Algae as Fuel
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originally posted at http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18138/
Technology Review - Published by MIT
Monday, February 05, 2007
Algae-Based Fuels Set to Bloom
Oil from microorganisms could help ease the nation's energy woes.
By Kevin Bullis
Relatively high oil prices, advances in technology, and the Bush administration's increased emphasis on renewable fuels are attracting new interest in a potentially rich source of biofuels: algae. A number of startups are now demonstrating new technology and launching large research efforts aimed at replacing hundreds of millions of gallons of fossil fuels by 2010, and much more in the future.
Algae makes oil naturally. Raw algae can be processed to make biocrude, the renewable equivalent of petroleum, and refined to make gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and chemical feedstocks for plastics and drugs. Indeed, it can be processed at existing oil refineries to make just about anything that can be made from crude oil. This is the approach being taken by startups Solix Biofuels, based in Fort Collins, CO, and LiveFuels, based in Menlo Park, CA.
Alternatively, strains of algae that produce more carbohydrates and less oil can be processed and fermented to make ethanol, with leftover proteins used for animal feed. This is one of the potential uses of algae produced by startup GreenFuel Technologies Corporation, based in Cambridge, MA.
The theoretical potential is clear. Algae can be grown in open ponds or sealed in clear tubes, and it can produce far more oil per acre than soybeans, a source of oil for biodiesel. Algae can also clean up waste by processing nitrogen from wastewater and carbon dioxide from power plants. What's more, it can be grown on marginal lands useless for ordinary crops, and it can use water from salt aquifers that is not useful for drinking or agriculture. "Algae have the potential to produce a huge amount of oil," says Kathe Andrews-Cramer, the technical lead researcher for biofuels and bioenergy programs at Sandia National Laboratories, in Albuquerque, NM. "We could replace certainly all of our diesel fuel with algal-derived oils, and possibly replace a lot more than that."
To be sure, the use of algae for liquid fuels has been studied extensively in the past, including through a program at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) that ran for nearly a decade. At the time, the results were not encouraging. The NREL program was terminated in 1996, largely because at the time crude-oil prices were far too low for algae to compete.
But Eric Jarvis, an NREL scientist, says that enough has changed that NREL researchers expect to restart the program within the next six months to a year. When the program was cancelled in 1996, oil prices were relatively low. Today's higher oil prices will make it easier for algae to compete. Still, Jarvis cautions that "you have to be careful because there's a lot of hype out there right now."
Biotech advances in the past decade could help. New genomic and proteomic technologies make it much easier to understand the mechanisms involved in algae-oil production. One of the challenges researchers have faced is that while some types of algae can produce large amounts of oil--as much as 60 percent of their weight--they only do this when they're starved for nutrients. But when they're starved for nutrients, they lose another of their attractive features: their ability to quickly grow and reproduce. Researchers hope to understand the molecular switches that cause increased oil production, with the added hope of triggering it without starving the algae. This could dramatically increase oil production and drive down prices.
A better understanding of biology may help researchers address another problem. The cheapest way to grow algae is in open ponds. But open ponds full of nutrients invite other species to take over, competing with the algae and cutting down production. LiveFuels, which is funding and coordinating research at its own lab and at those at both Sandia and the NREL, hopes to create algal ecosystems that resist such invaders by ensuring that all the nutrients are converted to forms the algae can easily use, says David Kingsbury, the chair of the company's scientific advisory board.
Recent tests of an algae-based system developed by GreenFuel, which, unlike LiveFuels, is developing closed bioreactors, showed that it could capture about 80 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted from a power plant during the day when sunlight is available. Although this carbon dioxide will later be released when the fuel is burned in vehicles, the carbon dioxide would have entered the atmosphere anyway. Reusing it in renewable liquid fuels makes it possible to prevent the release of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, thereby decreasing total emissions.
The growing interest in regulating carbon-dioxide emissions could also be a boon to algal fuels. "If there is a carbon tax, or another way to basically make money by capturing carbon dioxide, that could definitely impact the economics," Jarvis says. But GreenFuel's John Lewnard, vice president of process development, says the company thinks it can reach competitive prices without carbon taxes.
But for now, lowering costs will mean overcoming many technical hurdles. "Clearly, [producing fuel from algae] can be done," says Lissa Morgenthaler Jones, LiveFuels's CEO. "The only question is whether we can do it cheaply. And the only way we're going to find that out is if we do it--if we actually go out, crank it through, spend some millions on it, and make it happen."
There is plenty of federal interest these days. In his State of the Union address, President Bush set an ambitious goal of replacing 20 percent of gasoline consumption in the United States by 2017, largely by producing 35 billion gallons of renewable fuels. Meeting those goals will be a challenge. Right now, biofuels come from food crops such as soybeans and corn; already the demand for corn to produce ethanol is driving up staple foods' prices and fueling protests in Mexico. One alternative to food sources is cellulosic materials such as wood chips, grass, and cornstalks, which are more abundant than corn grain. But these require special processing methods, and although some of these techniques have been demonstrated at small plants, they have yet to be proved commercially.
Copyright Technology Review 2007.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Biomass Conversion Improvement
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originally posted at http://www.e4engineering.com/Articles/298627/Boosting+biofuel+efficiency.htm
Purdue Researchers Propose New Biofuels Process They Say Could Meet All U.S. Transportation Needs
Purdue University chemical engineers have proposed a new environmentally friendly process for producing liquid fuels from plant matter (or biomass) potentially available from agricultural and forest waste that they said would provide all of the fuel needed for "the entire U.S. transportation sector."
The new approach, announced on March 14, modifies conventional methods for producing liquid fuels from biomass by adding hydrogen from a "carbon-free" energy source, such as solar or nuclear power, during a step called gasification. Adding hydrogen during this step suppresses the formation of carbon dioxide and increases the efficiency of the process, making it possible to produce three times the volume of biofuels from the same quantity of biomass, said Rakesh Agrawal, Purdue's Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering.
The researchers are calling their approach a "hybrid hydrogen-carbon process," or H2CAR. "Further research is needed to make this a large-scale reality," Agrawal said. "We could use H2CAR to provide a sustainable fuel supply to meet the needs of the entire U.S. transportation sector -- all cars, trucks, trains and airplanes."
The process, which would make possible the dawning of a "hydrogen-carbon economy," is detailed in a research paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper was written by Agrawal, chemical engineering doctoral student Navneet R. Singh and chemical engineering professors Fabio H. Ribeiro and W. Nicholas Delgass.
A conventional method for turning biomass or coal into liquid fuels involves first breaking down the raw material with a chemical process that "gasifies" it into carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Then those constituents are turned into a liquid fuel with other processes.
In the H2CAR concept, hydrogen would be harvested by splitting water molecules, possibly with a well-known method called electrolysis. Then the hydrogen would be added during the gasification step, making the process more efficient by suppressing the formation of carbon dioxide and converting all of the carbon atoms to fuel.
When conventional methods are used to convert biomass or coal to liquid fuels, 60 percent to 70 percent of the carbon atoms in the starting materials are lost in the process as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, whereas no carbon atoms would be lost using H2CAR, Agrawal said.
"This waste is due to the fact that you are using energy contained in the biomass to drive the entire process," he said. "I'm saying, treat biomass predominantly as a supplier of carbon atoms, not as an energy source."
Power for the electrolysis would be provided by carbon-free energy sources, such as solar, wind or nuclear power. And, unlike conventional methods of producing liquid fuels from plant matter and coal, H2CAR would not emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the researchers said.
"The goal is to accomplish the complete transformation of every carbon atom in the feedstock to liquid fuel by supplementing the conversion process with hydrogen from a carbon-free energy source," Agrawal said.
Other researchers have estimated that the United States has a sustainable supply of about 1.4 billion tons of biomass each year that could be used specifically for the production of liquid fuels. With conventional methods, that quantity of biomass would provide 30 percent of the fuel required for the nation's annual transportation needs. But the same quantity of biomass would provide enough fuel to meet all transportation needs using the new H2CAR method, Agrawal said.
'This is possible without using any additional land," he said.
A federal study indicates that 1 billion tons of biomass is potentially available every year from agricultural sources such as crop wastes, animal manure, grains and other crops. The remaining biomass could come from sources including fuel wood from forests, wastes left over from wood processing mills and paper mills, and construction and demolition debris.
The process also offers potential advantages over producing liquid fuels from coal using conventional methods, which emit carbon dioxide. Because H2CAR would not emit this additional carbon dioxide, the process would eliminate the need for proposed carbon dioxide "sequestering," the researchers said.
Sequestering would involve pumping carbon-dioxide emissions into saltwater aquifers and hollow underground pockets that used to contain oil, natural gas and coal deposits. However, the procedure poses several potential pitfalls.
"Clearly, massive quantities of carbon dioxide would be sequestered during a century-long production of liquid fuels from coal," Agrawal said. "This would place extreme demands on the carbon dioxide capture, storage and monitoring systems."
The new process also would be more practical than all-electric or hydrogen-powered cars, in part because of the limited storage capacity of batteries and hydrogen storage tanks, the researchers said.
"The tremendous convenience provided by the existing infrastructure for delivering and storing today's fuels is a huge deterrent to introducing technologies that use only batteries or hydrogen alone," Agrawal said. "A major advantage of our process is that it would enable us to use the current infrastructure and internal combustion engine technology. It is quite attractive for hybrid electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles."
To grow enough biomass for the entire nation's transportation needs using the conventional method for producing biofuels would require a land area 25 percent to 55 percent the size of the United States, compared with about 6 percent to 10 percent for the H2CAR process.
"This large reduction of land area needed for H2CAR provides an opportunity for sustainable production of hydrocarbon fuel for the foreseeable future," Agrawal said.
A major reason less land would be needed is because of the overall higher efficiency of generating hydrogen by splitting water molecules using solar energy to drive the electrolysis. Usually, the hydrogen in liquid fuels made from biomass comes from the plant matter itself. However, it typically takes more than 10 times the solar energy to grow crops than it does to produce the equivalent quantity of hydrogen possessing the same energy content by using the solar-power electrolysis method, Agrawal stated.
"So providing hydrogen derived from water through solar electrolysis reduces the amount of biomass needed," Agrawal said. "The average energy efficiency of growing crops is typically less than 1 percent, whereas the energy efficiency of photovoltaic cells to split water into hydrogen and oxygen is about 8 percent to 10 percent. I am getting hydrogen at a higher efficiency than I get biomass, meaning I need less land."
Using coal exclusively to produce liquid fuels for the nation's transportation sector could deplete all coal deposits in the United States in about 90 years, whereas H2CAR would enable the known coal reserves to last 140 years.
