Tuesday, June 23, 2009
E-Cigarette Support Gaining Ground For Being Green, Clean, and Cheap
Despite import bans and negative statements made by public health officials, both the use and support of e-cigarettes is rising. "People are finding out about the e-cigarette at a faster pace than expected," says George Archer, Public Relations Manager of Electroniccigarettesusa.info. "A smoker simply finding out this product exists is the first step toward a better smoking experience. You don't have the hacking and the coughing that tobacco cigarettes give you and you can feel good about buying them because they're cheaper and even greener than the tobacco version."While most smokers aren't switching to e-cigarettes only because they're greener, the environmental impact could be phenomenal. Cigarette butts are the most frequently littered item in the world, with approximately 4.5 trillion butts cast to the ground worldwide every year. Not only that, but when cigarette butts come into contact with water, the chemicals are leeched out of them. This can be dangerous because the average cigarette butt contains lead, cadmium, acetone, and other hazardous chemicals."With all the pharmaceuticals and chemicals that have been found in our water supply within the past few years, it's a wonder we're not all walking around with three eyes and flippers," says Archer. "Removing one of the largest sources of litter in the United States would affect the environment in a very positive way."Depending on a smoker's habit, the average e-cigarette cartridge can last up to the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes after they become accustomed to using them. The cost ends up being around $2 a cartridge, which is much cheaper than the typical cost of at least $5 per pack of cigarettes.Another reason many are making the switch is due to the lack of the need for an ash tray or other way to dispose of the ashes, because there are none. Getting rid of the tobacco odor is also a factor in the switch."They are definitely cleaner than traditional cigarettes," Archer states. "Who wants to walk around smelling like an ash tray?"E-cigarette http://www.Electroniccigarettesusa.info is your one stop shop for all your e-cigarette needs.
Does global warming effects the rain patterns in India?
The prevailing scientific opinion on climate change is that "most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities" [1].An increase in global temperatures can in turn cause other changes, including a rising sea level and changes in the amount and pattern of precipitation. These changes may increase the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, such as floods, droughts, heat waves, hurricanes, and tornados. Other consequences include higher or lower agricultural yields, glacier retreat, reduced summer streamflows, species extinctions and increases in the ranges of disease vectors. Warming is expected to affect the number and magnitude of these events; however, it is difficult to connect particular events to global warming. Although most studies focus on the period up to 2100, warming (and sea level rise due to thermal expansion) is expected to continue past then, since CO2 has a long average atmospheric lifetime. [3].Only a small minority of climate scientists discount the role that humanity's actions have played in recent warming. However, the uncertainty is more significant regarding how much climate change should be expected in the future, and there is a hotly contested political and public debate over what, if anything, should be done to reduce or reverse future warming, and how to deal with the predicted consequences.The term 'global warming' is a specific case of the more general term 'climate change' (which can also refer to 'global cooling', such as occurs during ice ages). In principle, 'global warming' is neutral as to the causes, but in common usage, 'global warming' generally implies a human influence. However, the UNFCCC uses 'climate change' for human-caused change, and 'climate variability' for other changes [4]. Some organizations use the term 'anthropogenic climate change' for human-induced changes
Ozone protecting HFCs may increase global warming
new research has suggested that hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are good for protecting the ozone layer from destruction, could increasingly contribute to global warming.
The research was conducted by scientists from NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory and their colleagues.
HFCs, which do not contain ozone-destroying chlorine or bromine atoms, are used as substitutes for ozone-depleting compounds such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in such uses as refrigeration, air conditioning, and the production of insulating foams.
The researchers took a fresh look at how the global use of HFCs is expected to grow in coming decades.
Using updated usage estimates and looking farther ahead than past projections (to the year 2050), they found that HFCs, especially from developing countries, will become an increasingly larger factor in future climate warming.
"HFCs are good for protecting the ozone layer, but they are not climate friendly," said David W. Fahey, a scientist at NOAA and second author of the new study.
"Our research shows that their effect on climate could become significantly larger than we expected, if we continue along a business-as-usual path," he added.
