‘Arnie,’ ‘Al’ Push Climate Action

By CHARLES J. HANLEY
AP Special Correspondent

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — “Arnie” and “Al,” Republican and Democrat, shared the world spotlight to press for climate action, adding a touch of star quality to the staid proceedings of a U.N. summit.

The two headliners, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Vice President Al Gore, also highlighted by their presence President Bush’s absence from the eight hours of high-level speechmaking Monday on what to do about global warming.

Bush, who did take part later in a small, private U.N. dinner with key players on climate, rejects the idea of international treaty obligations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gases” blamed for global warming – an idea central to U.N. climate negotiations.

The Republican Schwarzenegger, on the other hand, has taken the lead on emissions caps at the state level, signing legislation mandating such reductions in California.

“One responsibility we all have is action. Action, action, action,” the former Hollywood action star said as he helped open the summit, winning warm applause from the assembled presidents and premiers.

The Democrat Gore – a Hollywood figure himself as the lead in the Oscar-winning climate documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” – took his star turn at a summit luncheon, where he cited a lengthening list of global warming’s impacts, from the shrinking Arctic ice cap to disappearing lakes in Africa.

“The need to act is now,” Gore told delegates to the one-day summit, which drew more than 80 world leaders. “We need a mandate at Bali.”

He was referring the annual U.N. climate treaty conference, scheduled for December in Bali, Indonesia, where the Europeans and others hope to initiate talks for an emissions-reduction agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol in 2012.

The 175-nation Kyoto pact, which the U.S. rejects, requires 36 industrial nations to reduce the heat-trapping gases emitted by power plants and other industrial, agricultural and transportation sources. The 1997 agreement set relatively small target reductions averaging 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

The advocates of emissions caps say a breakthrough is needed at Bali to ensure an uninterrupted transition from the Kyoto deal to a new, deeper-cutting regime, something that almost certainly would require a change in the position of the U.S., long the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Bush objects that Kyoto-style mandates would damage the U.S. economy and says they should be imposed on fast-growing poorer countries such as China and India in addition to developed nations. He instead is urging industry to cut emissions voluntarily and is emphasizing research on clean-energy technology as one answer.

On Thursday and Friday, Bush will host his own Washington climate meeting, limited to 16 “major emitter” countries, including China and India, the first in a series of U.S.-led gatherings expected to focus on those themes.

“The Washington meeting is a distraction,” Hans Verolme, climate campaigner for the Worldwide Fund for Nature, told reporters here. The Bush administration needs “to show they are serious and implement domestic legislation to reduce emissions,” he said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking at the summit, put the Washington meetings in a different light, describing them as designed “to support and help advance the ongoing U.N. discussion.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Jiang Yu said Tuesday that Xie Zhenghua, the vice director of the National Development and Reform Commission, will represent China at the meeting. “We wish the meeting success in promoting better cooperation between major economic entities … to press ahead on the track of the U.N. (Framework Convention on Climate Change) and the Kyoto Protocol,” Jiang said at a briefing.

Late Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was asked by reporters about Bush’s position during the informal dinner discussions. “He made it quite clear that what he’s going to do is help the United Nations’ effort,” he replied. On Tuesday, Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, emerged from a bilateral meeting with Bush saying the U.S. president told him he was ready to be more flexible on climate.

Japan’s envoy, former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, told the summit Tokyo believes the separate U.S. talks will “contribute to achieving consensus” in the U.N. process, in which all agree that China, India and others must eventually accept emission limits.

But Japan, the Europeans and others, to one degree or another, stressed that all nations – including the United States – must accept binding emissions targets, something Bush gives no sign of doing.

To try to spur global negotiations, the European Union, which must reduce emissions by 8 percent under Kyoto, has committed unilaterally to a further reduction of at least 20 percent by 2020.

Speaking for the EU, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told Monday’s gathering that “all the developed countries and the largest emitters” must commit to a 50 percent reduction by 2050. In a comment clearly aimed at Washington, he also said the U.N. negotiations are the only “legitimate framework,” a point stressed repeatedly by Ban as well.

(Source: http://news.wired.com)

‘Arnie,’ ‘Al’ Push Climate Action

By CHARLES J. HANLEY
AP Special Correspondent

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — “Arnie” and “Al,” Republican and Democrat, shared the world spotlight to press for climate action, adding a touch of star quality to the staid proceedings of a U.N. summit.

The two headliners, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Vice President Al Gore, also highlighted by their presence President Bush’s absence from the eight hours of high-level speechmaking Monday on what to do about global warming.

Bush, who did take part later in a small, private U.N. dinner with key players on climate, rejects the idea of international treaty obligations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other “greenhouse gases” blamed for global warming – an idea central to U.N. climate negotiations.

