NewsTrust - Green Technology - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

Wind farms can increase night time temperatures, research reveals

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Damian Carrington - Apr. 29 - Study in US claims building of huge wind farms in Texas has increased night temperatures by up to 0.72C Large windfarms can increase local night time temperatures by fanning warmer air onto the ground, new research has revealed. The study used satellite data to show that the building of huge wind farms in west Texas over the last decade has warmed the nights by up to 0.72C. "Wind power is going to be a part of the solution to the climate change, air pollution and energy security problem," said Liming Zhou, at the University of Albany in New York. "But understanding the impacts of wind farms is critical for developing management strategies to ensure the long-term sustainability of wind power." West Texas has seen rapid expansion of wind farms , with turbine numbers rising from 111 in 2003 to 2358 in 2011. Zhou's team compared the land surface temperatures at the wind farms with other areas across this period and detected a clear rise at night. They note, however, that the effect on the ...

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Letters: Shale gas could fracture our renewables policy

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - Apr. 24 - It beggars belief that fracking is recommended to be extended and earthquakes the only risk taken into account ( Gas fracking gets the green light , 17 April). Other risks are not just theoretical; appalling consequences have already happened on a wide scale in the US. Fracking has been carried out in rural areas where people's off-grid water supplies have been made unusable by pollution. There have been cases where people cannot use water from the tap at the kitchen sink because methane comes with it, with the risk of explosions. Only half the chemical-laden water used in the process is recovered. It is then kept in lagoons on the surface where it is allowed to evaporate volatile toxic chemicals into the air. We cannot afford the risk to our water supplies. We don't have the open spaces which have been affected in the US. Even now we are faced with water restrictions and drought. We don't have the necessary huge quantities of water available to be used and made dirty for ever. The landscape ...

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Tracking Women: Now There’s Not An App For That

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Andrew Dowell - Apr. 01 (Opinion) - Score one small setback for creepiness. Location-based social network Foursquare Labs has cut off access to its technology for an application that made it possible for guys to pinpoint the location of nearby women on a map and view their personal data and photographs.

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Tennessee bill protects teachers who challenge evolution and climate change

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Suzanne Goldenberg - Mar. 21 - State legislature gives legal protection to teachers who do not believe in the science and want to debate alternate explanations The state legislature of Tennessee has given legal cover to public school teachers to challenge the science of evolution and climate change, in a move that looks set to deepen a debate about politicisation of the classroom. The bill passed in the Tennessee Senate this week provides legal protection to teachers who personally do not believe in evolution or the human causes of climate change, and instead want to teach the "scientific strengths and weaknesses of existing scientific theories". It comes at a time when science associations are increasingly concerned by moves to inject religious or ideological beliefs into science teaching ahead of the release next month of a new set of education standards which give a central place to climate change. The new standards, based on recommendations from the National Research Council, are not mandatory for all states. ...

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Editorial Board: Is the fight against global warming hopeless?

Sun, 26 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Washington Post - By Editorial Board - Feb. 26 (Opinion) - IS THE FIGHT against global warming hopeless? It can seem so. The long-term threat to the climate comes from carbon dioxide, which lingers in the atmosphere for hundreds of years , locking in higher temperatures for generations. After decades of effort, only about one-tenth of America’s energy mix comes from renewable sources that don’t produce carbon ...

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Vintage ketch sets sail to launch slow cargo movement - The Guardian

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - Feb. 13 - Vintage ketch sets sail to launch slow cargo movement The Guardian The hope is that, with this symbolic journey, Irene – a lovely wooden ketch built in Somerset in 1907 to transport bricks and tiles – will blaze a trail for wind-powered cargo ships. The project, New Dawn Traders, was hatched by Jamie Pike, ... and ...

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'Stirling' power should propel spacecraft, experts say

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New Scientist - Feb. 02 - 'Stirling' power should propel spacecraft, experts say

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Project to pour water into volcano to make power

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

San Jose Mercury News - By editor@mercurynews.com (

By Jeff Barnard

Associated Press

) - Jan. 15 - Geothermal energy developers plan to pump 24 million gallons of water into the side of a dormant volcano in Central Oregon this summer to demonstrate new technology they hope will give a boost to a green energy sector that has yet to live up to its promise.

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Warmth In Winter: Smart Windows To Let Heat In

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

All Things Considered - Nov. 29 - Windows treated with an insulating film are twice as efficient as regular double-pane windows, since they block heat from entering a building. That's useful on warm days, but inefficient when it's cold. One lab is researching a new coating that could be turned on and off with an electrical current.