HFCs currently have a climate change contribution that is small (less than 1 percent) in comparison to the contribution of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
The researchers have shown that by 2050, the HFCs contribution could rise to 7 to 12 percent of what CO2 contributes, and if international efforts succeed in stabilizing CO2 emissions, the relative climate contribution from HFCs would increase further.
Though the HFCs do not deplete the ozone layer, they are potent greenhouse gases.
Molecule for molecule, all HFCs are more potent warming agents than CO2 and some are thousands of times more effective.
The new study factored in the expected growth in demand for air conditioning, refrigerants, and other technology in developed and developing countries.
The Montreal Protocol's gradual phasing out of the consumption of ozone-depleting substances in developing countries after 2012, along with the complete phase-out in developed countries in 2020, are other factors that will lead to increased usage of HFCs and other alternatives.
Decision-makers in Europe and the United States have begun to consider possible steps to limit the potential climate consequences of HFCs.
According to John S. Daniel, a NOAA coauthor of the study, "While unrestrained growth of HFC use could lead to significant climate implications by 2050, we have shown some examples of global limits that can effectively reduce the HFCs' impact."
The research was conducted by scientists from NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory and their colleagues.
HFCs, which do not contain ozone-destroying chlorine or bromine atoms, are used as substitutes for ozone-depleting compounds such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in such uses as refrigeration, air conditioning, and the production of insulating foams.
The researchers took a fresh look at how the global use of HFCs is expected to grow in coming decades.
Using updated usage estimates and looking farther ahead than past projections (to the year 2050), they found that HFCs, especially from developing countries, will become an increasingly larger factor in future climate warming.
"HFCs are good for protecting the ozone layer, but they are not climate friendly," said David W. Fahey, a scientist at NOAA and second author of the new study.
"Our research shows that their effect on climate could become significantly larger than we expected, if we continue along a business-as-usual path," he added.
HFCs currently have a climate change contribution that is small (less than 1 percent) in comparison to the contribution of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.
The researchers have shown that by 2050, the HFCs contribution could rise to 7 to 12 percent of what CO2 contributes, and if international efforts succeed in stabilizing CO2 emissions, the relative climate contribution from HFCs would increase further.
Though the HFCs do not deplete the ozone layer, they are potent greenhouse gases.
Molecule for molecule, all HFCs are more potent warming agents than CO2 and some are thousands of times more effective.
The new study factored in the expected growth in demand for air conditioning, refrigerants, and other technology in developed and developing countries.
The Montreal Protocol's gradual phasing out of the consumption of ozone-depleting substances in developing countries after 2012, along with the complete phase-out in developed countries in 2020, are other factors that will lead to increased usage of HFCs and other alternatives.
Decision-makers in Europe and the United States have begun to consider possible steps to limit the potential climate consequences of HFCs.
According to John S. Daniel, a NOAA coauthor of the study, "While unrestrained growth of HFC use could lead to significant climate implications by 2050, we have shown some examples of global limits that can effectively reduce the HFCs' impact."
Industrialisation or environmental colonialism?
times of corporate totalitarianism such as ours, there is an unchallenged consensus, promoted by the media, that India needs economic development, that rapid economic growth is the most reliable way to achieve it (through the infamous ‘trickle-down’ effect), that this in turn is best achieved through breakneck industrialisation and that anyone who stands in the way of such ‘development’ needs to have her patriotic credentials examined. This may include, for instance, those who (following the latest warnings of the IPCC) are pointing to dangerously threatened, rapidly melting Himalayan glaciers.
Nothing is in fact farther from the truth, especially when one keeps reminding oneself that the free press is city-based and is anything but free. People have by now heard of Nandigram and Singur – perhaps because they happen to be in communist-ruled West Bengal, the hypocrisy of the government all too transparent there. However, as a National Convention held in New Delhi recently revealed, there are fires of protest growing in number, frequency and intensity against the large-scale acquisition of land for purposes of industrial/infrastructural/real-estate ‘development’ all across India. The question is whether city-based media outlets are reporting the facts adequately and accurately and whether urban elites have the integrity and courage to face the monstrous injustices that their leaders are busy inflicting on the countryside and its hapless populations.