The Republican Schwarzenegger, on the other hand, has taken the lead on emissions caps at the state level, signing legislation mandating such reductions in California.

“One responsibility we all have is action. Action, action, action,” the former Hollywood action star said as he helped open the summit, winning warm applause from the assembled presidents and premiers.

The Democrat Gore – a Hollywood figure himself as the lead in the Oscar-winning climate documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” – took his star turn at a summit luncheon, where he cited a lengthening list of global warming’s impacts, from the shrinking Arctic ice cap to disappearing lakes in Africa.

“The need to act is now,” Gore told delegates to the one-day summit, which drew more than 80 world leaders. “We need a mandate at Bali.”

He was referring the annual U.N. climate treaty conference, scheduled for December in Bali, Indonesia, where the Europeans and others hope to initiate talks for an emissions-reduction agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol in 2012.

The 175-nation Kyoto pact, which the U.S. rejects, requires 36 industrial nations to reduce the heat-trapping gases emitted by power plants and other industrial, agricultural and transportation sources. The 1997 agreement set relatively small target reductions averaging 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

The advocates of emissions caps say a breakthrough is needed at Bali to ensure an uninterrupted transition from the Kyoto deal to a new, deeper-cutting regime, something that almost certainly would require a change in the position of the U.S., long the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Bush objects that Kyoto-style mandates would damage the U.S. economy and says they should be imposed on fast-growing poorer countries such as China and India in addition to developed nations. He instead is urging industry to cut emissions voluntarily and is emphasizing research on clean-energy technology as one answer.

On Thursday and Friday, Bush will host his own Washington climate meeting, limited to 16 “major emitter” countries, including China and India, the first in a series of U.S.-led gatherings expected to focus on those themes.

“The Washington meeting is a distraction,” Hans Verolme, climate campaigner for the Worldwide Fund for Nature, told reporters here. The Bush administration needs “to show they are serious and implement domestic legislation to reduce emissions,” he said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking at the summit, put the Washington meetings in a different light, describing them as designed “to support and help advance the ongoing U.N. discussion.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Jiang Yu said Tuesday that Xie Zhenghua, the vice director of the National Development and Reform Commission, will represent China at the meeting. “We wish the meeting success in promoting better cooperation between major economic entities … to press ahead on the track of the U.N. (Framework Convention on Climate Change) and the Kyoto Protocol,” Jiang said at a briefing.

Late Monday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was asked by reporters about Bush’s position during the informal dinner discussions. “He made it quite clear that what he’s going to do is help the United Nations’ effort,” he replied. On Tuesday, Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, emerged from a bilateral meeting with Bush saying the U.S. president told him he was ready to be more flexible on climate.

Japan’s envoy, former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, told the summit Tokyo believes the separate U.S. talks will “contribute to achieving consensus” in the U.N. process, in which all agree that China, India and others must eventually accept emission limits.

But Japan, the Europeans and others, to one degree or another, stressed that all nations – including the United States – must accept binding emissions targets, something Bush gives no sign of doing.

To try to spur global negotiations, the European Union, which must reduce emissions by 8 percent under Kyoto, has committed unilaterally to a further reduction of at least 20 percent by 2020.

Speaking for the EU, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told Monday’s gathering that “all the developed countries and the largest emitters” must commit to a 50 percent reduction by 2050. In a comment clearly aimed at Washington, he also said the U.N. negotiations are the only “legitimate framework,” a point stressed repeatedly by Ban as well.

(Source: http://news.wired.com)

One Molecule Could Cure Our Addiction to Oil

Prologue
The Chemistry

On a blackboard, it looks so simple: Take a plant and extract the cellulose. Add some enzymes and convert the cellulose molecules into sugars. Ferment the sugar into alcohol. Then distill the alcohol into fuel. One, two, three, four — and we’re powering our cars with lawn cuttings, wood chips, and prairie grasses instead of Middle East oil.

Unfortunately, passing chemistry class doesn’t mean acing economics. Scientists have long known how to turn trees into ethanol, but doing it profitably is another matter. We can run our cars on lawn cuttings today; we just can’t do it at a price people are willing to pay.

The problem is cellulose. Found in plant cell walls, it’s the most abundant naturally occurring organic molecule on the planet, a potentially limitless source of energy. But it’s a tough molecule to break down. Bacteria and other microorganisms use specialized enzymes to do the job, scouring lawns, fields, and forest floors, hunting out cellulose and dining on it. Evolution has given other animals elegant ways to do the same: Cows, goats, and deer maintain a special stomach full of bugs to digest the molecule; termites harbor hundreds of unique microorganisms in their guts that help them process it. For scientists, though, figuring out how to convert cellulose into a usable form on a budget driven by gas-pump prices has been neither elegant nor easy. To tap that potential energy, they’re harnessing nature’s tools, tweaking them in the lab to make them work much faster than nature intended.

