U.S. consumer debt highest since early 2008, at $11.28 trillion

Total consumer debt rose 1.1 percent to $11.28 trillion in the third quarter, the New York Fed said in its quarterly household debt & credit report. That marked the biggest quarterly jump since the first three months of 2008.

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A Scarcity of Rare Metals Is Hindering Green Technologies by Nicola Jones

Yale Environment 360: A shortage of "rare earth" metals, used in everything from electric car batteries to solar panels to wind turbines, is hampering the growth of renewable energy technologies. Researchers are now working to find alternatives to these critical elements or better ways to recycle them.

by nicola jones: With the global push to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it's ironic that several energy- or resource-saving technologies aren't being used to the fullest simply because we don't have enough raw materials to make them. 

For example, says Alex King, director of the new Critical Materials Institute, every wind farm has a few turbines standing idle because their fragile gearboxes have broken down. They can be fixed, of course, but that takes time – and meanwhile wind power isn't being gathered. Now you can make a more reliable wind turbine that doesn't need a gearbox at all, King points out, but you need a truckload of so-called "rare earth" metals to do

Haruyoshi Yamaguchi/Bloomberg

These bits of critical elements are bound for recycling at a Mitsubishi subsidiary in Japan.

it, and there simply isn't the supply. Likewise, we could all be using next-generation fluorescent light bulbs that are twice as efficient as the current standard. But when the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) tried to make that switch in 2009, companies like General Electric cried foul: they wouldn't be able to get hold of enough rare earths to make the new bulbs. 

The move toward new and better technologies — from smart phones to electric cars — means an ever-increasing demand for exotic metals that are scarce thanks to both geology and politics. Thin, cheap solar panels need tellurium, which makes up a scant 0.0000001 percent of the earth's crust, making it three times rarer than gold. High-performance batteries need lithium, which is only easily extracted from briny pools in the Andes.

In 2011, the average price of 'rare earth' metals shot up by as much as 750 percent.

Platinum, needed as a catalyst in fuel cells that turn hydrogen into energy, comes almost exclusively from South Africa. 

Researchers and industry workers alike woke with a shock to the problems caused by these dodgy supply chains in 2011, when the average price of "rare earths" — including terbium and europium, used in fluorescent bulbs; and neodymium, used in the powerful magnets that help to drive wind turbines and electric engines — shot up by as much as 750 percent in a year. The problem was that China, which controlled 97 percent of global rare earth production, had clamped down on trade. A solution was brokered and the price shock faded, but the threat of future supply problems for rare earths and other so-called "critical elements" still looms. 

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EPA awards over $30 million to the Pacific Territories for environmental protection

EPA - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently awarded over $30 million as part of a yearly program that provides grants to Guam, the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa for use in continuing environmental protection work and for improvements to drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. 

"EPA's funding enables the islands to advance their goals in the pursuit of clean air, water and land," said Jared Blumenfeld, Regional Administrator for the Pacific Southwest. "As one example, the investment made in leak detection projects in all three territories has dramatically reduced drinking water losses, and saved over $1 million in energy costs."

Guam EPA will be receiving $3.2 million, CNMI DEQ will be receiving $1.7 million, and the American Samoa EPA $1.8 million to support the operations of each environmental agency. The work done by the agencies include inspections, monitoring the safety of beaches and drinking water, permit writing, enforcement and other facets of their environmental protection programs. 

Additionally, EPA provides drinking water and wastewater construction grants to improve the water supplies in each of the territories. The Guam Waterworks Authority will be receiving $8.2 million, CNMI's Commonwealth Utilities Corp. will be receiving $6.9 million, and the American Samoa Power Authority $8.3 million. 

Accomplishment highlights from previous funding include:

- Improvements to the drinking water system in all three territories, including improved chlorination in Guam, increased water storage in CNMI, and an ongoing extension of the central system in American Samoa to remote villages.
- EPA funding has contributed to the increased drinking water availability in Saipan, where 95% of the population now has access to 24-hour water (up from 75% in 2009).

- Improvements to the wastewater collection and treatment systems in all three territories, including rehabilitation of a treatment plant in Saipan, improvements to the collection infrastructure in Guam, and ongoing extension of sewer lines in American Samoa.
- EPA has funded the replacement of older wastewater pumps with newer energy efficient pumps and controls, saving the utilities hundreds of thousands of dollars in power bills in all three territories.

