Thursday, September 10, 2009

Curbside Composting: A Valuable Community Service

Curbside Composting: A Valuable Community Service
posted by Megan, selected from Green Options Sep 9, 2009 7:20 am
filed under: Blogs, Community Service, Green 101, Healthy Home, Healthy Neighborhood, composting

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By Robin Shreeves, Green Options

This past spring, my family and I were able to get all the compost we needed for our vegetable garden from a local community’s compost pile at their department of public works. The compost was created from all of the leaves and yard clippings that had been collected curbside. Many communities collect leaves, clippings and other outside organic matter to turn into compost, but some communities are taking it a step further.

Cities such as San Francisco, Minneapolis, Toronto, and Boulder all have programs in place that allow residents to place food scraps curbside to be turned into compost.

Food that is mixed in with regular trash is estimated to make up about 40% of the trash in landfills. It also is the biggest offender in creating landfill methane which is a powerful greenhouse gas - 72 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Reducing landfill methane is just one of the benefits of keeping this type of waste out of landfills.

Curbside composting’s many benefits include:

-saving money by reducing trash to landfill service and thereby lowering garbage bills;
-conserving valuable organic resources by returning organic matter and nutrients to the soil;
-reducing climate warming gases from landfills and reducing the risk of potential groundwater pollution
-extending the life of our landfill by saving space.

Since it is not possible for everyone to compost in their home, curbside composting programs like these are valuable community services. I’m going to bringing up the idea at my town’s next Green Team meeting. Right now, my community does pick up vegetative waste but it is limited to things like “grass clippings, sticker balls, acorns, pine cones and viney type materials such as ivy, honey-suckle, poison ivy, laurel and plant clippings.” I wonder what would need to be changed to include food waste in the can that is provided to collect these other things. If you think this would work in your community, contact your department of public works to see how you can help implement a curbside composting program.

Does your city already offer curbside composting? Do you think it is a good idea? Share your comments below.

Green Options Media is a network of environmentally-focused blogs providing users with the information needed to make sustainable choices. Written by experienced professionals, Green Options Media’s blogs engage visitors with authoritative content, compelling discussions, and actionable advice. We invite anyone with questions, or simply curiosity, to add their voices to the community, and share their approaches to achieving abundance.

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Hello,
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Denise H. says
Sep 10, 2009 1:06 PM
Janet C - it is actually possible for renters to compost. If you are in a house and have a fenced yard, you can simply designate one corner for yard waste. You can either simply make a pile, or purchase some pieces called hog panels (check a CoOp or ranching store) that you can take with you. A well-run compost pile shouldn't have a terrible smell. If you have no fence or live in a duplex, you can purchase or make a very simple composter from a barrel. This has an added benefit of making compost VERY quickly, so you wouldn't have to worry about leaving a compost pile behind. Even in a high-rise apartment, the practice of growing earthworms can be done in a tub under the kitchen sink! None of these practices costs much or makes an awful smell. I have done some of them myself and know firsthand, and have friends who have done the other ones, with great success.

When you start to research compost piles, it can seem pretty complicated. All in all, nature does the work if we'll just let her, and they don't have to be complicated at all.


Melissa Scharfinski says
Sep 10, 2009 11:35 AM
I'd love curbside composting service! And to Miss Info- just keep your scraps in the freezer (if you have room). A biodegradable container sounds good, but like lawn waste containers, I'll bet they'd only accept a certain type.


Carol H. says
Sep 10, 2009 11:31 AM
That is a great idea that me and husband have saying for years but in my area people barely recycle because it takes to work.
My husband has a composter already for some grass and other things of which he uses on our plants and they are green all year round.
It would be a great idea but people in my area would never do it and that is a fact.


Carol S. says
Sep 10, 2009 10:52 AM
What a great idea! I plan to bring this up at our church "Creation Care" meeting.

Janet C. says
Sep 10, 2009 10:25 AM
I live in Fresno, CA who is one of the USA's worse air offenders but they do recycle in cans outside green waste. They also separate recycling to help out the planet. I do not know how long these services have been available, but since I rent instead of own, I can not start a compost where I move until I can afford to purchase. I love the fact my city does what I can not do yet.

Miss Info says
Sep 10, 2009 8:49 AM
I'm trying to picture kitchen scraps at the curb and I'm cringing. I put my kitchen scraps in a bowl, and when I get to it I bring the bowl outside to the compost pile. Sometimes I don't get to it right away, and it gets gross. I can't imagine holding onto my scraps for an entire week, and what form they'd be in when they get picked up. Are there special containers for this? Biodegradable, smell-proof containers to hold a week's worth of rotting food, that the guys can throw in their truck and haul away without making the whole neighborhood stink? How does this work?


Denise H. says
Sep 10, 2009 8:49 AM
Don't use it if you don't want it, but let's give a little credit where it's due. These people are picking the low-hanging fruit first, and let's support everyone's efforts to start somewhere. I mulch, make compost, and don't proactively put chemicals on the lawn. Nevertheless, it blesses me to see the community moving to green(er). People who think helping the environment is too much trouble will still make a little effort when it's available to them. A jumping off place is still a start. Let's not dis ANY efforts, but applaud them and continue to encourage people to think ever greener.

Susan S. says
Sep 10, 2009 7:15 AM
Okay, I just have to add one thing based on some other comments. Which homeownesr do you think are the most apt to put lawn clippings on the curb? Those who are green and don't use chemicals or those who just want a "beautiful" lawn at any cost and so wouldn't dream of using a mulching mower to put the mown grass back down on the lawn? The green people are doing that, and their (chemical free) clippings don't make the curb. So what is in that "free" mulch you get from the city. I agree with Mograine and Lauri T. Make your own and you won't need the other stuff!

Laurie T. says
Sep 10, 2009 7:01 AM
I agree with Morgaine regarding mowing over the cut grass and leaves on lawns. As I let my grass clippings fall where they may, many people ask how my lawn is always greener and lusher when I don't use fertilizers. I respond by telling them that my grass just gives back to itself. Ottawa is another city in Canada that collects curbside yard waste, and the collections go into fertilizing public areas in and around the city. As more natural waste is being produced now, there are opportunities opening, for the public to help themselves to this wonderful rich soil. I am lucky enough to have my own composters in the back yard so am constantly in supply of rich, dark soil for my gardens. The doggy poo composter I have, creates beautiful fertilizer for ornamental plants (only) after adding a bit of septic starter to the buried bin. I no longer have to cringe over putting doggy packages by the curb for landfill pick-up.

Morgaine G. says
Sep 10, 2009 6:36 AM
I get so irritated with people who have "yard waste". Taking the leaves and cut grass out of the yard takes away the nutrients your lawn lives on. If you use a mulching mower and run over your leaves at the end of the season, you won't have to fertilize annually and can reduce the chemical load on the planet. Makes a lot better sense

Wired article

Solar power installations at utilities across the country increased 25 percent in 2008 over the year before. The nation’s top 10 utilities now have 882 megawatts of solar capacity.

As in previous years, Southern California Edison topped the total capacity ratings at 441 megawatts, mostly due to its extra large installation out in the Mojave. Pacific Gas & Electric, which serves northern California, installed the most solar this year, though, at 85 megawatts. Small, publicly-owned utilities in San Francisco and Oakland lead the watts per customer race by a wide margin.

But all of those numbers are tiny in the scheme of the U.S. electricity system, which has more than one million megawatts of generating capacity. The new report from the Solar Electric Power Association [pdf] demonstrates that solar’s future remains in the future. Still, state and federal policy requiring that utilities incorporate more renewable energy and probable climate legislation are pushing a lot more solar into utilities’ plans.

“This year’s report demonstrates that solar electricity is finally on the radar screen of utilities across the country,” Julia Hamm, executive director of the Solar Electric Power Association, said in a press release. “Solar plants large and small are ready for significant build-out, and the utility industry is moving towards mass adoption to meet a variety of business needs.”

The utilities intend to install more than 7,500 megawatts of solar capacity within the next seven years, with most of those projects scheduled to come online in the next few years.

That growth will come largely from big, centralized projects, not your neighbor’s roof. Most big projects don’t use photovoltaic panels, which convert photons directly into electrons, either. Instead, they use fields of mirrors to concentrate the heat of the sun onto a boiler that produces steam. If the early projects planned by Brightsource, Ausra, and other work out, solar advocates think variants of solar thermal technology could provide 25 percent of the world’s power by the middle of the century.

See Also:

Biggest Solar Deal Ever Announced — We’re Talking Gigawatts …
How To Make a Solar Cell with Donuts and Tea
Utilities Jumping into the Solar Game
The Top 10 Utilities for Solar Power
Clean Tech
WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Google Reader feed, and book site for The History of Our Future; Wired Science on Facebook.

Posted by: wurp | 05/28/09 | 5:47 pm
Photovoltaic cells do *not* “convert photons directly into electrons”. They convert photons into volts (as indicated by the name). The photon hits an electron *already in the cell* and gives it momentum, pushing a stream of electrons from one electrode of the cell toward the other. The build-up of electrons on one electrode and dearth in the other produces a potential difference (voltage) between the two electrodes.