While researchers work to bring down the costs of alternative energy sources, in the past two years policymakers have finally reached consensus that it’s time to move past oil. The reasoning varies — reducing our dependence on unstable oil-producing regions, cutting greenhouse gases, avoiding ever-increasing prices — but it’s clear that the US needs to replace billions of gallons of gasoline with alternative fuels, and fast. Even oil industry veteran George W. Bush has declared that “America is addicted to oil” and set a target of replacing 20 percent of the nation’s annual gasoline consumption — 35 billion gallons — with renewable fuels by 2017.

But how? Hydrogen is too far-out, and it’s no easy task to power our cars with wind- or solar-generated electricity. The answer, then, is ethanol. Unfortunately, the ethanol we can make today — from corn kernels — is a mediocre fuel source. Corn ethanol is easier to produce than the cellulosic kind (convert the sugar to alcohol and you’re basically done), but it generates at best 30 percent more energy than is required to grow and process the corn — hardly worth the trouble. Plus, the crop’s fertilizer- intensive cultivation pollutes waterways, and increased demand drives up food costs (corn prices doubled last year). And anyway, the corn ethanol industry is projected to produce, at most, the equivalent of only 15 billion gallons of fuel by 2017. “We can’t make 35 billion gallons’ worth of gasoline out of ethanol from corn,” says Dartmouth engineering and biology professor Lee Lynd, “and we probably don’t want to.”

Cellulosic ethanol, in theory, is a much better bet. Most of the plant species suitable for producing this kind of ethanol — like switchgrass, a fast- growing plant found throughout the Great Plains, and farmed poplar trees — aren’t food crops. And according to a joint study by the US Departments of Agriculture and Energy, we can sustainably grow more than 1 billion tons of such biomass on available farmland, using minimal fertilizer. In fact, about two-thirds of what we throw into our landfills today contains cellulose and thus potential fuel. Better still: Cellulosic ethanol yields roughly 80 percent more energy than is required to grow and convert it.

So a wave of public and private funding, bringing newfound optimism, is pouring into research labs. Venture capitalists have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in cellulosic-technology startups. BP has announced that it’s giving $500 million for an Energy Biosciences Institute run by the University of Illinois and UC Berkeley. The Department of Energy pledged $385 million to six companies building cellulosic demonstration plants. In June the DOE added awards for three $125 million bioenergy centers to pursue new research on cellulosic biofuels.
…

(Full article: http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/magazine/15-10/ff_plant)

Family Ditched Car Completely for a Better Life

Jessica Cave leads the way while Erick and their daughter Rachel follow as the family heads down Bristol St. on a recent shopping trip.
Photo: Michael Goulding / The OC Register

Tired of dumping money into car repairs, a Santa Ana, California family decided to take the plunge and ditched their car all together. The result? Much less stress and the family even recouped a third of their income in six months!

“It’s taken a lot of stress out of our lives,” Erick says. “We’re not hurrying all the time. And we spend more time together as a family.”

Within two months they paid off two credit cards. No car meant no car bills. It also meant no quick trips to Taco Bell. No morning jolt of Starbucks. No impulse buys of jeans or toys at Target.

Shopping on a bike, says Erick, prompts the question: “Do we really need an extra box of Crunch ‘n Munch?”

One day Jess had a strange complaint: too much money in her wallet and no place to put it. Erick figured out they were recouping more than a third of their income.

“It’s as if your boss came in,” he says, “and asked if you wanted a 35 percent raise.”

Link – Thanks Julie Anne I!

(Source: http://www.neatorama.com/2007/09/21/family-ditched-car-completely-for-a-better-life/)

21 Things You Didn’t Know You Can Recycle

Garbage. Americans produce more and more of it every year, when we need to be producing less.

Even the most waste-conscious among us can feel overwhelmed by the amount of household waste that goes beyond what municipal recyclers and compost bins can handle.

That’s why our editors have spent the summer investigating the state of waste management in our country, and putting together information for you, our Co-op America members, explaining how we can get serious about the three R’s – reducing, reusing, and recycling. Supporting members of Co-op America can expect to receive this issue of the Co-op America Quarterly this fall. If you’re not already a supporting member, join us now to get this special issue mailed to you.

1. Appliances: Goodwill accepts working appliances, www.goodwill.org, or you can contact the Steel Recycling Institute to recycle them. 800/YES-1-CAN, www.recycle-steel.org.