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Maps: The Mysterious Link Between Antibiotics and Obesity

...a study on antibiotic prescription rates across the United States that was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The researchers found a surprisingly wide variation among the states, and the rates—expressed in terms of prescriptions per 1,000 people—seemed to follow a geographical pattern: The Southeast had the highest rates, while the West's were lower. West Virginia had the most prescriptions, and Alaska had the fewest. The rest of the country fell somewhere in between. Here's a map of the findings:

As I thought more about the map, I wondered whether the prescription rates followed any demographic patterns. Lauri Hicks, a lead author of the study and a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told me that her team had initially expected to find certain correlations—for example, higher prescription rates in states with large elderly populations. But that didn't turn out to be the case. Take Florida, which has a sizeable elderly population, but only an average antibiotic prescription rate.

Yet Hicks' team did find one very strong correlation: The states with higher rates of antibiotic use also tended to have higher obesity rates. Take a look at this map of obesity rates by state and see how it reflects the antibiotics map above:

When we mashed up the data behind these maps, we confirmed the strong correlation between obesity and antibiotic prescription rates (we got an r of 0.74, for the statistically inclined). We also found a correlation between the states' median household incomes and antibiotic prescription rates: States with below-average median incomes tend to have higher antibiotic prescription rates. This makes sense, considering that high obesity rates correlate with low income levels. (You can see the data sets for antibiotic prescription rate, obesity, and median household income level here.)

Hicks and her team can't yet explain the connection between obesity and high rates of antibiotic prescription. "There might be reasons that more obese people need antibiotics," she says. "But it also could be that antibiotic use is leading to obesity."

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'Superbugs could erase a century of medical advances,' experts warn

The Independent: ..Writing in The Lancet, experts, including England's chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, warn that death rates from bacterial infections "might return to those of the early 20th century". They write: "Rarely has modern medicine faced such a grave threat. Without antibiotics, treatments from minor surgery to major transplants could become impossible, and health-care costs are likely to spiral as we resort to newer, more expensive antibiotics and sustain longer hospital admissions."

Strategies to combat the rise in resistance include cutting the amount of antibiotics prescribed, improving hospital hygiene and incentivising the pharmaceutical industry to work on novel antibiotics and antibiotic alternatives.

However, a leading GP told The Independent on Sunday that the time had come for the general public to take responsibility. "The change needs to come in patient expectation. We need public education: that not every ill needs a pill," said Dr Peter Swinyard, chairman of the Family Doctor Association.

"We try hard not to prescribe, but it's difficult in practice. The patient will be dissatisfied with your consultation, and is likely to vote with their feet, register somewhere else or go to the walk-in centre and get antibiotics from the nurse.

"But if we go into a post-antibiotic phase, we may find that people with pneumonia will not be treatable with an antibiotic, and will die, whereas at the moment they would live.

"People need to realise the link. If you treat little Johnny's ear infection with antibiotics, his mummy may end up dying of pneumonia. It's stark and it's, of course, not direct, but on a population-wide level, that's the kind of link we're talking about."

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Fukushima Disaster Leads Japan To Backpedal On Emissions Pledge

Japan took a major step back on Friday from earlier pledges to slash its greenhouse gas emissions, saying a shutdown of its nuclear power plants in the wake of the Fukushima disaster had made previous targets unattainable. The announcement cast a shadow over international talks underway in Warsaw aimed at fashioning a new global pact to address the threats of a changing climate. Under its new goal, Japan, one of the world's top polluters, would still seek to reduce its current emissions. But it would release 3 percent more greenhouse gases in 2020 than it did in 1990, rather than the 6 percent cut it originally promised or the 25 percent reduction it promised two years before the 2011 nuclear disaster.

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A Sustainable Educational Center for the Boy Scouts of America | Dwell

Dwell: 

Visitors learn about energy and water conservation as they climb outdoor staircases that lead from the forest floor to the 125-foot-high rooftop rising above the leaf canopy. Photo by Joe Fletcher.

In 2013, the Boy Scouts of America made conservation a stronger focus of the organization by introducing a new sustainability merit badge and opening an educational center in the 10,600-acre Summit Bechtel Reserve in West Virginia. ... "The experience of moving through the trees was more powerful than we imagined," he says.

