Old diving tank air extends CSIRO Air Archive
“Our record from Cape Grim in Tasmania presently extends back to 1978, but this finding has taken it back to at least 1970 for some greenhouse gases,” says Dr Paul Fraser, who leads the greenhouse gas research team for CSIRO.
Lightweight “triple-zero” house produces more energy than it uses
Built in 2000, it was the first in a series of buildings that are “triple-zero,” a concept developed by German architect and engineer Werner Sobek, which signifies that the building is energy self-sufficient (zero energy consumed), produces zero emissions, and is made entirely of recyclable materials (zero waste).
(Jim Otto. I’m guessing he wasn’t zero-emission.)
Just not the one you might think.
Climate change cover-up? You better believe it
There is, in fact, a climate conspiracy. It just happens to be one launched by the fossil fuel industry to obscure the truth about climate change and delay any action. And this release of emails right before the Copenhagen conference is just another salvo—and a highly effective one—in that public relations battle, redolent with the scent of the same flaks and hacks who brought you “smoking isn’t dangerous.”
Meet the Man Who Could End Global Warming
By deploying sodium-cooled fast reactors. It overstates the case, completely ignores wind and solar as contributors to green energy replacements for coal and oil, and I think it glosses over and muddles the physics a bit, but it’s interesting nonetheless. One big hurdle, of course, is getting the masses over their phobia of things nuclear-related.
Not mentioned is the fact that the Sea Wolf (a submarine) was powered by a sodium-cooled reactor, though of a different design than proposed here. There were problems, but at least some of that is tied in with being on a submarine, and it was commissioned more than 50 years ago.
Green Consumers and the Recession: Is It Really Different This Time?
“What we see in more developed countries is that, yes, there is the idea of having a personal benefit, but there is a greater sense of altruism when you’re behaving green. In the U.S., it has more to do with the personal benefit as opposed to having some sort of general sense that we have to save the planet.”
I’m shocked — shocked! — to find gambling going on in this establishment.
Elizabeth Kolbert has some not very flattering things to say about Levitt and Dubner’s new book. (along with RealClimate and several other blogs)
According to Levitt and Dubner, the story’s message is a simple one: if, at any particular moment, things look bleak, it’s because people are seeing them the wrong way. “When the solution to a given problem doesn’t lie right before our eyes, it is easy to assume that no solution exists,” they write. “But history has shown again and again that such assumptions are wrong.”
Solutions do exist. But there’s money to be made in proposing easy solutions to difficult situations, and there’s a supply of credulous customers for quick fixes, assuming they haven’t spent all their money on diet- or male-enhancement pills.
Energy Secretary Steve Chu visits the Googleplex to talk about how the U.S. can build a prosperous economy powered by clean energy.
Spain reaches new wind record: 45.1% of Spain’s total electricity demand
That’s a peak value.
On average throughout the year, wind energy meets 12% of Spain’s electricity demand. The largest producer of wind power in Spain is Iberdrola, with 27 percent of capacity, followed by Acciona on 16 percent and Endesa with 10 percent. Spain’s wind farms are on track to meet a government target of 20,000 MW in capacity by 2010.
Spain’s so lucky, having those large wind deposits. If only we had wind here in the US (that’s not counting the coastal wind, dangerous to harvest off of Nantucket, because of the danger it might spill)
STUDY: U.S. subsidises fossil fuels 2.5 times more than renewables
Fossil fuels were given about $72 billion during the seven years, while renewable fuels got just $29 billion. The money the U.S. spends on renewables isn’t all that great, either. Of the $29 billion, $16.8 billion went to producing corn-based ethanol. Just two tax credits – the Foreign Tax Credit and the Credit for Production of Nonconventional Fuels – account for about $30 billion.
To be fair, normalized to the amount of energy, renewables probably win, but this still seems backwards. Weaning ourselves from foreign oil and reducing CO2 emissions isn’t going to be painless. I think it’s time that we recognize that, stop being like children afraid of getting a shot at the doctor’s office, and suck it up a little bit.
Norman Borlaug, 95, Dies; Led Green Revolution
Norman E. Borlaug, the plant scientist who did more than anyone else in the 20th century to teach the world to feed itself and whose work was credited with saving hundreds of millions of lives, died Saturday night. He was 95 and lived in Dallas.