Orissa: A plain enough case of environmental colonialism
Consider just one of many cases: Orissa. In addition to the massive bauxite mining (which has already disrupted the traditional livelihoods of dozens of local tribal communities), thanks to huge iron ore deposits under the forests, as many as 45 steel plants are on the anvil in this small state alone! Importantly, the people of the state have not asked for them. No democracy there, no plebiscite or referendum.
On the contrary, human rights are being routinely violated under a regime of extractive-colonialist globalisation, whose competitive cost-cutting pressures, led by totalitarian, environmentally destructive China, are creating a lethal race to the bottom, undermining chances of sustainable development and of course, substantive democracy. Constitutional provisions and state tribal and environmental laws are both being routinely violated by the state government to override tribal and community rights to land and resources.
After visiting the joint venture project of Birla and Alcan, Utkal Alumina (UAIL), in Baphlimali (Kashipur), and reviewing the consequences of Sterlite’s aluminium project at Lanjigarh , the Indian People’s Tribunal recommended in October 2006 that the Orissa government “abandon the UAIL project with immediate effect”. Voices of protest from local tribes “are being met by repressive measures in the form of large-scale arrests, disruption of public meetings by force, violent beatings to disperse gatherings, official encouragement to the employment of private goons by UAIL, midnight raids by the police, unmitigated violence on women and children. Deposing before the Tribunal Bhagban Majhi stated “instead of answering our concerns, they are replying with bullets and lathis.” What is even more shocking is that even minors like Pradip Majhi (aged 14) who deposed before the Tribunal spoke of being physically stripped and humiliated by the Police.”
People have expressed their displeasure and dissent in the tens of thousands: places like Kashipur, Kalinganagar, Jagatsinghpur and Gopalpur have been under siege for months (and often, years) by the police and paramilitaries on account of the angry political ferment over the past decade. The war between the corporate state and the people is on. The lands and water sources of farmers and forest-dwellers in these areas are being taken over through the powerful offices of the state government in order to make way for the steel and aluminium plants (and the associated coal, iron ore and bauxite mines) of business interests like Tatas, Jindals, POSCO, Mittal, Birlas, Alcan, Alcoa and Vedanta (Sterlite). Hundreds of thousands of acres of agricultural land have already been destroyed. Comparable areas of reserve forests have been torn out of the earth. Water sources are being polluted by mining and the industrial sludge. The air around the mines and factories is full of cancerous gases. After all, who has time to think of clean-up measures when Chinese competition is breathing down the necks of global players?
On many occasions peasants and tribals have been killed in police firing while resisting the takeover of their lands, forests and water resources. The defence of Jal, Jungle, Zameen, Zindagi – and not the treacherous hope of compensation, resettlement, rehabilitation, employment and ‘modernisation’ – are the issues as far as local populations are concerned. If ‘development’ implies displacement from their lands and forests, the rural communities of Orissa have declared in no uncertain terms – often through the sacrifice of human lives – that they want none of it.
So if such ‘development’ is not for the people of Orissa, who is the break-neck industrialisation in the state for? (Orissa attracted over 10% of the foreign direct investment in India in 2006.) It is for the many companies who have been gouging the earth to extract the abundant mineral wealth from the region (most of it lying under thick forests or farmed fields) for the price of dirt and make huge profits by selling abroad. (If a company can get away by paying Rs 100-150 per tonne of iron ore to the state and fetch a price of Rs 1,500-3,000 abroad – depending upon the grade of the ore – there is little surprise that there is a growing queue of foreign investors.)
Such profits will make it a lot easier and faster for companies like the Tatas to pay off the astronomical debt (of close to $10 billion: more than Orissa’s entire GDP) that they have taken on recently in order to acquire the Anglo-Dutch steel major, Corus. Importantly, it will enable the rich countries to derive the benefits of cheap steel (for construction, transport and industry) and aluminium (so critical to aeroplanes and soda-cans alike) while keeping ‘dirty’ industries and mining away from their own environmentally sanitised shores (the reason why companies like Corus and Novelis have been selling out so readily – and at exorbitant prices – to Tatas and Birlas: the cleaner the industry the less likely it is to be auctioned off to bidders from countries like India or Brazil. On the other hand, service sector businesses are being taken over by multinationals from rich countries: notice the recent acquisition of the Indian company Hutch-Essar by the British multinational Vodafone – the fact that it is led by an Indian CEO is of little import here.