Photovoltaic cells do essentially convert photons directly into electricity - maybe that was the point you were driving at?

Posted by: cspearow | 05/28/09 | 7:30 pm
Something you should make clear: solar-thermal power generation is not cost effective, not even close. Utilities that are building these systems are simply complying with requirements imposed by the state or federal government. At the levels built so far, it is a nuisance, but at some point it will force an increase in consumer electric rates, and that’s probably when governments will back down, like CARB did with the zero-emission cars.

Posted by: john623 | 05/29/09 | 5:54 pm
The lake of energy is a biggest problem of the universe now a days. Search of new sources of energy has much need today. Although it is not my field but when i read this article it gave me much information and inspired me. I am thank full to Alexis Madriga.

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Posted by: damasterwc | 05/30/09 | 7:56 pm
oh gee, all these rebates, subsidies, and all and we have yet to top 1 GW?
pathetic… and why don’t we use fast breeder nuclear fission with reprocessing again? in CA the gubernator has cut off water to a lot of farms… driving from LA to SF you really see the impact of his reign. dried deserts, all the way up the 5, what used to be farm land. they’re doing nothing about the water problem except now telling us when we can and cannot water our lawn. i’m sick of this bs. i demand they immediately construct nuclear power and use excess heat energy to create fresh water. this is totally within our technological capabilities. there is no water crisis, there’s a political crisis. remember that when you go vote.

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Posted by: FreeCleanSolar | 07/29/09 | 12:16 pm
Good to learn that solar power is growing. I look forward to the day when solar panels are visible most everywhere. The best place for solar panels is on your own roof. The costs have never been lower and the incentives have never been better.

The fact is that installing solar panels for your home or business can cut your electric bill to $0 today.

Take your monthly electric bill and multiply by 12 months, then again by 25 years to determine how much you will spend on traditional utility-generated electricity during the typical life of a solar panel system. Then depending on your energy needs, compare this to the $5,000 to $25,000 cost to install solar panels.

For example, if you spend $200 per month for electricity, then you will spend $81,979 over 25 years, including a low annual price inflation rate of 2.5%. No matter how you calculate it, you will save money with a $5,000 to $25,000 solar panel system. Some so-called experts will say the cost per kilo-watt (kW) for traditional utility energy is less than the cost per kW of solar. Remember, you can pay the utility for 25 years, with annual price increases, or you can pay 80% less with solar power.

If you are worried about the upfront cost for solar panels, there are many financing and leasing programs available to homeowners with good credit. Some loans are tax-deductible too.

If you want to do something about this today, then visit FreeCleanSolar.com to search a nationwide network of 500 local solar installers. You can also find information about state solar rebates, federal tax credits, solar financing and leasing, system costs and the benefits of going solar. The bottom line is that many homeowners and businesses can afford solar power today.

Thin-Film Solar Startup Debuts With $4 Billion in Contracts

Thin-Film Solar Startup Debuts With $4 Billion in Contracts
By Alexis Madrigal September 9, 2009 | 5:46 pm | Categories: Energy

A startup with a secret recipe for printing cheap solar cells on aluminum foil debuted today, in what could end up a milestone for the industry.

Nanosolar’s technology consists of sandwiches of copper, indium, gallium and selenide (CIGS) that are 100 times thinner than the silicon solar cells that dominate the solar photovoltaics market. Its potential convinced Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page to back the company as angel investors in its early days.

Two big announcements marked its coming out party: The company has $4 billion in contracts and can make money selling its products for $1 per watt of a panel’s capacity. That’s cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels in markets across the world.

Specifically, the company’s management thinks it can help utilities avoid the difficulties of getting big coal and nuclear power plants built by offering the option to build small solar farms they can set up close to cities.

“Cost-efficient solar panels such as ours can be deployed in 2- to 20-megawatt municipal solar power plants that feed peak power directly into the local distribution without requiring the expense of transmission and with a plant deployment time as short as six months,” said Nanosolar CEO Martin Roscheisen in an e-mail to Wired.com. “Coal or nuclear can’t do that, can’t do it as cost efficient and can’t do it as rapidly deployable.”

Thin-film solar has been a major focus of U.S. alternative energy research and development efforts since the early 1980s because it was seen as a true “breakthrough” solar technology. Silicon cells are easy to manufacture, dependable and efficient, but some researchers viewed them as inherently limited. As they are currently produced, they require a lot more silicon than thin-film solar cells. They might reach efficiency levels of over 40 percent, but they’d never compete with fossil fuel energy sources, even with carbon taxes.

Thin-film solar was different. On the one hand, it was definitely harder to make efficient cells. However, it allowed researchers to dream of printing semiconducting chemicals onto a metal sheet and having it convert photons into electricity. Thin-film cells seemed like they’d be perfect for the applications researchers imagined like “solar shingles” for building-integrated solar installations.

Thin film was promoted as the technology that would bring photovoltaics to the masses at prices competitive with fossil fuels.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory worked steadily on thin films throughout the 1990s, but no technology seemed to work well outside the lab. It turned out to be really difficult to actually manufacture thin-film solar cells.

Then First Solar exploded onto the solar scene in 2005 with a cadmium-telluride thin-film cell. Their manufacturing costs dropped rapidly and soon they had billions of dollars in contracts, largely with utilities. Yesterday, they signed a two-gigawatt deal with Chinese officials. Now, investors value the company higher than American, Delta, and United Airlines combined. First Solar has become the bar and the target for Nanosolar, and the dozens of other thin-film market hopefuls.

What could set Nanosolar apart is the way the company actually gets its semiconductors to stick to the metal foil. Most companies use various techniques executed under vacuum conditions; Nanosolar prints its solar cells.

“What separates them from the rest of the companies is that they have developed a process to make CIGS cells which involves non-vacuum technology,” said Miguel Contreras, a thin-film solar researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “This is a very generic description, but what I’m pointing out is that by having a wet chemistry process, they are able to save quite a bit of money in terms of capital equipment.”

The base for their cells — the aluminum foil — is plentiful and cheap, which the company says has cost and manufacturing advantages.

Earlier this year, First Solar claimed it started manufacturing solar cells for less than $1 per watt. Nanosolar says it can go cheaper. They also took aim at First Solar in a recent whitepaper (.pdf) for utilities, claiming their “balance-of-system costs” (all the other stuff beyond the solar cells themselves) will be lower.

It’s big talk for a company that hasn’t really entered commercial production, but Nanosolar has a half a billion dollars in venture funding and some bleeding-edge technology. Beyond the contracts they’ve won, they announced that NREL testing found their cells to be the most efficient printed solar cell on record at 16.4 percent.

Even though the competition among solar companies is heating up, there is plenty of room for multiple players in the expanding renewable energy markets. Competition can drive innovation and cost reductions, too, which would be good news for solar energy advocates. After major cost drops in the early ’90s, the average solar module’s cost hasn’t been declining very quickly.

If companies like First Solar and Nanosolar continue to grow, they will drive that average price closer to competing with fossil fuels. First Solar will be producing about a gigawatt of panels this year. Nanosolar’s production is tiny, by comparison. They have a 640-megawatt facility, and are ramping up production from their current megawatt per month of production. Scaling up can be difficult with PV technologies, but Roscheisen was confident.

“There are manufacturability issues with CIGS but you wouldn’t hit a million cells a month unless you have worked out these,” he said. “This is why our manufacturing people have considered going from 0 output to 1 megawatt a month in output as more challenging than scaling from 1 megawatt to 100 megawatts or more.”

See Also:

Biggest Solar Deal Ever Announced — We’re Talking Gigawatts
How to Make a Solar Cell With Donuts and Tea
The Top 10 Utilities for Solar Power
Utilities Jumping Into the Solar Game
WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Google Reader feed, and green tech history research site; Wired Science on Twitter and Facebook.

Tags: solar Post Comment |
Comments (21)

Posted by: yafree2hoo | 09/9/09 | 6:32 pm

I hope this actually works, proving, yet again, that capitalizm actually DOES work! Innovation has yet to occur via government mandate or fiat. All of mankind’s progress have been gained through the seeking of profit. The politically correct socialist ninnies running America can gripe and bitch and moan all they want about the evils of the free market system, but they would still be living in the stone age without the rewards of profit!

Posted by: eliatic | 09/9/09 | 8:01 pm
“It’s big talk for a company that hasn’t really entered commercial production…”

But it will, REAL SOON NOW.

Posted by: billsoxs | 09/9/09 | 8:04 pm
Damn - it is a roll to roll process!

Posted by: GoldenSunCity | 09/9/09 | 8:09 pm
..These solar power are real super hot to conduct heat to boil the oil/water or atoms cells to make current build up, as long as the sun is up and Sun light wave is temp between 70F and 90F on the panel..They still need to build the technologies to cost down how to run the power after the Sun is went down another 10hrs or more and during the cloudy days..I have trying to make the solar power with rotating panels..It is really hot, it can burn the human flesh in red hot in 2 min and temp is as high as 2000F..
..Yesterday, the movie star from Burbank’s, is talking about his house was build with all green technologies..His house was near the airport and he has sound proof house and all those recycle stuff..