The researchers suggest in the paper the chemical processing steps needed to make the new approach practical. However, making the concept economically competitive with gasoline and diesel fuel would require research in two areas: finding ways to produce cheap hydrogen from carbon-free sources and developing a new type of gasifier needed for the process.
"Having said that, this is the first concept for creating a sustainable system that derives all of our transportation fuels from biomass," Agrawal said.
Purdue has filed a patent for the concept. The approach is in the conceptual stages, and a plan for experimental research is in progress.
========================================================================
originally posted at http://www.e4engineering.com/Articles/298627/Boosting+biofuel+efficiency.htm
Purdue Researchers Propose New Biofuels Process They Say Could Meet All U.S. Transportation Needs
Purdue University chemical engineers have proposed a new environmentally friendly process for producing liquid fuels from plant matter (or biomass) potentially available from agricultural and forest waste that they said would provide all of the fuel needed for "the entire U.S. transportation sector."
The new approach, announced on March 14, modifies conventional methods for producing liquid fuels from biomass by adding hydrogen from a "carbon-free" energy source, such as solar or nuclear power, during a step called gasification. Adding hydrogen during this step suppresses the formation of carbon dioxide and increases the efficiency of the process, making it possible to produce three times the volume of biofuels from the same quantity of biomass, said Rakesh Agrawal, Purdue's Winthrop E. Stone Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering.
The researchers are calling their approach a "hybrid hydrogen-carbon process," or H2CAR. "Further research is needed to make this a large-scale reality," Agrawal said. "We could use H2CAR to provide a sustainable fuel supply to meet the needs of the entire U.S. transportation sector -- all cars, trucks, trains and airplanes."
The process, which would make possible the dawning of a "hydrogen-carbon economy," is detailed in a research paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper was written by Agrawal, chemical engineering doctoral student Navneet R. Singh and chemical engineering professors Fabio H. Ribeiro and W. Nicholas Delgass.
A conventional method for turning biomass or coal into liquid fuels involves first breaking down the raw material with a chemical process that "gasifies" it into carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Then those constituents are turned into a liquid fuel with other processes.
In the H2CAR concept, hydrogen would be harvested by splitting water molecules, possibly with a well-known method called electrolysis. Then the hydrogen would be added during the gasification step, making the process more efficient by suppressing the formation of carbon dioxide and converting all of the carbon atoms to fuel.
When conventional methods are used to convert biomass or coal to liquid fuels, 60 percent to 70 percent of the carbon atoms in the starting materials are lost in the process as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, whereas no carbon atoms would be lost using H2CAR, Agrawal said.
"This waste is due to the fact that you are using energy contained in the biomass to drive the entire process," he said. "I'm saying, treat biomass predominantly as a supplier of carbon atoms, not as an energy source."
Power for the electrolysis would be provided by carbon-free energy sources, such as solar, wind or nuclear power. And, unlike conventional methods of producing liquid fuels from plant matter and coal, H2CAR would not emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the researchers said.
"The goal is to accomplish the complete transformation of every carbon atom in the feedstock to liquid fuel by supplementing the conversion process with hydrogen from a carbon-free energy source," Agrawal said.
Other researchers have estimated that the United States has a sustainable supply of about 1.4 billion tons of biomass each year that could be used specifically for the production of liquid fuels. With conventional methods, that quantity of biomass would provide 30 percent of the fuel required for the nation's annual transportation needs. But the same quantity of biomass would provide enough fuel to meet all transportation needs using the new H2CAR method, Agrawal said.
'This is possible without using any additional land," he said.
A federal study indicates that 1 billion tons of biomass is potentially available every year from agricultural sources such as crop wastes, animal manure, grains and other crops. The remaining biomass could come from sources including fuel wood from forests, wastes left over from wood processing mills and paper mills, and construction and demolition debris.
The process also offers potential advantages over producing liquid fuels from coal using conventional methods, which emit carbon dioxide. Because H2CAR would not emit this additional carbon dioxide, the process would eliminate the need for proposed carbon dioxide "sequestering," the researchers said.
Sequestering would involve pumping carbon-dioxide emissions into saltwater aquifers and hollow underground pockets that used to contain oil, natural gas and coal deposits. However, the procedure poses several potential pitfalls.
"Clearly, massive quantities of carbon dioxide would be sequestered during a century-long production of liquid fuels from coal," Agrawal said. "This would place extreme demands on the carbon dioxide capture, storage and monitoring systems."
The new process also would be more practical than all-electric or hydrogen-powered cars, in part because of the limited storage capacity of batteries and hydrogen storage tanks, the researchers said.
"The tremendous convenience provided by the existing infrastructure for delivering and storing today's fuels is a huge deterrent to introducing technologies that use only batteries or hydrogen alone," Agrawal said. "A major advantage of our process is that it would enable us to use the current infrastructure and internal combustion engine technology. It is quite attractive for hybrid electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles."
To grow enough biomass for the entire nation's transportation needs using the conventional method for producing biofuels would require a land area 25 percent to 55 percent the size of the United States, compared with about 6 percent to 10 percent for the H2CAR process.
"This large reduction of land area needed for H2CAR provides an opportunity for sustainable production of hydrocarbon fuel for the foreseeable future," Agrawal said.
A major reason less land would be needed is because of the overall higher efficiency of generating hydrogen by splitting water molecules using solar energy to drive the electrolysis. Usually, the hydrogen in liquid fuels made from biomass comes from the plant matter itself. However, it typically takes more than 10 times the solar energy to grow crops than it does to produce the equivalent quantity of hydrogen possessing the same energy content by using the solar-power electrolysis method, Agrawal stated.
"So providing hydrogen derived from water through solar electrolysis reduces the amount of biomass needed," Agrawal said. "The average energy efficiency of growing crops is typically less than 1 percent, whereas the energy efficiency of photovoltaic cells to split water into hydrogen and oxygen is about 8 percent to 10 percent. I am getting hydrogen at a higher efficiency than I get biomass, meaning I need less land."
Using coal exclusively to produce liquid fuels for the nation's transportation sector could deplete all coal deposits in the United States in about 90 years, whereas H2CAR would enable the known coal reserves to last 140 years.
The researchers suggest in the paper the chemical processing steps needed to make the new approach practical. However, making the concept economically competitive with gasoline and diesel fuel would require research in two areas: finding ways to produce cheap hydrogen from carbon-free sources and developing a new type of gasifier needed for the process.
"Having said that, this is the first concept for creating a sustainable system that derives all of our transportation fuels from biomass," Agrawal said.
Purdue has filed a patent for the concept. The approach is in the conceptual stages, and a plan for experimental research is in progress.
IRV Article
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originally posted at http://www.fairvote.org/?page=19
===================================================================================
Arkansas Expands Use of Instant Runoff Ballots
All Overseas Voters Will Join Military Personnel in Using Ranked Ballots
Soldier Voting
On March 9, Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe signed legislation requiring instant runoff ballots for all overseas absentee voters. This is an expansion of the state's successful use of ranked ballots to ensure overseas military voters' ballots are counted. The bill was approved unanimously by both houses of the legislature.
Springfield, IL, also has the opportunity to use instant runoff ballots to protect overseas voters. The city council has placed a measure for instant runoff ballots on the April 17 ballot. This measure has received support from the mayor and the county election administrator.
President's note:
As explained before, IRV may be useful to environmental canidates who tend to be less well financed than business backed candidates.
===========================================================================================
originally posted at http://www.fairvote.org/?page=19
===================================================================================
Arkansas Expands Use of Instant Runoff Ballots
All Overseas Voters Will Join Military Personnel in Using Ranked Ballots
Soldier Voting
On March 9, Arkansas Governor Mike Beebe signed legislation requiring instant runoff ballots for all overseas absentee voters. This is an expansion of the state's successful use of ranked ballots to ensure overseas military voters' ballots are counted. The bill was approved unanimously by both houses of the legislature.
Springfield, IL, also has the opportunity to use instant runoff ballots to protect overseas voters. The city council has placed a measure for instant runoff ballots on the April 17 ballot. This measure has received support from the mayor and the county election administrator.
President's note:
As explained before, IRV may be useful to environmental canidates who tend to be less well financed than business backed candidates.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Why Should We Leave the Agricultural Reserve Alone? Money!!!! ==========================================================================================
(originally posted at http://ask.yahoo.com/20070202.html)
Dear Yahoo!:
What's the estimated land value of Central Park in New York?
Trevor
Alliston, Ontario
Dear Trevor:
Why, you interested in making a bid? Crack open your piggy bank, then. In a Christmas-day cover story last year, "New York Magazine" cited one of the "Reasons to Love New York" as "Because We Wouldn't Trade a Patch of Grass for $528,783,552,000."
That's the estimated worth of all the land in Central Park. (Here are some numbers
used in the estimate.) In case the sight of that figure fried your numerical recognition, that's nearly 529 billion dollars. That prices out to about $627 million an acre, or 26% more than the entire 2006 U.S. defense budget, or 7 million times the price of Boardwalk and Park Place together. Considering that New York "paid more than $5 million for undeveloped land from 59th Street to 106th Street" between 1853 and 1856, that's pretty good appreciation.
But even if the city needed the money, it might not want to sell off its giant patch-of-green-amidst-the-concrete. Real estate pundit Jonathan Miller writes "the net value of all of Manhattan would be less after Central Park was developed." And this article from the electronic journal "Planning & Markets" states: "...the city council keeps Manhattan's Central Park unbuilt not because Greens rule the Big Apple, but because property values overall are higher with the park than with luxury condos on the site."
Markets Make Sense, Except When They Don't
======================================================================================================
by Charles Wheelan, Ph.D.
(Originally posted at:
http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/economist/24259)
Email this Page HYPERLINK "http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/economist/24259#"IM this StoryHYPERLINK "http://beta.bookmarks.yahoo.com/toolbar/savebm"Bookmark this StoryHYPERLINK "http://del.icio.us/post"Add to your Del.icio.us accountHYPERLINK "http://digg.com/submit"Digg this StoryHYPERLINK "http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/economist/24259#"Print this Story
Very Good (336 Ratings)
3.705374/5
Posted on Tuesday, February 13, 2007, 3:00AM
Do you believe in markets? Of course you do -- unless you're a communist.
Even the communists managed some pretty impressive black markets. I traveled for several weeks in the U.S.S.R. in 1988, and spent much of the time behind my hotel trading things out of my suitcase to Soviet teens for rabbit fur hats and Lenin pins.
Cornering the Market
Presumably, the 20th century proved that the market solution is usually the right solution. The theory is simple and elegant: Individuals and firms make themselves better off by entering into voluntary transactions, which collectively make up markets. By definition, all involved parties expect a transaction to make them better off, or else they wouldn't do it.