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#Google's Wind, Solar #Energy Investments Top $1B

Google just announced it is investing another $80 million in six new solar power plants in California and Arizona, bringing its total investment in renewable energy to more than $1 billion. The new plants are expected to generate 160MW of electricity, enough to power 17,000 typical U.S. homes. They are expected to be operational by early 2014. With the new plants, Google's renewable power facilities will be able to generate a total of 2 billion watts (gigawatts) of energy, enough to power 500,000 homes or all of the public elementary schools in New York, Oregon, and Wyoming for one year, it said. Currently, Google gets about 20% of its power from renewable energy, but it has set a goal of achieving 100% renewable energy.

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U.S. 5X Battery #Energy Research Sets Three Paths For Replacing Lithium

One year ago this month, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a $120 million plan to develop a technology capable of radically extending battery life. 'We want to change the game, basically,' said George Crabtree, a senior scientist at Argonne National Laboratory and a physics professor who is leading the effort. The goal is to develop a battery that can deliver five times the performance, measured in energy density, that's also five times cheaper, and do it in five years. They are looking at three research areas. Researchers are considering replacing the lithium with magnesium that has two charges, or aluminum, which has three charges. Another approach investigates replacing the intercalation step with a true chemical reaction. A third approach is the use of liquids to replace crystalline anodes and cathodes, which opens up more space for working ions.

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#Herbal Supplements Are Often Not What They Seem - #Natural #Health

NYTimes.com: Americans spend an estimated $5 billion a year on unproven herbal supplements that promise everything from fighting off colds to curbing hot flashes and boosting memory. But now there is a new reason for supplement buyers to beware: DNA tests show that many pills labeled as healing herbs are little more than powdered rice and weeds.

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Using a test called DNA barcoding, a kind of genetic fingerprinting that has also been used to help uncover labeling fraud in the commercial seafood industry, Canadian researchers tested 44 bottles of popular supplements sold by 12 companies. They found that many were not what they claimed to be, and that pills labeled as popular herbs were often diluted — or replaced entirely — by cheap fillers like soybean, wheat and rice.

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Uranium contamination near San Fran. bay jogging trail, suspect a former chemical plant

 Amber Lee, KTVU.com — 

A contaminated site near the popular Bay Trail in Richmond is raising concerns.

The area is popular with cyclists, joggers and families.

Neighbors say soil samples show high levels of radioactive material at the site, 100 times what's normal.  They suspect a former chemical plant that processed uranium used it as a dump site. Please continue reading 

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Singapore: Where the water is rented

Treehugger - The government of Singapore doesn't want you to think of water as something you can use once and dispose of forever. They not only want citizens to see water as something valuable, but also something that they'll use and return to a greater system.

"We're renting you the water," said George Madhavan, the director of the Public Utilities Board or PUB.

Singapore is working towards water independence. Currently, the country has a long-term contract to import water from its northern neighbor, Malaysia. Imported water accounts for about 30 percent of the nation's supply, but Singapore wants to meet a higher percent of the country's water demand through domestic sources. Supporting technology-driven efforts to recycle water while at the same time promoting conservation are the two major ways Singapore aims to achieve its goal. Recycling Water

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Incredible High-Resolution Interactive Map of the World’s Shrinking Forests [feedly]

This beautiful data visualization tool gives the first comprehensive, high-resolution look at deforestation around the world. It is based on 654,178 Landsat satellite images from the U.S. Geological Survey that were analyzed by a team of academic, government and Google researchers. ...Please continue reading published on Wired Science » Science Blogs // visit site
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Report: U.S. will lead world in oil production, but only for 20 years

Beginning in 2015, the U.S. will be the world's top oil producer, but our reign on top will only last 20 years before the Middle East reclaims the crown, according to an annual outlook released Tuesday by the International Energy Agency, David Unger reports for The Christian Science Monitor. The current boom in hydraulic fracturing in the U.S. is why the nation "is expected to lead the world in oil production between 2015 and the early 2030s, according to IEA," Unger writes. (U.S. Energy Information Administration graphic)

After that, "U.S. oil imports will rapidly drop on increased production and greater consumer efficiency, pushing the country toward 'meeting all of its energy needs from domestic resources by 2035,'" Unger writes. "That's when the picture gets fuzzy. Some in the industry say that the shale oil and gas boom radically redefines how much oil and gas is recoverable across the globe. China leads the world in shale gas resources with an estimated 1,115 trillion cubic feet, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Russia stands to dominate in supplies of oil from shale, with an estimated 75 billion barrels in technically recoverable resources. The key word is 'technically.' Shale resources are difficult and costly to extract, and many, including the IEA, do not expect the success in the US to be replicated elsewhere. While oil prices will continue to remain historically high, it won't be enough to compete with the Middle East's abundant supply of cheap, conventional oil."

