The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has released The Open PV Mapping Project showing the progress of solar installations on private roofs from 2000 to (currently) now, beginning with a flurry of activity in California, then moving to Wyoming, of all places, and WIsconsin. Gradually the states turn yellow and then orange over time as they add more solar power.
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A very detailed and complex study (pdf) Increasing Wind Energy’s Contribution to the US Electricity Supply weighing the costs and benefits of increasing wind power to 20% by 2030 included some very interesting projections on bird extinction numbers expected from climate change.
While it may not be news to cleantechnica readers that climate change will kill more members of more species than wind turbines, it is interesting to see the actual figures comparing bird loss from climate change versus from wind turbines.
The study found at least 950 entire species of terrestrial birds that will be threatened with extinction as a result of climate change under several scenarios, even at the lower estimate of temperature gains, just counting species of non-sea birds in the higher latitudes; outside the tropics.
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On September 25, I wrote about a Google Earth tour (narrated by AL Gore) and new Google Earth tools and layers which help people to look at the possible effects of climate change under three different scenarios. Now, three new tours have been launched that allow the exploration of critical rainforests and real-life success stories.
The tours (embedded below) have a great wealth of information and inspirational stories bound into succinct Google Earth or YouTube videos.
Blacklight Power has signed a contract with Akridge in Maryland, marking the sixth utility to sign up for a mysterious form of energy that defies quantum physics. The company claims that it can create energy by lowering the energy level of hydrogen atoms to below their “ground” state. Most scientists agree that this is impossible.
But that hasn’t stopped “six utilities” from signing on for the theoretical power, (though one of the utilities; Akridge Energy LLC is apparently owned by a property company.)
In an increasingly anti-science culture, scientific consensus doesn’t count for much, but the consensus is that you can’t lower hydrogen atoms below their ground state.
The six utilities are going out on a limb. Or perhaps they know something we don’t:
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Four British newspapers are quoting a self-published author who claims supposed wind turbine health problems in a piece that could be pretty much summed up as:
The Independent, The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph and The Belfast Telegraph are printing the same piece (unverified by any third parties) by a New York pediatrician who has set herself up as an “expert” on wind with her own vanity press. Nina Pierpont thinks “Wind Turbine Syndrome” can cause abnormal heart beats, sleep disturbance, headaches, tinnitus, nausea, visual blurring, panic attacks migraines, sleep deprivation, and general irritability.
And it is fine that a pediatrician, like anyone else, has an opinion, but that doesn’t make this science. Pierpont is claiming that her book is peer-reviewed (by other pediatricians, I assume?) which is not true. Other pediatricians (who are doctors for children) have not “peer-reviewed” her work.
More relevantly; acousticians (who actually do study the aural efffects of things like wind turbines) have not “peer-reviewed” her work.
How could they? Can a mathematician or a weatherman “peer” review a climate scientist’s work? Of course not. They are not peers. Same thing with acousticians versus childrens doctors.
A “peer”, by definition, works in the same field of study.
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One of the key arguments in the denier industry here has been that the Kyoto Accord doesn’t work: Aside from the oft touted argument that
A. global warming doesn’t exist… or if it does;
B. then human activities have nothing to do with causing it…
C. or even if we do have something to do with causing it, then mere legislation can’t lower CO2 emissions
D. …or even if legislation can make countries seek out more renewable power; then any non-fossil energy just doesn’t ‘work’ somehow.
So ever since most of the civilized world signed Kyoto, there has been a constant drumbeat from all the No We Can’t Think Tanks like the American Enterprise Institute or CATO propelling the idea that Europe is failing to meet the Kyoto goals.
Never mind that to be short of a 2010 goal in 1998 is no indication of failure. But now 2010 is within sighting distance.
And as they sing it in that great American musical South Pacific: If you don’t have a dream…? If you don’t have a dream? How… can you - make a - dream come true?”
This week we have news of yet another Kyoto nation to not just make its Kyoto dream come true - but to…
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Editor’s Note: This post is a guest contribution by Frank Sesno, Emmy-award winning journalist and former CNN Bureau Chief. ”Planet Forward” is an innovative, viewer-driven program driven by the power of ideas, as citizens make their case for what they think about the nation’s energy future. The show debuts TONIGHT (8pm), in a primetime PBS special. See Frank Sesno’s last post for CleanTechnica here.
Some expressions are serious, some are humorous. There are essays and poems and songs. But in almost all cases, if we take this stuff at face value, we’re hearing calls for an overthrow of the old ways we drive, work, travel, get around.
A revolution in technology and green jobs to reduce carbon emissions, deal with climate change and improve our security. A revolution in the energy marketplace to knock the oil-igarchs around the world down a notch. Coincidentally, this is the bottom line of Barack Obama’s hugely ambitious energy program. And it’s what citizens and experts alike weigh in on here at Planet Forward.
This is a place where everyone has the chance to make their case about how we use energy, where our future energy should be, and how we should think about the issue. We’ve heard from scientists and students, CEO’s and cab drivers, defenders of coal and oil as well as advocates of wind and solar. We’ve even got a few politicians making their case! It’s an orchestra of voices.
What makes Planet Forward different is that we connect some of the best ideas – rated by the online community and reviewed by our Planet Forward editorial staff –directly to decision-makers. Some go straight to the White House. We do all this in a prime-time television special on PBS and through follow-on webisodes here at planetforward.org. What’s most striking is how seriously the experts take the ideas and experiences of people out in the ‘real world.’ As they should.
Editor’s Note: This post is a guest contribution by Frank Sesno, Emmy-award winning journalist and former CNN Washington Bureau Chief. ”Planet Forward” is an innovative, viewer-driven program driven by the power of ideas, as citizens make their case for what they think about the nation’s energy future. The show debuts on the web first and then moves to television, in a primetime PBS special on April 15th.
I’ve been in the media for a long time. I know the power we have to reach and to teach. We can take people places they’ve never been, show them wonders – and horrors – to inform or motivate. Good, important stuff. Of course we also drive people crazy. Critics shout that too many in the media are too removed, too insular, too quick to talk and too slow to listen. Too much is dumbed down or shouted out.
So when we created Planet Forward, we wanted to do something different. We wanted to take this huge issue facing us — how we move to a sustainable, 21st century approach to the energy we use – and explore it in a way that is open, inclusive, creative and smart. We wanted to combine the power of the internet and the reach of television to bring together citizens, experts and decision-makers in a place where imagination and ideas would prevail. Sure, serious business — but also spontaneous and fun and unexpected.
Planet Forward starts online and works its way over to television. We invite people to submit a video, an essay, a photo spread, whatever works. We say show us your ideas, your invention or what your community’s working on. Share your research. Talk technology. Tell us how attitudes are changing.
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