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What A Week It Was: Apocadocuments from
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Species Collapse:(3)
Plague/Virus:(4)
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This Week's Top Ten Very Scary Tags:
contamination  ~ alternative energy  ~ climate impacts  ~ toxic buildup  ~ efficiency increase  ~ ecosystem interrelationships  ~ water issues  ~ smart policy  ~ economic myopia  ~ global warming  ~ carbon emissions  



ApocaDocuments (5) matching "alternative energy" from this week
[see full week] ~ [see all stories tagged "alternative energy"]
Sun, Jun 7, 2009
from Dallas Morning News:
Algae could become reliable jet fuel source
Seawater algae -- a cousin to pond scum -- may someday become a significant source of fuel for military jets and airliners, and at the same time rejuvenate farmlands where tumbleweeds fill old irrigation ditches and abandoned cotton gins bake in the Texas sun. Algae farmers conceivably could become the newest breed of Texas oilmen. For now, that's still a very big "if." Several scientific and technical obstacles must be overcome before the tiny plantlike organisms, which create unsightly rings on boat hulls and slime on fish tanks, can be turned into a viable fuel.... Producing a lot of oil from the algae, cheaply and quickly, is the goal – basically creating, in a matter of days, what took nature millions of years. ...


Has anybody considered tumbleweeds as an alternative, renewable energy source?

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Thu, Jun 4, 2009
from Guardian (UK):
Green energy overtakes fossil fuel investment, says UN
Green energy overtook fossil fuels in attracting investment for power generation for the first time last year, according to figures released today by the United Nations. Wind, solar and other clean technologies attracted $140bn (£85bn) compared with $110bn for gas and coal for electrical power generation, with more than a third of the green cash destined for Britain and the rest of Europe. The biggest growth for renewable investment came from China, India and other developing countries, which are fast catching up on the West in switching out of fossil fuels to improve energy security and tackle climate change. "There have been many milestones reached in recent years, but this report suggests renewable energy has now reached a tipping point where it is as important -- if not more important -- in the global energy mix than fossil fuels," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN's Environment Programme. ...


That's a tipping point worth tipping!

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Wed, Jun 3, 2009
from BusinessGreen:
Report: solar panel prices to plummet
The average price of solar panels will drop by over a quarter this year, as falling demand and increased supplies of polysilicon combine to drive down prices. That is the conclusion of a new study from research firm IC Insights, which predicts that despite the reduction in upfront prices, global solar photovoltaic installations will fall by 22 per cent this year as a result of the recession and the scaling back of some European incentives. However, the report also forecasts that the expansion of new incentive schemes in the US, China and Europe combined with the fact that the polysilicon supply shortages that dogged the industry in recent years have been largely resolved means that the sector will "come charging back in 2010". ...


Maybe now's the time to say "charge it!"

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Tue, Jun 2, 2009
from CNET:
Nobel laureate: Wind is not the future
While the Obama administration has expressed increasing hopes that wind power will play a key role in America's future energy system, one of the world's leading scientists is ruling out the technology. Jack Steinberger, the 1968 Nobel Prize winner in physics and director of CERN's particle-physics laboratory, spoke at a conference of Nobel laureates at the 350-year-old Royal Society in London last week.... The reason? Wind power still requires backup power when the wind isn't blowing, and that decreases its contribution to emissions reductions.... On the other hand, solar thermal power--where collectors concentrate sunlight using mirrors and lenses to produce electric power and heat--is already economical and can handle the storage problem, he said. The heat produced can be stored, enabling solar thermal plants to produce electricity during hours without sunlight. Steinberger now wants funding for a big pilot project. The idea is to link solar thermal power from Northern Africa to Europe via high-voltage undersea cables. The proposed 3- to 3.5-gigawatt power plant would cost an estimated $32 billion to build. ...


$32 billion would buy a lot of small home wind generators.

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Tue, Jun 2, 2009
from Bloomberg News:
Wood Is New Coal as Polluters Use Carbon-Eating Trees
Power companies are burning more trees because the renewable fuel can be cheaper than coal and ignited without needing permits to release carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.... Industrialized nations drew 4 percent of their energy from biomass in 2006, the most recent data available from the IEA. That was the equivalent of about 1.1 billion barrels of oil. Chips of wood stumps and branches, heated to 400 degrees Celsius (750 degrees Fahrenheit) at the Novus furnace, are as efficient as coal and cheaper: European Union rules don’t require carbon-dioxide permits because the trees absorbed a like amount of the gas before harvest, making them carbon-neutral.... Trees like pine retain an advantage over wind and solar energy as being readily convertible into power, heat and transportation fuel. "We're really only at the beginning of using biomass efficiently," German Green Party member Juergen Trittin, a former environment minister and parliamentarian, said in an interview. ...


Carbon neutral is better than coal's carbon horrendous... but can we get "carbon positive"?

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