June 2009
1 post
2 tags
April 2009
2 posts
Why isn't the brain green? →
spaceships:
On how social science research can be used to frame policies to make them more appealing:
David Hardisty, a student of Weber’s, led an experiment in which a 2 percent fee added to an airline ticket was described to various subjects as either a carbon “tax” or a carbon “offset.” The subjects were told the fee would finance alternative-energy and carbon-reduction technologies....
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Seeing the Light on Darkness: Studies Link Light... →
” recent study done in Israel headed by Richard Stevens, a professor and cancer epidemiologist at the University of Connecticut Health Center, and published in Chronobiology International, has shown some disturbing trends between women exposed to large amounts of artificial night light and breast cancer.
Stevens’ team overlaid satellite photos to measure nighttime artificial light...
March 2009
13 posts
3 tags
'Alarming' Use Of Energy In Modern Manufacturing... →
“Modern manufacturing methods are spectacularly inefficient in their use of energy and materials, according to a detailed MIT analysis of the energy use of 20 major manufacturing processes.
Overall, new manufacturing systems are anywhere from 1,000 to one million times bigger consumers of energy, per pound of output, than more traditional industries. In short, pound for pound, making...
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Shampoo in the water supply triggers growth of... →
“Fabric softeners, disinfectants, shampoos and other household products are spreading drug-resistant bacteria around Britain, scientists have warned. Detergents used in factories and mills are also increasing the odds that some medicines will no longer be able to combat dangerous diseases.
In their study, the scientists looked at quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) that are used in many...
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Bad News: Scientists Make Cheap Gas From Coal →
“Scientists have devised a new way to transform coal into gas for your car using far less energy than the current process. The advance makes scaling up the environmentally unfriendly fuel more economical than greener alternatives.
If oil prices rise again, adoption of the new coal-to-liquid technology, reported this week in Science, could undercut adoption of electric vehicles or...
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The Economist - "Wind of Change" →
Case history of wind power in The Economist’s Technology Quarterly, Dec. 4th 2008.
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Diversifying electrical generation
50% of Denmark’s electricity is created using a decentralised system, and 40% of the Netherlands’. In Finland, 98% of Helsinki is heated by community heat networks. (source)
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On Suncor's Environmental Record
PollutionWatch’s 2007 report found that Suncor was the 6th worst greenhouse gas producer in Canada at about 7.6 M tonnes
along with some of its contractors, it faces charges of illegally dumping waste water into the Athabasca river in 2008.
Alberta regulators had previously instructed it to cap production at one site due to the high emission of hydrogen sulphide in 2007.
(source: CBC)
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Suncor, Petro-Canada announce merger →
Suncor Energy will acquire Petro-Canada in a deal worth $15 billion,
Combined worth of $43 billion
Petro-Canada equity holders will receive 1.28 shares for each Petro-Canada share, giving investors a 25% premium
The merger would cut $1.3 billion in annual costs through reduction in capital spending and job cuts
Oil sands operations: Suncor at 228,000 barrels/day, Petro-Canada at 59,900
...
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Obama and Energy Chief Push Innovation →
“In a two-pronged push, President Obama and Steven Chu, the secretary of energy and Nobel laureate in physics, spent the middle of the day Monday laying out the administration’s plans to link economic renewal with an energy revolution.
Mr. Obama met with energy-technology entrepreneurs and researchers near the White House at an event called “Investing in Our Clean Energy Future.” One...
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E.P.A. Moves Toward Regulating Greenhouse Gases →
“The Environmental Protection Agency has moved to declare that greenhouse gases are pollutants that pose a danger to the public’s health and welfare. That determination, once made final, will pave the way for federal regulation of carbon dioxide, methane and other heat-trapping gases linked to global warming.
In February, the E.P.A.’s administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, hinted strongly in an...
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Toxic Emissions Fell in 2007, E.P.A. Says →
“The volume of toxic chemicals that were released into the environment or sent for disposal in 2007 dropped 5 percent compared with 2006, the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday. But concealed within the overall numbers was good and bad news.
For example, the volume of released or disposed “persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic chemicals,” substances like lead, dioxin, mercury and...
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OPEC to Keep Production Steady →
“OPEC is facing its toughest environment since oil prices collapsed in the late 1990s. Oil demand is falling in both industrialized nations, like the United States, and developing countries like China, which had been the main engine of growth for the past decade.
As a result, oil prices have dropped nearly 70 percent since their summer peak.
Since September, OPEC has agreed to trim its...
6 tags
October 2008
2 posts
2 tags
“Democracy doesn’t require a whole lot of work of its citizens, but it...”
– Matt Taibbi - The scariest thing about Sarah Palin isn’t how unqualified she is - it’s what her candidacy says about America | The Smirking Chimp
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Short note on: Energy & Alberta
The fact that they collect royalties from the energy sector plays an obvious key role in their position in relation to energy policy and structuring. Plus, on a sustainability level, these royalties are nothing to the integrated corporations, but more extraction will be a huge environmental cost to the province.
Interesting article: “Alberta holds fast on royalty regime”.
btw,...