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NASA and Global Change
What has NASA done lately to help the Earth?
Dr Pete Worden of NASA presents on much of the Earth Science work NASA is doing - fascinating presentation to Google.
At present, NASA has more than a dozen large Earth observing satellites in orbit, returning over a terabyte per day of physical, chemical, and climatological data about our planet. NASA gathers more data about the earth, and funds more research in the Earth Sciences, than the rest of the world combined.
tags: nasa, google, pete worden
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The Energy Roadmap - Report explores energy technology roadmap for Low Carbon Economy
The World Watch has released a report (PDF) looking at a roadmap towards a lower carbon economy based on a wide range of new energy systems.
“We are on the verge of an energy revolution,” says Flavin. “With strong political leadership, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to use policy and technology innovation to stave off the greatest human-caused threat our planet has seen.”
World Watch believes that ‘these new energy sources will make it possible to retire hundreds of coal-fired power plants that now provide 40 percent of the world’s power by 2030, eliminating up to one-third of global carbon dioxide emissions while creating millions of new jobs.’
tags: world watch, low-carbon energy, carbon
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Countries in tug-of-war over Arctic resources - CNN.com
One of the planet’s most fragile and pristine ecosystems sits atop a bounty of untapped fossil fuels.
Melting polar ice is making the Arctic more accessible to shipping and other industry.
The U.S. Geological Survey estimates that 90 billion barrels of oil, 44 billion barrels of natural gas liquids and 1,670 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are recoverable in the frozen region north of the Arctic Circle.
tags: polar ice, ice, arctic thaw, arctic ice
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News - Clean Edge - The Clean-Tech Market Authority
As the wind industry closes out another banner year, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) is looking ahead to further progress in 2009. Although the industry is buffeted by the financial crisis and economic downturn, it is also buoyed by a strong strategic position and the prospect of strong policy support from Congress and the new President. Here are some wind energy projections for the New Year:
tags: wind energy, awea, trends
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Greentech Media | China Plans World’s Largest Solar Power Plant
Two Chinese companies have proposed a massive, 1-gigawatt solar photovoltaic power plant in China’s northwest
tags: photovoltaic, solar energy, china
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voiceofsandiego.org: Science… Trying to Turn San Diego into the Green Houston
San Diego, already home to dozens of companies involved in solar or wind energy, would be a major player in the nation’s multi-trillion-dollar energy economy if a group of local researchers succeed in turning algae into a commercially viable transportation fuel, something they think they can do within a decade.
tags: algae, san diego, biofuel
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Electricity study embraces energy efficiency for state | Business | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle
Texas could reduce its peak electric usage by more than 23 percent in the next seven years if utilities would invest more in efficiency programs, according to a study released recently by the Public Utility Commission.
The efficiency efforts, which would funnel through existing programs administered by the electric transmission companies in the parts of Texas open to competition, would save consumers as much as $2 for every $1 invested, according to the study.
tags: texas, demand response, energy efficiency, public utility commission
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Spain to buy carbon dioxide emission rights from eastern Europe : Environment
Spain will become the first major buyer of surplus carbon dioxide emission rights from eastern Europe in an attempt to comply with the Kyoto Protocol, the daily El Pais reported Friday. Spain has sealed with Hungary the purchase of a quota of 6 million tons of CO2, and is in talks about similar deals with Poland, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the daily quoted government sources as saying.
tags: co2 emissions, co2, emission rights, spain, greenhouse gas emissions, kyoto
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Inventor: Evaporation units could cool Earth | National | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle
Ron Ace is making public a U.S. patent petition for what he calls the most “practical, nontoxic, affordable, rapidly achievable” and beneficial way to curb global warming and a resulting catastrophic ocean rise.
Spray gigatons of seawater into the air, mainly in the Northern Hemisphere, and let Mother Nature do the rest, he says.
The evaporating water, Ace said, would cool the Earth in multiple ways: First, the sprayed droplets would transform to water vapor, a change that absorbs thermal energy near ground level; then the rising vapor would condense into sunlight-reflecting clouds and cooling rain, releasing much of the stored energy into space in the form of infrared radiation.
tags: evaporative cooling, global warming, evaporation
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An article in the UK’s Sunday Times recently talked about the plans for a nationwide rollout of Smart Meters in Britain.
From the article:
Telecoms giants Vodafone, O2 and BT and system integrators Logica, Accenture, IBM and Capgemini are understood to have started talks to form bidding consortiums…
The government has put smart meters at the heart of its energy policy but progress on its implemen-tation has been slow. A consensus has emerged recently between the Department for Energy and Climate Change, Ofgem, the regulator, and the big six utility companies over how it will be done.
Each utility will be responsible for fitting new meters for its customers, starting a roll-out from 2010…
To ensure transparency, a “central communications” group would be set up to electronically collect, process and distribute data and serve as the go-between for energy companies and the meters in their customers’ homes…
Ofgem is expected to run the tender for the contract, which would operate from 2010 to 2020. The winning group would likely consist of a telecoms provider and a systems integrator. There is an outside chance that the contract could be broken down regionally.
This is great news for Britain as it will allow for demand response projects to be rolled out with the consequent nationwide energy savings and the possibilities to increase the penetration of renewables on the grid. Ireland continues to drag its feet in this area with a limited pilot to begin next year. With the irish government hoping to reach 40% penetration of renewables by 2020, they really need to pick up the pace if they want to come anywhere near achieving that target.
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Oil Is Not the Climate Change Culprit — It’s All About Coal | Wired Science from Wired.com
New climate change scenarios quantify the idea that oil is only a small component of the total global warming problem — the real problem is coal.
If the world replaced all of its oil usage with carbon-neutral energy sources, ecologist Kenneth Caldeira of Stanford University calculated that it would only buy us about 10 years before coal emissions warmed the planet to what many scientists consider dangerous levels.
tags: coal, oil, global warming, coal burning
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Waterfootprint.org: Water footprint and virtual water
Launch of the Water Footprint Network: 16 December 2008!
Download press release
People use lots of water for drinking, cooking and washing, but even more for producing things such as food, paper, cotton clothes, etc. The water footprint is an indicator of water use that looks at both direct and indirect water use of a consumer or producer. The water footprint of an individual, community or business is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual or community or produced by the business.
tags: water, water footprint
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