True, things may turn out badly, such as the hot stock you bought last year that fell 78 percent when the CEO revealed that all earnings since 1983 would have to be restated. But that's not what you expected. Nobody intentionally tries to lose money or to make their life worse. Instead, all parties to a transaction expect good things, or at least better than the alternatives.
That turns out to be pretty powerful stuff when you add it all up. If we leave people and firms alone, they naturally do things that make all of us richer -- they innovate, they work hard, they put resources to their most efficient use. Who can be against that?
Trapped by Progress
Just about everyone, it turns out, depending on the market in question. I would venture that economists like markets a lot more than the rest of the population, regardless of their political views.
Left-wingers aren't fond of sweatshops, for example. Why do we pay Vietnamese workers 75 cents an hour to sew shoes? Because we can. That's a pathetic reality; on the other hand, how exactly would closing the sweatshop make those workers better off? In all likelihood, if they had better options than sewing shoes for 75 cents an hour they wouldn't be working in a sweatshop in the first place.
Some liberal opposition to market outcomes is much more justifiable. We too often forget that every time someone builds a better (or cheaper) mousetrap, it's bad news for whoever made the old mousetrap. I don't advocate banning new mousetraps (or curtailing cheap imports from China), but there's nothing wrong with showing some empathy when markets create losers, as they always do.
Free and Easy Trade
What about conservatives? They talk the market talk, but don't always walk the walk. Try this experiment: Find a large Republican rally and take a turn at the microphone. Get the crowd warmed up with some general remarks about the elegance of markets and the evils of government. Then, when the applause lines are coming fast and furious, ask where you can buy some really good sex.
During the stunned silence, admonish these conservative market enthusiasts to fight against the oppressive zoning regulations that make it impossible for you to buy private property and build apartment buildings in most ritzy suburbs.
Why shouldn't you be able to do a tear down a single-family home on a five-acre lot in Greenwich if you can make a profit by replacing it with lots of cheap apartments? After all, don't they call it the housing "market"?
A Free-Market Self-Test
The reality is that most people -- from one end of the political spectrum to the other -- find some market outcomes objectionable.
Markets don't elicit any kind of consensus. The most interesting public policy questions often involve market outcomes that people decide they don't like -- whether it's sweatshops, prostitution, cheap imports from China, or something else.
So how do you feel about markets? Take this quick quiz. I've included my own (short) answers.
1. Should we legalize the sale and possession of drugs like marijuana, cocaine, and heroin?
My answer: I don't know. Certainly there's a market for these drugs -- lots of eager buyers and sellers. Society spends a lot of money trying to disrupt that market, seemingly to no avail.
Yes, drug use harms innocent third parties, but so do alcohol and tobacco. In those cases, we use taxes to raise the cost of smoking and drinking, and we regulate the specific behaviors that affect third parties, such as smoking at the office or driving drunk.
So why not do the same with drugs? Our current approach is both ineffective and expensive. Nonviolent drug offenders are clogging the courts and prisons. All the while, demand seems unabated and the illegal drug trade is empowering and enriching gangs and violent criminals, just as Prohibition did for organized crime.
Milton Friedman famously noted that everything wrong with drugs stems from the fact that they're illegal. I don't know about "everything" -- these are addictive substances that harm people and their families -- but I take his point.
And yet I'm not prepared to turn the sale of crack over to a Fortune 500 company that can maximize profits by finding new ways to get 18 year olds to sample their product. Nor do I want the government in the business of selling and distributing heroin. I don't have a moral objection to legalizing drug use and punishing only the behavior that affects the rest of us -- the drug equivalent of drunk driving. I just can't figure out how to do it.
2. Should we liberalize labor markets, so that workers can more freely cross international boundaries?
My answer: Yes. I find it hard to justify criminalizing anything that I would do myself. If I were poor and trying to raise a family in Mexico, I would do anything to get to the U.S. -- legally or otherwise. Capitalism is all about rewarding those who are willing to work harder or cheaper. Why is labor that crosses an international border any different?
When we buy a cheap stereo from China, that's globalization. When we give the kitchen remodeling job to the lowest bidder, that's competition. When some guy from El Salvador offers to cut the lawn cheaply, that's illegal. To an economist, it's just another voluntary transaction that makes both parties better off.
Yes, we need to police the borders -- for terrorists, not cheap poultry workers. You can reasonably disagree with me, but you must concede that I'm the one advocating the "free market" outcome in this case and you're not.
3. Should we implement a federal carbon tax and/or significantly raise the gas tax?
My answer: Absolutely. If you believe in markets when they work well, then you have to understand how they need to be tweaked when they don't. If page 10 of any introductory economics text explains the wonders of supply and demand, page 12 usually explains that markets don't deliver an efficient outcome when eager buyers and sellers impose some harm, or negative externality, on a third party.
If I can change the oil in your car more cheaply than the competition by dumping the old oil in Lake Michigan, that's not the kind of market transaction that got Milton Friedman so excited. Yes, I make profits and you save money -- a mutually beneficial, voluntary exchange -- but anybody who cares about Lake Michigan is not happy at all, and they aren't represented in our little transaction.
When the price of some activity is artificially cheap because society is picking up part of the tab, people do too much of it. That's not the economically efficient outcome that markets usually deliver. One standard economic fix is to impose a tax on whatever private activity imposes the social cost; when the price of the activity goes up, people do less of it.
That's exactly what a carbon tax or a higher gas tax would do. There's nothing voluntary about me breathing your tailpipe emissions. If we raise the private cost of driving, people will be less likely to commute 60 miles alone in a Chevy Tahoe.
The optimal market outcome isn't always synonymous with doing nothing; in this case, the market works best when the government does something. That something happens to be a tax, or anything else that raises the cost of the polluting behavior.
======================================================================================================
by Charles Wheelan, Ph.D.
(Originally posted at:
http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/economist/24259)
Email this Page HYPERLINK "http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/economist/24259#"IM this StoryHYPERLINK "http://beta.bookmarks.yahoo.com/toolbar/savebm"Bookmark this StoryHYPERLINK "http://del.icio.us/post"Add to your Del.icio.us accountHYPERLINK "http://digg.com/submit"Digg this StoryHYPERLINK "http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/economist/24259#"Print this Story
Very Good (336 Ratings)
3.705374/5
Posted on Tuesday, February 13, 2007, 3:00AM
Do you believe in markets? Of course you do -- unless you're a communist.
Even the communists managed some pretty impressive black markets. I traveled for several weeks in the U.S.S.R. in 1988, and spent much of the time behind my hotel trading things out of my suitcase to Soviet teens for rabbit fur hats and Lenin pins.
Cornering the Market
Presumably, the 20th century proved that the market solution is usually the right solution. The theory is simple and elegant: Individuals and firms make themselves better off by entering into voluntary transactions, which collectively make up markets. By definition, all involved parties expect a transaction to make them better off, or else they wouldn't do it.
True, things may turn out badly, such as the hot stock you bought last year that fell 78 percent when the CEO revealed that all earnings since 1983 would have to be restated. But that's not what you expected. Nobody intentionally tries to lose money or to make their life worse. Instead, all parties to a transaction expect good things, or at least better than the alternatives.
That turns out to be pretty powerful stuff when you add it all up. If we leave people and firms alone, they naturally do things that make all of us richer -- they innovate, they work hard, they put resources to their most efficient use. Who can be against that?
Trapped by Progress
Just about everyone, it turns out, depending on the market in question. I would venture that economists like markets a lot more than the rest of the population, regardless of their political views.
Left-wingers aren't fond of sweatshops, for example. Why do we pay Vietnamese workers 75 cents an hour to sew shoes? Because we can. That's a pathetic reality; on the other hand, how exactly would closing the sweatshop make those workers better off? In all likelihood, if they had better options than sewing shoes for 75 cents an hour they wouldn't be working in a sweatshop in the first place.
Some liberal opposition to market outcomes is much more justifiable. We too often forget that every time someone builds a better (or cheaper) mousetrap, it's bad news for whoever made the old mousetrap. I don't advocate banning new mousetraps (or curtailing cheap imports from China), but there's nothing wrong with showing some empathy when markets create losers, as they always do.
Free and Easy Trade
What about conservatives? They talk the market talk, but don't always walk the walk. Try this experiment: Find a large Republican rally and take a turn at the microphone. Get the crowd warmed up with some general remarks about the elegance of markets and the evils of government. Then, when the applause lines are coming fast and furious, ask where you can buy some really good sex.
During the stunned silence, admonish these conservative market enthusiasts to fight against the oppressive zoning regulations that make it impossible for you to buy private property and build apartment buildings in most ritzy suburbs.
Why shouldn't you be able to do a tear down a single-family home on a five-acre lot in Greenwich if you can make a profit by replacing it with lots of cheap apartments? After all, don't they call it the housing "market"?
A Free-Market Self-Test
The reality is that most people -- from one end of the political spectrum to the other -- find some market outcomes objectionable.
Markets don't elicit any kind of consensus. The most interesting public policy questions often involve market outcomes that people decide they don't like -- whether it's sweatshops, prostitution, cheap imports from China, or something else.
So how do you feel about markets? Take this quick quiz. I've included my own (short) answers.
1. Should we legalize the sale and possession of drugs like marijuana, cocaine, and heroin?
My answer: I don't know. Certainly there's a market for these drugs -- lots of eager buyers and sellers. Society spends a lot of money trying to disrupt that market, seemingly to no avail.
Yes, drug use harms innocent third parties, but so do alcohol and tobacco. In those cases, we use taxes to raise the cost of smoking and drinking, and we regulate the specific behaviors that affect third parties, such as smoking at the office or driving drunk.
So why not do the same with drugs? Our current approach is both ineffective and expensive. Nonviolent drug offenders are clogging the courts and prisons. All the while, demand seems unabated and the illegal drug trade is empowering and enriching gangs and violent criminals, just as Prohibition did for organized crime.
Milton Friedman famously noted that everything wrong with drugs stems from the fact that they're illegal. I don't know about "everything" -- these are addictive substances that harm people and their families -- but I take his point.
And yet I'm not prepared to turn the sale of crack over to a Fortune 500 company that can maximize profits by finding new ways to get 18 year olds to sample their product. Nor do I want the government in the business of selling and distributing heroin. I don't have a moral objection to legalizing drug use and punishing only the behavior that affects the rest of us -- the drug equivalent of drunk driving. I just can't figure out how to do it.
2. Should we liberalize labor markets, so that workers can more freely cross international boundaries?
My answer: Yes. I find it hard to justify criminalizing anything that I would do myself. If I were poor and trying to raise a family in Mexico, I would do anything to get to the U.S. -- legally or otherwise. Capitalism is all about rewarding those who are willing to work harder or cheaper. Why is labor that crosses an international border any different?