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Rural Peru gets connected | Mattia Cabitza

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Mattia Cabitza - Nov. 28 - More than 100 communities in rural Peru now have renewable energy and internet access, thanks to an aid programme that is being rolled out across the eight poorest nations in Latin America The connection was not of crisp video quality, but the chorus of schoolchildren from San José de Huamaní, near Ica in the south, could be heard loud and clear: "Good morning," they chanted. Hundreds of kilometres away, they were greeted with applause, through video link, by a brightly lit conference room full of Peruvian and European Union officials. They were meeting in Lima to announce the completion of an aid programme that is taking renewable energy and the internet to 130 rural communities in Peru. With funding from the EU, the Euro-Solar programme is being rolled out across the eight poorest nations of Latin America, such as Peru, at a cost of €36m ($47.6m/£30.9m). The aim is to benefit more than 300,000 people whose communities are not connected to the electricity grid. Via satellite ...

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Here Comes The Sun

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Nov. 06 (Opinion) - We are, or at least we should be, on the cusp of an energy transformation, driven by the rapidly falling cost of solar power. That’s right, solar power. If that surprises you, if you still think of solar power as some kind of hippie fantasy, blame our fossilized political system, in which fossil fuel producers have both powerful political allies and a powerful propaganda machine that denigrates alternatives.

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Jimmy Carter: 'We never dropped a bomb. We never fired a bullet. We never went to war'

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Carole Cadwalladr - Sep. 11 - He may live a modest life in a one-horse town, but Jimmy Carter, now 86, retains his global vision. And 30 years after leaving the White House, the peanut farmer turned president is still a man on mission. In Plains, Georgia, we found the 39th US president full of energy… and determined to make a difference Where does Jimmy Carter live? Well, close your eyes and imagine the kind of house an ex-president of the United States might live in. The sort of residence befitting the former leader of the most powerful nation on earth. Got it? Right, now scrub that clean from your mind and instead imagine the sort of house where a moderately successful junior accountant and his family might live. It's what in America is called a "ranch house", or, as we'd say, "a bungalow". There are no porticoes. No columns. No sweeping lawns. There's just a small brick single-storey structure that Jimmy and his wife, Rosalynn, built on Woodland Drive back in 1961 when he was a peanut farmer and she was a peanut ...

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Even with presidents and hurricanes, it's calm here

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - Aug. 28 - Locals and vacationers alike chill out in this corner of Martha's Vineyard, despite the approaching storm. 'Who needs electricity?' remarks one.On Friday morning, as President Obama juggled conference calls and drafted a statement on the approaching hurricane from his retreat at Blue Heron Farm, the hub of activity in this onetime sheepherding town was five miles west at the Chilmark General Store.

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Southeast a holdout in mandating renewable energy

Sat, 06 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

San Francisco Chronicle - By By RAY HENRY, Associated Press - Aug. 06 - Southeast a holdout in mandating renewable energy

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What a population of 7 billion people means for the planet

Mon, 18 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - Jul. 18 - With global population expected to surpass 7 billion people this year, the staggering impact on the environment is hard to ignore Demographers aren't known for their sense of humor, but the ones who work for the United Nations recently announced that the world's human population will hit 7 billion on Halloween this year. Since censuses and other surveys can scarcely justify such a precise calculation, it's tempting to imagine that the UN Population Division, the data shop that pinpointed the Day of 7 Billion, is hinting that we should all be afraid, be very afraid. We have reason to be. The 21st century is not yet a dozen years old, and there are already 1 billion more people than in October 1999 — with the outlook for future energy and food supplies looking bleaker than it has for decades. It took humanity until the early 19th century to gain its first billion people; then another 1.5 billion followed over the next century and a half. In just the last 60 years the world's population has ...

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Why the Southwest is burning

Sat, 09 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Salt Lake Tribune - Jul. 09 - By william debuys Writers on the Range Published Jul 8, 2011 04:25PM MDT No big thing happens for just one reason. This season’s fires, cutting broad swaths across the Southwest, result from the convergence of three powerful forces: climatic drought, institutional tunnel vision, and old-fashioned human frailty. On the face of it, the drought is simple: There hasn’t been much rain or snow across much of the region, and the forests are tinder dry. Many people ask if climate change might be a factor. A definite answer is both impossible and obvious to give — impossible ... ...

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If we need taxes, why not pollution taxes?

Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Brad Plumer - Jun. 02 (Opinion) - After all, if we have to raise revenue, we may as well slap higher taxes on behavior we'd like to discourage (like pollution and congestion) rather than, say, labor, no?

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Jonah Goldberg: Cooling on global warming

Sun, 01 May 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Associated Press - By Jonah Goldberg Vail, CO, Colorado - May. 01 - "What the heck went wrong?" That, apparently, is the question roiling the environmental community as it realizes that the fight against climate change has fizzled. As Brad Plumer writes in the New Republic, everything was ...

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Jonah Goldberg: Cooling on global warming

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - Apr. 26 - The fight against climate change has fizzled, with much of the public not believing or not caring. That's why Obama tries to change the subject to jobs when he talk about energy policy."What the heck went wrong?" That, apparently, is the question roiling the environmental community as it realizes that the fight against climate change has fizzled.

