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Europe’s Carbon Tax: It’s created a multibillion-euro windfall for some of the continent's biggest polluters, with little or no noticeable benefit to the environment so far. The EU system represents about 75 percent of global carbon trading see

 

Guide to Home Geothermal: Efficient and economical, geothermal heats, cools and cuts fossil fuel use at home. Whether you're in sunny Florida, or snowy New Hampshire, a ground-fed climate system can free a consumer from fluctuating energy prices and save money on power bills immediately. Here's how it works: see

 

Nuclear Making a Comeback in the EU: Sweden joined other EU countries in choosing to build more nuclear energy plants to diversify from fossil fuels and meet tough climate-change targets for cutting CO2 emissions.  Atomic generation is now seen as part of an emissions-free energy strategy, even in a country with popular opinion had been squarely against nuclear power and one with extensive hydroelectric resources.  see  , see

 

Review Of James Lovelock: Revenge of Gaia: Earth’s Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity, London:  Allen Lane, 2006, 172 pages. see , see

 

Algae: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly: Taking the promise and potential of algae, divorcing it from the hype, and adding a dose of reality is key in the pursuit of finding a way to scale algal oil production to the commercial enterprise level. Algae holds significant promise - not only for biofuel, but for nutritional products, nutraceuticals, animal feedstock, wastewater treatment, CO2 mitigation, job creation and more. Yet an understanding of its pluses and minuses are absolutely essential to planning for its future use and future investments.  see

 

Introduction to Solar Power: A Philazine Powerpoint Presentation about solar energy technology.  Basic introduction exploring both passive and active types of this emerging technology. Cost comparisons to other types of power generation.  Details which countries and are making the most headway in implementing the technology.  see

 

Biofuels? Maybe. Corn? No:  It simply does not make sense to use a resource that possesses the highest carbon content (coal) to produce a so-called "green" biofuel. This is why some researchers are looking at the possibilities of cellulosic ethanol -- biofuel derived solely from nonfood plants. Aside from the destruction nitrogen causes soil, many experts are concerned that using corn for ethanol instead of food will perpetuate our world's hunger problem. It requires trucks, railroads or barges for distribution -- using yet more fuel and emitting more greenhouse gases. see

 

Grocery Powers Itself with Customers: The Sainsbury' Grocery Store in Gloucester uses “kinetic plates”  to create 30kWh an hour by putting plates in the parking lot for customers to drive over and create electricity with their cars’ motions. The store also harvests rainwater to flush the store's toilets and uses solar thermal panels to heat up to 100% of the store's hot water.

 

The Future: How Bad the Climate? Sober and sobering projection of human survivability on a warming planet. The only places with enough water will be in the high latitudes. "Everything in that region will be growing like mad. That's where all the life will be," says former NASA scientist James Lovelock. see

 

Water or Energy? Water is needed to generate energy. Energy is needed to deliver water. Both resources are limiting the other—and both may be running short, suggesting tough choices ahead.  We are approaching something like peak water: the tension between water and energy: water restrictions are hampering solutions for generating more energy, and energy problems, particularly rising prices, are curtailing efforts to supply more clean water. see

 

Peak Coal? New estimates suggest that the world’s supply of coat is at least twenty-five percent less than previously estimated. And it could be much small still. “Governments are terrible at estimating their own fossil fuel reserves.  A new model was developed by looking back at historical examples of fossil fuel exhaustion. see

 

Tidal Power: Northern Ireland has becomes the first country to a tidal stream system that generates 1.2mw of power, the highest level generated anywhere in the world by such a system. The tidal turbine sits near the narrow mouth of Strangford Lough on the east coast of the province. The rotors on the giant structure are driven by the tidal currents, and the system is intended to run for 22 hours every day, supplying enough power for the needs of about 1,000 homes. see

 

New Solar Technology: Six solar dish engines of the Solar Thermal Test Facility at Sandia National Laboratories have achieved very high efficiency. They look a bit like giant, highly reflective satellite dishes. Each one is a mosaic of 82 mirrors that fit together to form a 38-ft-wide parabola.  see

 