2. Batteries: Rechargeables and single-use: Battery Solutions, 734/467-9110, www.batteryrecycling.com.

3. Cardboard boxes: Contact local nonprofits and women’s shelters to see if they Boxcan use them. Or, offer up used cardboard boxes at your local Freecycle.org listserv or on Craigslist.org for others who may need them for moving or storage. If your workplace collects at least 100 boxes or more each month, UsedCardboardBoxes.com accepts them for resale.

4. CDs/DVDs/Game Disks: Send scratched music or computer CDs, DVDs, and PlayStation or Nintendo video game disks to AuralTech for refinishing, and they’ll work like new: 888/454-3223, www.auraltech.com.

5. Clothes: Wearable clothes can go to your local Goodwill outlet or shelter. ShirtsDonate wearable women’s business clothing to Dress for Success, which gives them to low-income women as they search for jobs, 212/532-1922, www.dressforsuccess.org. Offer unwearable clothes and towels to local animal boarding and shelter facilities, which often use them as pet bedding. Consider holding a clothes swap at your office, school, faith congregation or community center. Swap clothes with friends and colleagues, and save money on a new fall wardrobe and back-to-school clothes.

6. Compact fluorescent bulbs: Take them to your local IKEA store for recycling: www.ikea.com.

7. Compostable bio-plastics: You probably won’t be able to compost these in your home compost bin or pile. Find a municipal composter to take them to at www.findacomposter.com.

8. Computers and electronics: Find the most responsible recyclers, local and national, at www.ban.org/pledge/Locations.html.

9. Exercise videos: Swap them with others at www.videofitness.com.

10. Eyeglasses: Your local Lion’s Club or eye care chain may collect these. Lenses Glassesare reground and given to people in need.

11. Foam packing: Your local pack-and-ship store will likely accept foam peanuts for reuse. Or, call the Plastic Loose Fill Producers Council to find a drop-off site: 800/828-2214. For places to drop off foam blocks for recycling, contact the Alliance of Foam Packaging Recyclers, 410/451-8340, www.epspackaging.org/info.html

12. Ink/toner cartridges: Recycleplace.com pays $1/each.

13. Miscellaneous: Get your unwanted items into the hands of people who can use them. Offer them up on your local Freecycle.org or Craigslist.org listserv, or try giving them away at Throwplace.com or giving or selling them at iReuse.com. iReuse.com will also help you find a recycler, if possible, when your items have reached the end of their useful lifecycle.

14. Oil: Find Used Motor Oil Hotlines for each state: 202/682-8000, www.recycleoil.org.

15. Phones: Donate cell phones: Collective Good will refurbish your phone and sell Cellphoneit to someone in a developing country: 770/856-9021, www.collectivegood.com. Call to Protect reprograms cell phones to dial 911 and gives them to domestic violence victims: www.donateaphone.com. Recycle single-line phones: Reclamere, 814/386-2927, www.reclamere.com.

16. Sports equipment: Resell or trade it at your local Play It Again Sports outlet, 800/476-9249, www.playitagainsports.com.

17. “Technotrash”: Easily recycle all of your CDs, jewel cases, DVDs, audio and video tapes, cell phones, pagers, rechargeable and single-use batteries, PDAs, and ink/toner cartridges with GreenDisk’s Technotrash program. For $30, GreenDisk will send you a cardboard box in which you can ship them up to 70 pounds of any of the above. Your fee covers the box as well as shipping and recycling fees. 800/305-GREENDISK, www.greendisk.com.

18. Tennis shoes: Nike’s Reuse-a-Shoe program turns old shoes into playground and athletic flooring. www.nikereuseashoe.com. One World Running will send still-wearable shoes to athletes in need in Africa, Latin America, and Haiti. www.oneworldrunning.com.

19. Toothbrushes and razors: Buy a recycled plastic toothbrush or razor from ToothbrushRecycline, and the company will take it back to be recycled again into plastic lumber. Recycline products are made from used Stonyfield Farms’ yogurt cups. 888/354-7296, www.recycline.com.

20. Tyvek envelopes: Quantities less than 25: Send to Shirley Cimburke, Tyvek Recycling Specialist, 5401 Jefferson Davis Hwy., Spot 197, Room 231, Richmond, VA 23234. Quantities larger than 25, call 866/33-TYVEK.

21. Stuff you just can’t recycle: When practical, send such items back to the manufacturer and tell them they need to manufacture products that close the waste loop responsibly.

(Source: http://www.coopamerica.org)

21 Things You Didn’t Know You Can Recycle

Garbage. Americans produce more and more of it every year, when we need to be producing less.

Even the most waste-conscious among us can feel overwhelmed by the amount of household waste that goes beyond what municipal recyclers and compost bins can handle.