Posted by: Bruckley | 09/9/09 | 8:28 pm
Best of luck to this company. Innovation FTW.

Posted by: Shonda | 09/9/09 | 8:42 pm
So… Google is backing Nanosolar and Microsoft is backing Solaryn? Who is Wired going to back?

Posted by: sethdayal | 09/9/09 | 10:25 pm
Here is what happens to the dollar a watt solar cell when it goes industrial.

First Solar just announced plans for a state of the art 2 gigawatt facility destroying forever 26 sq miles of Chinese desert (who cares in China anyway) which they claim would cost $6 billion to build in the US if even possible with the regulatory difficulties. This farm would produce 2500 kwh per annum per collector peak watt at a 25% load factor (ie nighttime, clouds, winter etc). First Solar’s claim of $1000 a Kilowatt for the cells, becomes $3000 a kilowatt in a field collector farm, becomes $12000 a kilowatt when the load factor is added in. Absolutely no way in sight to economically store the power for nighttime, clouds, winter.

Westinghouse research claims with a long detailed study that with mass production techniques and political action for a one time nationwide regulatory approval of a standard design plant, they can build nuclear for $1000 a kilowatt or less than 2 cents a kilowatt hour. They’ve put their money on the table with a $1200 a kilowatt $5.5 billion nuke sale to China

Except for political reasons and special uses solar is just not a viable option until some from of reasonably priced storage can be developed. Mass produced nuclear power is much less expensive than both the solar and the projected costs of the storage.

We are within a couple of years of climate disaster, we need to start building in gigawatt a day quantities and very soon. Nuclear is our only option.

Posted by: Shonda | 09/10/09 | 12:13 am
Sethdayal? See linked article “Biggest Solar Deal Ever Announced — We’re Talking Gigawatts” from 2/2009.

Posted by: quilner | 09/10/09 | 12:28 am
Some questions about Nanosolar’s $1-per-watt claim:

What happens at night?

What happens when its cloudy?

What happens during the winter-time?

Does Nanosolar’s $1 per watt investment guarantee a consistent 24/7/365 source of electricity?

Does Nanosolar’s $1 figure include the cost of installing transmission lines?

Does Nanosolar’s $1 figure include the cost laying cement for a power plant, assembling the cells into solar panels, installing the panels, and commissioning the power plant?

Does Nanosolar’s $1 figure include the cost of building base-load generating capacity to provide electricity for when the sun doesn’t shine?

Installing electrical transmission lines costs about $1 million per mile. Most PV power plants are located far away from demand centers.

This sounds like vaporware.

Posted by: bystander | 09/10/09 | 12:36 am
and we would still have clean water and air without the rewards of profit.
thanks auto industry, oil industry, big construction. now we have suburbs, everyone driving everywhere, pavement all over the place, crappy rail service, etc… somethings require investment beyond the desire for a short term profit.
hey “yafree2hoo” why do you think we want to discuss the virtues/failings of abstract economic non-systems? will you call me an evil socialist if i cry foul and tell you to get a life and pull your head out of your paranoid obsessed ass and let us get back to topic? i could use this juncture to discuss the profit motive involved in the auto-oil-roadbuilding triangle and the price our environment, society/culture, and economy has paid for it… but i digress…
anyway- back to the TOPIC you weasel, i’ve been watching NanoSolar for awhile. their website has not historically had much information about products, applications, specs, etc… mostly about how everyone believes in them. they seem to be getting great PR considering they have yet to bring a product to the public market shy of NDA’s or whatever lid they have on this technology… i will be happy to see it in action, but i remain skeptical and hopeful. i imagine there are other parallel technology breakthroughs awaiting us in the field of solar energy, as the writing is on the wall regarding alternative energy and the rapid scale up it will need to perform as we try to cut the oil addiction…

Posted by: criscross | 09/10/09 | 1:50 am
“Nuclear is our only option.”

does this statement consider total cost of nuclear waste etc.?
the health risk assosiated with all nuclear technology
and pls dont answer “its save”
Harrisburg, Tschernobyl should still ring a bell with some folks

just that the storage technology does not exist yet should not leave mankind on the wrong track for 2 or 3 more generations

about 60 years ago there was a perfect chance to develop the world towards a more human environment
the chance repeats itself regularly
but still the run for profit - the way we see it now i call it greed - stopps us from talkingt the next step

Posted by: rfrancis1980 | 09/10/09 | 2:37 am
Contrary to what is said in this article, silicon solar cells are not easy to make.

Silicon dioxide is one of the most plentiful resources on earth but it is far more expensive than regular glass, lexan, or acrylic because of the difficulty in forming it due to it having such a high melting temperature.

The raw materials in thin film solar cells on the other hand are rare and very expensive but since not much is needed and they can be inkjet printed onto a substrate they could be cheaper.

Personally I think we would be better off figuring out how to make silicon dioxide with less energy, heat, and in greater amounts. Sand is plentiful.

Posted by: rfrancis1980 | 09/10/09 | 3:10 am
I’m talking out of my ass, my post referred to silicon dioxide. Silicon solar cells don’t use silicon dioxide, out of luck I was half right, crystalline silicon is used and it is energy and heat intensive to work with.

In the past I was looking at dielectrics and pure silicon dioxide sheet has dielectric strength far higher than glass, lexan, or acrylic. It is also far more expensive.

Posted by: gul | 09/10/09 | 8:33 am
thanks..

Posted by: DreamTheEndless | 09/10/09 | 10:19 am
@yafree2hoo
“All of mankind’s progress have been gained through the seeking of profit.”

You’re an idiot. Have you ever heard of NASA? Or DARPA?

Or, for that matter, how about Sputnik? It came from a country that actually WAS socialist…

Posted by: millerSD | 09/10/09 | 11:12 am
I don’t think that solar power- from photovoltaic, Stirling engines, or whatever else is invented- will be able to provide all of the US’s or the world’s power. No single source should anyway. Right now we get some power from dirty sources like coal, some from future dirty sources like nuclear, and some from clean but environmentally harmful sources like hydro-electric. There is no such thing as a completely clean energy source because of the materials needed to get that energy to every household. ‘Top Gear’ pointed out that the carbon footprint of a BMW 325i is smaller than a Toyota Prius because of all the scarce materiels that go into making the batteries for a hybrid vehicle. Anyway, if a city gets most of its daytime power from solar, it can get the remainder from other renewable sources. Wind, hydro-electric, geothermal, you name it. If all of them are used as part of a broad approach to solving energy problems instead of seeing only one as a savior, then there should be a lot fewer problems during energy demand spikes and the like. There is no silver bullet.

Posted by: joenz | 09/10/09 | 11:16 am
In one paragraph the article says these solar cells are more cost effective than coal and nuclear, and in the next paragraph that they can’t compete with fossil fuels even WITH carbon taxes. I’m just left a bit confused I suppose.

Posted by: joenz | 09/10/09 | 11:36 am
To all of you people complaining that solar power only works when it’s light outside, the point of solar power is not to power 100% of our country. The highest use of power is during the times when it is light outside, so solar panals would be able to offset some of that peak demand. The great thing about coal power is that it’s power outputs can be controled VERY easily. So if it is cloudy, no problem. Just crank up the coal for the day. I ran some numbers too. Right now most americans pay about $0.12 per Kw/hr. Assuming that these solar panals are $1-per-watt including instalation (and not taking into account maintenance) it would take each solar panal 8333 hours to pay for itself. Assuming they work around 12 hours a day, it would only take about 2 years to pay for themself. To me, this actually seems reasonable; however, the maintenance costs do need to be included. If they could make solar panals that don’t have to be serviced for 10 years, I’d vote to set them up tomorrow.

Posted by: ndovu | 09/10/09 | 12:34 pm
yafree2hoo, can you believe it is the evil, whiny communist country of China that has made First Solar a huge amount of money? That must make your capitalistic, free-market eyeballs melt.

Posted by: samagon | 09/10/09 | 1:31 pm
“Nuclear is our only option.”

Only a sith would deal in absolutes…

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Housing industry faces a long, hard climb back

Housing industry faces a long, hard climb back

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Treasury: Millions more foreclosures coming
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updated 4:43 p.m. ET, Mon., Aug 31, 2009

John W. Schoen
Senior producer

Despite recent signs of improvement, the housing industry still faces a long road back.

How can the housing industry get us out of this recession?
— Maria R., Fort Worth, Texas

To the extent that housing led the economy into recession it’s hard to see how we get out of it without a recovery in housing. When that recovery comes, it will be from one of the deepest slumps in decades.

First, the good news. After a sickening 30 percent plunge in home prices since the market topped in mid-2006, the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller's U.S. National Home Price Index bumped up 3 percent in the second quarter — the first quarterly rise in three years. But prices are still down almost 15 percent from last year — at levels last seen in early 2003.