When we buy a cheap stereo from China, that's globalization. When we give the kitchen remodeling job to the lowest bidder, that's competition. When some guy from El Salvador offers to cut the lawn cheaply, that's illegal. To an economist, it's just another voluntary transaction that makes both parties better off.
Yes, we need to police the borders -- for terrorists, not cheap poultry workers. You can reasonably disagree with me, but you must concede that I'm the one advocating the "free market" outcome in this case and you're not.
3. Should we implement a federal carbon tax and/or significantly raise the gas tax?
My answer: Absolutely. If you believe in markets when they work well, then you have to understand how they need to be tweaked when they don't. If page 10 of any introductory economics text explains the wonders of supply and demand, page 12 usually explains that markets don't deliver an efficient outcome when eager buyers and sellers impose some harm, or negative externality, on a third party.
If I can change the oil in your car more cheaply than the competition by dumping the old oil in Lake Michigan, that's not the kind of market transaction that got Milton Friedman so excited. Yes, I make profits and you save money -- a mutually beneficial, voluntary exchange -- but anybody who cares about Lake Michigan is not happy at all, and they aren't represented in our little transaction.
When the price of some activity is artificially cheap because society is picking up part of the tab, people do too much of it. That's not the economically efficient outcome that markets usually deliver. One standard economic fix is to impose a tax on whatever private activity imposes the social cost; when the price of the activity goes up, people do less of it.
That's exactly what a carbon tax or a higher gas tax would do. There's nothing voluntary about me breathing your tailpipe emissions. If we raise the private cost of driving, people will be less likely to commute 60 miles alone in a Chevy Tahoe.
The optimal market outcome isn't always synonymous with doing nothing; in this case, the market works best when the government does something. That something happens to be a tax, or anything else that raises the cost of the polluting behavior.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Toyota FTHS Rocket Hybrid Sports Car
==========================================================================================================
The Toyota FT-HS is a hybrid sports car concept introduced at the 2007 North American International Auto Show. I have been drooling ever since. Auto experts are buzzing about this being the replacement for the Toyota Supra, and I don't have a problem with that! Toyota is on the money with this very hot concept design. For a while there I was scared hybrids and "green" cars would be weak, girly little cars with slow engines. But what I'm seeing from Toyota has made me a happy man. Imagine having a car that is much faster than a Porsche, Mercedes AMG and any M series car from BMW and still cost 1/4 the price! Well Toyota plans to sell the FT-HS somewhere in the mid 30k range which, if correct, has me sold as I type this down. The goal of the rear wheel drive(thank god!) hybrid powertrain is to produce 400 horsepower and achieve 0-60 mph in around 4 seconds. This is accomplished with by combining a 3.5-liter V6 and an electric motor in a similar manner to the Lexus GS450h. What else does Toyota have in store? Well, for starters the 2+2 vehicle features a unique retractable roof similar to a targa top, but most likely will cancel out any use of the backseats when down. There still is no final word if the Toyota FT-HS will make it to production, but they haven't had a sports car since the Supra in 1997. So if anyone from Toyota reads this article, be sure to get this car onto the production line, I will surely be your first customer!
==========================================================================================================
The Toyota FT-HS is a hybrid sports car concept introduced at the 2007 North American International Auto Show. I have been drooling ever since. Auto experts are buzzing about this being the replacement for the Toyota Supra, and I don't have a problem with that! Toyota is on the money with this very hot concept design. For a while there I was scared hybrids and "green" cars would be weak, girly little cars with slow engines. But what I'm seeing from Toyota has made me a happy man. Imagine having a car that is much faster than a Porsche, Mercedes AMG and any M series car from BMW and still cost 1/4 the price! Well Toyota plans to sell the FT-HS somewhere in the mid 30k range which, if correct, has me sold as I type this down. The goal of the rear wheel drive(thank god!) hybrid powertrain is to produce 400 horsepower and achieve 0-60 mph in around 4 seconds. This is accomplished with by combining a 3.5-liter V6 and an electric motor in a similar manner to the Lexus GS450h. What else does Toyota have in store? Well, for starters the 2+2 vehicle features a unique retractable roof similar to a targa top, but most likely will cancel out any use of the backseats when down. There still is no final word if the Toyota FT-HS will make it to production, but they haven't had a sports car since the Supra in 1997. So if anyone from Toyota reads this article, be sure to get this car onto the production line, I will surely be your first customer!
Monday, January 22, 2007
Researchers and space enthusiasts see helium-3 as the perfect fuel source.
=========================================================================
By Julie Wakefield
Special to SPACE.com
posted: 05:30 pm ET
30 June 2000
Researchers and space enthusiasts see helium 3 as the perfect fuel source: extremely potent, nonpolluting, with virtually no radioactive by-product. Proponents claim its the fuel of the 21st century. The trouble is, hardly any of it is found on Earth.But there is plenty of it on the moon.
Society is straining to keep pace with energy demands, expected to increase eightfold by 2050 as the world population swells toward 12 billion. The moon just may be the answer.
"Helium 3 fusion energy may be the key to future space exploration and settlement," said Gerald Kulcinski,Director of the Fusion Technology Institute (FTI) at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Scientists estimate there are about1 million tons of helium 3 on the moon, enough to power the world for thousands of years. The equivalent of a single space shuttle load or roughly 25 tons could supply the entire United States' energy needs for a year, according to Apollo17 astronaut and FTI researcher Harrison Schmitt.
Cash crop of the moon
When the solar wind, the rapid stream of charged particles emitted by the sun, strikes the moon, helium 3 is deposited in the powdery soil. Over billions of years that adds up. Meteorite bombardment disperses the particles throughout the top several meters of the lunar surface.
"Helium 3 could be the cash crop for the moon," said Kulcinski, a longtime advocate and leading pioneer in thefield, who envisions the moon becoming "the Hudson Bay Store of Earth."Today helium 3 would have a cash value of $4 billion a ton in terms of its energy equivalent in oil, he estimates. "When the moon becomes an independent country, it will have something to trade."
~
Fusion research began in 1951 in the United States under military auspices. After its declassification in 1957scientists began looking for a candidate fuel source that wouldn't produce neutrons. Although Louie Alvarez and Robert Cornog discovered helium 3in 1939, only a few hundred pounds (kilograms) were known to exist on Earth,most the by-product of nuclear-weapon production.
Apollo astronauts found helium 3 on the moon in 1969, but the link between the isotope and lunar resources was not made until 1986. "It took 15 years for us [lunar geologists and fusion pioneers] to stumble across each other," said Schmitt, the last astronaut to leave footprints on the moon.
For solving long-term energy needs,proponents contend helium 3 is a better choice than first generation nuclear fuels like deuterium and tritium (isotopes of hydrogen), which are now being tested on a large scale worldwide in tokamak thermonuclear reactors.Such approaches, which generally use strong magnetic fields to contain the tremendously hot, electrically charged gas or plasma in which fusion occurs, have cost billions and yielded little. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor or ITER tokamak, for example, won't produce a single watt of electricity for several years yet.
Increases production and safety costs
"I don't doubt it will eventually work,"Kulcinski said. "But I have serious doubts it will ever provide an economic power source on Earth or in space." That's because reactors that exploit the fusion of deuterium and tritium release 80 percent of their energy in the form of radioactive neutrons, which exponentially increase production and safety costs.
In contrast, helium 3 fusion would produce little residual radioactivity. Helium 3, an isotope of the familiar helium used to inflate balloons and blimps, has a nucleus with two proton sand one neutron. A nuclear reactor based on the fusion of helium 3 and deuterium, which has a single nuclear proton and neutron, would produce very few neutrons -- about 1 percent of the number generated by the deuterium-tritium reaction. "You could safely build a helium 3 plant in the middle of a big city," Kulcinski said.
Helium 3 fusion is also ideal for powering spacecraft and interstellar travel. While offering the high performance power of fusion -- "a classic Buck Rogers propulsion system" -- helium3 rockets would require less radioactive shielding, lightening the load,said Robert Frisbee, an advanced propulsion engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena California.
Recently Kulcinski's team reports progress toward making helium 3 fusion possible. Inside a lab chamber, the Wisconsin researchers have produced protons from a steady-state deuterium-helium3 plasma at a rate of 2.6 million reactions per second. That's fast enough to produce fusion power but not churn out electricity. "It's proof of principle, but a long way from producing electricity or making a power source out of it," Kulcinski said. He will present the results in Amsterdam in mid July at the Fourth International Conference on Exploration and Utilization of the Moon.
Size of a basketball
The chamber, which is roughly the size of a basketball, relies on the electrostatic focusing of ions into a dense core by using a spherical grid, explained Wisconsin colleague John Santarius,a study co-author. With some refinement, such Inertial Electrostatic Confinement(IEC) fusion systems could produce high-energy neutrons and protons useful in industry and medicine. For example, the technology could generate short-lived PET (positron emission tomography) isotopes on site at hospitals, enabling safe brain scans of young children and even pregnant women. Portable IECdevices could bridge the gap between today's science-based research and the ultimate goal of generating electricity, Santarius said.
This fall, the University of Wisconsin team hopes to demonstrate a third-generation fusion reaction between helium3 and helium 3 particles in the lab. The reaction would be completely void of radiation.
"Although helium 3 would be very exciting,"says Bryan Palaszewski, leader of advanced fuels at NASA Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field, "first we have to go back to the moon and be capable of doing significant operations there."
Economically unfeasible
Indeed for now, the economics of extracting and transporting helium 3 from the moon are also problematic. Even if scientists solved the physics of helium 3 fusion, "it would be economically unfeasible," asserted Jim Benson, chairman of SpaceDev in Poway, California, which strives to be one of the first commercial space-exploration companies. "Unless I'm mistaken, you'd have to strip-mine large surfaces of the moon."
While it's true that to produce roughly 70 tons of helium 3, for example, a million tons of lunar soil would need to be heated to 1,470 degrees Fahrenheit (800 degrees Celsius) to liberate the gas, proponents say lunar strip mining is not the goal. "There's enough in the Mare Tranquillitatis alone to last for several hundred years," Schmidt's. The moon would be a stepping stone to other helium 3-rich sources, such as the atmospheres of Saturn and Uranus.
Benson agreed that finding fuel sources in space is the way to go. But for him, H2O and not helium 3 is the ideal fuel source. His personal goal is to create gas stations in space by mining asteroids for water. The water can be electrolyzed into hydrogen or oxygen fuel or used straight as a propellant by superheating with solar arrays. "Water is more practical and believable in the short run," he said.
But proponents believe only helium3 can pay its own way.
"Water just isn't that valuable," Schmitt said. Besides the helium, a mining process would produce water and oxygen as by-products, he says.