The morality of such a pattern of industrialisation in Orissa – fitting snugly and conveniently into a socially and ecologically unfair global division of labour and pollution – is that the beneficiaries from it (barring the few netas and babus who get cuts from each business contract) are not from Orissa but are scattered around urban India and the rest of the world. It is a thinly disguised form of environmental colonialism orchestrated by the comprador government of the state, only too happy to sell off both their people and nature to outsiders.
Such a pattern of industrialisation has less to do with development (understood as lasting change and transformation in the quality of people’s lives, reflected but minimally in such measures as life expectancy, literacy rate and growth of real per capita income) than it has to do with the imperative to compete and win at any cost that Indian and global industrial business interests feel at this uncertain juncture of history. “Orissa is not there to enrich the rich and strengthen the economies of America and the West,” one activist from Orissa argues.
However, the Patnaik government of Orissa continues on its merry path, inviting investment recently from NRIs, among many others. The Korean steel giant POSCO has already planned on investing $12 billion in the state (though its tax breaks and other incentives amount, if it is possible to imagine, to an even greater sum). The same is true for Laxmi Mittal’s Mittal-Arcelor group (the world’s largest steel conglomerate) which signed an MoU with the Orissa government in December 2006, agreeing to invest $ 9 billion in Keonjhar district (and deriving tax benefits of comparable magnitude). Mittal has asked for 8,000 acres of land (2,000 acres more than POSCO) for the project. He has also asked that (just like the concession to POSCO) the land be classified as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), with all the attendant privileges, tantamount to a de jure suspension of the Indian Constitution.
Only the ecological future – global and local climate change, to name only one of dozens of environmental ailments brought on by mindless industrialisation – will reveal the ultimately suicidal nature of this putatively ‘free market’ economics – which is in fact a case of active promotion of private corporate profit by the state, even if it means rampant exploitation of the poor citizens (who are citizens for one day and subjects for five years) of a famous democracy, in addition to the rapid accretion to the ecological debt of the region.
The Indian People’s Tribunal reported last year in October “that the bauxite-mining project proposed by UAIL will have adverse environmental and health effects: water sources and agricultural land will be contaminated by toxic wastes, grasslands and forest land will be destroyed, and pollution including the release of cancerous gases that will create a health hazard for those living in proximity of the alumina refinery. Further the location of the mine in the Eastern Ghats will cause irreversible loss of plant genetic material and biodiversity of this region.”
Let us forget any other ideals or values and come together to challenge the brutally flawed corporate vision – itself in accord with the so-called “neo-liberal” economics purveyed by Washington and its multilateral agencies – which imperils today the very basis of human survival in India.
by Aseem Shrivastava
Nothing is in fact farther from the truth, especially when one keeps reminding oneself that the free press is city-based and is anything but free. People have by now heard of Nandigram and Singur – perhaps because they happen to be in communist-ruled West Bengal, the hypocrisy of the government all too transparent there. However, as a National Convention held in New Delhi recently revealed, there are fires of protest growing in number, frequency and intensity against the large-scale acquisition of land for purposes of industrial/infrastructural/real-estate ‘development’ all across India. The question is whether city-based media outlets are reporting the facts adequately and accurately and whether urban elites have the integrity and courage to face the monstrous injustices that their leaders are busy inflicting on the countryside and its hapless populations.
Orissa: A plain enough case of environmental colonialism
Consider just one of many cases: Orissa. In addition to the massive bauxite mining (which has already disrupted the traditional livelihoods of dozens of local tribal communities), thanks to huge iron ore deposits under the forests, as many as 45 steel plants are on the anvil in this small state alone! Importantly, the people of the state have not asked for them. No democracy there, no plebiscite or referendum.
