Archive for the 'Energy' Category
Chevron Gives Residents Near Fracking Explosion Free Pizza
February 21st, 2014Via: Newsweek: After a Chevron hydraulic fracturing well exploded in rural Dunkard Township, Pennsylvania, last Tuesday, and burned for four days straight, the energy company knew just the way to soothe nearby residents: free pizza.
MIT 2014 Cold Fusion 101 Video Lectures
February 8th, 2014Via: Cold Fusion Now: Cold Fusion 101: Introduction to Excess Power in Fleischmann-Pons Experiments began Monday, January 27, 2014 for a week of classes led by Dr. Peter Hagelstein of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Dr. Mitchell Swartz of JET Energy.
Frack the Drought
February 6th, 2014Via: USA Today: The USA’s domestic energy boom is increasing demands on water supplies already under pressure from drought and growing populations, a new report says. The water-intensive process used to extract oil and gas from shale underground — known as hydraulic fracturing or fracking — has required almost 100 billion gallons of water to […]
‘Chasing the Dream of Half-Price Gasoline from Natural Gas’
January 15th, 2014Frack that. Via: MIT Technology Review: At a pilot plant in Menlo Park, California, a technician pours white pellets into a steel tube and then taps it with a wrench to make sure they settle together. He closes the tube, and oxygen and methane—the main ingredient of natural gas—flow in. Seconds later, water and ethylene, […]
The Doomer Congressman Who Went Off Grid
January 5th, 2014Via: Politico: Roscoe Bartlett spent 20 years on Capitol Hill. Now he lives in a remote cabin in the woods, prepping for doomsday. When Roscoe Bartlett was in Congress, he latched onto a particularly apocalyptic issue, one almost no one else ever seemed to talk about: America’s dangerously vulnerable power grid. In speech after late-night […]
Ex-BP Engineer Found Guilty in Oil Spill Cover Up
January 3rd, 2014Via: Reuters: An engineer charged in connection with the 2010 BP oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico was found guilty of one count of obstructing justice by a federal jury on Wednesday, officials said. Kurt Mix, 52, now a former BP Plc employee, had faced two counts of obstruction for deleting hundreds of […]
Mercury Levels Rising in Expanse Around Alberta Oilsands
January 3rd, 2014Via: Postmedia News: Mercury wafting out of oilsands operations is impacting an area – or “bull’s-eye” — that extends for about 19,000 square kilometres in northeast Alberta, according to federal scientists. Levels of the potent neurotoxin found near the massive industrial operation have been found to be up to 16 times higher than “background” levels […]
U.S. Dumped Tens of Thousands of Steel Drums Containing Atomic Waste Off Coastlines
January 2nd, 2014Via: Wall Street Journal (Mirror): More than four decades after the U.S. halted a controversial ocean dumping program, the country is facing a mostly forgotten Cold War legacy in its waters: tens of thousands of steel drums of atomic waste. From 1946 to 1970, federal records show, 55-gallon drums and other containers of nuclear waste […]
Japan’s Homeless Recruited for Murky Fukushima Clean-Up
December 30th, 2013Via: Reuters: Seiji Sasa hits the train station in this northern Japanese city before dawn most mornings to prowl for homeless men. He isn’t a social worker. He’s a recruiter. The men in Sendai Station are potential laborers that Sasa can dispatch to contractors in Japan’s nuclear disaster zone for a bounty of $100 a […]
Velkess: New Residential Scale Flywheel Design
December 21st, 2013Via: Scientific American: Renewables could be the world’s primary source of energy if only someone could solve the storage problem—how to store lots of electricity cheaply on a wide scale? Batteries are too expensive and don’t last long enough. Pumped hydro is cheap but not feasible for most locations. Thermal storage is promising but still […]