=========================================================================
By Julie Wakefield
Special to SPACE.com
posted: 05:30 pm ET
30 June 2000
Researchers and space enthusiasts see helium 3 as the perfect fuel source: extremely potent, nonpolluting, with virtually no radioactive by-product. Proponents claim its the fuel of the 21st century. The trouble is, hardly any of it is found on Earth.But there is plenty of it on the moon.
Society is straining to keep pace with energy demands, expected to increase eightfold by 2050 as the world population swells toward 12 billion. The moon just may be the answer.
"Helium 3 fusion energy may be the key to future space exploration and settlement," said Gerald Kulcinski,Director of the Fusion Technology Institute (FTI) at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Scientists estimate there are about1 million tons of helium 3 on the moon, enough to power the world for thousands of years. The equivalent of a single space shuttle load or roughly 25 tons could supply the entire United States' energy needs for a year, according to Apollo17 astronaut and FTI researcher Harrison Schmitt.
Cash crop of the moon
When the solar wind, the rapid stream of charged particles emitted by the sun, strikes the moon, helium 3 is deposited in the powdery soil. Over billions of years that adds up. Meteorite bombardment disperses the particles throughout the top several meters of the lunar surface.
"Helium 3 could be the cash crop for the moon," said Kulcinski, a longtime advocate and leading pioneer in thefield, who envisions the moon becoming "the Hudson Bay Store of Earth."Today helium 3 would have a cash value of $4 billion a ton in terms of its energy equivalent in oil, he estimates. "When the moon becomes an independent country, it will have something to trade."
~
Fusion research began in 1951 in the United States under military auspices. After its declassification in 1957scientists began looking for a candidate fuel source that wouldn't produce neutrons. Although Louie Alvarez and Robert Cornog discovered helium 3in 1939, only a few hundred pounds (kilograms) were known to exist on Earth,most the by-product of nuclear-weapon production.
Apollo astronauts found helium 3 on the moon in 1969, but the link between the isotope and lunar resources was not made until 1986. "It took 15 years for us [lunar geologists and fusion pioneers] to stumble across each other," said Schmitt, the last astronaut to leave footprints on the moon.
For solving long-term energy needs,proponents contend helium 3 is a better choice than first generation nuclear fuels like deuterium and tritium (isotopes of hydrogen), which are now being tested on a large scale worldwide in tokamak thermonuclear reactors.Such approaches, which generally use strong magnetic fields to contain the tremendously hot, electrically charged gas or plasma in which fusion occurs, have cost billions and yielded little. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor or ITER tokamak, for example, won't produce a single watt of electricity for several years yet.
Increases production and safety costs
"I don't doubt it will eventually work,"Kulcinski said. "But I have serious doubts it will ever provide an economic power source on Earth or in space." That's because reactors that exploit the fusion of deuterium and tritium release 80 percent of their energy in the form of radioactive neutrons, which exponentially increase production and safety costs.
In contrast, helium 3 fusion would produce little residual radioactivity. Helium 3, an isotope of the familiar helium used to inflate balloons and blimps, has a nucleus with two proton sand one neutron. A nuclear reactor based on the fusion of helium 3 and deuterium, which has a single nuclear proton and neutron, would produce very few neutrons -- about 1 percent of the number generated by the deuterium-tritium reaction. "You could safely build a helium 3 plant in the middle of a big city," Kulcinski said.
Helium 3 fusion is also ideal for powering spacecraft and interstellar travel. While offering the high performance power of fusion -- "a classic Buck Rogers propulsion system" -- helium3 rockets would require less radioactive shielding, lightening the load,said Robert Frisbee, an advanced propulsion engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena California.
Recently Kulcinski's team reports progress toward making helium 3 fusion possible. Inside a lab chamber, the Wisconsin researchers have produced protons from a steady-state deuterium-helium3 plasma at a rate of 2.6 million reactions per second. That's fast enough to produce fusion power but not churn out electricity. "It's proof of principle, but a long way from producing electricity or making a power source out of it," Kulcinski said. He will present the results in Amsterdam in mid July at the Fourth International Conference on Exploration and Utilization of the Moon.
Size of a basketball
The chamber, which is roughly the size of a basketball, relies on the electrostatic focusing of ions into a dense core by using a spherical grid, explained Wisconsin colleague John Santarius,a study co-author. With some refinement, such Inertial Electrostatic Confinement(IEC) fusion systems could produce high-energy neutrons and protons useful in industry and medicine. For example, the technology could generate short-lived PET (positron emission tomography) isotopes on site at hospitals, enabling safe brain scans of young children and even pregnant women. Portable IECdevices could bridge the gap between today's science-based research and the ultimate goal of generating electricity, Santarius said.
This fall, the University of Wisconsin team hopes to demonstrate a third-generation fusion reaction between helium3 and helium 3 particles in the lab. The reaction would be completely void of radiation.
"Although helium 3 would be very exciting,"says Bryan Palaszewski, leader of advanced fuels at NASA Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field, "first we have to go back to the moon and be capable of doing significant operations there."
Economically unfeasible
Indeed for now, the economics of extracting and transporting helium 3 from the moon are also problematic. Even if scientists solved the physics of helium 3 fusion, "it would be economically unfeasible," asserted Jim Benson, chairman of SpaceDev in Poway, California, which strives to be one of the first commercial space-exploration companies. "Unless I'm mistaken, you'd have to strip-mine large surfaces of the moon."
While it's true that to produce roughly 70 tons of helium 3, for example, a million tons of lunar soil would need to be heated to 1,470 degrees Fahrenheit (800 degrees Celsius) to liberate the gas, proponents say lunar strip mining is not the goal. "There's enough in the Mare Tranquillitatis alone to last for several hundred years," Schmidt's. The moon would be a stepping stone to other helium 3-rich sources, such as the atmospheres of Saturn and Uranus.
Benson agreed that finding fuel sources in space is the way to go. But for him, H2O and not helium 3 is the ideal fuel source. His personal goal is to create gas stations in space by mining asteroids for water. The water can be electrolyzed into hydrogen or oxygen fuel or used straight as a propellant by superheating with solar arrays. "Water is more practical and believable in the short run," he said.
But proponents believe only helium3 can pay its own way.
"Water just isn't that valuable," Schmitt said. Besides the helium, a mining process would produce water and oxygen as by-products, he says.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Warming the world to dry our socks
=====================================
Originally posted in:
http://www.landinstitute.org/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/07/08/40eda337a2dcd
Warming the world to dry our socks
Bill McKibben
story image 1
Released July 8, 2004
Once, visiting a friend, I helped wash the dinner dishes. I soaped the plates and cups, and she rinsed them and stacked them in a dish rack. When we were finished, I asked where the dish towel was so I could dry. "Oh, don't bother with that," she said. "That's air's job."
This brings me to a very modest proposal, perfectly suited to summer. If you're wondering what (prior to Nov. 2) you can do about our deadly dependence on foreign energy, or about ever-rising utility bills, or about the flood of carbon into the atmosphere that's steadily raising temperatures, here's one answer: Let air and sun and wind do their job.
To be specific, buy 50 feet of clothesline and a $3 bag of clothespins and become a solar energy pioneer.
The average American family devotes 5 to 6 percent of its annual electric budget to the motor and heating coils inside its clothes dryer. Undampening your socks ties you into the vast world energy grid, with its legacy of mountaintop-removal coal mining, terrorist-vulnerable natural gas pipelines and all the rest. Which is OK—right?—because we all need dry socks.
But in fact we all had dry socks long before the invention of the clothes dryer. As late as 1960, according to Northwest Environment Watch, fewer than 20 percent of American households had automatic dryers.
And perhaps you've noticed that lint in your dryer trap. That's your clothes disintegrating from the endless tumbling. You won't find a small drift of lint under your clothesline.
Some people don't use clotheslines because they can't. According to the crusaders at a group called Project Laundry List, thousands of homeowners associations, condominium complexes and even whole suburbs ban clotheslines because they believe that clothes on the line are ugly. "It's akin to graffiti in your neighborhood," the president of the California Association of Homeowners Associations told reporters a few years ago. Property values could drop 15 percent, he estimated, if clotheslines flourished. Violators can be sued.
But even people who could hang out their laundry often hesitate. I was standing with another friend on the back porch in a pricy suburb not long ago. She had a perfect angle from deck to tree for a line, and I was all set to install it. "But everyone would be able to see our underwear," she said.
True enough. But drop by any mall: The average American teen-age boy is fully devoted to displaying as much of his underwear as possible, simply by failing to wear a belt and buying jeans two sizes too large. MTV might as well call itself The Underwear Channel. Our grandparents may have been prudes by contrast, but when it came to their laundry, they let it all hang out.
There are a few signs that we're beginning to regain our courage. Fort Lauderdale recently passed a resolution designating a National Hanging Out Day, noting in its official proclamation: "For many people hanging out clothes is therapeutic work. It is the only time during the week that some folks can slow down to feel the wind and listen to the birds."
Some people think that clotheslines are simply old-fashioned—too low-tech. Like President Bush, they're waiting for something like a hydrogen car before they get around to saving energy. But say you dubbed it something sexier: a Solar Activated Linear Evaporation System, perhaps—maybe that would spur SALES.
Whatever you call it, the clothesline is the most elegant solution to the problem of drying clothes in good weather. And if it storms? Just leave them up until they dry again—you'll be able to boast about rain-washed clothes.
If we all used clotheslines, we could save 30 million tons of coal a year, or shut down 15 nuclear power plants. And you don't have to wait to start. Yours could be up by this afternoon.
—Bill McKibben is the author of many books on environmental issues, including Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age. He is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College and a member of the Land Institute's Prairie Writers Circle, Salina, Kan.
This essay is the opinion of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Land Institute.
PRESIDENT'S NOTE:
Get involved if your HOA bans clotheslines at
http://www.laundrylist.org/
=====================================
Originally posted in:
http://www.landinstitute.org/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/07/08/40eda337a2dcd
Warming the world to dry our socks
Bill McKibben
story image 1
Released July 8, 2004
Once, visiting a friend, I helped wash the dinner dishes. I soaped the plates and cups, and she rinsed them and stacked them in a dish rack. When we were finished, I asked where the dish towel was so I could dry. "Oh, don't bother with that," she said. "That's air's job."
This brings me to a very modest proposal, perfectly suited to summer. If you're wondering what (prior to Nov. 2) you can do about our deadly dependence on foreign energy, or about ever-rising utility bills, or about the flood of carbon into the atmosphere that's steadily raising temperatures, here's one answer: Let air and sun and wind do their job.
To be specific, buy 50 feet of clothesline and a $3 bag of clothespins and become a solar energy pioneer.