That price drop has left something like a third of homeowners with mortgages owing more than their house is worth. Which means that, unless prices begin rising strongly again, those people are stuck in their homes, unable to sell without writing a big check to the lender. Others may choose to “walk away,” sending another home to foreclosure where it will be sold by the lender or auctioned at a distressed price. Those foreclosure sales are going to make it tough for prices to recover quickly.

Plan C: The new reality of retirement

The new plan: Just keep working
When the golden years include a commute
As work force grays, employers lag behind
Not retiring comes with a bonus: better health
Vote and discuss: When will you retire?
Slideshow: Famous workers who won't quit

The glut of foreclosures also creates a huge inventory of existing homes that will weigh on demand for new homes. All home sales help boost the economy because when families move to a new home they typically make big purchases for new furniture and appliances, along with trips to the local home improvement center.

But the biggest economic boost comes from spending on new construction, which flows through home builders to many corners of the economy, from building supplies and fixtures to wages for construction workers (who then spend that money on other goods and services). Without a big pickup in construction, any economic recovery will be weak.

The latest piece of good news on that score — which has helped fuel speculation that the housing industry has “hit bottom” — came from the recent release of July data for housing starts. Using the Census Department formula overall construction fell by 1 percent, but single-family homebuilding rose 1.6 percent.

But when you take out the seasonal adjustment — designed to smooth out the impact on the data of forces like weather — the number of actual single-family homes built in July fell by 4 percent from the month before and by 20 percent from last July. So far this year, the total number of housing starts is running 46 percent below the comparable period last year.

Even when we start to see healthy percent gains in housing construction, the industry has a long way to go to get back to where it was even before the mid-decade building boom. After peaking in January 2007, roughly one in five construction jobs has been lost to the housing bust. The ongoing pullback in commercial building continues to weigh on the construction job market. And the housing slump has sidelined millions more workers in related fields — like real estate sales and mortgage lending. Unless that trend can be reversed, it’s hard to see how the housing industry can lead the economy back out of the recession it created.

Chilled Water Cools MIT Physics Department

Chilled Water Cools MIT Physics Department

Written by Susan Kraemer

Published on September 3rd, 200911 CommentsPosted in Climate Change, consumer technology, energy efficiency

Here’s a very good example of simple tech that works efficiently. Because hot air rises, cool air falls down. So if chilled water is carried through tubes at the ceiling, it sucks hot air from a room; sending down the cooler air. Simple tech is often low carbon technology too.

» See also: Mining Hydrothermal Vents For Renewable Electricity, Drinking Water + Valuable Minerals
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Chilled beams use water to remove heat from a room. This is the opposite of radiant heating; in which pipes carry hot water in pipes embedded in a mortar for a stone or tile floor.

The potential reduction in fossil fuel use of using chilled beams instead of a traditional air conditioning system can be as much as 50%. “Chilled” is a bit of a misnomer; as the water doesn’t even need to be chilled. Even just running city water through this system will work as typical city water is about 55 degrees Fahrenheit; enough to cool a 90 degree room. This works as a heat exchange.

If we used a system like this to cool every building we could achieve a cooling carbon reduction of 50% over 2009 levels. Fossil fuel use in heating and cooling buildings accounts for about 40% of our national carbon emissions.

This year’s climate bill contains incentives (Cap and Trade) for us to make reductions in fossil fuel use. Cap and Trade just means using fees (for choosing high carbon energy) to fund incentives (to help us buy low carbon energy).

The national building codes in the Climate Bill could do for the country what California building codes did for California: effortlessly cut our carbon footprint to half that of the nation: near European levels.

If you live near Boston, you can go check out how effective this innovative system is, and see if you can improve on the idea. The first installation is at MIT’s 49,000 square foot physics department; in buildings 4, 6, and 8, and next up is the new MIT Sloan School expansion and the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.

“Chilled beams cool the people and dehumidify the air in the room. They take one-tenth the volume of fresh air needed for traditional A/C, far less ductwork, smaller ducts, and smaller fans,” says David Cooper; manager of sustainability engineering and utility planning for the Department of Facilities.

This is a great passive cooling system for offices, laboratories, data centers and other spaces where equipment and sunlight generate a significant amount of heat.

“There’s a factor of eight improvement in cost of moving a Btu of air cooled by water versus air. If you can get the cooling energy into the space through water, you’re way ahead,” says Cooper. “The eight times factor is a very attractive alternative from an energy point of view.”

More ways to heat and cool our nation’s buildings to reduce our national carbon footprint:

Recycling waste heat from air conditioners
Airport with 40% lower fossil fuel
Very cheap DIY solar hot water
Very efficient solar hot water
Making energy from waste

Via Deborah Halber at MIT

2000 Gallons Of Lowcost Ethanol made from Wood

Written by Nick Chambers, Editor

Published on July 24th, 200913 CommentsPosted in Cellulosic ethanol

ZeaChem — a company launched in 1998 by “two guys in a pickup” and ranked by Biofuels Digest as the 11th hottest company in bioenergy last year — claims that their process for making advanced, next-generation ethanol from fast growing woody crops such as poplars will result in a yield of 2,000 gallons of ethanol per acre.

In case you’re wondering if that number is good, compare it to the current yield obtained by the best managed corn ethanol plants of about 450 gallons per acre. A 2,000 gallon per acre yield is on par with the amount of fuel algae outfits claim they can produce with technology that doesn’t really yet exist. ZeaChem’s process already functions using available technology.

» See also: US Energy and Ag Departments Providing $6.3M for Specialized Biofuels Research
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On top of this, ZeaChem could potentially make the ethanol for as low as $20 per ton of woody feedstock (this was a number that was originally published over at Biofuels Digest, but was subsequently removed. At ZeaChem’s request I have tried to make it clear that this is a speculative number). Doing my own calculations with fast-growing tree crop poplars as an example — 1,500 trees per acre producing 15 tons of feedstock — the base cost to make the ethanol at that processing cost would come out to 15 cents per gallon. Of course, the price you’ll pay at the pump would be higher, but even with profit margins, transportation, delivery and taxes on top of that, it’ll still be rock cheap.

By using a crop with such a large amount of biomass per acre, ZeaChem also reduces the footprint of the land required to feed an ethanol plant by 90% over other ethanol crops such as grasses, which only produce about 2 tons of feedstock per acre and, therefore, require a huge amount of land to feed an ethanol plant. Also, crop trees such as hybrid poplars need only be planted once — after they’re harvested they sprout again from the same stump.

By way of looking at the bigger picture, if you consider that the US uses approximately 145 billion gallons of gasoline each year and the US has about 470,000,000 acres of arable land, you could supply 30% of the US’s fuel needs with about 4.6% of all the arable land in the US using ZeaChem’s process.

The company is currently building its first demonstration-scale plant in Boardman, OR, which will be fed by woody biomass from a nearby hybrid poplar plantation run by GreenWood Resources. If all of what ZeaChem claims is true, get ready for a revolution in how the US handles fuel production — one that doesn’t pit food against fuel.

Follow this link to see a recent slide presentation by ZeaChem Co-Founder, Dan Verser.

Source: Biofuels Digest

California Adds 8,600 MW New Renewable Power: Meets RPS Goals

California Adds 8,600 MW New Renewable Power: Meets RPS Goals

Written by Susan Kraemer

Published on September 8th, 20093 Comments

Posted in alternative energy, carbon emissions, politics

Since the Renewable Portfolio Standard began in 2002, the California Public Utilities Commission has now approved contracts for more than 8,600 megawatts of new renewable energy, nearly all of it solar, signed with the state’s largest utilities. Most of the state’s renewable energy already on the grid till now has been wind power.

As of June, the CPUC total was 8,334 megawatts, but in August CPUC approved PG&E contracts with BrightSource totalling an additional 1,310 megawatts.

It’s an unusual contract. PG&E agreed to pay a higher electricity rate if Brightsource fails to secure a Department of Energy loan guarantee to help finance the construction of the two solar plants in the Mojave desert, per Todd Woody at the NYT. And in return, Brightsource will pay PG&E royalties based on the worldwide sales and licensing of BrightSource’s solar Power Tower technology.

The Federal loan guarantee program is designed to promote development of renewable energy by allowing companies like BrightSource to obtain lower-cost financing to build large-scale solar farms.

“Given the current credit crisis, new renewable energy projects face financing risk,” wrote the utility commissioners in approving the deal. “We believe that the milestones achieved to date on its D.O.E. Loan Guarantee application and BrightSource’s project development experience will put it at an advantage when seeking financing.”

California’s RPS (Renewable Portfolio Standards) legislation signed in 2002 requires the state’s utilities to get 20% of their energy from renewable sources by 2010 and have it up and running on our grid by 2013.

At last count, we were a bit short of installed capacity, with 13% on the grid by 2008. But in a burst of activity last year more new capacity was installed just in 2008 than in the first four years of the RPS. So far 2009 looks like it could be more than 2008.