On the contrary, human rights are being routinely violated under a regime of extractive-colonialist globalisation, whose competitive cost-cutting pressures, led by totalitarian, environmentally destructive China, are creating a lethal race to the bottom, undermining chances of sustainable development and of course, substantive democracy. Constitutional provisions and state tribal and environmental laws are both being routinely violated by the state government to override tribal and community rights to land and resources.
After visiting the joint venture project of Birla and Alcan, Utkal Alumina (UAIL), in Baphlimali (Kashipur), and reviewing the consequences of Sterlite’s aluminium project at Lanjigarh , the Indian People’s Tribunal recommended in October 2006 that the Orissa government “abandon the UAIL project with immediate effect”. Voices of protest from local tribes “are being met by repressive measures in the form of large-scale arrests, disruption of public meetings by force, violent beatings to disperse gatherings, official encouragement to the employment of private goons by UAIL, midnight raids by the police, unmitigated violence on women and children. Deposing before the Tribunal Bhagban Majhi stated “instead of answering our concerns, they are replying with bullets and lathis.” What is even more shocking is that even minors like Pradip Majhi (aged 14) who deposed before the Tribunal spoke of being physically stripped and humiliated by the Police.”
People have expressed their displeasure and dissent in the tens of thousands: places like Kashipur, Kalinganagar, Jagatsinghpur and Gopalpur have been under siege for months (and often, years) by the police and paramilitaries on account of the angry political ferment over the past decade. The war between the corporate state and the people is on. The lands and water sources of farmers and forest-dwellers in these areas are being taken over through the powerful offices of the state government in order to make way for the steel and aluminium plants (and the associated coal, iron ore and bauxite mines) of business interests like Tatas, Jindals, POSCO, Mittal, Birlas, Alcan, Alcoa and Vedanta (Sterlite). Hundreds of thousands of acres of agricultural land have already been destroyed. Comparable areas of reserve forests have been torn out of the earth. Water sources are being polluted by mining and the industrial sludge. The air around the mines and factories is full of cancerous gases. After all, who has time to think of clean-up measures when Chinese competition is breathing down the necks of global players?
On many occasions peasants and tribals have been killed in police firing while resisting the takeover of their lands, forests and water resources. The defence of Jal, Jungle, Zameen, Zindagi – and not the treacherous hope of compensation, resettlement, rehabilitation, employment and ‘modernisation’ – are the issues as far as local populations are concerned. If ‘development’ implies displacement from their lands and forests, the rural communities of Orissa have declared in no uncertain terms – often through the sacrifice of human lives – that they want none of it.
So if such ‘development’ is not for the people of Orissa, who is the break-neck industrialisation in the state for? (Orissa attracted over 10% of the foreign direct investment in India in 2006.) It is for the many companies who have been gouging the earth to extract the abundant mineral wealth from the region (most of it lying under thick forests or farmed fields) for the price of dirt and make huge profits by selling abroad. (If a company can get away by paying Rs 100-150 per tonne of iron ore to the state and fetch a price of Rs 1,500-3,000 abroad – depending upon the grade of the ore – there is little surprise that there is a growing queue of foreign investors.)
Such profits will make it a lot easier and faster for companies like the Tatas to pay off the astronomical debt (of close to $10 billion: more than Orissa’s entire GDP) that they have taken on recently in order to acquire the Anglo-Dutch steel major, Corus. Importantly, it will enable the rich countries to derive the benefits of cheap steel (for construction, transport and industry) and aluminium (so critical to aeroplanes and soda-cans alike) while keeping ‘dirty’ industries and mining away from their own environmentally sanitised shores (the reason why companies like Corus and Novelis have been selling out so readily – and at exorbitant prices – to Tatas and Birlas: the cleaner the industry the less likely it is to be auctioned off to bidders from countries like India or Brazil. On the other hand, service sector businesses are being taken over by multinationals from rich countries: notice the recent acquisition of the Indian company Hutch-Essar by the British multinational Vodafone – the fact that it is led by an Indian CEO is of little import here.
The morality of such a pattern of industrialisation in Orissa – fitting snugly and conveniently into a socially and ecologically unfair global division of labour and pollution – is that the beneficiaries from it (barring the few netas and babus who get cuts from each business contract) are not from Orissa but are scattered around urban India and the rest of the world. It is a thinly disguised form of environmental colonialism orchestrated by the comprador government of the state, only too happy to sell off both their people and nature to outsiders.