The outlook states: "The Middle East, the only large source of low-cost oil, remains at the centre of the longer-term oil outlook. The role of OPEC countries in quenching the world's thirst for oil is reduced temporarily over the next ten years by rising output from the United States, from oil sands in Canada, from deepwater production in Brazil and from natural gas liquids from all over the world. But, by the mid-2020s, non-OPEC production starts to fall back, and countries in the Middle East provide most of the increase in global supply." (Read more) (Market Place graphic)

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China will look to Thorium Molten Salt Reactors to for energy without water cooling for Arid regions starting in 2040

"The TMSR (thorium molten salt reactor) is getting $400 million in support from the Chinese government, because several regions of China face water shortages in large part because China's many coal-fired power plants require water for for cooling, as do China's 17 conventional nuclear reactors. "Water scarcity is very serious for China," he said. "Most of the water has been consumed by electricity companies – for coal but also nuclear."

Xu Hongjie of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Shanghai indicated that one of the two reactors he's developing should be ready in a 100-megawatt demonstrator version by 2024, and for full deployment by 2035. A second one, based on liquid thorium fuel instead of solid, would come later, he said, hinting that it might not yet have full government financial backing.

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World Energy Forecast to 2035 sees Renewables slowing the growth of coal, oil and natural gas but not replacing them

The International Energy Association published its World Energy Outlook 2013. They forecast world energy to 2035.

Longterm solutions to global challenges remain scarce
* Renewed focus on energy efficiency, but CO2 emissions continue to rise
* Fossil-fuel subsidies increased to $544 billion in 2012, renewables received $101 billion in support in 2012
* 1.3 billion people lack electricity, 2.6 billion lack clean cooking facilities

Renewable energy will have significant growth but will only be able to slow the growth of coal, oil and natural gas. Half of the renewable energy added be regular hydroelectric dams (mainly in China.)

Also CO2 emissions continue to increase.

Therefore more nuclear energy is needed for safer energy with less air pollution, less CO2 emissions and fewer deaths. Air pollution kills 2 million each year.

China will have nearly twice the energy usage of the United States because the IEA is forecasting that China will have nearly double the GDP of the United States

Canada's energy sector is under pressure to shift to selling to China and Asia as the US will no longer be importing oil in a few years. The US will become the number one producer of crude oil and natural gas liquids in 2015.

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Denmark surpasses 100 percent wind power – German Energy Transition

On November 3, wind power production in Denmark exceeded the level of power consumption. Craig Morris says the event was not even especially exceptional.

Denmark is flooded with electricity, and it is increasingly wind power. As you can see from this website of current power production, the Danes publish a real-time overview of their power sector broken down into the categories of central power stations, cogeneration (local CHP), and wind turbines. At those three together and subtract electricity consumption, and you get the net power exchange. When it is positive, the country is exporting.

As you can see from the screenshot below, power production exceeded power consumption in the country on Sunday evening – when, admittedly, power demand is relatively low. But the days when renewable electricity completely offset conventional power on workdays are fast approaching. And Denmark has near 100 percent wind power increasingly often.

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http://energytransition.de/2013/11/denmark-surpasses-100-percent-wind-power/

Prescription Drug Abuse: Strategies to Stop the Epidemic

Prescription Drug Abuse: Strategies to Stop the Epidemic finds that 28 states and Washington, D.C. scored six or less out of 10 possible indicators of promising strategies to help curb prescription drug abuse. Two states, New Mexico and Vermont, got the highest score, receiving all 10 possible indicators, while South Dakota scored the lowest with two out of 10.

According to the report, prescription drug abuse has quickly become a top public health concern, as the number of drug overdose deaths - a majority of which are from prescription drugs - doubled in 29 states since 1999. The rates quadrupled in four of these states and tripled in 10 more of these states.

Prescription drug related deaths now outnumber those from heroin and cocaine combined, and drug overdose deaths exceed motor vehicle-related deaths in 29 states and Washington, D.C. Misuse and abuse of prescription drugs costs the country an estimated $53.4 billion a year in lost productivity, medical costs and criminal justice costs, and currently only one in 10 Americans with a substance abuse disorder receives treatment.

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Quebec funds efforts by RER Hydro, Boeing to build river turbine farm

BECANCOUR, – The Quebec government is helping to bankroll a $130-million project by RER Hydro, Hydro-Quebec and Boeing to generate clean energy on the St. Lawrence River in what officials say would be the world's largest river-generated turbine farm.

