 |
| |
 Alternative energy is the way of the future. Solar energy, wind turbines, ethanol, even fuel from waste, all these renewable energy sources and fuels are a must if we are to survive on this planet. Maybe you've been thinking about solar panels or perhaps a hybrid car. Take a gander at our offerings here.
___________________________
MEMBERS! Post your own stories or articles you've come across [give attributions!]. Just click on Submit Story across the top of the page. You can also tell everyone what you think about any story. Click comments? at the end of each article.Morty's Cabin: Alternative Energy
[ Go to Home | Select a New Topic ] |
|
Published March 26, 2009 by The Nation -- www.thenation.com
The Dirt on Clean Coal
by Ari Berman
In 1955 the Tennessee Valley Authority built what was at the time the world's largest coal plant, near Kingston, Tennessee. More than fifty years later, the Kingston Fossil Plant produces enough electricity to power 670,000 homes and emits nearly 11 million tons of carbon dioxide--the greenhouse gas most responsible for global warming--each year. On December 22 a dike broke at the plant, sending more than a billion gallons of toxic black sludge downhill into the ground, water and homes of eastern Tennessee. The infected area was some forty times larger than the infamous Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska and became known as the "nightmare before Christmas."
|
|
Taking the Focus Off Corn
|
|
Published January 12, 2009 by AlterNet -- www.alternet.org
Ethanol Is a Disaster, But What About Other Biofuels?
By Jenna Scatena, AlterNet
In the midst of corn ethanol's failing, researchers may have found a new hope for biofuel -- just in time.
A recent television ad features an animated corn stalk saying in a nasally, child-like voice: "Ethanol decreases carbon emission by a lot -- that's good for the environment and the air we breathe. Hey, if those Indy race cars are usin' it, there must be somethin' to it! Ethanol: good for your car, the environment and America!" The ethanol industry seems to have a lot to brag about these days: Corn, one of the U.S.' largest commodities, is a staple food for many countries and has been a hope for many wishing to relieve America's dependence on foreign oil with "green" biofuel.
|
Posted by virge on Tuesday, January 13 @ 12:36:08 CST (202 reads)
(Read More... | 11060 bytes more | Score: 0)
|
|
Published January 10, 2009 by The Independent -- www.independent.co.uk
Oil giant comes in from the cold
Exxon funded global warming denial for years. Yesterday, in an astonishing U-turn, it called for the imposition of green taxes.
By Stephen Foley in New York
The boss of ExxonMobil, the world's largest oil company, has called for a carbon tax to tackle global warming, marking a volte-face by the firm once described by Greenpeace as Climate Criminal No 1. Assailed from all sides by scientists and a new cadre of US politicians, led by the President-elect, Barack Obama, the landmark concession by Rex Tillerson represents a nod to realpolitik after years when the company denied the existence of man-made global warming.
Exxon had already dropped its funding of lobby groups which deny the science of climate change and begun to take a softer public line, but even Mr Tillerson admitted that propounding a carbon tax had stuck in the craw until recently. However, with European-style "cap and trade" rules governing carbon emissions moving up the agenda in the US, a carbon tax may be the least worst option, he said. Environmental groups gave a sceptical response to Exxon's U-turn, calling it a deliberate attempt to torpedo the movement for outright carbon caps and any early switch to alternative energy. "A carbon tax is also the most efficient means of reflecting the cost of carbon in all economic decisions – from investments made by companies to fuel their requirements, to the product choices made by consumers," Mr Tillerson said in a speech to the Woodrow Wilson Centre for International Scholars, a Washington think-tank. "As a businessman it is hard to speak favourably about any new tax. But a carbon tax strikes me as a more direct, a more transparent and a more effective approach."
|
Posted by virge on Saturday, January 10 @ 13:10:12 CST (201 reads)
(Read More... | 5035 bytes more | Score: 0)
|
|
Published December 7, 2008 by McClatchy Newspapers -- www.mcclatchydc.com
Go green: Algae could be next hot biofuel
By Les Blumenthal | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — A 75-gallon tank of goo that in the course of a week or so changed color from lime green to almost black was one of the stars of last summer's Farnborough International Air Show in England.
As airlines ordered hundreds of planes worth billions of dollars at the world's largest air show, the tank, or bioreactor, was a near-perfect breeding ground for what could become the fuel of the future: the lowly algae.
|
Posted by Virge on Monday, December 08 @ 10:53:49 CST (196 reads)
(Read More... | 6931 bytes more | Score: 0)
|
|
Published October 9, 2008 by AlterNet -- www.alternet.org
How T. Boone Pickens' Energy Plan Just Got Killed
By David Morris, AlterNet
The new bailout plan passed by Congress may have put the nail in the coffin on Pickens' dangerous energy proposal.
The financial bailout bill passed by Congress may have once and for all put an end to T. Boone Pickens' energy plan. Let me explain.