That’s why our editors have spent the summer investigating the state of waste management in our country, and putting together information for you, our Co-op America members, explaining how we can get serious about the three R’s – reducing, reusing, and recycling. Supporting members of Co-op America can expect to receive this issue of the Co-op America Quarterly this fall. If you’re not already a supporting member, join us now to get this special issue mailed to you.

1. Appliances: Goodwill accepts working appliances, www.goodwill.org, or you can contact the Steel Recycling Institute to recycle them. 800/YES-1-CAN, www.recycle-steel.org.

2. Batteries: Rechargeables and single-use: Battery Solutions, 734/467-9110, www.batteryrecycling.com.

3. Cardboard boxes: Contact local nonprofits and women’s shelters to see if they Boxcan use them. Or, offer up used cardboard boxes at your local Freecycle.org listserv or on Craigslist.org for others who may need them for moving or storage. If your workplace collects at least 100 boxes or more each month, UsedCardboardBoxes.com accepts them for resale.

4. CDs/DVDs/Game Disks: Send scratched music or computer CDs, DVDs, and PlayStation or Nintendo video game disks to AuralTech for refinishing, and they’ll work like new: 888/454-3223, www.auraltech.com.

5. Clothes: Wearable clothes can go to your local Goodwill outlet or shelter. ShirtsDonate wearable women’s business clothing to Dress for Success, which gives them to low-income women as they search for jobs, 212/532-1922, www.dressforsuccess.org. Offer unwearable clothes and towels to local animal boarding and shelter facilities, which often use them as pet bedding. Consider holding a clothes swap at your office, school, faith congregation or community center. Swap clothes with friends and colleagues, and save money on a new fall wardrobe and back-to-school clothes.

6. Compact fluorescent bulbs: Take them to your local IKEA store for recycling: www.ikea.com.

7. Compostable bio-plastics: You probably won’t be able to compost these in your home compost bin or pile. Find a municipal composter to take them to at www.findacomposter.com.

8. Computers and electronics: Find the most responsible recyclers, local and national, at www.ban.org/pledge/Locations.html.

9. Exercise videos: Swap them with others at www.videofitness.com.

10. Eyeglasses: Your local Lion’s Club or eye care chain may collect these. Lenses Glassesare reground and given to people in need.

11. Foam packing: Your local pack-and-ship store will likely accept foam peanuts for reuse. Or, call the Plastic Loose Fill Producers Council to find a drop-off site: 800/828-2214. For places to drop off foam blocks for recycling, contact the Alliance of Foam Packaging Recyclers, 410/451-8340, www.epspackaging.org/info.html

12. Ink/toner cartridges: Recycleplace.com pays $1/each.

13. Miscellaneous: Get your unwanted items into the hands of people who can use them. Offer them up on your local Freecycle.org or Craigslist.org listserv, or try giving them away at Throwplace.com or giving or selling them at iReuse.com. iReuse.com will also help you find a recycler, if possible, when your items have reached the end of their useful lifecycle.

14. Oil: Find Used Motor Oil Hotlines for each state: 202/682-8000, www.recycleoil.org.

15. Phones: Donate cell phones: Collective Good will refurbish your phone and sell Cellphoneit to someone in a developing country: 770/856-9021, www.collectivegood.com. Call to Protect reprograms cell phones to dial 911 and gives them to domestic violence victims: www.donateaphone.com. Recycle single-line phones: Reclamere, 814/386-2927, www.reclamere.com.

16. Sports equipment: Resell or trade it at your local Play It Again Sports outlet, 800/476-9249, www.playitagainsports.com.

17. “Technotrash”: Easily recycle all of your CDs, jewel cases, DVDs, audio and video tapes, cell phones, pagers, rechargeable and single-use batteries, PDAs, and ink/toner cartridges with GreenDisk’s Technotrash program. For $30, GreenDisk will send you a cardboard box in which you can ship them up to 70 pounds of any of the above. Your fee covers the box as well as shipping and recycling fees. 800/305-GREENDISK, www.greendisk.com.

18. Tennis shoes: Nike’s Reuse-a-Shoe program turns old shoes into playground and athletic flooring. www.nikereuseashoe.com. One World Running will send still-wearable shoes to athletes in need in Africa, Latin America, and Haiti. www.oneworldrunning.com.

19. Toothbrushes and razors: Buy a recycled plastic toothbrush or razor from ToothbrushRecycline, and the company will take it back to be recycled again into plastic lumber. Recycline products are made from used Stonyfield Farms’ yogurt cups. 888/354-7296, www.recycline.com.

20. Tyvek envelopes: Quantities less than 25: Send to Shirley Cimburke, Tyvek Recycling Specialist, 5401 Jefferson Davis Hwy., Spot 197, Room 231, Richmond, VA 23234. Quantities larger than 25, call 866/33-TYVEK.