At just the half year mark, another 1,574 megawatts were approved, and with the additional contracts from BrightSource, the total is now 8,600 Megawatts approved. The CPUC is still reviewing 13 more signed contracts which would add another 5,941 MW.

The initial 2002 RPS legislation (SB1078, authored by Senator Byron Sher) had required utilities to get 20% by 2017 of renewable power - not counting nuclear or traditional hydroelectric as renewable.

Then in 2006, Palo Alto Senator Joe Simitian sped up the timetable to just four years to meet the 20% RPS: 2010. But it allowed a three year window; till 2013, to actually get the power onto the grid with SB107.

The lag time is because while contracts are easy enough to sign; actual approval and permitting and transmission issues can slow the process. Many contracts are signed but awaiting approval with the CPUC. There is no shortage of renewable energy companies wanting to do business with the state. Despite the speeded up schedule; California utilities are generally on track to meet the 2013 goal.

By comparison, Texas now produces about 8,000 megawatts just of wind power, and is now second in wind power only to Germany with its 22,000 megawatts of wind power.

(Because countries in Europe are more comparable in size to our states here, it is more useful to compare European nations to our states, rather than to the USA as a whole, as is commonly done.) Germany has 82 million people in 138 thousand square miles. More sparsely populated Texas has 24 million people in twice that size - 269 thousand square miles.

California has 37 million people in 164 thousand square miles, and we use 265,000 gigawatthours of electricity annually - so 20% would be about 51,000 gigawatthours annually of renewable power.

California is on target to meet that. As my high school motto put it: Aim High

Sheep Keep Solar Shining

Carolina Solar Energy developed the newest solar energy park in North Carolina. The park is a small one, powering about 60 homes in Person County.

» See also: California Adds 8,600 MW New Renewable Power: Meets RPS Goals
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Sheep are being used to trim the weeds around the solar panels, so they are kept completely receptive to the sun. Sheep contribute less to global warming than do gas-powered lawn mowers. The practice of grass and weed management via sheep reportedly comes from Europe. (The United Nations in Geneva is also using sheep to keep its grounds well-manicured, and last year, the city of Turin, Italy brought in sheep to trim their parks, instead of using conventional lawnmowers.)

Sheep can reach tight places between solar panels not easily touched by landscaping equipment. Using the shaggy herds could also carry the benefit of creating wool, depending on the type of animal selected.

3,240 photovoltaic panels generate the electricity. Sixty homes is not a lot, but the park serves also as an educational experience for the public. “People are stopping by all the time. At first, people thought it was a vineyard because we were putting up a lot of poles, ” said the owner of Carolina Solar Energy, Richard Harkrader.

Another North Carolina company, SAS, is using sheep on its own solar electric farm.

Electric Motor Corporation’s “Flash” Pickup Truck

Electric Motor Corporation’s “Flash” Pickup Truck

Written by Christopher DeMorro

Published on September 9th, 2009
Posted in Hybrid-electric EVs

I love trucks. To me they represent everything America does (or at least used to) stand for. Rugged, capable, the workhorse of the working man. So much praise to heap on a very basic and oft-uncomfortable vehicle. But where do those gas-guzzling, stump pulling, trucks with all the aerodynamics of a brick fit in the future?

Electric Motor Corporation has an idea, and is teasing photos of their F-150-based “Flash” pickup truck. The name could use some work; but how does the rest of the truck shape up?

» See also: Frankfurt Auto Show Preview: Lotus Range-Extender Engine
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Well the short answer is; we don’t know yet. The Flash isn’t scheduled for a full unviel until November. All we have are teaser shots of an ugly plastic front fascia to go on so far. I mean UGLY. And downright cheap looking if you ask me. I don’t want a plastic truck, thank you very much. If they could miss up the simple lines of an F-150 front end, I have to wonder how wretched the rest of the truck looks.

Aesthetics aside though, EMC is aiming to deliver the same capabilities of a gas-powered truck while utilizing an electric powertrain similar to that in the Volt. That is to say, a gas engine will power electric motors to drive the truck. Rather than stick with the triton 5.4 liter V8 motor for electricity generation, a small 1.2liter gas engine will power the electric drive.

There will be three range options avaialable. The smallest configuration will allow all-electric travel up to 40 miles. No mention on whether this will be a plug-in hybrid or not. Will Cashen, CEO of Electric Motor Corporation, said that “The unique thing about a truck is that [battery] packaging isn’t an issue like it is for cars.” Realizing this, the battery packs were stuffed between the frame rails, space usually used for dual gas tanks and spare tires.

The Flash (I really hate that name) is said to have the same work capabilities of the 4.2 liter V6 F-150 that was discontinued last year. That means it would be able to tow about 5,700 pounds and carry a payload of about 1,940 pounds. But this is no SVT Raptor; it is meant as an on-road only use truck, probably because those battery packs will sort out if you take this truck muddin’.

EMC is also planning to release a commercial duty version entitled the equally terrible “Thunderbolt”. The commercial version will be targeted at construction and emergency workers. It will also moonlight as a power generator for equipment and Wi-Fi hotspot. I’m not sure how many construction workers need to use Wi-Fi on the job site, and the plastic look really bothers me. I am a pretty handy guy, and I grew up around work trucks, so I have a hard time taking it seriously.

I may be a little overly-critical of the Flash and Thunderbolt trucks. In fairness, I think there is a lot of promise to using electric vehicles for short range, heavy duty jobs. They would be especially useful in delivery and hauling jobs, so long as the range isn’t cut too short by hauling too heavy a load. So for now I will reserve final judgement until the “official” unvieling in November.

High-Altitude Wind Machines Could Power New York City

High-Altitude Wind Machines Could Power New York City
By Alexis Madrigal June 15, 2009 | 6:36 pm | Categories: Earth Science, Energy, Environment

The wind blowing through the streets of Manhattan couldn’t power the city, but wind machines placed thousands of feet above the city theoretically could.

The first rigorous, worldwide study of high-altitude wind power estimates that there is enough wind energy at altitudes of about 1,600 to 40,000 feet to meet global electricity demand a hundred times over.

The very best ground-based wind sites have a wind-power density of less than 1 kilowatt per square meter of area swept. Up near the jet stream above New York, the wind power density can reach 16 kilowatts per square meter. The air up there is a vast potential reservoir of energy, if its intermittency can be overcome.

Even better, the best high-altitude wind-power resources match up with highly populated areas including North America’s Eastern Seaboard and China’s coastline.

“The resource is really, really phenomenal,” said Cristina Archer of Cal State University-Chico, who co-authored a paper on the work published in the open-access journal Energies.”There is a lot of energy up there, but it’s not as steady as we thought. It’s not going to be the silver bullet that will solve all of our energy problems, but it will have a role.”

For centuries, we’ve been using high-density fossil fuels, but peaking oil supplies and climate concerns have given new life to green technologies. Unfortunately, renewable energy is generally diffuse, meaning you need to cover a lot of area to get the energy you want. So engineers look for renewable resources that are as dense as possible. On that score, high-altitude wind looks very promising.

“We might extend the application of [wind] power to the heights of the clouds, by means of kites.”

utopian technologist John Etzler, 1833

Wind’s power — energy which can be used to do work like spinning magnets to generate electricity — varies with the cube of its speed. So, a small increase in wind speed can lead to a big increase in the amount of mechanical energy you can harvest. High-altitude wind blows fast, is spread nicely across the globe, and is easier to predict than terrestrial wind.

These properties have led inventors and scientists to cast their hopes upward, where strong winds have long been known to blow, as Etzler’s dreamy quote shows. During the energy shocks of the 1970s, when new energy ideas of all kinds were bursting forth, engineers and schemers patented several designs for harnessing wind thousands of feet in the air.


The two main design frameworks they came up with are still with us today. The first is essentially a power plant in the sky, generating electricity aloft and sending it down to Earth via a conductive tether. The second is more like a kite, transmitting mechanical energy to the ground, where generators turn it into electricity. Theoretically, both approaches could work, but nothing approaching a rigorous evaluation of the technologies has been conducted.

The Department of Energy had a very small high-altitude wind program, which produced some of the first good data about the qualities of the wind up there, but it got axed as energy prices dropped in the 1980s and Reagan-era DOE officials directed funds elsewhere.

The program hasn’t been restarted, despite growing attention to renewables, but that’s not because it’s considered a bad idea. Rather, it is seen as just a little too far out on the horizon.

“We’re very much aimed these days at things that we can fairly quickly commercialize, like in the next 10 years or so,” said National Renewable Energy Laboratory spokesperson George Douglas.

Startups like KiteGen, Sky Windpower, Magenn, and Makani (Google’s secretive fundee) have come into the space over the last several years, and they seem to be working on much shorter timelines.

“We are not that far from working prototypes,” Archer said, though she noted that the companies are all incredibly secretive about the data from their testing.

