by the Obama Administration. What a joke this administration is. They accuse the former head of the EPA, Gina McCarthy , of picking winners and losers. Well guess what? They have already been picked. Coal lost.
If there were any remaining doubts, the age of coal is over and the era of natural gas and renewables is officially here.
Luminant’s decision last week to shut its Monticello Power Plant near Mount Pleasant, one of Texas’ largest and dirtiest coal-fired electricity plants, is a prime example of this shift. The plant’s pending closure in January is a win for clean air and the result of the new economics of energy that renders coal-fired power plants like the Monticello facility cost-prohibitive relics.
This is particularly true in Texas: Hydraulic fracturing has made natural gas production cleaner and cheaper than coal. Each year, electricity from the sun and wind contribute more megawatts to the state’s power grid. The state’s deregulated electricity market increases competition, which leaves costly, emissions belching coal-fired power plants like Monticello on the wrong side of a historic transformation.
Much like Solar and Wind, Electric Cars have had an up hill battle. But what does that mean. It makes it sound like this is natural. Well it is not. Electric Cars were not about “ramping up” to need. It was about battling the forces of evil who did not want alternative forms of energy to succeed. Yah that is right, the fossil fuel industry and their investors and supporters have done everything in their considerable power to prevent their success. They have lied, cheated and lobbied elected bodies all the way down to townships in Colorado for example.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/10/2/16400900/gm-electric-car-hydrogen-fuel-cell-2023
General Motors announced today that it will introduce two new all-electric vehicles within the next 18 months, the first of at least 20 new EVs that the automaker will launch by 2023. GM also renewed its commitment to hydrogen fuel cell technology, a clean fuel concept that still needs major infrastructure upgrades before it can become a viable alternative.
At a press conference in Detroit this morning, GM’s executive vice president of global product development Mark Reuss said that the company was “committed to an all-electric future,” but cautioned that it wasn’t going to happen “by flipping a switch.”
“These aren’t just words in a war of press releases,” Reuss added. “We are far along in our plan to lead the way to that future world.”
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Go there and read the good news. More next week.
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This is not CES’ stuff. Sure, I am sure the building is energy efficient and well thought out but, I include this post because I saw the movie. I was so impressed. NASA put her in a building with no “Blacks Only” bathroom. So every day she would have to spend a half hour or more getting to the bathroom and back. Yet she got our white male astronauts to and from the moon with no complaints. WOW is all I can say. Please read the book and see the movie.
When NASA’s Langley Research Center built its newest, state-of-the-art research facility in Hampton, Va., it was only right that they named it after Katherine Johnson, the NASA engineer and subject of the book and Oscar-nominated film Hidden Figures.
“You want my honest answer? I think they’re crazy,” the 99-year-old math genius said when she heard about the naming of the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility. The building was dedicated on Sept. 22 in a ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and students from Black Girls Code and the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program.
The $23 million, 37,000-square-foot data center is named after Johnson, who broke the glass ceiling for black women in the space program. In 2015 Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work as a trailblazer in the space program.
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Go there and read. More next week.
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