The average American family devotes 5 to 6 percent of its annual electric budget to the motor and heating coils inside its clothes dryer. Undampening your socks ties you into the vast world energy grid, with its legacy of mountaintop-removal coal mining, terrorist-vulnerable natural gas pipelines and all the rest. Which is OK—right?—because we all need dry socks.
But in fact we all had dry socks long before the invention of the clothes dryer. As late as 1960, according to Northwest Environment Watch, fewer than 20 percent of American households had automatic dryers.
And perhaps you've noticed that lint in your dryer trap. That's your clothes disintegrating from the endless tumbling. You won't find a small drift of lint under your clothesline.
Some people don't use clotheslines because they can't. According to the crusaders at a group called Project Laundry List, thousands of homeowners associations, condominium complexes and even whole suburbs ban clotheslines because they believe that clothes on the line are ugly. "It's akin to graffiti in your neighborhood," the president of the California Association of Homeowners Associations told reporters a few years ago. Property values could drop 15 percent, he estimated, if clotheslines flourished. Violators can be sued.
But even people who could hang out their laundry often hesitate. I was standing with another friend on the back porch in a pricy suburb not long ago. She had a perfect angle from deck to tree for a line, and I was all set to install it. "But everyone would be able to see our underwear," she said.
True enough. But drop by any mall: The average American teen-age boy is fully devoted to displaying as much of his underwear as possible, simply by failing to wear a belt and buying jeans two sizes too large. MTV might as well call itself The Underwear Channel. Our grandparents may have been prudes by contrast, but when it came to their laundry, they let it all hang out.
There are a few signs that we're beginning to regain our courage. Fort Lauderdale recently passed a resolution designating a National Hanging Out Day, noting in its official proclamation: "For many people hanging out clothes is therapeutic work. It is the only time during the week that some folks can slow down to feel the wind and listen to the birds."
Some people think that clotheslines are simply old-fashioned—too low-tech. Like President Bush, they're waiting for something like a hydrogen car before they get around to saving energy. But say you dubbed it something sexier: a Solar Activated Linear Evaporation System, perhaps—maybe that would spur SALES.
Whatever you call it, the clothesline is the most elegant solution to the problem of drying clothes in good weather. And if it storms? Just leave them up until they dry again—you'll be able to boast about rain-washed clothes.
If we all used clotheslines, we could save 30 million tons of coal a year, or shut down 15 nuclear power plants. And you don't have to wait to start. Yours could be up by this afternoon.
—Bill McKibben is the author of many books on environmental issues, including Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age. He is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College and a member of the Land Institute's Prairie Writers Circle, Salina, Kan.
This essay is the opinion of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Land Institute.
PRESIDENT'S NOTE:
Get involved if your HOA bans clotheslines at
http://www.laundrylist.org/
Genetically Engineered Trees for Paper
=======================================
Originally posted at http://www.conservatree.org/paperlisteningstudy/Forests/question70.html
Are genetically engineered trees appropriate for papermaking?
GMOs are plants, animals, bacteria or other living organisms that have been genetically engineered by the insertion of a foreign gene. For centuries, farmers and plant breeders have improved crops and livestock, and to a lesser extent trees, by isolating and selecting for breeding the individuals with the most desirable traits. Everything has hinged on sexual reproduction: only by breeding within the same genus have advances been made. Genetic engineering has changed all this. It has enabled scientists to dispense with sex and cross the genus barrier. - Fast-Wood Plantations . . .
LISTENING STUDY: Most responses state that the use of genetically engineered trees for papermaking must be investigated further before this technology is applied.
The jury is still out. - Frank Locantore, Co-op America
Stora Enso has decided to refrain from any commercial use of controversial genetic engineering techniques on trees or any other organisms. Nevertheless, Stora Enso will continue to take part in basic research in this area in order to keep up to date with developments. This research will not lead to any commercial applications, however. - Stora Enso
Boise believes that the careful use of genetically modified trees should be scientifically investigated. We believe that genetically modified trees may help meet the growing demand for wood and paper products worldwide, may effectively compete in the marketplace, and help sustain the world's forest resources. If new varieties of trees are developed for commercial use, precautions should be taken to assure public confidence. At the same time, any regulations or oversight must be prudent and thoughtful and must not impose unreasonable barriers, unnecessarily impede field trial investigation or interfere with timely operational applications. - Boise Cascade
A World Wildlife Fund scoping study surmises that the main impact of transgenic trees might not be genetic pollution, or the creation of super weeds, but 'the contribution that [genetic engineering] might make to unsustainable land use.' The study suggests that trees engineered for enhanced growth will generally be voracious consumers of water and nutrients, and thus will have the potential to degrade land. However, similar objections could be raised for the non-GMO eucalypt clones, raised through tissue culture, which are delivering astonishingly high yields, most famously in the Aracruz plantations of eastern Brazil. Nevertheless, it is true that genetically improved or genetically modified trees will fulfill their true potential only when the right growing conditions are provided. They must be planted in suitable climates with adequate water and they will nearly always require the use of fertilizers. They may also demand relative freedom from weed competition when young, and this means that herbicides must be used. Current objections to GMOs, like the defense of GMOs, are based on scientific theory. We lack empirical evidence. The jury is out still. - Cossalter 2003
Attackers Fell Finland's Only GM Tree Study: Attackers have torn up 400 genetically modified birch trees in Finland, wrecking the nation's only research into the environmental impact of biotechnology on forests. . . . The trees were chopped down or torn up by their roots at the weekend on the fenced but unguarded 2,000-square-metre site. Some environmental groups fear genetically modified trees might irreversibly "contaminate" food crops and wild species, an issue the study aimed to investigate.
"The research investigated the possible environmental effects of doing field studies using genetically modified materials. It would have been extremely important to find out about these issues," said research station head Juhani Haggman.
The 400 birches were part of Finland's only field study on genetically modified trees. The forestry industry hopes genetic modification could cut paper-making costs and improve products by producing trees with suitable traits. "We lack research on how genes work," Haggman said. Researchers on the government-funded Finnish Forest Research Institute (Metla) project were working on the felled trees to collect any data that remained, Haggman said. The study was due for completion at the end of 2005. - Reuters, reported on Paperloop.com, June 23, 2004
LISTENING STUDY: Other responses indicate that genetically engineered trees should not be used for papermaking.
No. With some very limited exceptions, there is no real need for genetically engineered trees. Meanwhile, the risks are far too high that pollen and seed from genetically engineered trees will mix with natural forests, and permanently alter those forests. Existing federal, state, and international safeguards for genetically modified organisms are considered highly inadequate by many scientists and conservation organizations. - Daniel Hall, Forest Biodiversity Program Director, American Lands Alliance
The problem with genetically engineered trees is that generally (almost always in the US and Canada) the engineered trees are planted in an area where native forests of the same species are present. This means cross-pollination will likely occur with native forest trees, which is totally unacceptable. If it can be shown that a genetically modified trait cannot be transferred through pollen, then this risk would appear to be eliminated. - Robert R. Bryan, Forest Ecologist, Maine Audubon
Should we oppose genetic "improvements" to trees on public lands? Sierra Club believes that we can't allow the industry to be judged by its hype and that patented genes are not an improvement over nature. We also must avoid only judging what one gene may do, because once hundreds of different fragments of hacked, patented genetic code are allowed access to public lands, the consequences of unintended combinations will be unpredictable. GE trees will also be a danger in other nations, particularly in the underdeveloped world where conditions for effective regulation often don't exist.
We would also point out that the United States is using twice as much paper per capita as other highly civilized nations (Europe, Japan). Let us not ask genetic engineering to do what could be accomplished by lower-tech means like putting a surcharge on junk mail. - Sierra Club
Bioengineered Trees Stir Debate - Sierra Club, Fearful of Projects Going Awry, Seeks Moratorum:
Scientists are planting genetically engineered trees in dozens of research projects across the country, ignoring the pleas of environmentalists who fear dangerous, unintended consequences.
"It won't be as widespread as agricultural biotechnology, but it could be much more destructive," said Jim Diamond, chairman of the Sierra Club's genetic engineering committee. "Trees are what's left of our natural environment and home to endangered species." The Sierra Club wants a moratorium on the planting of genetically engineered trees outdoors until the science is better understood. But like a tree falling deep in the forest, its call has gone unheeded.
The tree researchers say their critics are missing all the ways that science can give Mother Nature a fighting chance against ravages natural and manmade. Biotechnology, they say, may provide just what's needed to help reverse global deforestation and industrial pollution while satisfying increased demands for wood and paper products. . . .
"There is a lot of value in genetic engineering," said Oregon State University researcher Steven Strauss, who tends to a few thousand engineered trees. Some researchers are infusing trees with genetic material taken from viruses and bacteria that helps them row faster and fatter and yield better wood. Others are splicing mercury-gobbling bacteria genes into trees, enlisting nature to help clean polluted soil. Still others are inserting foreign genes that might reduce the amount of toxic chemicals needed to process trees into paper. . . .
But could biotech trees cross-breed with their natural brethren and ruin forests' genetic diversity? The Sierra Club fears that, among other ecological consequences. Researchers hope to placate critics by engineering sterility into their designer trees, so their impact on the environment can be contained. But that technology remains elusive.
Many field trials are backed by paper and timber concerns hoping to design trees that yield more wood and paper. . . . Most explore ways to streamline timber and pulp production, said [ArborGen LLC] Chief Technology Officer Maud Hinchee. She said the company's work could reduce reliance on national forests, with faster growing trees growing on industry plantations. . . . Numerous projects are aimed at growing more wood on less land or making it cheaper and less environmentally harmful to process trees in mills. . . .
Oregon State's Strauss says the protesters legitimate concerns are virtually identical to those of scientists. - Paul Elias, Associated Press, reported in the Marin Independent Journal, Business section, August 1, 2003
Organisations such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, which have long expressed their fears about GMOs in agriculture, have been joined in their campaigns against 'Frankentrees' by groups like the Native Forest Network, which claims that 'native forests ... are threatened worldwide by genetically engineered tree plantations.' - Fast-Wood Plantations . . .
Environmentalists have also suggested that genetic engineering of trees for reduced lignin content and for insect resistance might not prove to be as beneficial as the biotechnologists hope. Take, for example, lignin, which confers physical strength on trees and constitutes part of their defence mechanism against pests. Reducing lignin content could make trees more susceptible to pest attacks, and consequently more pesticides would be required in plantations. - Fast-Wood Plantations . . .
LISTENING STUDY: Some are positive.
Biotechnologists are also looking for genes that code for the enzyme that breaks down lignin. Up to a third of a tree's dry weight is lignin, which must be removed at considerable cost when pulpwood is turned into paper. Plantations of low-lignin trees could help reduce pulping costs. It is claimed that this would also be good for the environment, as lignin removal is an environmentally hazardous process. - Fast-Wood Plantations . . .
