Archive for the 'Energy' Category
Soaring Costs Force Some Renters To Choose Between Shelter And Food
April 27th, 2011Via: Huffington Post: Around 10 million American households — or one in every four families that rent their homes — could have to choose between paying rent, buying groceries or keeping current with bills, according to a report released Tuesday. The number of households spending more than 50 percent of their income on rent and […]
Los Alamos National Laboratory Scientists Develop Inexpensive Catalysts for Fuel Cells
April 26th, 2011Read this one within the context of Daniel Nocera’s artificial leaf technology. Via: Science Daily: Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists have developed a way to avoid the use of expensive platinum in hydrogen fuel cells, the environmentally friendly devices that might replace current power sources in everything from personal data devices to automobiles. … Polymer-electrolyte […]
4 Years of Factor e Farm in 4 Minutes
April 25th, 20114 Years of Factor e Farm in 4 Minutes from Open Source Ecology on Vimeo. More: TED: Marcin Jakubowski: Open-Sourced Blueprints for Civilization opensourceecology.org Research Credit: applecidervinegar
More Drivers Running Out Of Gas
April 23rd, 2011Wow. Some people are in so much denial about gas prices, and not wanting to think about filling up, that they are simply driving until they run out of gas. This is a fantastic lesson in cognitive dissonance. Think about this for a minute. If increasing numbers of people are in denial about their fuel […]
China: Thousands of Truck Drivers Riot in Shanghai Over Fuel Prices
April 21st, 2011ZeroHedge is right: China is now between a rock and a hard place: will it continue happily importing Bernanke’s inflation exports or finally retaliate. Unfortunately for its economy, the appropriately called “nuclear option” of revaluation, will leave it export economy flailing. So the real question: is China ready to migrate from an export-led to a […]
China Halts Fuel Exports to Ensure Domestic Supply
April 21st, 2011Some context is necessary on this story. China is a huge net oil importer. This is from the U.S. Department of Energy: China’s net oil imports reached about 4.3 million bbl/d in 2009, making it the second-largest net oil importer in the world behind the United States and for the first time surpassing Japan’s imports. […]
Britain: Secret Memos Expose Link Between Oil Firms and Invasion of Iraq
April 19th, 2011Via: Independent: Plans to exploit Iraq’s oil reserves were discussed by government ministers and the world’s largest oil companies the year before Britain took a leading role in invading Iraq, government documents show. The papers, revealed here for the first time, raise new questions over Britain’s involvement in the war, which had divided Tony Blair’s […]
Fukushima: Fuel Rod Fragments at Bottom of Reactor Vessels
April 16th, 2011Flashback: Arnie Gundersen: How Fukushima’s Fuel Rods Melted and Shattered And now… Via: Japan Times: Melted fuel rod fragments have sunk to the bottoms of three reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant and could theoretically burn through the pressure vessels if emergency water-pumping operations are seriously disrupted, the Atomic Energy Society of Japan […]
Intense Light Passing Through Non Conductive Material, ‘Can Generate Magnetic Effects That Are 100 Million Times Stronger Than Previously Expected’
April 15th, 2011Intense light can cause glass to exhibit strong magnetic properties. Wow, this is a weird one. The buzz kill occurs when you read that the light needs to be focused to 10 million watts per square centimeter to realize the effect. The researchers are looking for materials that work at lower intensities. Via: PhysOrg: A […]
Japan: Encasing Reactors Will Be More Difficult Than Chernobyl
April 14th, 2011Via: Reuters: Encasing reactors at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant in concrete would present much more of a challenge than Chernobyl, according to an executive of the firm whose pumps are helping cooling efforts there. “In Chernobyl, where a single reactor was encased, 11 trucks were in action for a number of months. In Fukushima we’re […]