The three-phase project could eventually culminate in nine megawatts of renewable power being generated in Montreal from 46 riverbed turbines, with installation beginning in 2016.

The province could contribute up to a maximum of $85 million in equity and loans. That's on top of the $3 million it has already provided RER Hydro Inc. for its initial $230-million prototype testing phase that lasted three years.

Quebec, which is a leader in production of hydroelectricity, hopes that the technology will take off and support the manufacture of about 500 turbines annually and some 600 direct and indirect jobs at RER Hydro's plant in Becancour, near Trois-Rivieres.

Premier Pauline Marois said at the plant's official opening on Monday that the government is actively helping new industries that hold promise for the Quebec economy, such as its strategy to support the electrification of transportation.

"Our participation in this partnership agreement will promote the development of the industrial sector of turbines, which has great economic potential for Quebec, particularly because of the significant export opportunities," Marois said, while also stressing the job creation potential of the project.

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The secret, dirty cost of Obama's green power push, consequences are so severe that environmentalists and many scientists have now rejected corn-based ethanol as bad environmental policy.

Yahoo Finance [feedly] — The hills of southern Iowa bear the scars of America's push for green energy: The brown gashes where rain has washed away the soil. The polluted streams that dump fertilizer into the water supply.

Even the cemetery that disappeared like an apparition into a cornfield.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

With the Iowa political caucuses on the horizon in 2007, presidential candidate Barack Obama made homegrown corn a centerpiece of his plan to slow global warming. And when President George W. Bush signed a law that year requiring oil companies to add billions of gallons of ethanol to their gasoline each year, Bush predicted it would make the country "stronger, cleaner and more secure."

But the ethanol era has proven far more damaging to the environment than politicians promised and much worse than the government admits today.

As farmers rushed to find new places to plant corn, they wiped out millions of acres of conservation land, destroyed habitat and polluted water supplies, an Associated Press investigation found.

Five million acres of land set aside for conservation — more than Yellowstone, Everglades and Yosemite National Parks combined — have vanished on Obama's watch.

Landowners filled in wetlands. They plowed into pristine prairies, releasing carbon dioxide that had been locked in the soil.

."

In this July 20, 2013, photo, a plant that produces ethanol is next to a cornfield near Coon Rapids, …

Sprayers pumped out billions of pounds of fertilizer, some of which seeped into drinking water, contaminated rivers and worsened the huge dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico where marine life can't survive.

The consequences are so severe that environmentalists and many scientists have now rejected corn-based ethanol as bad environmental policy. But the Obama administration stands by it, highlighting its benefits to the farming industry rather than any negative impact.

Farmers planted 15 million more acres of corn last year than before the ethanol boom, and the effects are visible in places like south central Iowa.

The hilly, once-grassy landscape is made up of fragile soil that, unlike the earth in the rest of the state, is poorly suited for corn. Nevertheless, it has yielded to America's demand for it.

"They're raping the land," said Bill Alley, a member of the board of supervisors in Wayne County, which now bears little resemblance to the rolling cow pastures shown in postcards sold at a Corydon pharmacy.

All energy comes at a cost. The environmental consequences of drilling for oil and natural gas are well documented and severe. But in the president's push to reduce greenhouse gases and curtail global warming, his administration has allowed so-called green energy to do not-so-green things.

In some cases, such as its decision to allow wind farms to kill eagles, the administration accepts environmental costs because they pale in comparison to the havoc it believes global warming could ultimately cause.

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Study says nuclear waste can be cut 90%

Engineers from the University of Sheffield have developed a way to significantly reduce the volume of some higher activity wastes, which will reduce the cost of interim storage and final disposal.

The researchers, from the University's Faculty of Engineering, have shown that mixing plutonium-contaminated waste with blast furnace slag and turning it into glass reduces its volume by 85-95 per cent. It also effectively locks in the radioactive plutonium, creating a stable end product.The approach could also be applicable to treating large volume mixed wastes generated during the eventual clean-up of the damaged Fukushima plant.

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China to Build More Renewables Than EU, U.S. Combined, IEA Says - Bloomberg

China is expected to build more renewable power plants through 2035 than the U.S., European Union and Japan combined, according to the International Energy Agency.