21. Stuff you just can’t recycle: When practical, send such items back to the manufacturer and tell them they need to manufacture products that close the waste loop responsibly.

(Source: http://www.coopamerica.org)

The 11th Hour – Solutions to the environmental crisis

It is time for grassroots awakening. It is time that we pressure our politicians and stop having such a blind fate in them. We know they are controlled by large corporations. We can all make a difference, together. Sometimes, just sitting down and reflect upon our attitude, can quickly lead to solutions.

It is important not to let fear drive our lives, but to concentrate our energy on the solutions.

(See: http://wip.warnerbros.com/11thhour/)
(See also: http://www.11thhouraction.com/)

Trailer

Solution to Restaurant’s food containers!

Alberta wind power cap under fire

RICHARD BLACKWELL
July 31, 2007

Wind power advocates are unhappy with the Alberta government for suggesting that the current cap on wind energy in the province might be raised, rather than eliminated completely.

Last year the province’s energy operator set a “threshold” of 900 megawatts for wind power production, because of concerns that amounts above that level could destabilize the power grid. As wind is intermittent and requires backup, anything above that level could be a problem, the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) said.

About 500 MW of wind power is generated in the province already, and many more projects in the planning stages would push past the 900 MW mark.

The wind industry was unhappy with the cap, saying that it is unnecessarily stalling wind development in the province, and wind players have been lobbying for its removal.

But Alberta Energy Minister Mel Knight reignited debate on the issue when he told The Calgary Herald in a recent interview that the cap might be shifted to around 1,500 MW on an interim basis.

Mr. Knight was not available yesterday, but his assistant Jason Chance said the Minister was “just speculating about where we might be going in the future.”

While the government’s goal is to see the cap much higher than where it is now, “we need to work with the AESO to ensure that it’s done in a responsible manner,” he said.

Opposition politicians and the wind industry have criticized Mr. Knight for suggesting that any cap is necessary.

NDP Leader Brian Mason called the cap “unjustified” and said removing it entirely would “unleash Alberta’s green economy”.

Jason Edworthy, managing director of market development for TransAlta Corp.’s wind power operations, said putting in place another cap on wind power, at a higher level, is really “the easy way out.”

A better solution, Mr. Edworthy said, is to come up with a plan that would allow greater amounts of wind power to be integrated into the power grid without destabilizing the system. If wind power grows too quickly, there could be a system of “dashboard warning lights” at certain levels that would require adjustment of the plan, rather than hard caps that hamper the industry, he said.

Already the wind industry has been working with the AESO to create a plan that includes much more accurate forecasting of wind, geographic diversification of wind farms, better transmission lines, and controls on wind turbines to avoid power surges when the wind blows too hard.

Warren Frost, vice-president for operations and reliability at the AESO, said the plan to integrate more wind into the province’s grid is well under way. As a result, the AESO’s target is to eliminate the 900 MW threshold by year end, without having to set a higher interim level, he said.

A key component is wind forecasting, and AESO is working with the industry to develop new techniques to make it much more accurate.

In the longer term, the province will have to improve its transmission lines, and create better interconnections with other states and provinces to allow more cross-border trading of power.

While Alberta has been the focus of much national attention in the wind industry because of its cap on wind power, other provinces have also limited growth, but in more subtle ways, Mr. Frost said.

Most other provinces control wind development through the tendering of power projects. They issue “requests for proposals” only when their grids are in a position to absorb the power that will be generated by the turbines.

Alberta, which has an open market system that buys whatever power is generated by private developers, can’t use that mechanism, he said.

This problem is relatively easily solved. Use the extra energy to create Hydrogen that you store in large tanks. When you actually need the electricity, fire up a generator that uses that hydrogen…

Obviously, when you are the largest oil production province in Canada, why would you promote wind energy? It’s totally counter-productive. Let’s instead construct a power plant using oil or coal…

Quantum Crystals: The Secret to Inexpensive & Efficient Green Energy?

If we can truly harness the power of the sun—in an efficient and cost effective manor—clean energy may become a widespread reality. Climate change experts say that humankind must find ways to turn to cleaner energy if we want to mitigate the potential devastating consequences of global warming.

Those concerned about Earth’s future will be encouraged to hear about the recent announcement by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy. They have reported the discovery of a unique quantum physics effect in silicon nanocrystals, which should eventually help humankind come much closer to the goal of leaving “dirty” energy behind.

The researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in collaboration with scientists at Innovalight Inc., discovered a new effect called Multiple Exciton Generation (MEG).

The effect occurs efficiently in silicon nanocrystals, resulting in the formation of more than one electron per absorbed photon, the scientists reported.

