Cool Solar LED Lights For Coke Bottles

Here's a cool idea. I read about these over at Ecogeek.com and had to share it here. This is an awesome idea, especially for a Coke-a-Cola guzzler like myself (I usually buy cans--recyclable). You can turn those unused soda bottles into cool lights for your yard!

Read more about it at Ecogeek.

Robert Poole on Obama's Transportation Policy

Pretty Cool Video Showing Solar Panel Performance Differences

Hot or cold? This video demonstrates how solar panels that are kept cool perform much better.

Telephone poles to biofuels

From Yahoo News
By Hank Green

When we think of feedstocks for biofuels, generally we think of harvesting something (corn, switchgrass, etc.) that we grew in a field. But there is cellulose in all kinds of things, from newspaper to banana peels to, that's right, telephone poles.

Canadian biofuel company Enerkemis looking for a plentiful, cheap, and interesting source for its cellulose, and they've decided that telephone poles might be a good bet. In fact, telephone poles are what biofuels companies are starting to call "negative cost feedstocks" or anything that you get paid to take away.

Enerkem has a thermo-chemical process that turns wood into ethanol. And though old telephones are less ideal than new wood, because they contain various treatment chemicals, they're perfectly suitable for the process.

The plant will be turning old telephone poles into about 1.3 million gallons of ethanol per year after it goes online in a couple of months.

Of course, these negative cost feedstocks are only going to last so long, and won't be useful on a significant scale. But for helping cellulosic ethanol companies get their start and begin to scale up their solutions, they're perfect.

NAIAS Detroit Auto Show Roundup

The roundup of what was announced as "green" (and actually was) at the Detroit Auto Show this year.

No Need for Condoms – GE Corn Can Do the Job

New research from Austria shows that a commercial strain of Monsanto-made GE corn causes mice to have fewer and weaker babies. What is this doing to human fertility?

Regulators around the world said Monsanto’s GE corn was as safe as non-GE strains.

It has been approved in many countries and regions including the US, the EU, Argentina, Japan, Philippines and South Africa.

China approved the GE corn for animal feed back in 2005.

Until this research, under the Austrian Ministries for Agriculture and Health, none of the regulators had seriously questioned the safety of Monsanto’s GE corn.

The biotech industry is playing a game of genetic roulette with our food and with our health.

Read the rest at this link.

A123, Ener1 Vie For Federal Dollars

Two battery companies are trying to get federal money to fund their operations and expansion. Isn't that the private sector's job?

Read on: http://www.zoomilife.com/2009/01/13/battery-bailout-a123-ener1-vie-for-federal-dollars/

Bail out Big 3 by cutting red tape

Reducing excessive regulation helps Detroit without costing taxpayers
Iain Murray

Why are we spending $17 billion of taxpayers' money propping up two Detroit automakers (notably not Ford Motor Co.)? What the auto companies really need is a reduction in their regulatory burden.

Through excessive regulation, Congress has placed Detroit at a competitive disadvantage with foreign automakers, since many rules are aimed at eliminating the sort of vehicles that Detroit has proved adept at designing and marketing.

The following deregulatory bailout will help the embattled automakers without spending a dime of taxpayers' money:

Repeal federal fuel economy requirements. They restrict consumer choice by insisting that fuel economy take precedence over safety and impose restrictions on design that reduce the competitive advantage of Detroit automakers. If a reduction in fuel use is a necessary policy goal (I would contend it is not, but that's an argument for another time), there are other policy options that would not impose direct costs on the automakers or restrict consumer choice. One is to remove the absurd "two fleet" rule that uniquely hampers U.S. automakers by prohibiting them from counting their foreign-made vehicles toward their fleet fuel economy average. Moreover, by reducing the weight of vehicles, high fuel economy mandates remove the single most cost-effective safety design feature of all, so this bailout measure would also save thousands of lives each year.

• Reduce the burden of safety legislation. There are too many safety rules that are counter-productive, such as mandated air bags, which have proved dangerous to children and people of less-than-average height. Consumers should be free to pick from a menu of safety options that allows them to take their own circumstances and preferences into account. This does not mean that automakers should be free to build cars that explode on ignition. There is a range of safety considerations, from safe to extremely safe. The United States is requiring too many "extremely safe" features while perversely reducing safety though fuel economy requirements. Again, the Detroit manufacturers feel these more intensely than other manufacturers because of the sort of vehicles they have specialized in.

• Halt the march of further design regulations. My colleague Wayne Crews has identified 22 new regulations that were being pursued last year that would increase the costs of designing and manufacturing new cars.

