The first ever hybrid solar-coal power plant is now operating at Unit 2 of the Cameo Generating Station near Palisade in Colorado. The demonstration project is expected to cut the use of coal at the power plant by around two or three percent, and could be scaled up to cut it by 10 percent.
The solar energy heats the circulating oil to about 300°C (575°F). The heated oil is then fed to a heat exchanger where the heat is transferred to water to heat it to around 200°C (407°F) before it enters the boiler. Having hotter water entering the boiler means less coal is needed to heat it and produce the steam that turns the turbine to generate electricity
| Proposed volumes and percentages for 2011 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Actual Volume (Mil. gal. US) | Ethanol Equiv. Vol. (Mil. gal. US) | Percentage | ||||
| Cellulosic biofuel | 5 - 17.1 | 6.5 - 25.5 | 0.004-0.015% | |||
| Biomass-based diesel | 800 | 1,200 | 0.68% | |||
| Advanced biofuel | 1,350 | 1,350 | 0.77% | |||
| Renewable fuel | 13,950 | 13,950 | 7.95% | |||
Dr. Koonin said maintaining the lead in computer hardware and software technologies is key to U.S. innovation and he called it "disconcerting" that China may soon gain more computer speed.
Read on at TOD
We all heard Simmons & Tierney bet on the average price of oil in 2010... While NextBigFutures Brian Wang appears to have won on his nuclear energy bet with Michael Dittma.Nikola Tesla
BuisnessWeek - Namibia, stung by the collapse of the diamond industry two years ago, is trying to diversify its $8.2 billion economy by exploiting uranium deposits that are the second-biggest in Africa.
While prescription drug disposal programs are growing and are popular with the public, government policies concerning the handling of these products are still a significant barrier to more successful disposal efforts, a dilemma examined by a Senate committee hearing this week.
Lake Erie is about to join Cape Cod in hosting one of the first offshore wind farms in the United States. For a while now, plans have been underway to construct a wind power site on the Great Lakes after a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between GE Energy and the Lake Erie Energy Development Corporation. Then earlier this month Ohio Governor Ted Strickland announced that there were plans for the development of five wind turbines on Lake Erie to generate 20 megawatts of power by 2012, with additional turbines to generate 1,000 megawatts by 2020. Read full at inhabitat
Rising production of hy
brid cars and music players such as Toyota Motor Corp.'s Prius and Apple Inc.'s iPod have driven up demand for rare earths even as China cut the quotas to shore up prices and ensure domestic supplies. The U.S. is looking at building a trade case on the restrictions, industry representatives said last month.
"The rare earths industry officials have realized that, after many years of continued growth in exports, the industry didn't receive due profit returns," Liu Aisheng, director of the Chinese Society of Rare Earth, said in an interview by phone from Beijing. "They adjusted the policy to ensure that the resources are optimally utilized."
Maybe that's why the $3 Trillion in mineral deposits in Afghanistan are so well protected?
NOTE: Americans scrap 400 million electronic products per year, and generated 2.6 million tons of e-waste in 2005.
a not-for-profit (501(C)(3)) organization, was created by the American Coatings Association (ACA), who, working with state and local government stakeholders, passed the first ever paint product stewardship law in the United States in the State of Oregon in 2009.
An Associated Press investigation shows that there are more than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, and the constellation of aging wells has been ignored for decades.
"No one—not industry, not government—is checking to see if they are leaking."
The oldest was abandoned in the late 1940s.
There's ample reason for worry about all permanently and temporarily abandoned wells -- history shows that at least on land, they often leak. Wells are sealed underwater much as they are on land. And wells on land and in water face similar risk of failure. Plus, records reviewed by the AP show that some offshore wells have failed.
Experts say such wells can repressurize, much like a dormant volcano can awaken. And years of exposure to sea water and underground pressure can cause cementing and piping to corrode and weaken.
"You can have changing geological conditions where a well could be repressurized," said Andy Radford, a petroleum engineer for the American Petroleum Institute trade group. Read more at NOLA (AP)
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa P. Jackson will travel to Kansas City, Mo., with members of the Congressional Black Caucus to meet with local officials and community leaders on Environmental Justice issues. The tour includes a visit to the Green Impact Zone project
Power consumption at Fort Bliss has dropped by three megawatts, and the post is looking to shed even more in its quest to become a net-zero energy installation produces as much energy as it consumes.