Magenn CFO Barry Monette said he expects “first revenue” next year when they sell “two to four” working prototypes of their blimpy machine, which will operate at much lower altitudes.

“We do think that we’re going to be first [to market], unless something happens,” Monette said.

In the long term, trying to power entire cities with machines like this would be difficult, largely because even in the best locations, the wind will fail at least 5 percent of the time.

“This means that you either need backup power, massive amounts of energy storage, or a continental- or even global-scale electricity grid to assure power availability,” said co-author Ken Caldeira, an ecologist at Stanford University. “So, while high-altitude wind may ultimately prove to be a major energy source, it requires substantial infrastructure.”

To see the individual designs of the various high-altitude wind machines, click through the images and videos on the following pages.

See Also:

Windmills in the Sky
Google’s Power Play
Researcher Pushes Enormous Floating Solar Islands
Carbon Burial Research Grows as Huge Experiment Begins
Image: Magenn

WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Google Reader feed, and book site for The History of Our Future; Wired Science on Facebook


I saw a documentary on this a few days ago and there are stabilization problems with the design, among other difficulties, but it also DID show it could be done at an altitude of 400-500 feet and generate energy. Small planes might consider these kites a nuisance too. The energy IS produced onsite so transmission lines wouldnt be needed. How much energy could be produced might be the critical question.

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Health Care

I've been a nurse for over a decade now. I've worked in emergency departments and in ICUs, in hospice programs and in faith communities. I've seen firsthand what happens when people don't have healthcare coverage. It doesn't just keep you from seeing your primary care provider - it changes fundamentally how you think about your health. What would normally be a routine problem to take care of, waits. Sometimes these problems go away; more often, they get worse. It is this kind of change in health behavior that is most problematic for individuals and for the healthcare system. This change in health behavior happens slowly over time and is hard to change once set in place. This is why adequate healthcare services, from cradle to grave, is essential for each person.

Take for example David*, a man in his mid-50's that came to see me at the social services center where I was providing health counseling and screening. I'd known David for sometime, and had seen him get more and more sick. He had, among many other problems, severe diabetes that he wasn't able to treat due to being unable to buy testing supplies and insulin. He was maximized on the services available to him in the community but still could not afford the care that he needed. Because of this, David's blood glucose levels would often run well over 500 mg/dL (for those who don't have a point of reference here, this is very high - in the life-threatening zone). I would counsel David on his need to go to the emergency department when his glucose levels would be this high but he rarely went. He simply had lost hope in treating his problems. He could not continue a treatment regimen when he left the hospital and he knew it. So, he stopped going to the emergency department.

The last time I saw David I had talked him in going to the emergency department because he had an obvious severe infection in his leg and his blood glucose levels were sky-high. I pleaded with him to go to the hospital, to which he agreed this once; he probably felt too bad to fight me that time. We got in my car and we headed to the emergency department. On the way, David asked me to stop by his house, so he could feed his dog. I reluctantly agreed - not because I didn't care about the dog, but because if David got out of my car he probably wouldn't get back in. My hunch proved true. David went into his house and a few minutes later came out and told me that he couldn't reach the person he needed to care for his dog. He promised to go to the emergency department later that day. I made sure he knew that he would die if he didn't go. He acknowledged this and thanked me for caring about him. Three days later, someone called me to let me know that David was found dead in his house the day before, two days after I tried to get him to the emergency department. David likely succumbed to an overwhelming infection and died quietly after he lost consciousness.

In looking back, there is nothing more I could have done for David. He wasn't mentally confused or unable to make decisions for himself. I believe David knew he would die and accepted that fate. He was, as much as I've ever seen anyone else, hopeless to improve his own health. Was he depressed? I don't think so. Should I have somehow forced him to go to the emergency department? No. I simply can't do that for anyone despite wanting to. Everyone has the right to make these kinds of medical and health-related decisions for themselves. In the healthcare world, we call this the right of autonomy or self-determination.

As I reflect more on the situation, I wonder if David made a truly autonomous decision. Certainly he chose in the end not to receive the care he needed to survive, but his choice was shaped largely by his previous experiences in our healthcare system. These experiences were fraught with prejudice and maltreatment due to his low socioeconomic class and his lack of healthcare insurance. David probably didn't do everything he could have to stay healthy. But who really does? He certainly didn't deserve to die because he couldn't afford the healthcare he needed.

I write of this experience because I think what is lacking in the whole healthcare reform debate are the personal stories with which Americans can identify. When we hear about the suffering of a friend or neighbor, we tend to have some sort of empathic response - we understand what it might be like to be in another person's position. I'm not sure we have collectively thought about healthcare reform from this perspective. This isn't just a matter of paying more taxes or choosing your own doctor. It is just as much about doing some collectively to address a current problem - that is, that people suffer and die because they can't get the care they need.

Just about the only guarantee of healthcare in this country is if you have a true medical emergency and you go to the emergency department (Note: If your problem isn't a true emergency, you can even be turned away from an emergency department). Outside of that, physicians and other private providers are not required to see you if you cannot pay them. Urgent care centers are not subject to the same federal requirements as are emergency departments when it comes to treating someone regardless of their ability to pay. Forget anything preventative which may save the healthcare system, and by proxy the average healthcare consumer, some money. For example, consider the 35-year old obese male with severe obstructive sleep apnea. Treat his apnea with a $400 CPAP machine now and you will save a heart attack, stroke, and tens of thousands of dollars later.

We have so many shared resources in this country that I find it hard to understand how healthcare services cannot be one of them. We already share things like roads, Social Security, Medicare, public schools, police departments, etc. Can't we share healthcare services, too? If we can't come to a place of understanding the need for healthcare reform by reason alone, can empathy work toward this end? Can we, in understanding the plight of our neighbors, friends, and family members, support reform which will make available to those in need the healthcare services that we all should enjoy when living and working a country as advanced and rich as ours? We've spent $864 Billion on the current wars, but a similar amount for healthcare over the next 10 years seems unreasonable to some. We cannot afford inaction. We must show we care about each other. No one should die because they don't have healthcare coverage.

Frugality Is The Norm Now

CNBCNext story
Market’s rally has likely fizzled out for now
Recession may turn Americans into coupon-cutters, scrimpers and

savers

M. Spencer Green / APMaureen Riley searches through one of her closets for items to discard at her home in Chicago. Riley, fed up with bad economic news, decided to change her lifestyle last month and began to give or throw away five items each day.The Associated Press

updated 2 hours, 20 minutes ago
CHICAGO — A year after "shop 'til you drop" stopped, the U.S. fixates on this question: Will consumer spending ever return to pre-recession levels?

Increasingly, the answer appears to be no. Belt-tightening in bad times is normal. And after every other recession since World War II, penny-pinching quickly fell out of fashion and Americans resumed their demand for houses, cars and everything else.

This time it's different. Like the Great Depression in the 1930s, the Great Recession seems destined to turn many Americans into lasting coupon-cutters, scrimpers and savers. Consumers dug a debt hole over the past decade from which there's no easy climb out. The population segment that drives spending the most — baby boomers — faces special pressure: Boomers are running out of time.

A study by research firm AlixPartners concluded that once a new normal sets in after this recession ends, Americans will spend at about 86 percent of their pre-downturn level.

In an economy driven by consumption, the implications are far-reaching if that forecast proves correct:

For every kitchen not remodeled, there will be lost sales of appliances and supplies, and fewer jobs for designers and contractors. As homeowners do work around the house themselves, there will be less work for gardeners, plumbers and handymen.
For every shopper who trades down from luxury stores to discount stores, it will mean less profit for retailers and manufacturers. Retailers will continue to offer few product choices and leaner inventories, and they'll reassess store locations and advertising.

If sales of cars and trucks average closer to the recession level of 10 million a year than the 16 million in boom times, more suppliers will fail and further consolidation among automakers could occur. Taxes not paid on lost vehicle sales will continue to stress budgets of state and local governments.

Frugality may be good for family budgets, but it's bad for the national economy. And that has the potential to reinforce and continue the miserly mood. A Gallup survey last month found seven in 10 Americans are cutting weekly expenses — a number that has been consistent through the summer.

A year after last fall's financial meltdown turned a garden-variety recession into the worst downturn since the Depression, thriftiness is still driven by the twin engines of necessity and fear. Unemployment, now at 9.7 percent, is still rising and expected to reach double digits before year's end for the first time since 1982. Many who still have jobs are getting paid less, and investments have a long way to go before they return to pre-meltdown levels.

'You think twice now'Kathy Haney, 46, of Orland Park, Illinois, has a job but is scaling back her shopping and packing her lunch.

"You put your priorities in different places because you never know if you're going to have a job tomorrow," the legal secretary says. "You think twice now. I have six TVs in the house. Do I really need a new flat screen?"

For her and many other Americans, the answer is no. The underlying causes of the meltdown and where it left millions financially suggests a fundamental change is under way. Personal spending has fallen in four of the last six quarters — the only time that's happened since quarterly records were first compiled in 1947.

