How Green Is My Valley?

By Richard Bangs
Palm Springs sprawls like a petrified fossil on a culture dish in the middle of the hottest, driest desert in North America. Who would want to live there? Yet, in the early half of the 20th century it became an oasis for hay fever sufferers, and valetudinarians with tuberculosis, bronchitis, emphysema and asthma. That is until its first Green Movement, one that saw a spate of golf courses rolled out like carpets throughout the Coachella Valley. That precipitated another demographic shift, to retirees. Now, the eight cities that make up the Desert Empire, stretching southeast from the San Bernardino Mountains to the saltwater Salton Sea, are sometimes collectively called God's Waiting Room. Everyone knows the little blue-haired ladies that populate Florida. Well, their parents live in Palm Springs. Deserts are not naturally green, of course, but with enough siphoned, sucked-up or stolen water, they can be transmogrified into emerald cities. Palm Springs is a curious button, as it was involved in environmental progressiveness long before fashion, with its vast wind farms and other ingenuities, and then it enjoyed a lost weekend during the Hope/Sinatra/Skelton period, where it smacked of overindulgence and development at the expense of eco-conscientiousness; and now it is back, retrofitting, retooling, and fashioning a green future, or at least one that strives for balance. Read More

Building Green Vehicles: Ford to Use Fungus Move over fuel-efficient engines: It's time to welcome fungus to the green vehicle movement. Ford Motor Company and Evocative Design of Green Island, N.Y. are developing mushroom-based auto parts to build environmentally friendly vehicles...

Solar energy a much better option than nuclear power I used to feel very safe living in Wilmington, until I watched Japan suffer through an earthquake and everything that went with it, including having their nuclear power plants totter on disaster...

Renewable Energy is a Reality and not a Vision

Germany gains more energy from solar technology than Japan gains from all its nuclear reactors. Development in this area occurred much faster in the last years than many expected. Ten years ago no one would have believed we could gain 17 percent of our electricity supply from renewable energy. In the US the gigantic oil and nuclear industries dominate research and funding.

by Klaus Toepfer and Elmar Altvater

The catastrophe in Japan calls us to reflect about the energy concept of our government, ex-environmental minister Klaus Topfer says. Renewable energy is already a “reality.”

Taz: Mr. Topfer, as director of the Ethics commission, what advice can you give the political decision-makers on the nuclear exodus?

Klaus Topfer: In many areas acceptance of technology is derived from technical criteria. The effects of technology on readiness to take risks in society play a great role. The question is: do we want our prosperity based on technologies that when they fail have tremendous negative effects that can hardly be controlled?

Wasn’t this ethical question answered long ago in relation to nuclear energy?

These controversial questions have been discussed again and again. The catastrophe in Japan demands peremptorily that we reflect how nuclear energy in the past ended up putting in question other important goals of society. The exodus- and bridging process may not lead to additional emissions of CO2. This also may not put in question the economic competitiveness that is crucial for jobs and has been very successful in export. This must be seriously discussed in a broad social dialogue: how the bridging can be organized so an environmentally-friendly and competitive energy supply can be achieved with renewable energy. Setting up our commission could be a good signal for that bridging. Read More

Bay of Fundy tidal proposal moves ahead

Atlantis' AK 1000 turbine will be installed in the Bay of Fundy.

Multi-billion dollar corporations are investing resources, time and money into developing tidal power in Nova Scotia, but if we’re to believe provincial authorities and the corporations’ reps, the corporations have no idea if they’ll make money or not.

Last year the province issued a Request for Proposal for development of a tidal facility in the Fundy Ocean Research Centre. The new facility will hook into a transmission line recently built with federal funds, and any power generated would be bought by Nova Scotia Power. The idea was that the new facility would help develop tidal technology, which has recently seen a major setback with the failure of a turbine installed by OpenHydro, a company owned in part by Emera, the parent company of Nova Scotia Power.
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Cleaning up pollution with pond scum

Algae's ability to soak up carbon dioxide could help make coal-fired Kentucky power plants more environmentally friendly

University of Kentucky researchers are among a growing number around the world looking at algae as a potential answer to our energy puzzle.
Call it the pond scum solution.
While most of the research into these oily aquatic plants focuses on how to turn them into liquid fuels, UK's Center for Applied Energy Research is also looking at using algae to scrub carbon dioxide and other pollutants from coal-fired power plants.
The idea is to use the way algae, like other plants, naturally soaks up carbon dioxide. The algae, which grows quickly, could then be converted into liquid fuel and other products.
"This would not only allow us to continue to use coal in an environmentally acceptable way, but would also allow us to reduce dependence on petroleum," said Rodney Andrews, director of the UK Center for Applied Energy Research and an associate professor of chemical engineering.

Remake a Living: The jobs, my friend, are blowin' in the wind

As the hype about "green" jobs has grown, the wind-energy industry has done a pretty good job of reporting accurately on their job creation. Industry analysts estimate that wind energy currently employs about 50,000 domestic workers, both on-site at wind farms and down the chain of products and services needed to build, transport, install, and operate all those turbines.
The number of jobs is growing quickly, however, and wind companies could support as many as 500,000 jobs 20 years from now. That's according to a Department of Energy report that outlines a plan for the nation to get 20 percent of our electricity from wind power by 2030.
Think 20 percent by 2030 sounds far-fetched? The World Wind Power Association says that wind already provides 19 percent of electricity production in Denmark, 9 percent in Spain and Portugal, and 6 percent in Germany and Ireland. And they're not just blowing ... oh, never mind.

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Is It Better to Eat Locally or Eat Differently?

When it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, what you eat may be more important than where that food comes from. A new study in the journal Environmental Science and Technology indicates that replacing the calories from red meat and dairy products with calories from chicken, fish or vegetables could have the same impact on greenhouse gas emissions as shifting to an entirely locally-grown diet.
"Eating local" has become an important concept among environmentally conscious communities in recent years. The impact on greenhouse gas emissions of becoming a "locavore," however, may not be as great as proponents had thought. Chris Weber, one of the authors of the report, says, "Despite all the attention given to food miles, the distance that food travels is only around 11 percent of the average American household's food-related greenhouse gas emissions."

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