The goal at Bliss, one of the defense department's fastest growing installations, is in line with the Army's efforts to develop energy security. These range from Solar field rechargers to better batteries.
"We view energy security as a critical mission-enabler and an operational imperative, which can provide the Army with an essential tactical advantage," said Jerry Hansen, the Army's senior energy executive, during a bloggers roundtable discussion, July 7, at the Pentagon. "Our Army installations, our tactical operations, Soldier training — all require secure and uninterrupted access to energy."
Energy security means the mission can continue without depending on access to the civilian power grid.
In finding new ways to power the mission, leadership at Bliss is setting an example for the Army.
Google backed off their 10^100 project several times and blatantly ignored emails and postings of VALID projects. Now they are 'struggling to give money away'?
NY Times — Like flossing or losing weight, saving energy is easier to promise than to actually do — even if you are the Department of Energy.
... the department is having trouble taking its own advice, according to an internal audit released on Wednesday; many of its offices are still installing obsolete fluorescent bulbs.
The problem is not ignorance, the report suggests. For example, the department helped develop a technology called spectrally enhanced lighting that gives off light at wavelengths that mimic the sun. Officials at the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago told the auditors that that they could reduce energy consumption by 50 percent by switching to the new technology from old fluorescents.
But of seven sites, with 96 buildings in all, that the auditors visited, only two used the enhanced lighting. In many cases buildings were using fluorescents introduced 40 years ago.
In February 2008, the department adopted a new policy for taking its savings from energy conservation and reinvesting them in new conservation measures. But the auditors found that “there was no departmentwide system in place to track or calculate reinvestments of energy savings.”
Of the seven sites visited, only one had a system in place for even identifying the savings, the auditors said. - NY Times
If my math is correct and my data solid (and they are)... just the the government sector following through on this commitment would make a larger impact than any 'cap n trade, tax or carbon scheme on the table.
If the year-end adjusted average comes out to $200.00 or more per barrel, Mr. Simmons wins. If it averages out to less than $200.00, Mr. Tierney wins. The winner takes the entire pot of US$10,000.00, plus interest--$5,000.00 from both parties, currently sitting in escrow.
The results are dramatic: three pesticides estimated to account for half of lawn care product applications dropped by 86% (2,4-D), 82% (dicamba), and 78% (MCPP: 2-methyl-4-chlorophenoxyacetic acid). On the other hand, concentrations of glyphosphate (Roundup) and carbaryl did not drop significantly. The results for glyphosphate (Roundup) are attributed to continued use of this pesticide in certain exempted applications. The carbaryl results are not explained; perhaps this is due to the persistence of carbaryl in sediment.
Continuing feedback on Ontario's "experiment" can only help support the use of alternative herbicidal treatments and the expansion of bans on cosmetic pesticides, as well as restrictions on the use volumes for other purposes. Well done, Ontario!
Read the full story on TreeHugger
"Most institutions demand unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue."
And, of course, we [read: the babysitters our overclass hires for us] love the free market and don't begrudge gas station owners getting rich. Gas stations, in other words, are not owned by the public. So, this $100 billion expenditure would have to be done voluntarily by the nation's fueling entrepreneurs, for whom such outlays represent deductions from their returns-on-investment.
And, of course, all this is merely the cost of the electron-dispensing units. It says nothing about the radical reconstruction of the underlying electrical generation and distribution system that such a conversion would require.
Across the United States and around the world, we're already reaching or overshooting the limits of that cycle. The Colorado and Rio Grande Rivers are now so overtapped that they discharge little or no water to the sea for months at a time. In the West, we're growing food and supplying water to our communities by overpumping groundwater. This creates a bubble in the food economy far more serious than the recent housing, credit, or dot-com bubbles: We are meeting some of today's food needs with tomorrow's water.
That includes non-diet sodas, sports drinks and artificially sweetened water. Juice must be 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice with no added sweeteners. Diet sodas can be no more than 25 percent of the items offered, the directive says.
There should be "ample choices" of water, "soy milk, rice milk and other similar dairy or non dairy milk," says the directive, which also covers fat and sugar content in vending machine snacks.- SFGate