LISTENING STUDY: Other responses:
How do you define genetically engineered trees? I think the larger question is more important: can paper be made effectively (quality, cost) from fibers other than that from trees? - Susan Hammond, Executive Director, Silva Forest Foundation
There is no reason to believe that genetically engineered trees would be inappropriate for papermaking. There may be distinct advantages to raising genetically modified trees for making paper that range from greater disease resistance to less need for fertilizers. - International Paper
=======================================
Originally posted at http://www.conservatree.org/paperlisteningstudy/Forests/question70.html
Are genetically engineered trees appropriate for papermaking?
GMOs are plants, animals, bacteria or other living organisms that have been genetically engineered by the insertion of a foreign gene. For centuries, farmers and plant breeders have improved crops and livestock, and to a lesser extent trees, by isolating and selecting for breeding the individuals with the most desirable traits. Everything has hinged on sexual reproduction: only by breeding within the same genus have advances been made. Genetic engineering has changed all this. It has enabled scientists to dispense with sex and cross the genus barrier. - Fast-Wood Plantations . . .
LISTENING STUDY: Most responses state that the use of genetically engineered trees for papermaking must be investigated further before this technology is applied.
The jury is still out. - Frank Locantore, Co-op America
Stora Enso has decided to refrain from any commercial use of controversial genetic engineering techniques on trees or any other organisms. Nevertheless, Stora Enso will continue to take part in basic research in this area in order to keep up to date with developments. This research will not lead to any commercial applications, however. - Stora Enso
Boise believes that the careful use of genetically modified trees should be scientifically investigated. We believe that genetically modified trees may help meet the growing demand for wood and paper products worldwide, may effectively compete in the marketplace, and help sustain the world's forest resources. If new varieties of trees are developed for commercial use, precautions should be taken to assure public confidence. At the same time, any regulations or oversight must be prudent and thoughtful and must not impose unreasonable barriers, unnecessarily impede field trial investigation or interfere with timely operational applications. - Boise Cascade
A World Wildlife Fund scoping study surmises that the main impact of transgenic trees might not be genetic pollution, or the creation of super weeds, but 'the contribution that [genetic engineering] might make to unsustainable land use.' The study suggests that trees engineered for enhanced growth will generally be voracious consumers of water and nutrients, and thus will have the potential to degrade land. However, similar objections could be raised for the non-GMO eucalypt clones, raised through tissue culture, which are delivering astonishingly high yields, most famously in the Aracruz plantations of eastern Brazil. Nevertheless, it is true that genetically improved or genetically modified trees will fulfill their true potential only when the right growing conditions are provided. They must be planted in suitable climates with adequate water and they will nearly always require the use of fertilizers. They may also demand relative freedom from weed competition when young, and this means that herbicides must be used. Current objections to GMOs, like the defense of GMOs, are based on scientific theory. We lack empirical evidence. The jury is out still. - Cossalter 2003
Attackers Fell Finland's Only GM Tree Study: Attackers have torn up 400 genetically modified birch trees in Finland, wrecking the nation's only research into the environmental impact of biotechnology on forests. . . . The trees were chopped down or torn up by their roots at the weekend on the fenced but unguarded 2,000-square-metre site. Some environmental groups fear genetically modified trees might irreversibly "contaminate" food crops and wild species, an issue the study aimed to investigate.
"The research investigated the possible environmental effects of doing field studies using genetically modified materials. It would have been extremely important to find out about these issues," said research station head Juhani Haggman.
The 400 birches were part of Finland's only field study on genetically modified trees. The forestry industry hopes genetic modification could cut paper-making costs and improve products by producing trees with suitable traits. "We lack research on how genes work," Haggman said. Researchers on the government-funded Finnish Forest Research Institute (Metla) project were working on the felled trees to collect any data that remained, Haggman said. The study was due for completion at the end of 2005. - Reuters, reported on Paperloop.com, June 23, 2004
LISTENING STUDY: Other responses indicate that genetically engineered trees should not be used for papermaking.
No. With some very limited exceptions, there is no real need for genetically engineered trees. Meanwhile, the risks are far too high that pollen and seed from genetically engineered trees will mix with natural forests, and permanently alter those forests. Existing federal, state, and international safeguards for genetically modified organisms are considered highly inadequate by many scientists and conservation organizations. - Daniel Hall, Forest Biodiversity Program Director, American Lands Alliance
The problem with genetically engineered trees is that generally (almost always in the US and Canada) the engineered trees are planted in an area where native forests of the same species are present. This means cross-pollination will likely occur with native forest trees, which is totally unacceptable. If it can be shown that a genetically modified trait cannot be transferred through pollen, then this risk would appear to be eliminated. - Robert R. Bryan, Forest Ecologist, Maine Audubon
Should we oppose genetic "improvements" to trees on public lands? Sierra Club believes that we can't allow the industry to be judged by its hype and that patented genes are not an improvement over nature. We also must avoid only judging what one gene may do, because once hundreds of different fragments of hacked, patented genetic code are allowed access to public lands, the consequences of unintended combinations will be unpredictable. GE trees will also be a danger in other nations, particularly in the underdeveloped world where conditions for effective regulation often don't exist.
We would also point out that the United States is using twice as much paper per capita as other highly civilized nations (Europe, Japan). Let us not ask genetic engineering to do what could be accomplished by lower-tech means like putting a surcharge on junk mail. - Sierra Club
Bioengineered Trees Stir Debate - Sierra Club, Fearful of Projects Going Awry, Seeks Moratorum:
Scientists are planting genetically engineered trees in dozens of research projects across the country, ignoring the pleas of environmentalists who fear dangerous, unintended consequences.
"It won't be as widespread as agricultural biotechnology, but it could be much more destructive," said Jim Diamond, chairman of the Sierra Club's genetic engineering committee. "Trees are what's left of our natural environment and home to endangered species." The Sierra Club wants a moratorium on the planting of genetically engineered trees outdoors until the science is better understood. But like a tree falling deep in the forest, its call has gone unheeded.
The tree researchers say their critics are missing all the ways that science can give Mother Nature a fighting chance against ravages natural and manmade. Biotechnology, they say, may provide just what's needed to help reverse global deforestation and industrial pollution while satisfying increased demands for wood and paper products. . . .
"There is a lot of value in genetic engineering," said Oregon State University researcher Steven Strauss, who tends to a few thousand engineered trees. Some researchers are infusing trees with genetic material taken from viruses and bacteria that helps them row faster and fatter and yield better wood. Others are splicing mercury-gobbling bacteria genes into trees, enlisting nature to help clean polluted soil. Still others are inserting foreign genes that might reduce the amount of toxic chemicals needed to process trees into paper. . . .
But could biotech trees cross-breed with their natural brethren and ruin forests' genetic diversity? The Sierra Club fears that, among other ecological consequences. Researchers hope to placate critics by engineering sterility into their designer trees, so their impact on the environment can be contained. But that technology remains elusive.
Many field trials are backed by paper and timber concerns hoping to design trees that yield more wood and paper. . . . Most explore ways to streamline timber and pulp production, said [ArborGen LLC] Chief Technology Officer Maud Hinchee. She said the company's work could reduce reliance on national forests, with faster growing trees growing on industry plantations. . . . Numerous projects are aimed at growing more wood on less land or making it cheaper and less environmentally harmful to process trees in mills. . . .
Oregon State's Strauss says the protesters legitimate concerns are virtually identical to those of scientists. - Paul Elias, Associated Press, reported in the Marin Independent Journal, Business section, August 1, 2003
Organisations such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, which have long expressed their fears about GMOs in agriculture, have been joined in their campaigns against 'Frankentrees' by groups like the Native Forest Network, which claims that 'native forests ... are threatened worldwide by genetically engineered tree plantations.' - Fast-Wood Plantations . . .
Environmentalists have also suggested that genetic engineering of trees for reduced lignin content and for insect resistance might not prove to be as beneficial as the biotechnologists hope. Take, for example, lignin, which confers physical strength on trees and constitutes part of their defence mechanism against pests. Reducing lignin content could make trees more susceptible to pest attacks, and consequently more pesticides would be required in plantations. - Fast-Wood Plantations . . .
LISTENING STUDY: Some are positive.
Biotechnologists are also looking for genes that code for the enzyme that breaks down lignin. Up to a third of a tree's dry weight is lignin, which must be removed at considerable cost when pulpwood is turned into paper. Plantations of low-lignin trees could help reduce pulping costs. It is claimed that this would also be good for the environment, as lignin removal is an environmentally hazardous process. - Fast-Wood Plantations . . .
LISTENING STUDY: Other responses:
How do you define genetically engineered trees? I think the larger question is more important: can paper be made effectively (quality, cost) from fibers other than that from trees? - Susan Hammond, Executive Director, Silva Forest Foundation
There is no reason to believe that genetically engineered trees would be inappropriate for papermaking. There may be distinct advantages to raising genetically modified trees for making paper that range from greater disease resistance to less need for fertilizers. - International Paper
Renewable Energy Resources
==========================
Originally offered at http://www.karensmontgomery.org/renewable.html
Renewable Energy
Renewable energies have a low accident potential; they are resistant to terrorism and sabotage, have international acceptability and are resistant to policy crises. They are also financially productive as products and expertise move up in the marketplace. In 2005, renewable energy efforts in Germany produced 170,000 new jobs. Job production is especially valuable as other manufacturing jobs and the automotive industries are declining, just as they are in the U.S.
Other positive outcomes from renewable energy production are:
* cleaner air and water
* changing of the norms of ideas of energy sources
* new educational fields
* reduced energy dependence on foreign sources
* possible influence on climate change
Implications for the United States
We are behind the EU and the United Kingdom in developing renewable energies. The EU and especially Germany have invested billions of euros, created University Departments and research institutions dedicated to renewable energy fields and have established vocational schools to teach the new technologies. Those investments are now reaping financial rewards internationally.
There will have to be an acceptance of changes by both the public and industry in the United States. Sources of initial and sustained funding to jump start renewable industries must be found. The public may have some taxes and charges, but will benefit from more jobs and a healthier environment. Industry will see some new charges and possible taxes, but will benefit from the production of new industries and products.
Rural and farming areas will benefit from sales of sustainable energy generated from wind and biomass, while more urban areas will focus on solar energy production. Much of this energy production will require acceptance of locally produced energy into the electrical grid, involving payments and charges to the producers.
All of this -and more- must be done—and soon. If the United States is to compete globally, to become less dependent on depleatable fossil fuels, to create new industries, to clean up its environment and regain its leadership position in the world, we must put a major effort into renewable energy. NOW!