In a normal recession, a vicious downward cycle of reduced spending by consumers and layoffs by employers finally eases and a virtuous cycle begins. Consumers start spending again. Factories ramp back up to meet the demand and hire workers. Incomes rise, fueling greater spending, more production and more jobs.

Until the Great Recession, the worst recession since World War II was in 1981-82. Unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent in December 1982, a month after the recession had ended.

The recovery that followed was powered by baby boomers, they were mostly in their 20s and early 30s then. Their careers were taking off, they were starting families, and they were spending freely. On homes, furniture, cars — and everything else. Saving for retirement was the last thing on their minds.

Fueled by boomers, when the recession ended, growth was explosive. Consumer spending rose 5.7 percent in 1983. GDP rose 4.5 percent in '83 and 7.2 percent in 1984.

"If someone gets more comfortable, they spend a little more," says Erik Hurst, an economist at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. "As they spend a little more, someone else spends more."

Credit-fueled bingeJump to today. For most of this decade, Americans enjoyed a credit-fueled binge that allowed them to spend more than they made. They snatched up everything from gadgets to houses.

Those houses soared in value and became as valuable a source of cash as a bank ATM. Home equity was tapped to pay for vacations, new cars and kitchen renovations. The rising stock market gave people an inflated sense of wealth as they watched their retirement accounts grow.

Not unlike the Roaring '20s, which preceded the Great Depression three generations ago, people believed the good times would never end. Per capita personal spending ballooned 25 percent from 2003 to 2005, according to data from Euromonitor International.

When the party ended, the nation was left with more than just a hangover. Personal debt had doubled in a decade. As of July, it stood at $13.8 trillion, or about $124,000 per household. Despite months of frugality, that was only slightly below its 2008 peak.

It will take years to work down the debt, which will prolong people's thriftiness. Paying it down will be harder because of the layoffs, pay cuts, freezes and furloughs. Personal income has fallen or been flat eight of the past 10 months.

On the asset side of their balance sheets, plunging stock prices and home values have made Americans feel poorer. Their net worth — the difference between the value of what they own and what they owe — has taken a staggering $12.2 trillion hit in the Great Recession. Net worth fell from $62.6 trillion at the end of 2007 to $50.4 trillion at the end of this year's first quarter, figures from the Federal Reserve show.

The result: Consumer spending adjusted for inflation fell 0.2 percent in 2008 — the first annual drop since 1980. Hardest hit from the first half of last year to the first half of this year: Motor vehicles and parts (down 17.2 percent); furnishings and durable household equipment (down 8.8 percent); clothing and footwear (down 5.8 percent).

"There will be a fundamental shift in the kind of cars we buy, a fundamental shift in the homes we buy, and a fundamental shift in consumption generally," says Matt Murray, an economist at the University of Tennessee. "And that is not something that took place in the 1980s."

As in the 1980s, much of that shift will be driven by baby boomers. For the 78 million people born from 1946 through 1964, the Great Recession hit at a particularly inopportune time — during peak years of earning and saving before retirement. Boomers range from 44 to 63 today — the youngest is nearly 10 years older than the oldest was in 1982. They are running out of time and are most likely to remain cautious spenders and become aggressive savers even as the economy improves.

Giving away what she amassed

The housing bubble mistakenly led boomers and millions of others to believe their home was their retirement nest egg. If they left their home equity alone during the boom, they've taken a hit the last couple years but are still ahead. But many treated their home like a personal bank and spent the gains by tapping a home equity line of credit.

Some now feel disgusted with the great national buying binge and are reacting against it. Last month, Chicago playwright Maureen Riley began giving away what she amassed.

"I felt this tremendous clarity as I looked around and saw my space emptying out and my closet emptying out," the 55-year-old says.

Despite all the battered personal balance sheets, thriftiness will abate somewhat as the economy continues to recover. There will still be vacations and home remodeling. But there will be caution, too.

Sanda Schramm, 63, a second-grade school teacher from Florham Park, New Jersey, and her husband Rob, 64, made changes after their retirement funds fell 20 percent below their peak. They considered themselves frugal before the recession. Now, they are even more tightfisted.

Instead of scouring for 40 percent discounts at Macy's and other department stores, she looks for 75 percent markdowns and shops more at consignment stores. They go out to dinner once a month instead of twice a week. And most everything they buy is paid for in cash, not with a credit card.

When the economy bounces back and her retirement accounts recover, Schramm says she'll continue to shop at consignment shops but will probably go to restaurants more.

"When the housing market and stocks were booming, everybody felt wealthy," she says. "But when everything goes down, you feel you're vulnerable ... I have always been careful, but now I am even more careful."

World's Biggest Solar Plant will Power 3 Million Homes

World's Biggest Solar Plant will Power 3 Million Homes
by Brian Merchant, Brooklyn, New York on 09. 8.09

Photo of another First Solar plant in Nevada

It seems every few months another 'world's biggest' renewable energy project gets unveiled--but this one's seriously huge. The US company First Solar has just signed a deal with the Chinese government to develop what will be the largest photovoltaic power plant in the world. This behemoth will generate 2,000 megawatts of power when it's built in the Mongolian desert, and it will power 3 million Chinese homes. And this isn't some pie-in-the-sky project that will never come to fruition--this one's coming soon, despite its jaw-dropping price tag.

And the sum of that price tag? Around $5-6 billion dollars, according to projections. But the cost isn't stopping the Chinese government from giving the audacious project the go ahead to break ground next year.

According to Green Inc,

The agreement calls for ground to be broken on the first 30-megawatt phase of the project by June 1, 2010, followed by 100-megawatt and 870-megawatt additions to be completed by the end of 2014. A final 1,000-megawatt phase is scheduled to go online by Dec. 31, 2019.

It's also notable that a US company was able to land such a big deal in China--a country notoriously protective of its fast-emerging renewable energy market. But the move, of course, benefits both parties: it has the potential to open up a huge market for solar power in China, and a plant to produce the solar cells will be opened on Chinese soil.

China is surging ahead with renewable energy projects like this, and it's seeking to become the world leader in the field. It has already staked a claim to the mantle of wind power leader with its gigantic wind farm projects, and now it looks as though it'll soon be home to the most impressive solar array in the world as well. The US is going to have to get moving if it hopes to catch up

Holy Grail Engine To Yield 100 MPG ?

Grail Engine Adopts Enerpulse Pulse Plugs for Forced Semi-Homogeneous Charged Compression Ignition in Concept Two-Stroke Engine
8 September 2009

Grail Engine Technologies, the designer of a two-stroke engine using forced semi-homogeneous charged compression ignition (FS-HCCI) combustion, has adopted the Pulstar pulse plugs from Enerpulse (earlier post). The Pulstar product offers very high power spark discharge, on the order of 1MW, to accelerate combustion pressures enabling forced semi-homogeneous combustion for all conditions.

HCCI is a combustion regime in which well-mixed fuel, exhaust gas and air are compressed to the point of auto-ignition. Unlike a spark ignition gas engine or diesel engine, HCCI produces a low-temperature, flameless release of energy throughout the entire combustion chamber. All of the fuel in the chamber is burned simultaneously. HCCI combustion can deliver a very efficient engine, potentially providing a 20% to 30% boost in gasoline engine efficiency without the NOx or PM emissions of a diesel.

Hurdles facing HCCI implementation include the difficulty of control, a limited power range and incomplete combustion; the Grail Engine is being designed to overcome these hurdles, according to Matthew Riley, CEO and Chief Research Scientist at Grail Engine Technologies.

By incorporating multiple, high-energy, rapid discharge points in the cylinder, HCCI can be forced allowing combustion to be controlled. This is the key to setting a new standard of fuel efficiency and emissions reductions. A 1-liter 2-cylinder Grail Engine using Pulstar pulse plugs is expected to yield 100+ mpg without batteries or power grid [Note: Using a commuter vehicle weighing 1,600 lbs/726 kg]. In different configuration the same displacement 1-liter engine can yield 200 hp [149 kW] and 180 lb-ft [244 N·m] of torque. The first 2-cylinder advanced prototype of the Grail Engine will be available for demonstration and testing in the 4th quarter 2010.

—Matthew Riley

According to a description of the Grail Pneumatic Two-Stroke Engine for the NASA Create the Future Design Contest 2008, the proposed two-stroke engine is based on the use of a piston assembly which includes the piston, a piston check valve, and piston intake vents.

Intake occurs when the piston moves up by creating a vacuum within the engine crankcase beneath the piston and piston check valve. A one-way intake reed valve & throttle plate (IRVTP) opens to allow outside ambient air to enter the crankcase. As the piston approaches Top Dead Center (TDC), the direct fuel injection system injects the fuel charge. Ignition occurs via the sparkplugs. Expansion forces the piston down, compressing the air in the crankcase below. Just before Bottom Dead Center (BDC), the exhaust valve opens, via a standard cam valve train (once per revolution of crankshaft.)