Until the new discovery, MEG had been reported during the past two years to occur only in nanocrystals (also called quantum dots) semiconductor materials that are not presently used in commercial solar cells, and which contained environmentally harmful materials such as lead. This new finding is of particular importance because silicon is already widely used in the industry, is readily available and plentiful within the Earth’s crust, and poses no significant environmental problems regarding toxicity.

Quantum dots are particularly significant for optical applications due to their theoretically high quantum yield. In electronic applications they have been proven to operate like a single-electron transistor. Quantum dots have also been suggested as implementations of qubits for quantum information processing.

When today’s photovoltaic solar cells absorb a photon of sunlight, about 50 percent of the incident energy is lost as heat. MEG provides a way to convert energy lost as heat into additional electricity.

The new finding might lead to the application of MEG for greatly enhancing the conversion efficiency of solar cells based on silicon. That would represent a key step toward making solar energy more cost-competitive with conventional power sources. Innovalight is already planning to make flexible solar panels available at a cost that could be as much as ten times cheaper than the current solar cell technology.

* This research is detailed in the on-line version of the American Chemical Society’s Nano Letters Journal.

(Source: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/07/quantum-crystal.html)

A Billion Little Laptops

This article is very inspiring. I was shocked to see how poorly Microsoft-Bill Gates reacted to this marvel. Well, money drives the world, and this goes against their monopoly…

Warren Shiau in the The Globe and Mail (Toronto) covers the Little Green Laptop story with deserving urgency and a bit of analysis.

In a turn of brilliance, the program requires national governments to purchase these things — with flash memory instead of a hard drive (for durability) and wind-up crank for power — in quantities of 1,000,000 units. This creates instant ubiquity to prevent the poor kids or elders from selling them on for the cash.

Nick Negroponte, who runs the $100 Laptop program from MIT’s Media Lab, has the UN General Secretary, Kofi Annan, on board. (If the UN General Secretary can’t make time for the Little Green Laptop, then he needs a lobotomy.)

Says Annan, “We urge leaders and stakeholders … to do their utmost in ensuring that the initiative is fully incorporated into their efforts to build an inclusive information society.”

Asks Shiau, ‘Does “inclusive” mean exclusive of Microsoft?’

If Microsoft is feeling excluded from these kinds of open standards initiatives, it is of Microsoft’s own volition. That company should really open up because it’s taking itself out of all the fun.

The Little Green Laptop is an OpenDocument fait accompli. What’s your best guess? Do we break 1 Billion of these by 2008, 2010 or 2012?

The next Andy Grove might come from Rwan…or The Bronx or London or Queensland or Nairobi or…

(Source: http://fussnotes.typepad.com/plexnex/2005/12/rags_riches.html)

Senator Harry Reid Vows to Block Coal-Fired Power Plants in Nevada

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he’ll do everything he can to stop construction of three major coal-fired power plants in his home state of Nevada and will push for more alternative energy development.

Reid says it would make sense politically to support the proposed eastern Nevada projects but, “I can’t do it. My conscience wouldn’t let me.”

Two of the projects are near Ely and the third is near Mesquite. Reid said the Ely-area projects alone would require millions of tons of coal a year that in turn would generate millions of tons of pollution.

Reid commented after sending letters to the heads of Reno-based Sierra Pacific Resources, Sithe Global Power in New York, LS Power in New Jersey and Dynegy Inc. in Texas. Sierra Pacific and Sithe Global have separate projects while LS Power and Dynegy are developing the third project.

Spokesmen for the companies all defended their projects as necessary and also said they’re making major investments in renewable energy as well.

Good man! If we don’t want to turn into China, this is the best route. Let’s go the clean way for once, and put aside the economic reasons.

North Pole swim fights global warming

Canadian Press
July 16, 2007 at 11:31 AM EDT

TORONTO — A British swimmer who says he wants to wake politicians around the world up to the threat of climate change has successfully completed a kilometre-long swim in the freezing water of the North Pole.

Lewis Gordon Pugh swam Sunday for 18 minutes and 50 seconds in temperatures of –1.8 degrees in just a Speedo, cap and goggles.

“I am obviously ecstatic to have succeeded, but this swim is a triumph and a tragedy,” the 37-year-old British lawyer said after coming out of the water.

“A triumph that I could swim in such ferocious conditions but a tragedy that it’s possible to swim at the North Pole.”

Mr. Pugh said he hoped that his swim will make world leaders take climate change seriously.

“The decisions which they make over the next few years will determine the biodiversity of our world,” he said.

“I want my children, and their children, to know that polar bears are still living in the Arctic – these creatures are on the front line up here.”

Swimming has given him a unique perspective on climate change, Mr. Pugh said on his website.

“I have witnessed retreating glaciers, decreasing sea ice, coral bleaching, severe droughts and the migration of animals to colder climates.”

