Posts filed under ‘energy’
Flies are fuel
I just wanted to link to something really really cool. And kind of creepy.
It seems that a design firm is making household furniture/robots that make their own electricity by attracting and then digesting household pests. I don’t know how it works, but it seems to involve lights, holes, and something called “microbial fuel cells”. Soooo cool.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Sir.
Today’s a big day for you, President Bush. Tomorrow you’re moving out of the White House, which means today is packing day. I can imagine you’ve accumulated a lot over the past eight years – I hope you’ve got a big suitcase.
Don’t forget your golf clubs – I hear the new guy plays a different sport so he won’t be needing them. And be sure to take your golf buddies, too, and all the other miserly schemers that you surround yourself with. Make room in the trunk for all those new coal plants that have gone up under your watch, and the inefficient cars and trucks that have been built. Take your framed, unsigned copy of the Kyoto agreement, and those two scientists that still don’t believe in global warming. Pack up those drilling rights that you’ve issued, and please return the ice and polar bears that have gone missing. Hold on to all your other paperwork, too – you never know what you’ll need when you get indicted.
Bring your bad speech, your ignorant world outlook, your apathy toward those of us who don’t happen to be older, white, wealthy and male. Try and make room for all the regression and missed opportunities that you’ve created – I know it’s a lot, but you really deserve them more than anyone else. And take your corporate bedfellows, your disregard for environmental and human consequences, and your wars. I don’t care what you do with Cheney, but make sure he’s emptied all the dirt from his desk and leaves his keys.
Pack it all up, and get it out of here. It’s really not fair to leave your mess for the next tennant, and we, the people, have no need for your crappy legacy.
Overview: Washington’s New Green Team
President Elect Barack Obama – who seems to have already done more work to improve our country in 6 weeks than Bush has in 8 years – has announced the names of the folks who will comprise his administration’s environmental team. And they rock. Here’s a brief overview:
Running the energy department will be Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist with real knowledge about climate and energy. Now, I know it’s hard to imagine a real scientist at work in the White House – just be brave and we’ll all get through this together. (more…)
Clean Coal Reality Check
Al Gore’s Reality Coalition just put out this new ad campaign – it’s funny, because it’s true.
Bush’s EPA Scrambles to Pass Degradation Measures
With less than two months left to finish up all their dirty work, the Bush Administration’s environmental team is as busy as a group of Mongolian Beavers tying up loose ends and signing environmentally devastating rules into action. Unlike its name suggests, the Bush EPA has been less of an “Environmental” Protection Agency, and more like a “Corporate” Protection Agency, as is illustrated by the institution’s most recent move to loosen burdensome regulations on coal companies who have previously just ignored the regulations and polluted anyway. Now that EPA director Stephen Johnson has signed a new rule, Coal Companies that practice Mountaintop Removal are legally allowed to dump rocks and other debris into streams and valleys, a practice that is well known to endanger the health and safety of people and wildlife living downstream.
The new rule is just one of many coal regulation “reforms” expected to come soon from the outgoing administration, including orders that will allow coal-fired power plants to increase their emissions and open up lands near national parks for new coal plants. Sigh, I’m really gonna miss these guys come January 20th. I hope the door doesn’t smack them on their greedy, irresponsible asses on the way out.
For more info on all this, read the NY Times Article, and the NRDC’s press release. Also, I just happened to be in West Virginia last spring, where I made this video about Mountaintop Removal. Lots of thanks to Chuck and the good people at Coal River Mountain Watch.
Still Too Soon to Buy Those (Green) Curtains
The election of Barack Obama was good news for environmentalists, as he is likely to diverge from the Bush Administration’s policy of rape, pillage, dump and drill. Ever since November 4th, many of us have been drooling on our shirts and letting our eyes roll off into space as we daydream about the green curtains, solar panels and organic garden that the President Elect is no doubt planning to install in the White House. We shiver with anticipation at the thought of his newly empowered EPA, and giggle with glee as we count off possible USDA and EPA heads as if we’re reciting our Christmas list.
It’s an exciting time for the greenies (and for Americans, in general), but I’m writing to warn everybody that we aren’t there yet. He’s not really our president until January 20th, and there’s a lot of havoc that the Bush administration can wreak between now and then.
For example, (more…)
Bling Goes the Hybrid
This is the Cadillac Escalade Hybrid, a vehicle that Cadillac is calling, “The Future of Luxury”. At 22 mpg (up from 18) and $70+ thousand, this monstrosity would really be better referred to as “an awkward but perhaps inevitable consequnce of America’s transition to true green transportation.” Even when you ignore the yards of leather, numerous flat-screens and other shiny, non-recycled decorations lining the interior of this “car”, the fact that this eight-seater only gets 22 mpg (highway!) is a real shame.
Cadillac boasts that the Hybrid Escalade is the “world’s first full-size luxury hybrid SUV”. Maybe it’s just me, but the phrase “luxury hybrid SUV” is a bit of a brain-bender. It seems like the Cadillac people have maintained the illusion that they can have their luxury SUVs and be green too. But they’re wrong. My 1995 Volvo 850 sedan gets 28 mpg. It’s 13 years old, not a hybrid, and it’s still better for the environment than the new Escalade. Granted, my car does not seat 8, but you can buy a Toyota Sienna mini van for 1/3 of the price, seat the same number of passengers, and get a whole extra mile to the gallon – and the Sienna isn’t even a Hybrid. It’s just Japanese.
The moral of this story: it’s officially time for the American Car Manufacturer to wake up. WAKE UP! Just because you might sell a few of these luxury hybrid SUV’s to trend-setting Rappers and other LA types doesn’t mean that they’re worth making. It’s time to make some compromises and develop some really nice cars for real Americans. You can keep the shininess, but you might want to consider dropping some of the extra tonnage and make a nice, efficient hybrid (or even an electric car! why not?) that gets over 40 miles to the gallon. The true bling is in the MPG.
Potentially AWESOME
One of the few things I remember from my highschool physics class is the concept of potential energy. It basically says that if you, or any object, goes up, you’re storing up potential energy, because gravity will inevitably bring you down. So if you throw a ball up in the air, you’re putting energy into sending it upwards, but you’ll also get some energy back as it falls back to the ground. Very basically: what goes up will come down, and it will come down with some force.
A scientist in virginia is putting this basic principle to work with his new invention: a gravity lamp. It’s awesome and I want one. Aside from looking like a prop from the Star Trek set, it’s totally cordless and powered only by you – the user. All you have to do is lift a weight up, and then the light truns on and stays on for 4 hours while the weights slowly fall and release their gravity-induced energy.
I’ve actually seen something like this before, but sadly I can’t find a clip to share with you. If you rent the 1986 classic Harrison Ford movie “The Mosquito Coast,” you’ll come across a scene towards the middle of the film where Mr. Ford has built a really awesome ceiling fan that runs using this falling-weight gadgetry. (more…)
People Power in the New York Times
It turns out that I’m not the only one thinking about how to convert human energy into electricity these days. The New York Times reports today that Canadian researchers have developed a gadget that harvests energy from the knee joint as people walk, using a knee-brace with a mechanical device that can collect about 5 watts or electricity (enough to power a few cell-phones or other small electronics). Plus, it doesn’t take any extra effort to generate power using it – all you have to do is walk, and the juice starts flowing. It’s unlikely that these things will be on the market any time soon, but its really good to know that there are guys in white coats in labs out there making these things. Maybe one of them is working on a hand-crank cuisinart battery at this very moment…
