There’s a Bizarro World quality to this period in history. Anyone covering news in these Interesting Times cannot possibly chronicle all the news that really marks the journey as we careen into our unimaginably strange future. Add yours in comments, but here’s what I found: California regulators decreed that, by … [continued]
Sustainability advocates long ago adopted the mantra “buy local” to limit the carbon footprint of the goods purchased. Distributed energy that’s closer to the end user through smaller solar and wind power, is having an impact on the energy sector. The next industry to become more geography-centric in purchasing will … [continued]
John Rowe, Exelon CEO, said yesterday that climate change legislation is an urgent issue. At the same time, he announced that the nation’s largest utility would not be renewing its membership with the US Chamber of Commerce because of the Chamber of Commerce’s opposition to climate legislation.
China just awarded Bombardier Sifang a contract to build 80 “very high speed trains” for the country. These are super progressive trains that are energy efficient as well as lightning fast. China intends to invest a total of $300 billion in high speed trains by 2020.
Not every breakthrough in the solar industry comes from efficiency gains from esoteric new Silicon Valley start-ups (though these are being catapulted by the recent funding bonanza) and university labs. Some come from understanding that half the cost of a solar installation is just the cost of getting boots up … [continued]
In Cape Town, South Africa, as well as in many U.S. cities, wealthy suburban dwellers choke roads driving into the city, eschewing the public transit that shuttles blue collar workers. The addition of bus and rail lines in the city’s center in anticipation of hosting the 2010 World Cup has … [continued]
MIT professor Daniel Nocera formed a company earlier this year to commercialize a new technology that can “split water” and store solar energy. The company’s key objective now: achieve a solar energy breakthrough.
By 2011 the US Army’s Space & Missile Defense Command has plans to deploy a spy ship, which will be unmanned over Afghanistan. While this is a controversial move in itself, some eco-enthusiasts are applauding the consideration to model the aircraft after an experimental hybrid airship which took flight on … [continued]
With the help of a high tech underground steam cleaning technology developed at UCal-Berkeley and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a creosote-soaked Superfund site in Visalia, California has been cleaned up more than 100 years ahead of schedule, saving millions of dollars and pointing the way toward a more efficient … [continued]
A team of researchers at MIT are engineering a strain of bacteria, which is similar to the type that causes tuberculosis, to produce biofuel. The researchers say that the bacteria are useful because they are hungry for a number of sugars and toxic compounds and produce lipids that can be … [continued]