Such a pattern of industrialisation has less to do with development (understood as lasting change and transformation in the quality of people’s lives, reflected but minimally in such measures as life expectancy, literacy rate and growth of real per capita income) than it has to do with the imperative to compete and win at any cost that Indian and global industrial business interests feel at this uncertain juncture of history. “Orissa is not there to enrich the rich and strengthen the economies of America and the West,” one activist from Orissa argues.
However, the Patnaik government of Orissa continues on its merry path, inviting investment recently from NRIs, among many others. The Korean steel giant POSCO has already planned on investing $12 billion in the state (though its tax breaks and other incentives amount, if it is possible to imagine, to an even greater sum). The same is true for Laxmi Mittal’s Mittal-Arcelor group (the world’s largest steel conglomerate) which signed an MoU with the Orissa government in December 2006, agreeing to invest $ 9 billion in Keonjhar district (and deriving tax benefits of comparable magnitude). Mittal has asked for 8,000 acres of land (2,000 acres more than POSCO) for the project. He has also asked that (just like the concession to POSCO) the land be classified as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), with all the attendant privileges, tantamount to a de jure suspension of the Indian Constitution.
Only the ecological future – global and local climate change, to name only one of dozens of environmental ailments brought on by mindless industrialisation – will reveal the ultimately suicidal nature of this putatively ‘free market’ economics – which is in fact a case of active promotion of private corporate profit by the state, even if it means rampant exploitation of the poor citizens (who are citizens for one day and subjects for five years) of a famous democracy, in addition to the rapid accretion to the ecological debt of the region.
The Indian People’s Tribunal reported last year in October “that the bauxite-mining project proposed by UAIL will have adverse environmental and health effects: water sources and agricultural land will be contaminated by toxic wastes, grasslands and forest land will be destroyed, and pollution including the release of cancerous gases that will create a health hazard for those living in proximity of the alumina refinery. Further the location of the mine in the Eastern Ghats will cause irreversible loss of plant genetic material and biodiversity of this region.”
Let us forget any other ideals or values and come together to challenge the brutally flawed corporate vision – itself in accord with the so-called “neo-liberal” economics purveyed by Washington and its multilateral agencies – which imperils today the very basis of human survival in India.
by Aseem Shrivastava
RETScreen Wins REEEP Funding for new MTV Tool *NEW*
The Vienna-based Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) announced the winners of its 7th project funding cycle. In a highly competitive process, 49 projects in 25 countries were selected for funding out of a total of 694 project concepts received from around the world.
The CanmetENERGY’s RETScreen International has won funding from REEEP in this round to develop a new Monitoring, Targeting, and Verification (MTV) tool for RETScreen. A comprehensive MTV tool will be incorporated into the next major release of RETScreen (Version 5) that will be developed over the next few years. A monitoring, targeting, and verification tool is an important part of energy efficiency analysis, essential to ensuring the most efficient functioning of energy efficiency projects.
The RETScreen Clean Energy Project Analysis Software is a unique decision support tool developed with the contribution of numerous experts from government, industry, and academia. The software, provided free-of-charge, can be used worldwide to evaluate the energy production and savings, costs, emission reductions, financial viability and risk for various types of Renewable-energy and Energy-efficient Technologies (RETs). The software (available in multiple languages) also includes product, project, hydrology and climate databases, a detailed online user manual, and a case study based college/university-level training course, including an engineering e-textbook.
Implementing such capabilities into RETScreen will help a user understand how energy is consumed in an organization; understand the opportunities available to save energy; and achieve cost savings, greenhouse gas emissions reductions, and the expansion of markets for energy efficiency projects.
The CanmetENERGY’s RETScreen International has won funding from REEEP in this round to develop a new Monitoring, Targeting, and Verification (MTV) tool for RETScreen. A comprehensive MTV tool will be incorporated into the next major release of RETScreen (Version 5) that will be developed over the next few years. A monitoring, targeting, and verification tool is an important part of energy efficiency analysis, essential to ensuring the most efficient functioning of energy efficiency projects.
