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Story Archives of 'Energy'
Here's What's Awesome: Robots in the Ocean, Lightswitch Ghosts
By Brady Carlson on Sunday, November 15, 2009.Welcome to Here's What's Awesome, answer the secret word and you'll get an extra fourteen cents. It's a common word, something you find around the internet.
20,000 Robotic Submersibles Under the Sea
Climate Change Refugees
By Virginia Prescott on Thursday, November 5, 2009.From the coast of Australia to the shores of the Maldives public officials are looking out at the ocean with increasing alarm.
A report presented at the International Scientific Congress on Climate Change predicts that sea level could rise as much as three feet by the year 2100. If these predictions come to pass, entire cities and even countries would be wiped out, turning citizens into refugees. Some researchers predict that 75 million Pacific Islanders will be forced to relocate by 2050.
Last week, an Australian parliamentary committee recommended a ban on coastal development. One official there said bans would be necessary if the government wanted to prevent, “a major loss of life” if erratic weather patterns and rising seas continue.
Joining us with more is geophysicist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry Pollack. Pollack is the author of A World Without Ice which delves into what the rapid disappearance of ice would mean for millions on the planet.
(Drawing by Oxfam International via Flickr/Creative Commons)
Power Paths
By Virginia Prescott on Tuesday, November 3, 2009.
Since the 1960s, power companies operating in the four corners area of the U.S. have run power lines over the Navajo and Hopi nations. The transmitters carry electricity to growing sunbelt cities, supplying nothing to people living just below -- many of whom live in darkened homes without the luxury of electricity.
In exchange for use of the land, water and sky, Southern California Edison and other companies paid millions of dollars in royalties to the tribes. That relationship ended in 2003, when the Black Mesa and Kayenta mines closed, along with the Mojave Desert Power Plant. Now American Indians are trying to transition away from fossil fuel power into clean energy.
The story of that transition against the tribal governance and established power companies is told in Power Paths, a film by Bo Boudart, which airs on PBS’ Independent Lens tonight. Steve Michelson is the films executive producer, and joins us with more as part of our "next green thing" series.
Building Artificial Trees
By Virginia Prescott on Monday, October 26, 2009.Think back to elementary school science and good old photosynthesis - when plants turn the energy from the sun into sugars and suck up carbon dioxide in the process.
Now scientists are trying to isolate that last step. In this case, using artificial trees made out of synthetic resin instead of leafy green plants. It’s called air-capture technology and researchers say it’s one of the more practical geoengineering ideas being developed to combat climate change.
As part of our next green thing series, we’re joined by David Biello, associate editor at Scientific American who wrote about air capture technology for Yale Environment 360.
Yale Environment 360: Pulling CO2 from the Air: Promising Idea, Big Price Tag
San Diego Union-Tribune: Scientists envision trees – real or fake – extracting excess CO² from air
CNN: 'Synthetic tree' claims to catch carbon in the air
(Photo courtesy of The Breakthrough Institute)
Ninety Days of Trash
By Virginia Prescott on Wednesday, October 21, 2009.Yesterday was garbage day in Concord, New Hampshire. People gathered their purple pay-as-you-throw bags filled with food wrappers, kitty litter, and paper towels and set them on the curb. By the time they got home from work, a garbage truck had whisked those bags away and trucked them to one of the nearly three thousand landfills in North America.
I recycle, I have a compost pile, and I’m admittedly a little neurotic about minimizing trash, so most weeks i don’t give my garbage a second thought. But if Canadian filmmaker Andrew Nisker saw my weekly output, he might put me up to a challenge: to collect and store all of my garbage for three months.
Nisker found a family who was willing to pile up ninety days worth of waste in their garage. He filmed the entire pungent ordeal in order to illustrate just how much trash one family can produce. Then he connected the dots between that mound of garbage and the pollution that clogs landfills and waterways around the world.
Andrew Nisker joins us for our Garbage! The Revolution Starts at Home at the Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro, Vermont.
(Photo by Charley Lhasa via Flickr/Creative Commons)
How are heating, cooling and electricity produced by geothermal energy?
By EarthTalk on Sunday, October 18, 2009.
EarthTalk®
From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine
Dear EarthTalk: How are heating, cooling and electricity produced by geothermal energy? I don’t understand how it works. - Delano Stewart, Wyandanch, NY
Falling Fuel Prices and an Ascending Need for Assistance
By Laura Knoy on Tuesday, October 13, 2009.Energy watchers are predicting that gas and oil prices will be lower than last year, but a a higher unemployment rate and a nation deep in recession means more people will be asking for some kind of aid. As the temperatures get cooler, we’ll look at how much of a burden fuel prices will be to the average Granite Stater this winter.
Guest
- Joanne Morin, director of the New Hampshire Office of Energy and Planning
We'll also hear from
- Massood Samii, chairman of the International Business Department and Director of Institute for International Business at Southern New Hampshire University; he also served at the OPEC Secretariat in Vienna Austria as a senior economist and the head of the finance section
- Bob Garside, president of the Oil Heat Council of New Hampshire
- Kathleen McCosh, Fuel Assistance Program Manager for the Tri-County Community Action Program
What are Enertia houses?
By EarthTalk on Sunday, October 11, 2009.
EarthTalk®
From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
By Deb Baker on Friday, October 9, 2009.
When William Kamkwamba, was 14, his family in Malawi couldn’t afford school fees. At the library, he saw a windmill in a book called Using Energy. He realized electricity would help people in his village pump water, light their homes, charge cell phones - William saw that "A windmill meant more than just power, it was freedom."
Harvard Yard Goes Organic
By Virginia Prescott on Tuesday, October 6, 2009.
There’s something new underfoot at Harvard University. Literally. The august, shady green of Harvard Yard is getting an organic facelift.
Bacteria and fungi fed by compost have replaced pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, and replenished the soil and grass traversed by thousands of students and faculty each day. What started as a one-acre pilot project has spread through 25 acres. And plans are being drawn to make all of Harvard's 80 acres of green space organically grown in the next two years.
It’s a model that other campuses and institutions are looking to follow. Our "next green thing" series continues today with Wayne Carbone, manager of Harvard's landscape services.
At Harvard’s site, there's also a kind of mini-course on organic landscaping, including recipes for compost tea.
The New York Times: The Grass Is Greener at Harvard
(Photo by Mossaiq via Flickr/Creative Commons)