The share of energy sources including hydropower, biomass, wind and solar in world electricity supply will rise above 30 percent in that period, "drawing ahead of natural gas in the next few years and all but reaching coal as the leading fuel for power generation in 2035," the Paris-based adviser to 28 nations said in its annual World Energy Outlook report yesterday.

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The Easy Energy Is Gone. Mexico’s oil industry pumped dry

Mexico's oil industry is in a bad way. The country's once massive petroleum reserves have basically been sucked dry. Production is plummeting, and the state oil monopoly, Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) is hemorrhaging money. Unless something is done soon, for the first time in decades Mexico could fall from its coveted spot among the world's top 10 oil producers.

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5 million acres have vanished since Obama took office in push for #green #energy,

phys.org...Across the Dakotas and Nebraska, more than 1 million acres of the Great Plains are giving way to cornfields as farmers transform the wild expanse that once served as the backdrop for American pioneers.

This expansion of the Corn Belt is fueled in part by America's green energy policy, which requires oil companies to blend billions of gallons of corn ethanol into their gasoline. In 2010, fuel became the No. 1 use for corn in America, a title it held in 2011 and 2012 and narrowly lost this year. That helps keep prices high.

"It's not hard to do the math there as to what's profitable to have," Malsam said. "I think an ethanol plant is a farmer's friend."

What the green-energy program has made profitable, however, is far from green. A policy intended to reduce global warming is encouraging a farming practice that actually could worsen it.

That's because plowing into untouched grassland releases carbon dioxide that has been naturally locked in the soil. It also increases erosion and requires farmers to use fertilizers and other industrial chemicals. In turn, that destroys native plants and wipes out wildlife habitats.

It appeared so damaging that scientists warned that America's corn-for-ethanol policy would fail as an anti-global warming strategy if too many farmers plowed over virgin land.

The Obama administration argued that would not happen. But the administration didn't set up a way to monitor whether it actually happened.

It did.

More than 1.2 million acres of grassland have been lost since the federal government required that gasoline be blended with increasing amounts of ethanol, an Associated Press analysis of satellite data found. Plots that were wild grass or pastureland seven years ago are now corn and soybean fields.

That's in addition to the 5 million acres of farmland that had been aside for conservation - more than Yellowstone, Everglades and Yosemite National Parks combined - that have vanished since Obama took office.

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Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program: Final Amendments and Confidentiality Determinations for Electronics Manufacturing

*Pre-release of Final Rule — Environmental Protection Agency

...reviewed as a potential alternative to EPA Method 320 (77 FR 63575). In the preamble to the proposed amendments, the EPA stated, "All data and information EPA has received in support of the stack testing method used EPA Method 320. Since this industry contains specialized gases in low concentrations, EPA would prefer to have supporting data prior to approving another test method. Because of this, we are not proposing this standard as an acceptable alternative for EPA Method 320 in this proposed...Please see full at: https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2013-23804.pdf

*NOTE: This is a pre-release version of this Final Rule. It will be formally published on Nov 13, 2013 in the Federal Register.

#Solar #energy storage below $100/kWh - with the help of a steam engine

Renew Economy: As RenewEconomy wrote in its profile of the company last month, the company is planning on volume production of its technology in 2015.  It has already teamed up with solar power systems supplier JKB Energy, and Roush Industries, a leading developer of automotive and energy systems.

It is targeting systems from 100kW to 20MW that operate 24/7, and promises a "compelling" payback for off-grid and on-grid power. Its initial focus will be industrial and agricultural sectors, particularly in those locations which have expensive or inadequate grids, or where waste heat can be used to improve the efficiency of industrial operations.

The first pilot project was installed in an irrigated almond farm in California's Central Valley (pictured), and the company sees a huge demand among the irrigated farm community, particularly in the solar-rich south west of the US, and in Australia. Irrigated farm operations in Australia are watching with interest, because if the company delivers what it says it can, it will be an attractive proposition.

Terrajoule says it is aiming in 2015 for a price per peak watt of $1.50 to $2.00 at a 20 per cent capacity factor, depending on system size, the strength of the solar resource (DNI) and other factors.  Mostly, this is comparable to the price for a PV solar panel system (without storage) at the equivalent capacity factor.

But it says its price of net electrical storage capacity will be less than $100/kWh.  This is a fraction of the cost of most battery storage technologies, and comes without cycle limitations, degradation of capacity, disposal costs, and all balance of system costs. It sees further cost falls as production is scaled up.