The RETScreen Clean Energy Project Analysis Software is a unique decision support tool developed with the contribution of numerous experts from government, industry, and academia. The software, provided free-of-charge, can be used worldwide to evaluate the energy production and savings, costs, emission reductions, financial viability and risk for various types of Renewable-energy and Energy-efficient Technologies (RETs). The software (available in multiple languages) also includes product, project, hydrology and climate databases, a detailed online user manual, and a case study based college/university-level training course, including an engineering e-textbook.
Implementing such capabilities into RETScreen will help a user understand how energy is consumed in an organization; understand the opportunities available to save energy; and achieve cost savings, greenhouse gas emissions reductions, and the expansion of markets for energy efficiency projects.
Jesse James successfully sets new hydrogen land-speed record
Earlier this month, we caught wind of Jesse James' plan to set a new land-speed record in a hydrogen-powered vehicle. According to a press release issued by Spike TV, the daredevil motorcycle enthusiast was successful in his quest, hitting a top speed of 199.7 miles per hour on a run in the El Mirage dry lake bed in the Mojave Desert in California.Though ultimately successful, the run didn't go off without a hitch. Apparently, the car needed three passes before the crew was able to keep enough blowing dust out of the cockpit and feed enough air into the monster 740-horsepower hydrogen-fueled 572 cubic-inch Chevrolet V8 engine.The previous mark for a hydrogen-burning car was set by BMW in Germany a few years back with its H2H race car. James seems pleased with his accomplishment, saying, "This, I honestly believe, is world-changing. We can't rely on gasoline forever. I'm paying it forward." Modest, isn't he?Want to see the whole thing go down? Tune in to Spike TV to watch Jesse James is a Dead Man on Sunday, August 9th at 10 pm Eastern. Spoiler Alert: Jesse James does not die in this episode.
Eco Tech: Green Roadway – Converting endless highways into renewable energy generators
Solar and wind generators mounted on highways could be a new way to generate green power.
With the ever increasing demand of green energy, inventors and scientists are working on ways that can by no means be termed conventional. Gene Fein and Ed Merritt are two such inventors who want the endless highways, which we use daily to commute to our places of work, be converted into renewable energy generators, which could one day power our cities with clean energy and can also offer electricity for roadside charging of electric vehicles.
The Green Roadway Project, as the plan has been named, makes use of strings of solar panels, wind turbines and geothermal devices that can convert these natural resources into precious electricity. The technology which would be used in these roads has been patented by the inventors, who hope to capitalize on government economic- stimulus money and tax breaks for clean energy projects by auctioning off rights to use their inventions in each of the 50 states in the U.S.
The proponents believe that a 10-mile stretch of the technology can power more than 2,000 homes with clean energy, for which most people will readily pay more. Talking about the feasibility of the system, the inventors claim that unlike horizontal axis wind turbines, which have been regularly criticized for their unsightly looks, their system would be based on better turbines, which will be no more than 25 feet high and will be placed 500 feet back from the pavement.
With the ever increasing demand of green energy, inventors and scientists are working on ways that can by no means be termed conventional. Gene Fein and Ed Merritt are two such inventors who want the endless highways, which we use daily to commute to our places of work, be converted into renewable energy generators, which could one day power our cities with clean energy and can also offer electricity for roadside charging of electric vehicles.
The Green Roadway Project, as the plan has been named, makes use of strings of solar panels, wind turbines and geothermal devices that can convert these natural resources into precious electricity. The technology which would be used in these roads has been patented by the inventors, who hope to capitalize on government economic- stimulus money and tax breaks for clean energy projects by auctioning off rights to use their inventions in each of the 50 states in the U.S.
The proponents believe that a 10-mile stretch of the technology can power more than 2,000 homes with clean energy, for which most people will readily pay more. Talking about the feasibility of the system, the inventors claim that unlike horizontal axis wind turbines, which have been regularly criticized for their unsightly looks, their system would be based on better turbines, which will be no more than 25 feet high and will be placed 500 feet back from the pavement.
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