• Remove artificial barriers to merger through too strict interpretations of antitrust law. Federal antitrust authorities have stopped attempts at a merger of General Motors and Chrysler because the two firms together would have a dominant position in the "light truck market." Yet the recent oil price spike proved that customers easily substitute passenger cars for light trucks, showing that there is no such distinct market. If GM and Chrysler could merge, there would be plenty of scope for eliminating inefficiencies, which would allow the merged company to compete more effectively.

• Allow automakers--and, indeed, all firms--to repatriate foreign profits without double taxation. This will provide a much needed injection of funds. No other country handicaps its own companies in this way.

• Suspend particulate matter regulations emanating from California -- but imposed on the United States. These regulations prevent automakers from selling in America the kind of high-mileage diesel-powered cars that sell well in Europe and meet all European emissions requirements. This will immediately reduce fuel usage and reduce the Detroit companies' research and design costs, which must now go toward meeting California standards. Moreover, because the cars already meet European Union environmental and safety standards, there would be no significant reduction in those protections.

Taken together, this deregulatory bailout package would go a long way to restore Detroit's competitive advantage and obviate the need for taxpayer money. Congress has hurt Detroit by burdening it with myriad rules. It should recognize that and remove them, rather than hurt taxpayers as well.

Iain Murray is director of projects and analysis and senior fellow in energy, science and technology at the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., and a contributor to OpenMarket.org. E-mail comments to letters@detnews.com.

Hydrogen Fuel Maker

We've all seen the "make your car run on water" websites that look like (and probably are) scams. The concept is real, though, I'm just dubious about the get-rich-quick-style websites that promote the "kits" to ad this to your car.

Here's a good demonstration of how a simple fuel cell works:

I'm not sure who this guy is, but if he's actually from "hho4all.com" he needs to have his site looked at. GoDaddy says the site is "under construction."

Where I Want To Work if I Ever Have To Get a Real Job

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG3HPX0D2mU

This is where I really want to work if I ever have to go get a real job. Sweet!

Nuclear officially more expensive than renewables

According to a new report from the generally pro-nuclear organization, Climate Progress, nuclear power is just about the most expensive carbon-free option on the table today. In response, the organization is considering completely eliminating nuclear power from it's plan to make the world's power generation carbon free.

Nuclear power plants being built today are required to have strict safety measures as well as waste disposal plans that make them significantly more expensive than previous nuclear power plants. The result is that prices for nuclear power have increased, currently at around 30 cents per kW/h. Or, roughly three times the cost of today's average utilities, ten times the cost of reducing power use through efficiency and double the cost of solar thermal.

Toshiba Goes Solar

Toshiba organizes unit to pursure solar business, leveraging its strengths in batteries, power systems, and grid integration.

"Toshiba will secure orders for large solar power generation systems by drawing on its competitive advantages. In components, the company's expertise includes high-efficiency power conditioning systems and the SCiB - the Super Charge ion Battery - Toshiba's breakthrough rechargeable battery that offers excellent safety, long life and rapid charging. In system integration, Toshiba can point to world-class capabilities in system integration, particularly in connecting generation systems to distribution systems; in microgrids that connect and manage dispersed small-scale power generation sources, including renewable energy sources; and in large plant system engineering capabilities."

Pretty cool. Read more about it at their website here.

Road Taxes Based on Miles Driven, Not Fuel: Take a Hike, Fuel Efficiency!

Nobody ever accused government of being smart except for those who are actually in government. In a world where gasoline-powered vehicles are supposedly the cause of all of our environmental worries, government is stepping in to...take away your incentive for buying a fuel-efficient vehicle, of course. What else would they do?

This headline from Yahoo! news is illustrative of how this works...and how they'll invade your privacy in order to do it: Oregon looks at taxing mileage instead of gasoline

Welcome to the New World Order (of stupidity) chum. I have an idea: why not just tax each vehicle when it's registered and have the money go into the county's road maintenance coffers (as it does now). Then the state can tax the counties for the state-run roads that run through them. That would eliminate the gasoline tax altogether and mean no more worries about who drives how far and how much and how you're going to track it. It just taxes your vehicle's registration, which makes it legally drive-able on public roads.

Those who don't use public roads (e.g. show cars, cars that are trailered-only, such as racing vehicles, and garaged museum pieces) don't get taxed, since there's no point either. Plus the tax is flat: the fairest kind of tax there is. If taxes can ever be called "fair," that is.

Here's another idea: tax the tires people buy to put on their cars that drive on those roads. New tires mean taxes paid. The more you drive, the more often you'll buy tires. Hey! Novel concept! Easy to understand and nobody needs to register anything or be tracked and accounted for.

Nope, these concepts are too easy and logical for government work. Better come up with something that's as complicated, unwieldy, and unfair as possible. Preferably something that creates more government overhead and more government "jobs." Bureaucracy loves to grow, after all. Efficiency is not allowed in government. The two words shouldn't even be in the same sentence.

