Tag: wind

CEO talks “clean power”

Those who know or use Duke power don’t really like them especially for their wide use of coal, mentioned in the opening of this article.

But with time on my hands, the past couple of years leading into early retirement with the collapse of the construction industry, I’ve been following them as well as trying to follow others, not much on the others, as to innovation in new energy development and needs and a green economy.

They have actually not been a big corporate machine that has been sitting on there bottom line these past couple of years. They’ve been moving rapidly into solar and wind. Either by themselves or partnering with others or buying up existing solar and wind developments others had already built. Not fast enough, especially here in NC, to make a big dent in all the unemployed trades, architects and engineers, but have put many back to work.  

Public Lands, the Solar Fast Track, and a Greener Future … hopefully

In case you didn’t know, Solar, Wind, Geothermal Projects, are being “Fast Track” by the Obama Administration.

Fast Tracking attempts to minimize the red tape, in order to get the boots on the ground as soon as feasible.

They are OUR Public lands by the way.  We should use them to secure our Energy Future while protecting our wonderful Natural Heritage.

Here are the highlights:

BLM> California> California Desert District> Alternative Energy> Fast-Track Projects

Fast-Track Renewable Energy Projects

Solar

Ivanpah BrightSource Solar Project

The 400-megwatt project would incorporate seven 459-foot tall power towers and 214,000 heliostats (each holding two flat mirrors).

The project’s power plants would share an administrative complex/construction logistics area on approximately 4,073 acres of public land.

Good Green News..

Happy Valentine’s Day all!!!

 Here we go…

Scotland Fisherman and Conservationists Working together

“It was the islanders who first raised concerns about the decline in fish and other marine life in the bay. Arran was once renowned for its fishing, with hundreds of sea anglers flocking to the island for its annual fish festival. That was decades ago when cod, haddock, hake, dab, plaice and turbot were plentiful in the waters of the Firth of Clyde.

Today the Clyde fishing fleet is a fraction of its original size, and the white fish have gone, leaving only prawns, langoustines and a dwindling stock of scallops. Islanders said the bed of the bay had been left barren after being dragged clean by dredgers – a claim refuted by the fishermen.”

This concern led to a unique collaboration between all stakeholders, eventually resulting in the proposals for significant no-take zones to allow fish stocks to recover. Such zones have been set up before in the UK – a pilot project in 2003 around Lundy Island reported significant recovery in marine life after just 18 months. This is, however, the first time such an effort has been brought about through grassroots collaboration, rather than top-down planning. The result is a significant area of marine habitat that will be left undisturbed by fishing, with an even larger area set aside for strict management:

Green up your cell phone!!

Nokia has unveiled ReMade, a revolutionary mobile phone made of 100% recycled materials.

The idea behind the “remade”? concept was to see if it was possible to create a device made from nothing new. It has been designed using recycled materials that avoid the need for natural resources, reduce landfill, and allow for more energy efficient production.

UN Sec Gen encourages global green economy

In a remarkable step into the worlds of high finance and climate politics, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was in Chicago last week to encourage U.S. business leaders to help reshape the world’s economic future by investing in low-carbon markets.

In a February 7 speech to the Economic Club of Chicago, Secretary-General Ban asked his audience to enter an “age of green economics,”? with the United Nations as a partner.

70,000 Stirling solar generators to be placed in Southwest

On a perfect New Mexico winter day – with the sky almost 10 percent brighter than usual – Sandia National Laboratories and Stirling Energy Systems (SES) set a new solar-to-grid system conversion efficiency record by achieving a 31.25 percent net efficiency rate. The old 1984 record of 29.4 percent was toppled Jan. 31 on SES’s “Serial #3” solar dish Stirling system at Sandia’s National Solar Thermal Test Facility.

Osborn says that SES is working to commercialize the record-performing system and has signed power purchase agreements with two major Southern California utilities (Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric) for up to 1,750 megawatts (MW) of power, representing the world’s two largest solar power contracts. Collectively, these contracts require up to 70,000 solar dish engine units.