Compressed air in the crankcase beneath the piston travels through piston intake vents, the piston, and passes the piston check valve into the combustion chamber, forcing final exhaust and fresh air into the exhaust port. Just past BDC, the piston check valve and exhaust valve closes and cycles repeat.

The piston check valve operates on light spring and pneumatic air pressure between the combustion chamber and the crankcase. The piston intake vents extend like straws toward the center of the crank shaft at (BDC). Air is forced through the piston intake vents by the pressure in the crankcase. Oil is kept away from center of crank shaft by inertia and centrifugal force.

Detonation force (pressure) maintains the seal between the piston check valve and the piston. The piston check valve covers more than two-thirds of the piston top surface area. In his original design, Riley suggested that the check valve can be made of thin light titanium to help minimize inertia overthrow for higher RPM engines.

The piston check valve and the piston are cooled by incoming compressed air, also achieving Positive Crankcase Ventilation (PCV). Exhaust valve management allows the engine to independently configure (Intake Compression) to (Power Exhaust) ratios. This design allows for more than four ignition points in series or parallel depending on power or semi-homogeneous ignition when desired, according to Riley.

Burning Man Speaks

The Truth About Burning Man
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Read More: Adam Lambert, Adam Lambert American Idol, Baudrillard, Black Rock City, Burning Man, Burning Man Festival, Drugs, Jay Michaelson, Religion, Spirituality, Living News

"Really?" the guy at the Alamo Rental Car place said, when I'd told him about Burning Man. "I heard it was just a lot of naked people running around on drugs."

Coated in gypsum dust, and still high not on drugs but on the altered consciousness of radical creativity and community, I had just tried to describe what Burning Man is, somehow. I think I'd said something like, "It's a temporary city of 50,000 people, devoted to radical self-expression. So you'll find anything you'd find in a regular city -- art museums, dance clubs, yoga studios -- only in the middle of the desert, with no money, and with more creativity than you've ever seen."

Of the two descriptions, surely Rental Car Guy's is the more familiar. When Adam Lambert revealed that he'd gotten the idea to go on American Idol while on mushrooms at Burning Man, America groaned. The image, I assume, was of a drugged-out weirdo coming up with a loopy idea in the middle of wild, crazy party.

The truth, though, is that Burning Man is an ideal place for self-reflection and self-transformation, whether substance-aided or not, and as someone who's just gotten back from his 8th Burn, Lambert's revelation didn't surprise me a bit. Friends of mine have changed their names, their professions, and their entire lives at Burning Man. And not because they were stoned or tripping, but because Black Rock City -- the temporary city (built and erased within a month) where the event goes on every year, the week before Labor Day -- has a tendency to expand horizons, reveal possibilities, and question the assumptions most of us make about how we're supposed to live our lives.

Burning Man does this, I think, because of a combination of factors. One of them is the sheer size and scope of the thing. 50,000 people. Hundreds of cars and trucks modified to look like dragons, whales, radios, and steamboats; many breathing fire; most with dozens of revelers dancing on them. It's like "Mad Max" meets "Blade Runner" meets "The Ten Commandments," and it's real, it's actually happening.

And it's happening without capitalism. There's no vending at Burning Man -- it's a gift economy. Entire "theme camps" exist just to give away spaghetti, to serve people free margaritas, to make pancakes. Yes, it does cost a lot to get in (between $150-350), but that mostly pays for the rental of the land from the government, the porta-potties and other infrastructure, and grants made to large-scale art projects. No one -- not the celebrity DJs who were there this year, like Armin van Buuren and Carl Cox, and not the people who build the solar electrical grid -- gets paid. No one is making a buck.

This is incredibly liberating. It's not sustainable, but it is a temporary autonomous zone of bullshit-free living. And just being there, just participating in the creation of an entire city devoted to what we want to do, rather than what we have to do to make money, has the tendency to invite self-reflection like Lampert's. Who am I? What do I really want to be doing? If people can create a twelve-ton sculpture of a bird's nest made entirely out of plumbing pipe, what are the limits on my own creativity? "Once you are free," said Baudrillard, "you are forced to ask who you are."

The freedom is more than just freedom from conventional economic life, though. Yes, there are some naked people running around on drugs, because the culture of Black Rock City is a very, very liberal one. (It's not free of law enforcement -- this year in particular, I heard many stories of people being busted for drugs, and for giving alcohol to minor-aged-looking undercover cops.) Of course, how people choose to exercise that freedom is up to them. For every NPRAOD, I'd guess there are two people wishing they had the courage to do so, one person playing the violin on a sofabed in the middle of a desert, two people cooking pumpkin ravioli, and another person writing the name of her beloved on the wooden walls of the Temple -- this year a three-story, Lotus-shaped construction just north of the center of the city, that was burned last Sunday night.

Of course, we don't hear about these other people, which, to me, says more about the puerility of the default world than the sexuality of Black Rock City. It's as if radical self expression is boring, but if it means naked people on drugs, then it's titillating, easy to condemn -- and also comprehensible. Oh, I get it.

You don't get it. You don't get what it's like to have 50,000 people circle around a wooden effigy, with 1000 people spinning fire and 500 more playing drums, all encircled by 200 art cars -- and then all roaring in unison as the effigy is set afire. You might think you get it, and it may scare or tempt or delight you, but I assure you, you don't get it. None of us do, because it's not about any one thing in particular; "it" can be an orgiastic celebration, or the sad mourning of a lost loved one. Or a warm, hippie-like community. Or a mean, Mad-Max-like apocalypse. "It" is chiefly a space in which all these things are possible.

The temporary erasure of societal, social, and personal boundaries is, for most of us, terrifying. Such boundaries help build the structures of society and self; they give form to human life, which is often chaotic and unpredictable. Thus they have been the bedrock of religious and civil life for millennia, even before the Furies were imprisoned under Athens, and Moses descended from Sinai.

But if religion creates boundaries, mysticism and spirituality efface them. In the transcendence of ordinary distinctions, peak experiences such as those encouraged at Burning Man give a glimpse of the ultimate, the infinite. It may seem absurd to suggest that Burning Man is a mystical event. But then, if it's just a big party, why is there a temple in the middle of it?

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Scientists have found three new major genetic links to Alzheimer's

1 in 5 fewer may get Alzheimer’s due to finding
Scientists say link to 3 genes is most significant discovery in 15 years

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1 in 5 fewer may get Alzheimer’s due to finding

By Kate Kelland

updated 3:00 p.m. ET, Sun., Sept . 6, 2009
LONDON - Scientists have found three new major genetic links to Alzheimer's, affecting up to 20 percent of people with the brain-wasting disease, and said on Sunday it was the most significant such discovery in 15 years.

Two large studies found that the three new genes join the better-known APOE4 gene as significant risk factors for the most common cause of dementia.

"If we were able to remove the detrimental effects of these genes through treatments, we could reduce the proportion of people developing Alzheimer's by 20 percent," Julie Williams, a professor of Neuropsychological Genetics at Britain's Cardiff University, told a news conference in London.

Alzheimer's disease affects more than 26 million people globally, has no cure and no good treatment. The need for effective remedies is pressing, with the number of cases forecast to go beyond 100 million by 2050.

Current drugs can only delay the symptoms endured by patients, who lose their memories, the ability to find their way around and to care for themselves.

Williams, who led one of the two studies published in Nature Genetics, said that in Britain alone, eradicating the effects of the three new genes would mean almost 100,000 people could avoid the disease.

She said the findings were the most significant genetic discoveries for Alzheimer's in the 15 years since APOE4 was found to be linked, and said drug companies had shown a keen interest in their research.

More genes out there to catch

Williams and colleagues at Cardiff's Medical Research Council Center for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics carried out a genome-wide association study — a scan of the entire genetic map — involving more than 16,000 people from eight countries. They identified two new genes — called Clusterin and PICALM — that increase the risk of developing Alzheimer's.

A second genome-wide study conducted by Philippe Amouyel and colleagues at the Institut Pasteur de Lille in France, studied more than 6,000 people with Alzheimer's and nearly 9,000 healthy people in France, Belgium, Finland, Italy and Spain. They identified Clusterin and a third gene called CR1.

Amouyel said the disease risks associated with each gene were difficult to quantify, and said all three genes were relatively common. The scientists also stressed that an as yet unknown combination of many genetic and other environmental factors cause Alzheimer's.

The researchers said Clusterin may explain 10 percent of Alzheimer's cases, PICALM around 9 percent and CR1 4 percent. By comparison, 20 to 25 percent of Alzheimer's cases are linked to APOE.

Three gene variations have also been associated with rare, early-onset forms of Alzheimer's that run in families. Identifying the genes can help researchers understand the underlying causes of a disease and design drugs to fight them.


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Michael Owen, director of the Cardiff center, said their study also found evidence that other genes could play a role in the risk of developing Alzheimer's.

"It's a bit like we have been fishing with a fishing net and we've pulled out some fish. We know there are more fish there, and with a finer mesh net we can catch them," he said.

The Cardiff team now plans a further study involving 60,000 participants to look deeper into genetic causes of Alzheimer's.