Until the financial meltdown obliterated all other news coverage, T. Boone and his energy plan were everywhere. His book, The First Billion Is the Hardest, is number two on the bestseller list. During the Republican and Democrat Conventions his press conferences were attended by a fawning media, virtually all of who filed stories with the theme "oil man turns wind energy advocate."
|
Posted by Virge on Thursday, October 09 @ 13:56:53 CDT (257 reads)
(Read More... | 6302 bytes more | Score: 0)
|
|
Published August 21, 2008 by AlterNet--www.alternet.org
Why T. Boone Pickens' 'Clean Energy' Plan Is a Ponzi Scheme
By Scott Thill
The controversial oil magnate has made headlines for a supposed conversion to cleaner energy, but there's ample reason to be suspicious.
"If you are going out of business, you don't go down with the ship, you get another ship. For us, it's natural gas." -- T. Boone Pickens, "Becoming a Billionaire"
You can't always get what you want, the Rolling Stones counseled. But if you try sometimes, you get what you need. Factor billions of dollars, questionable loyalties and a privatization rap sheet invested more in profit than people into the equation, and you usually can get both what you want and what you need. In the case of hyper-loaded oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, that means having your cake on climate crisis, fossil fuel addiction, eminent domain, water privatization and corporate earnings -- and eating it too.
|
Posted by virge on Thursday, August 21 @ 13:49:40 CDT (289 reads)
(Read More... | 9388 bytes more | Score: 5)
|
|
|
Time for Some Great News!
|
|
Published August 4, 2008 by Environmental News Service (ENS)--www.ens-newswire.com
Solar Power Breakthrough Stores Energy for Later Use
CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts - Within 10 years, homeowners could power their homes in daylight with solar photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen from water to power a household fuel cell. If the new process developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology finds acceptance in the marketplace, electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past.
“This is the nirvana of what we’ve been talking about for years,” said MIT’s Daniel Nocera, senior author of a paper describing the simple, inexpensive, and efficient process for storing solar energy in the July 31 issue of the journal “Science.”
|
Posted by virge on Monday, August 04 @ 14:35:28 CDT (356 reads)
(Read More... | 4913 bytes more | Score: 5)
|
|
|
Desert Has Huge Possibilities
|
|
Published July 23, 2008 by The Guardian--www.guardian.co.uk
Solar Power From Saharan Sun Could Provide Europe’s Electricity, Says EU
by Alok Jha
A tiny rectangle superimposed on the vast expanse of the Sahara captures the seductive appeal of the audacious plan to cut Europe’s carbon emissions by harnessing the fierce power of the desert sun.
Dwarfed by any of the north African nations, it represents an area slightly smaller than Wales but scientists claimed yesterday it could one day generate enough solar energy to supply all of Europe with clean electricity.
Speaking at the Euroscience Open Forum in Barcelona, Arnulf Jaeger-Walden of the European commission’s Institute for Energy, said it would require the capture of just 0.3% of the light falling on the Sahara and Middle East deserts to meet all of Europe’s energy needs.
|
Posted by virge on Wednesday, July 23 @ 13:06:01 CDT (309 reads)
(Read More... | 5995 bytes more | Score: 5)
|
|
|
A 19th Century Source of Energy
|
|
Published July 20, 2008 by the Los Angeles Times--www.latimes.com
Coal Carves a Place in the Future of Global Energy
by Chris Kraul
ALBANIA, COLOMBIA - Its gray and black walls stretching to infinity, Latin America’s largest coal mine resembles a miniature Grand Canyon.
The big difference is that the timeless hand of nature has not carved out El Cerrejon mine. Booming global demand has.
A fleet of electric shovels runs 24 hours a day scooping up 50 tons of coal at a swipe. The rock is loaded onto 100-car trains that roll nine times a day to a private Caribbean port, where it is placed on cargo ships that deliver it to power plants in Chile, the Netherlands, Japan, the United States’ Eastern Seaboard and elsewhere.
|
Posted by virge on Monday, July 21 @ 09:59:50 CDT (337 reads)
(Read More... | 7090 bytes more | Score: 0)
|
|
Published July 19, 2008 by the New York Times--www.nytimes.com
Texas Approves a $4.93 Billion Wind-Power Project
by Kate Galbraith
AUSTIN - Texas regulators have approved a $4.93 billion wind-power transmission project, providing a major lift to the development of wind energy in the state.
The planned web of transmission lines will carry electricity from remote western parts of the state to major population centers like Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio. The lines can handle 18,500 megawatts of power, enough for 3.7 million homes on a hot day when air-conditioners are running.
The project will ease a bottleneck that has become a major obstacle to development of the wind-rich Texas Panhandle and other areas suitable for wind generation.
|
Posted by virge on Saturday, July 19 @ 13:23:55 CDT (315 reads)
(Read More... | 4729 bytes more | Score: 5)
|
|
[ Archives ] | |
|
|