Green Goodness…

Ok the first Docudharma green goodness diary…

India teaching the young about conservation

What’s the most effective way to teach people the value of water and other scarce resources in a world where they are becoming more and more precious? The solution: start young – or at least that’s what progressive, ecologically-minded institutions such as the Vagdevi Vilas at Munne Kolalu, near Bangalore, India, are trying to do. Other institutions such as the Barefoot College in Tilonia, Rajasthan, are also aiming to show the way toward a revolution in the way ecology and sustainability issues are addressed in education and local communities.

Begun three years ago, the school now has 2,300 students on an eight-acre property that performs as a laboratory for putting the school’s ecological education into action

Geek oil?

Yep, some boffins believe they can make what they call a bio-crude oil, using their secret Furafuel technology. Dr Steven Loffler of Forest Biosciences with Australia’s government science research body, CSIRO and his white coated mates at Monash University announced they can, via a chemical process, produce a highly stable oil. This can be readily refined to an equivalent of either petrol or diesel from waste paper, timber and crop wastes.

In fact pretty much anything that is endowed with plenty of lignocellulose. They reckon even forest thinnings, straw and household green garden waste will do the trick. An added benefit of their process is that the bio-crude oil is also PH neutral, so it can be held in storage for a while, before further processing.

You know it is bad when former oil execs are out there condemning gas guzzlers

The former chairman of Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell has called on the European Union to ban gas-guzzling cars, saying they are unnecessary, the BBC reported Monday. “Nobody needs a car that does 10-15 mpg (miles per gallon, 19-28 litres per 100 kilometres),” Mark Moody-Stuart was quoted as saying.

“We need very tough regulation saying that you can’t drive or build something less than a certain standard. You would be allowed to drive an Aston Martin — but only if it did 50-60 mpg.”

Got some old suitcases you hate? Turn them into furniture… Just a small article put the pics are cool.

GO MEXICO!!!

In honor of World Wetlands Day, Mexico added 45 wetlands to an international registry that promotes conservation and sustainable development, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. Ramsar, which now covers more than 1,699 wetlands totaling 375 million acres, was signed in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971 to coordinate international efforts to conserve wetlands.

Banks applying environmental standards to business loans.

Top U.S. investment banks are set to impose environmental standards that will make it harder for companies to acquire financing for coal-fired power plants, in preparation for government caps on greenhouse-gas emissions, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

The report said Citigroup Inc, JP Morgan Chase & Co, and Morgan Stanley, expect the U.S. government to cap power-plant emissions in the next few years, and will thus require utilities seeking financing for plants to prove that those facilities will be viable under new regulations.

Using nanotech to round up atmospheric gases.

Chemists unveil new process for capturing and storing gas; potential spin-offs include improvements to greenhouse gas  management and fuel cell development

A new process for catching gas from the environment and holding it indefinitely in molecular-sized containers has been developed by a team of University of Calgary researchers, who say it represents a novel method of gas storage that could yield benefits for capturing, storing and transporting gases more safely and efficiently.

And finally for now because this is just cool…Have a condo, you could have a fish farm. No really….

Check it out

Big fish are moving into the big city. Recent headlines about contaminants found in the sushi of New York restaurants gives us all the more reason to love Yonathan Zohar’s city fish farms. Perfect for the basements of large condos or parked near a big city market, Zohar’s commercial fish farms solve a number of problems.

“It is clear that the consumption of seafood and fish is on the rise, because of the great health benefits… but now we are over-harvesting,” warns Zohar, director of the Center of Marine Biotechnology at the University of Maryland. “We need to change that practice and become more efficient in a way that is compatible to the earth.”

Using advanced concepts of microbiology, Zohar has entrained special microbes to live in symbiosis with the fish in order to digest their waste, 21c reports. Aerated by plastic plugs that house the microbes, the fish pools are bio-secure and contaminant free.

How To – Alternative Energy

Solar Powered George Bush Chariot Ride:

🙂 🙂 🙂

Wind and Solar Energy How-To

A down home guy giving some down home tips:

2 More below the fold