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Unsure about nuclear power? The five questions you must answer to decide

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - Apr. 21 (Opinion) - Twenty five years on from Chernobyl, the heated debate on nuclear power remains resistant to cold facts: simply too few are known. But making your own judgements on five key questions will lead to your answer Containing the elemental forces that rage inside a nuclear reactor is one of the great achievements of science, but losing control, as happened 25 years ago on Tuesday at Chernobyl , is one of its greatest failures. So what to think of nuclear power ? People often ask me if I support or oppose the building of new nuclear power stations, presuming I think that because of my job, I'll know the answer. If only it was that easy. Until the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant , I would say I was 51% in favour, on the basis that we need all the low-carbon electricity we can get to avoid the worst impacts of climate change and that I tend to trust scientists having been one. But 51% in favour is a pretty unsatisfactory position - it's 1% off I don't know. Surely I can be more certain ...

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Why nuclear power is still a good choice

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Los Angeles Times - By Mark Lynas - Apr. 10 (Opinion) - Perspective is needed when deciding between nuclear and other power sources. Renewable energy and conservation aren't enough in the real world. And burning fossil fuels will only worsen global warming. What a strange turn of events. Instead of uniting the environmental movement in renewed opposition to nuclear power, the Fukushima disaster in Japan has divided it still further. An increasing number of green advocates, including some very prominent voices, have declared their support for nuclear power as a clean energy option, even as radioactive water accumulates and the timeline for cleaning up the contaminated areas extends by decades. Can they be serious? They can. The irony of Fukushima is that in forcing us all to confront our deepest fears about the dangers of nuclear power, we find many of them to be wildly irrational — based on scare stories propagated through years of unchallenged mythology and the repeated exaggerations of self-proclaimed "experts" in the anti-nuclear movement. As the British environmental writer George Monbiot has pointed out, if we took the scientific consensus on nuclear energy as seriously as we take the scientific consensus on climate change, we environmentalists would be telling a very different story.

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The conversation: Is nuclear power still the answer to our energy problems?

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Susanna Rustin - Mar. 26 (Opinion) - As we move to reduce our reliance on high-carbon energy, George Monbiot believes nuclear is the best option. No, says Caroline Lucas , renewables should be the priority. Susanna Rustin chairs the debate This week George Monbiot wrote that the Fukoshima disaster had won him over to nuclear power. Green MP Caroline Lucas believes the technology is costly and dangerous. Susanna Rustin brought them together, and heard the arguments. Caroline Lucas: There are cheaper, faster, safer, more effective ways of getting our emissions down than going nuclear. George Monbiot: But we're asking that renewables replace our fossil fuel-based electricity system. We're asking that they replace much of our domestic heating, and supply much of our transport. If, added to all that, we are requesting that the current nuclear generation is replaced with renewables, then we make that task a whole lot tougher. And one of the things Fukoshima has done for me is to show that the side-effects of nuclear power are ...

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Wind power cheaper than nuclear, says EU climate chief

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Fiona Harvey, Terry Macalister - Mar. 18 - Connie Hedegaard says declining cost of offshore wind energy makes it genuine alternative to crisis-hit nuclear industry Generating energy from wind turbines at sea would be cheaper than building new atomic power plants, Europe's climate chief has said, in the latest challenge to the crisis-stricken nuclear industry . Connie Hedegaard, the EU climate change commissioner , said: "Some people tend to believe that nuclear is very, very cheap, but offshore wind is cheaper than nuclear. People should believe that this is very, very cheap." Offshore wind energy has long been seen as an expensive way of generating power, costing about two to three times more than erecting turbines on land, but the expense is likely to come down, while the costs of nuclear energy are opaque, according to analysis by the European commission. The nuclear crisis in Japan has led the UK, France and other countries to tell their nationals to consider leaving Tokyo , in response to fears of spreading nuclear ...

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Models guiding climate policy are 'dangerously optimistic'

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - Feb. 24 (Opinion) - environmentresearchweb : Computer models predicting future climate change are underestimating emissions and overestimating technology, warns climate scientist Kevin Anderson Integrated assessment models (IAMs) used by researchers today – where climate change data is integrated with economic data – are dangerously flawed because they are based on naïve assumptions, according to Kevin Anderson from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change at the University of Manchester, UK. Anderson told environmentalresearchweb: "The vast majority of IAMs assume low emission growth rates; early emission peaks; annual reduction rates limited to between 2 and 4%; untested geoengineering; and a high penetration of nuclear power alongside untested 'carbon capture and storage' technologies. Because IAMs typically use similar and inappropriate sets of assumptions, they repeatedly come up with the same narrow and fundamentally flawed answers." Anderson argues that actual emissions growth rates are much higher than ...

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Another Triumph for the Greens

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 10:40:34 -0800

Weekly Standard - By Jonathan V. Last - Jan. 26 (Opinion) - To go with toilets that don’t flush and light bulbs that don’t light, we now have dishwashers that don’t wash.

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