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- Canadian Oil Sands Flyover
An aerial/telephoto exploration of the Canadian Oil Sands operations. Two trillion barrels of oil in the ground. Pyramids of sulfur and coke. Lakes of oil stretching to the horizon. At $200k/yr, it's easy to understand how one might get roped in, gold rush style. - Clean energy will unfortunately be political
Conservative thinktanks step up attacks against Obama's clean energy strategy, as revealed by ALEC bills and other PR documents. This morning at the World Renewable Energy Forum, in response to a (long winded) question about how we might re-frame the energy discussion in light of the unfortunate hay which was made from Solyndra's failure, US Energy Secretary Stephen Chu re-iterated that clean energy should not be a political issue -- that it's just common sense. That may be true, but it doesn't mean it will remain apolitical. As Pericles once said... "Just because you do not take an interest in - The Dangerous World of Underground Chemistry
A look at the increasingly outsourced world of underground pharma. Domestic black-market chemists handle R&D and distribution, and the actual manufacturing is done in China. Seems that way with everything. - Google Street View for building energy efficiency
Essess is doing drive-by thermal imaging in high density urban areas across the US, hoping to target possible building energy efficiency opportunities. Another company is using urban satellite imagery to choose the best rooftops for solar energy siting. Big Brother may be watching you... but at least occasionally he's got the right idea. - The Neapolitan Mob’s Most Dangerous Family
A character sketch of Paolo di Lauro, one of the Neapolitan Camorra's former leaders. Southern Italy it seems, like some parts of Mexico, operates with more than one quasi-state organization governing in parallel. A tacit negotiation between the official and unofficial systems, which sometimes erupts into violence -- ironically, at those times when the so-called "criminal" organizations have become weak.
- Canadian Oil Sands Flyover
Twitterfeed
- Incredible photo essay on the Athabasca Tar Sands operations: businessinsider.com/canadian-oil-s… 5 days ago
- At a great talk about individual cities as the right scale for renewable energy systems innovation at #wref2012 1 week ago
- Heard rural Wyoming folk talking local Chinese coal/gas investments, hacking of their SCADA water system. I live in a @GreatDismal future. 1 week ago
- The tar sands have to stay in the ground. Stop the pipeline… again. And again. And again, if necessary. act.350.org/sign/kxl/ 3 months ago
- Roughly 2/3 of all the humans who have ever reached the age of 65 are alive today. 4 months ago
Incoming Memes
Tag Archives: renewable
Clean energy will unfortunately be political
Conservative thinktanks step up attacks against Obama’s clean energy strategy, as revealed by ALEC bills and other PR documents. This morning at the World Renewable Energy Forum, in response to a (long winded) question about how we might re-frame the … Continue reading
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Tagged energy, politics, pr, renewable, solar, solyndra, wref2012
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Straight Talk on Climate Progress in California
Andy Revkin talks to Nate Lewis about the scale of the challenge we face in addressing climate change. Lewis (whom I took Chem 1 from at Caltech) was one of the first people to communicate the scale of the problem … Continue reading
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Tagged andyrevkin, dotearth, energy, natelewis, power, renewable, solar
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A Power Company President Ties His Future to Green Energy
Yale Environment 360 has an interview with the CEO of NRG Energy, a fossil fuel based, nationwide independent power producer (IPP) that sells their 22GW of generation into the wholesale market. He’s bullish on solar PV, much less so on … Continue reading
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Tagged climate, coal, energy, nrg, power, renewable, solar, utility
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Is an Energy Transformation Afoot?
Almost immediately after we empowered Boulder to form a utility, a spate of articles appeared in the national press talking about the relative costs of coal and renewables, and the trends in those costs. There was Krugman’s Here Comes Solar … Continue reading
Xcel backing away from solar-thermal enabling San Luis Valley transmission
Xcel appears to be backing away from new transmission lines to the San Luis Valley. This infrastructure is required to implement the several hundred megawatts of solar-thermal generation that they proposed in their 2007 resource plan. Solar thermal is the … Continue reading
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Tagged colorado, energy, grid, infrastructure, power, puc, regulation, renewable, san luis valley, solar, thermal, transmission, xcel
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Former Xcel CEO Dick Kelly would be fine with no more coal
Former Xcel CEO Dick Kelly would be fine with no more coal. Unfortunately, the regulatory environment that his former employer works within in Colorado, and the company’s need to protect a couple of billion dollars worth of undepreciated coal assets … Continue reading
Debating Boulder’s Power at the BGBG
Last Thursday (Sept. 8th) the Boulder Green Building Guild (BGBG) and Boulder Tomorrow hosted a debate of the 2B/2C ballot measures. The event was completely booked in advance through the BGBG’s website and the REI community room was packed and … Continue reading
Debating Municipalization with Plan Boulder County
Ringmaster John Tayer (center) introduces the municipalization contenders. From left to right: Bellemare and Miller (against), Weaver and Regelson (for). Plan Boulder County put on a well structured, and well attended debate of the utility municipalization question Monday night. The … Continue reading
Boulder’s Energy Future Is Bright
Last night I went to a presentation by the Renewables Yes technical and financial modeling team. They’ve put up a bunch of information about their modeling efforts on the web site. I’ve organized nine short videos of a previous iteration … Continue reading
Posted in journal
Tagged boulder, climate, coal, colorado, electricity, energy, muni, natural gas, renewable, solar, utility, wind, xcel
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Links for the week of September 11th, 2009
If you want to follow my shared links in real time instead of as a weekly digest, head over to Delicious. You can search them there easily too.
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Tagged accident, animation, architecture, art, banks, bicycle, biology, bonds, burningman, calendar, california, camouflage, carhartt, cars, corset, craig, crisis, dam, darwin, drugs, economics, edge, electricity, energy, evolution, fashion, finance, future, gardening, genetics, glasses, globalization, health, history, hydroelectric, information, insurance, investing, japan, law, losangeles, money, photos, policy, politics, propaganda, renewable, RPS, russia, safety, schedule, science, shopping, siberia, solar, sustainability, synthetic, terrorism, time, tokyo, transportation, venter, video, vintage, visualization, war
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