Terrajoule's chief technology office Robert Mierisch searched back into the historical manuals to develop his idea of using the 300-year-old technology of a steam engine and a pressurised water tank as the means of storage and delivering electricity and/or waste heat on demand. Its proposal use a type of steam engine that has been out of service for decades, apart from tourist ferry or two, has raised eyebrows....

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Desert Farming Experiment Yields Good Initial Results

For the past year or so, a tiny scale farming experiment in has been carried out in the desert field of Qatar, using only sunlight and seawater. From the article: 'A pilot plant built by the Sahara Forest Project (SFP) produced 75 kilograms of vegetables per square meter in three crops annually (or 25 kilograms per square meter, per crop)' If the yield level can be maintained, a farm of the size of 60 hectares would be enough to supply the nation of Qatar with all the cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, and egglants that it needs. 'The project will proceed to the next stage with an expansion to 20 hectares, to test its viability into commercial operation.'

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Nestle draining more countries' ground water dry.

Sum of Us - Nestlé is draining developing countries' groundwater to make its Pure Life bottled water, destroying countries' natural resources before forcing its people to buy their own water back.

Now Nestlé is moving into Pakistan and sucking up the local water supply, rendering entire areas uninhabitable in order to sell mineral-enriched water to the upper class as a status symbol, while the poor watch wells run dry and their children fall ill.

In the small village of Bhati Dilwan, villagers have watched their water table sink hundreds of feet since Nestlé moved in. Children are getting sick from the foul-smelling sludge they're forced to choke down. Meanwhile, Nestlé spends millions marketing "Pure Life" to wealthy Americans, Europeans, and Pakistanis who can afford to watch their kids grow up healthy. This scenario is played out again and again in countries around the globe. But this is where we say: enough!

At the World Water Forum in 2000, Nestlé led the way in fighting against defining access to water a universal right. Nestlé and other big corporations won out, and government officials around the globe officially downgraded water's classification to a "need" instead, meaning it could be captured, commoditized, and exploited by major corporations without regard for local populations.

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#Fukushima is an enormous problem that’s getting bigger, the scariest part is not what has already happened;

ABC Los Angeles  Fukushima is an enormous problem that's getting bigger....The scariest part of Fukushima is not what has already happened; it's what could still happen. Every day is a desperate effort to keep the plant from melting down. ... Japanese Nuclear Engineer Yastel Yamada came to America to shine a light on what he feels is a flawed approach. He says TEPCO is over their heads. "The cleanup job is too large for their capability," Yamada said. Yamada is one of many experts who say this is a bad solution, and that a meltdown is still possible. Dr. Jimmy Hara, from Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and professor of clinical family medicine at UCLA, agrees. ... Fukushima is potentially the biggest ticking time bomb in human history.  

Please read on at: http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/world_news&id=9317789

AWESOME! Home Depot will trade in your energy-wasting Christmas lights for LEDs

GRISTY!!! Alright guys, we're on board, as much as anyone else, with the idea that Christmas comes after Thanksgiving and that maybe we don't need to think about shopping and decorating for another few weeks. But American retailers are not — they want you to start thinking about Christmas now. Which means we have to go against our better instincts and tell you to start thinking ahead. Because you can now go into Home Depot, trade in your old, incandescent Christmas lights, and get energy-saving, LED replacements — but only for the next few days.

This is a great switch for people to make. The Department of Energyhas estimated that Christmas lights use as much electricity as half a million homes do in an average month. That's a ton of power. And it's expensive. The DOE also says that U.S. households could save a total of $410 million or so in electricity if everyone switched to LEDs.

And it looks like more people are making that choice. The Kansas City Star reports that retailers are expecting LED lights to be a big trend this year:

Wal-Mart is devoting half of its shelf space for Christmas lights to LEDs and offering a string of 50 mini LED lights for $5, down from $6.30 last year.

"We know our customers are gravitating toward them," said Debbie Serr, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman.
Costco is selling no incandescent Christmas lights at all.

General Electric, which has peddled holiday lighting for more than a century, expects that two out of every five strings of lights sold this year will be LEDs.

Please read and follow: http://grist.org/living/home-depot-will-trade-in-your-energy-wasting-christmas-lights-for-leds/

New-Build Nuclear Is Dead: Morningstar - #energy #news via @Forbes

Nuclear reactors are not a viable source of new power in the West, Morningstar analysts conclude in a report this month to institutional investors.