Some Nuclear Problems Debunked: Alternet recently ran a post about the six biggest problems with nuclear reactors. Here’s a link to the original: Alternet post. This is a short Reddit reply thread that shows at least one error in each of the six anti-nuclear arguments.  see.  Nuclear, though, still has other problems: see

 

Solar Power Stations on the Rise: There's been a 78% jump in applications to build solar projects on federal land in the last six months. The number of applications has risen to 223 from 125. There are 107 applications for the BLM land in California, 71 applications in Nevada and 35 in Arizona, Malone said. New Mexico, Utah and Colorado make up the rest. see  

 

Geothermal  energy may be the most prolific renewable fuel source that most people have never heard of. Although the supply is virtually limitless, the massive upfront costs required to extract it have long rendered geothermal a novelty. One plant near Reno, Nevada uses steam heat from deep within the Earth's crust to generate electricity. Known as geothermal, the energy is clean, reliable and so abundant that this facility produces more than enough electricity to power every home in Reno, population 221,000. "There's no smoke. Very little noise," said Ormat Technologies manager. "People don't even know it's here."  see

 

Water or Energy? Water is needed to generate energy. Energy is needed to deliver water. Both resources are limiting the other—and both may be running short.  We are approaching something like peak water: the tension between water and energy: water restrictions are hampering solutions for generating more energy, and energy problems, particularly rising prices, are curtailing efforts to supply more clean water. see

 

Rooftop Solar Falling in Price: Rooftop solar systems and installation have fallen 8% to 10% since October, 2008 and are expected to drop another 15% to 20% in 2009. Fueling the trend are an oversupply of worldwide manufacturing capacity and lower demand, especially in Spain and Germany. For U.S. homeowners,  prices are likely to plunge by more than 50% with the bigger federal tax credit that took effect Jan. 1. see

 

Corn Ethanol:  A University of Wisconsin study says corn ethanol is no better for the environment than gasoline – and it may be worse for the air. Environmental costs averaged 72 cents to $1.45 per gallon for corn-based ethanol. The health concern comes mainly from microscopic particulates in the air, which are produced when fossil fuels are burned. see  

 

Nuclear? Coal? Wind? Which? This is a 2006 comparison of six ways to generate electricity: nuclear, hydro, coal, gas, biofuels, and wind. Nuclear turned out to be the cheapest; with wind the most expensive – by a factor of two or three times. see

 

Solar Thermal Plants: The Next Big Thing. Covering acres of desert with mirrors tofocus intense sunlight on a fluid, heating it enough to make steam. The steam turns a turbine and generates electricity. Two prototype solar thermal plants were recently opened in the United States, with a capacity that could power several big hotels, neon included, on the Las Vegas Strip. Another 10 power plants are in advanced planning in California, Arizona and Nevada. see

 

Electric Grid Rebuild: A $75 billion investment in a high-voltage “backbone”' for the U.S. electric grid could cut oil consumption in half. It would take a 21,000-mile (33,788-kilometer) national grid to help move power across the U.S. Such a grid would reduce prices, power plug-in hybrid cars, and displace the use of home heating oil, according to a study by Peter Huber, senior fellow for the Manhattan Institute. see

 

Wind Energy Development is being hit by a slowdown in private sector investment as credit has dried up and the price of oil has fallen from its mid-2008 high. The trend is hitting Europe particularly hard, which remains the largest wind energy market worldwide and is home to six of the world's top 10 wind turbine manufacturers. Newly installed wind capacity worldwide will increase by just 14% in 2009—less than half the typical annual growth rate booked in the past decade. see

 

Small Wind Turbines not that Green: A new  UK study on the life cycle of micro wind turbines – that kind that you can mount on the roof of a home – show that in many more climate-warming carbon dioxide is produced in the manufacture, installation and maintenance of the turbines than they save by generating "green" power over their expected lifetime. see

 

Passive Houses Use 95% Less Energy: The passive house, pioneered in Darmstadt, Germany uses ultrathick insulation and complex doors and windows, so that the home is encased in an airtight shell. Barely any heat escapes and barely any cold seeps in. That means a passive house can be warmed not only by the sun, but also by the heat from appliances and even from occupants’ bodies. see