These ideas are important to you and to me. As most of you are aware, conservation of the energy we have now, through buying energy efficient appliances and doing such simple things as turning off lights and other equipment, are the first steps towards a cleaner, more energy efficient world.
To find out more, explore these links:
World Council for Renewable Energy
http://www.wcre.de/en/index.php
Renewable Engery Policy Network
http://www.ren21.net/
Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN
http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000405/index.html
World Wind Energy Institute
http://www.wwei.nu/
American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE)
www.acore.org
European Association for Renewable Energy (EUROSOLAR)
www.eurosolar.org
Renewable Energy Foundation – WCRE Australia/Pacific
www.solarcity.org
==========================
Originally offered at http://www.karensmontgomery.org/renewable.html
Renewable Energy
Renewable energies have a low accident potential; they are resistant to terrorism and sabotage, have international acceptability and are resistant to policy crises. They are also financially productive as products and expertise move up in the marketplace. In 2005, renewable energy efforts in Germany produced 170,000 new jobs. Job production is especially valuable as other manufacturing jobs and the automotive industries are declining, just as they are in the U.S.
Other positive outcomes from renewable energy production are:
* cleaner air and water
* changing of the norms of ideas of energy sources
* new educational fields
* reduced energy dependence on foreign sources
* possible influence on climate change
Implications for the United States
We are behind the EU and the United Kingdom in developing renewable energies. The EU and especially Germany have invested billions of euros, created University Departments and research institutions dedicated to renewable energy fields and have established vocational schools to teach the new technologies. Those investments are now reaping financial rewards internationally.
There will have to be an acceptance of changes by both the public and industry in the United States. Sources of initial and sustained funding to jump start renewable industries must be found. The public may have some taxes and charges, but will benefit from more jobs and a healthier environment. Industry will see some new charges and possible taxes, but will benefit from the production of new industries and products.
Rural and farming areas will benefit from sales of sustainable energy generated from wind and biomass, while more urban areas will focus on solar energy production. Much of this energy production will require acceptance of locally produced energy into the electrical grid, involving payments and charges to the producers.
All of this -and more- must be done—and soon. If the United States is to compete globally, to become less dependent on depleatable fossil fuels, to create new industries, to clean up its environment and regain its leadership position in the world, we must put a major effort into renewable energy. NOW!
These ideas are important to you and to me. As most of you are aware, conservation of the energy we have now, through buying energy efficient appliances and doing such simple things as turning off lights and other equipment, are the first steps towards a cleaner, more energy efficient world.
To find out more, explore these links:
World Council for Renewable Energy
http://www.wcre.de/en/index.php
Renewable Engery Policy Network
http://www.ren21.net/
Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN
http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000405/index.html
World Wind Energy Institute
http://www.wwei.nu/
American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE)
www.acore.org
European Association for Renewable Energy (EUROSOLAR)
www.eurosolar.org
Renewable Energy Foundation – WCRE Australia/Pacific
www.solarcity.org
Mini-cars fall short in crash tests
===================================
Originally posted at http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-crash19dec19,1,7681416.story?coll=la-headlines-business
Mini-cars fall short in crash tests
===================================
Originally posted at http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-crash19dec19,1,7681416.story?coll=la-headlines-business
Mini-cars fall short in crash tests
By John O'Dell, Times Staff Writer
December 19, 2006
Toyota Motor Corp., whose cars and trucks have helped set industry standards for affordable safety, had two of the worst performers in crash tests of the new subcompact sedans that are growing in popularity as motorists seek better gas mileage.
The 2007 models of Toyota's basic Yaris sedan and its boxy Scion xB wagon received the lowest scores as the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety for the first time rated so-called mini-cars from five automakers.
The crash tests by the nonprofit insurance institute are more rigorous than federal tests and are more respected by consumer groups. Insurers created the institute decades ago and its crash tests have become the industry's big stick for pressuring automakers into building safer vehicles.
Nissan Motor Co.'s subcompact Versa received the insurance institute's top rating, but institute President Adrian Lund said none of the cars tested provided stellar protection when hit by larger vehicles.
"Tests like these are going to set small cars back a half-decade," said industry analyst Eric Noble of CarLab. The Orange firm specializes in product testing and development consulting for automakers.
"Toyota doesn't usually make mistakes," Noble said, "but it was foolish of them to bring over small cars designed for the Japanese market," where cars and trucks are much smaller than those in the U.S.
The crash test results, to be released by the Virginia-based insurance institute today, found the Versa best among 2007-model mini-cars in protecting occupants in front-, rear- and side-impact collisions. It received "good" ratings, the institute's top score, in all three tests.
The Nissan subcompact was designed for the European and North American markets and is longer, wider and heavier than other cars in what the insurance institute calls the mini-car class, or those that weigh less than 2,500 pounds.
Honda Motor Co.'s Fit subcompact was rated "good" in the 40-mpg front and 31-mph side crashes, but inadequate seats and head restraints earned it a "poor," the institute's worst score, in protecting occupants from injury in a 20-mph rear-end collision.
Both the Versa and the Fit are sold with side-curtain air bags as standard equipment. The bags pop out from above the vehicles' side windows to provide protection against head and torso injuries in side crashes.
Although most Toyota vehicles do well in such tests, both its Scion xB wagon, which doesn't offer side air bags, and its Yaris sedan, when unequipped with optional side air bags, did poorly in the side test. That test simulates being hit from the side by a full-size pickup truck or SUV.
A Yaris equipped with side air bags, a $650 option on the basic $12,545 car, fared far better, with a "good" rating in the side crash and a "marginal" in the rear crash test.
In a statement Monday, Toyota said the company's cars "meet the safety requirements of the federal government and NHTSA," the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Hyundai Motor Co.'s Accent, which comes with side air bags as standard equipment, also got a "poor" in the side crash test. The Rio, from Hyundai subsidiary Kia Motors Corp., wasn't tested but shares the same platform and basic structure as the Accent and was rated the same.
General Motors Corp.'s Korean-built Chevrolet Aveo, equipped with standard side air bags, got a "marginal" rating in the side crash, a "poor" in the rear collision and an "acceptable" in the front crash test.
Side air bags in both the Accent and the Aveo did "pretty good" in protecting occupants' from head injury in the side crash tests, the insurance institute's Lund said. But the Accent's body structure lacked the strength to protect against torso injury and the Aveo's air bags were insufficient for preventing chest and torso injury.
BMW's 2006 Mini Cooper, which was previously tested by the insurance institute, is being included in today's mini-car ratings. It received a "good" score for front-crash protection, an "acceptable" in the side-impact test and a "marginal" for rear-impact protection. The institute said it would issue a new test report when the redesigned 2007 model Mini is available next year.
The institute, which receives all of its is financial support from the insurance industry, publicizes its crash tests in an effort to push automakers to improve safety by offering cars with equipment such as side curtain air bags, head restraints that help prevent whiplash and strengthened side structures
Such improvements not only reduce injuries and deaths, they help keep insurers' costs down by holding down medical treatment and death benefit costs.
"Any car that's small and light isn't the best choice in terms of safety," Lund said. "The laws of physics dictate" that small cars will come out losers in collisions with larger and heavier vehicles, he said.
Although he disagreed with analyst Noble's verdict that the test results would be a major blow to sales of small cars, Lund said they were intended to show people that there is a safety trade-off to be made when shopping for a mini-car to get better fuel economy.
Lund said he hoped that the tests would encourage small-car makers to move quickly to offer more safety equipment as standard rather than optional features. Death rates for mini-car drivers are higher than in any other vehicle category, Lund said.
_____
john.odell@latimes.com
*
(INFOBOX BELOW)
--
Crash tests
--
Crash test results for subcompact cars:
--
G = Good; A = Acceptable; M = Marginal;P = Poor
--
Car Front Side Rear
Nissan Versa G G G
(standard side airbags:
curtains for head protection
plus torso bags
in front seats)
Toyota Yaris G G M
(with optional side airbags:
curtains for head protection
plus torso
bags in front seats)
Honda Fit G G P
(standard side airbags:
curtains for head protection
plus torso bags
in front seats)
Mini Cooper* G A M
(standard side airbags:
tubular for head protection
plus torso bags in
front seats)
Chevrolet Aveo A M P
(standard side airbags:
combination head/torso bags
in front seats)
Scion xB G P M
(side airbags unavailable)
Toyota Yaris G P M
(without optional side airbags)
Hyundai Accent and Kia Rio A P P
(standard side airbags: curtains for
head protection plus torso bags
in front seats)
Monday, December 04, 2006
Blackwater Mega-Development Stopped!
CBF plays critical role in thwarting project; state agrees to permanently protect 70% of property
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CBF plays critical role in thwarting project; state agrees to permanently protect 70% of property
CBF’s effort to stop the proposed mega-development in Dorchester County, MD known as Blackwater Resorts appears to have been successful. The state announced today that it has brokered an agreement with the developer that will ensure 70 percent of the 1,080 acres is permanently protected and the rest of the parcel will be retained by the developer.
“We are grateful for the local opposition leaders who, for three years, steadfastly stood against this project,” said Kim Coble, MD Executive Director. “We also thank our members in Maryland and throughout the region for their strong support of our efforts, the thousands of people that signed our petition and who responded to action alerts, and the hundreds of citizens who wrote letters to the editor, called their elected officials and turned out at all the hearings and town hall meetings. Their efforts have been rewarded.”
Although CBF was not permitted to review the final agreement, we, in partnership with the local opposition leaders, had a significant role in derailing the proposed mega-development and bringing about the resolution. While we preferred the state purchase the entire site, we are pleased that the Governor listened to the 35,000 petition signers urging the state to get involved and find a solution - an alternative to the construction of 3,200 homes on farm fields far from the town center.
It is our understanding that the state will use Program Open Space funds to purchase approximately 750 acres and the developer will retain about 330 acres in the area closest to the City of Cambridge.
“We hope today marks a tipping point in how we choose to grow in Maryland and indeed the entire Chesapeake Bay region. Poorly managed development must become a thing of the past if we are to succeed in saving the Bay,” said CBF President Will Baker.
For the past year, CBF strongly advocated at the local and state levels that the proposed 3,200-home development was the wrong project in the wrong place. Of particular concern was the prospect of building a golf course, commercial buildings, a hotel and other structures within the critical area along the Little Blackwater River. Another major issue was the threat of pollutants and sediment in stormwater runoff from the proposed development, which could imperil the Little Blackwater River and the Blackwater Wildlife Refuge.
These issues remain a potential problem with any development proposed for this site. It is our strong hope that the state has ensured that there will be no building within the critical area, and that any stormwater from development outside the critical area will be treated with state-of-the-art technology to ensure it will not pollute the river and the refuge.
CBF will continue to keep a watchful eye on the project to ensure our natural resources are protected and our goal of saving the Bay is met.
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