“It’s as a result of these experiences that I am determined to do my bit to raise awareness about the fragility of our environment and to encourage everyone to take action.”

Training for the challenge in northern Norway, Mr. Pugh said last month that he would place the flags of 10 countries at 100-metre intervals in the snow alongside his path through the water, representing the homes of the people on his team. The fifth flag would be Canada’s.

“Canada is so important to me. Your government has sort of lurched away from the environment a little bit. It’s a dream to try to get my message in to Canada,” Mr. Pugh said in June.

Calling it the hardest swim of his life, he said afterward that the water was black when he jumped in.

“It was like jumping into a dark black hole. It was frightening. The pain was immediate and felt like my body was on fire,” said Mr. Pugh, who is an ambassador for the World Wildlife Fund UK.

“I was in excruciating pain from beginning to end, and I nearly quit on a few occasions.”

Colin Butfield of WWF UK called the challenge “a bittersweet victory, as this swim has only been possible because of climate change.”

Mr. Pugh is known for his epic swims in waters from the Antarctic to the Indian Ocean.

(Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com)

Bicycles & the Greening of Berlin

For the past several years motorists have been noticing, with much chagrin, the continual rise in their gas prices. Incidental road trips and unnecessary drives to see grandma are all put on hold, simply to save that little bit of fuel. There have been many attempts in major cities worldwide to initiate programs to help struggling motorists, but many center around public transport.

However, it turns out that not everyone feels like being stuffed in to a sardine-can like environment with strangers. The people of Berlin have taken to their bicycles in order to travel … well… anywhere!

In 2005 the Berlin Senate proposed a plan to shift 15% of their city traffic to cyclists. Results from a study conducted by the Berlin Development Administration have shown that the goal is well on track, with an average of 400,000 rider’s daily making up 12% of the city traffic.

And while gas prices play only a part, and a clever strategy to encourage residents to cycle to and from events for last year’s soccer World Cup, the heavy increase in cyclists is probably more attributable to a savvy investment strategy undertaken by the Berlin city to increase cycling infrastructure.

The plans have implemented better interconnectivity for cyclists on the public transport system, 3000 bicycle parking places, and just under a thousand kilometers of dedicated bicycle paths and lanes including 620km of bike tracks, 80km of bike lanes on the roads, 70km of bus lanes also open to bicyclists, 100km of combined pedestrian/bike paths and 50 Km of marked bike lanes on the sidewalks.

Want to make a difference to the environment? Want to get fit? Feel an unquenchable urge to wear a copious amount of lyrca? You know what to do. And with the Tour de France under a week away, this is the time of year to go and get yourself a bicycle and start peddling!

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/07/bike_city_berli.php
http://www.welt.de/welt_print/article954130/Immer_mehr_Berl

(Source: http://www.dailygalaxy.com)

New bags available for grocery at Loblaws!

Loblaws launched their new bags that you can buy for 99 cents. Each time you reuse your bag, you will save a few cents on your bill and assist in eliminating the use of the old disposable bags…
Great initiative! Hope all other groceries follows this action.

Other Green Products

(Source: http://www.presidentschoice.ca)

Arctic ocean history is deciphered by ocean-drilling research team

Sediment cores retrieved from the Arctic’s deep-sea floor by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program’s Arctic Coring Expedition (ACEX) have provided long-absent data to scientists who report new findings in the June 21 issue of Nature.

A team of ACEX researchers report that the Arctic Ocean changed from a landlocked body of water (a ‘lake stage’) through a poorly oxygenated ‘estuarine sea’ phase to a fully oxygenated ocean at 17.5 million years ago during the latter part of the early Miocene era.

The authors attribute the change in Arctic conditions to the evolution of the Fram Strait into a wider, deeper passageway that allowed an inflow of saline North Atlantic water into the Arctic Ocean. Scientists believe that the deep-water connection between the northern Atlantic and Arctic Oceans is a key driver of global ocean circulation patterns and global climate change.

In 2004, the offshore ACEX research team cored a 428-meter thick sediment sequence from the crest of the Lomonosov ridge in the central Arctic Ocean, near the North Pole. These sediments provide the first geological validation of the Cenezoic paleoenvironmental history of the Arctic Ocean. Current evidence of the onset of the ventilated circulation system is preserved in the chemical and physical properties and the micropaleontology of the recovered seafloor sediments.

Co-chief scientist Jan Backman, Stockholm University, comments on the significance of the new findings, saying, “If we can learn what has happened in the geological past, we can begin to use that knowledge to look into the future. Scientists engaged in climate change studies are advancing an important area of knowledge about the planet we live on.”

Source: Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Management International

(Source: http://www.physorg.com/news101566538.html)