Ya, welcome to the New World Order (of stupidity).

Climate Scammers Prepare to Sacrifice Some Impoverished Asthmatics

by Vin Suprynowicz

As usual, it was initially reported as unmitigated “happy news.”

“Your Metered-Dose Inhaler is Changing to Help Improve the Environment,” is how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration chooses to present word that the inhalers used by those who suffer from asthma and other respiratory ailments are being pulled from the shelves as of Jan. 1.

Back in 1987, representatives of the federal government signed the “Montreal Protocol,” in which 27 major industrialized nations agreed to halve their use of chlorofluorocarbon gases, which some believe could damage the earth’s ozone layer.

Real-world experiments to prove the theory have been in short supply – it’s hard to imagine how one would be devised, since it would first have to be shown how chlorofluorocarbons, which tend to be heavier than air, could reach the ozone layer in the first place.

Nor did the Montreal deal actually call for banning the propellant from the inhalers, since that use represents only about 1.5 percent of all CFC uses (it was less than 1.0 percent at the time), and signatory nations get to choose what uses to change. (Car air-conditioning systems were the first use targeted – Greens hate cars – whereas the Environmental Protection Agency saw no immediate need to go after document-preservation sprays, foam insulation for coaxial cable, or CFC-based fire extinguishers.)

But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ruled the switch would be mandatory as soon as a viable replacement could be marketed.

So 22.9 million American asthma sufferers now face a changeover to more expensive brand-name alternatives that use the “environmentally friendlier” propellant hydrofluoralkane – which can be three times as expensive, raising the cost to about $40 per inhaler.

Why not wait to make the change after generic alternatives become available? Skeptics point out that changing now could mean billions more dollars for the three drug companies that hold patents on the replacement HFA-albuterol inhalers, according to Emily Harrison, writing in the August issue of Scientific American.

At least one member of the FDA advisory committee, Nicholas J. Gross of the Stritch-Loyola School of Medicine, has publicly regretted the decision, recanting his support and requesting that the ban be pushed back until 2010, when the first patent expires, Ms. Harrison wrote.

Meantime, multiple studies have shown that raising costs leads to poorer adherence to treatment; one study found that patients took 30 percent less anti-asthma medication, for instance, when their co-pay doubled. There are also concerns about patients getting proper instruction on use of the new inhalers, which need to be primed more often than the old models, and which also tend to clog and need to be cleaned more often.

Considering that asthma and other respiratory diseases disproportionately strike the poor, is it possible that what seemed to be a good, responsible environmental decision might in the end exact an unexpected human toll – leading to more asthma deaths? How should that risk be weighed against the risk of the chlorofluorocarbons to the ozone layer, and the subsequent health risks to all mankind?

To answer that question, we’d need to know whether CFCs really damage the ozone layer, and by how much – the kind of real-world scientific data (as opposed to jury-rigged computer models, dubbed “GIGOs” in the trade) that the radical greens show little patience for gathering, prone as they are to shout: “The debate is over! No time to dilly-dally! By the time we know, it’ll be too late!”

Funny how that always works out.

Carbon Capture and "Storage" As a Fix

One of the latest and most touted technologies for saving the planet from our evil carbon emissions is to capture that carbon and store it, usually by stuffing it into the ground. In a karmic sense, this is a pretty great idea since the carbon likely came out of the ground to start with.

In Europe, it's being done at coal-burning power plants. The emissions are literally piped into the ground and stuffed into porous rock, which acts like a sponge to water. This technology works similarly to the oil extraction process used in Canada, in which water is shoved into the ground to displace oil captured in porous rock, forcing it to come out and keeping the ground stable in the process.

The problem with carbon stuffing, which is my term for this capture process, is that it's only a temporary solution to a problem whose existence is debatable. I don't like pollution any more than the next guy, but these power plants are rarely near city or urban centers, adding to smog and air quality concerns. The other problem is the environmental impact this could be having, especially on ground water and other things. I don't see anyone studying that phenomenon.

At any rate, at least they're thinking about it realistically instead of in some dream-world state like Al Gore and his cronies seem to be always floating in, way up in the sky in that multi-million dollar, fossil-fuel burning corporate jet they cruise around in to meet their various appointments to preach about "going green."

In my mind, this carbon stuffing is really nothing more than a stop-gap, feel-good measure that doesn't actually solve any problems, but does get the abusive greenies off your back. You know, those people who drive around in their Subaru Foresters and complain about the lack of "alternatives" so they can be "greener."

I would point them to the multitude of very green, very available electric vehicles spreading around the planet. Sure, they generally either look stupid or cost way too much, but that shouldn't be a problem for these people who're willing to sacrifice (everything everyone else has) so that they can feel better about their "footprint." Right?