Nuclear's "enormous costs, political and popular opposition, and regulatory uncertainty" render new reactors infeasible even in regions where they make economic sense, according to Morningstar's Utilities Observer report for November.

"Aside from the two new nuclear projects in the U.S., one in France, and a possible one in the U.K., we think new-build nuclear in the West is dead," Morningstar analysts Mark Barnett and Travis Miller say in the report.

This view puts Morningstar on the same page as former Exelon CEO John Rowe, who said in early 2012 that new nuclear plants "don't make any sense right now" and won't become economically viable for the forseeable future.

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#Apple plans Arizona factory that will run on #renewable #energy

MAcWorld reports that Apple are looking to use renewable energy to power a new manufacturing plant in Arizona - Apple plans Arizona factory that will run on renewable energy.

Apple plans to build a components plant in Mesa, Arizona, that will run entirely on renewable energy. ...

The project will create 700 jobs in the first year, in addition to about 1,300 construction and other jobs in Arizona, according to Governor Jan Brewer. "Their investment in renewable energy will also be greening our power grid, and creating significant new solar and geothermal power sources for the state," Brewer said in a statement.

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Flashlight Powered by Body Heat, by 15-year-old student

A flashlight powered by your body temperature would be really useful for power outages or camping. Ann Makosinski, a 15-year-old student from Victoria, British Columbia, developed a flashlight that does just that.

In her research, Ann learned about Peltier tiles. Peltier devices — devices that produce electricity when one side of the tile is heated while the other side is cooled. What better way to generate power? And what better outlet for Ann's device than a flashlight?
 
After reworking the voltage and circuitry, Ann was able to create a light powered only by her own body heat. Next, she figured out how to use her idea to power a flashlight. Using a simple flashlight, the STEM-savvy teen cut away the plastic exterior so that the flashlight user's hand would come in direct contact with the built-in Peltier tiles. And just like that — she had light!

Makosinski took her project to the Google Science Fair, and was the winner in the 15-16-old division. -via HuffPo Green

Neatorama / by Miss Cellania 

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Veterans of Iraq, Afghanistan battle lung trouble upon return home | Fox News

This article neglects mentioning the use of depleted uranium in our munitions which, when exploded, turns into a radioactive aerosol which when breathed in can cause all sorts of terrible ailments including cancers of all sorts. Who knows how long this truth will be hidden.

Fox News  Staff Sgt. Moses Scarberry was a former high-school football player who could easily run seven-minute miles when he joined the military in 2001.  

After convoys through sandstorms and exposure to trash burning in open pits during a tour each in Iraq and Afghanistan, he has changed. In a recent physical-fitness test, he couldn't complete a mile run without stopping to walk. "I felt like I was breathing through a plastic bag," said the 30-year-old military policeman with the West Virginia Army National Guard.

Please continue reading at

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/11/09/veterans-iraq-afghanistan-battle-lung-trouble-upon-return-home/?intcmp=latestnews

Zero Waste #Energy breaks ground on organic waste to CNG fuel facility

Zero Waste Energy, LLC (ZWE) broke ground on an anaerobic digestion facility in South San Francisco, CA that will convert organic waste into compressed natural gas (CNG) and compost. The Blue Line Biogenic CNG facility will convert 11,200 TPY of food and green waste into 100,000+ diesel equivalent gallons of CNG fuel. The company estimates that each collection vehicle will gather enough organic waste during just one route to fuel it for an entire day, creating a closed-loop system.

The facility is scheduled to commence operation in the second quarter of 2014.

The Blue Line Biogenic CNG Facility is being developed in a partnership with Blue Line Transfer Inc., South San Francisco Scavenger Co., Inc., and Zero Waste Energy, LLC.

The project addresses numerous AB 32 requirements, diverting almost 95% of the organic waste feedstock from landfills. The project will include a SMARTFERM anaerobic digestion facility with 8 dry digesters that will transform 11,200 tons of food and green waste per year into compressed natural gas (CNG), produce 60 kW of electric power and heat to run the facility, an in-vessel composting system that will mitigate odor issues and provide digestate that will be matured into compost.

SMARTFERM is an advanced dry anaerobic digestion system that processes organic waste feedstocks and generates renewable energy. SMARTFERM systems can include biogas-processing technology for combined heat and power (CHP) generation as well as compressed natural gas (CNG). In addition, in-vessel composting options can provide partial or complete maturing of compost for the wholesale or retail market. SMARTFERM facilities can process 4,000 TPY to 100,000 TPY of almost any organic material.

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