Seed Media group has offered to host my blog commonground . So I will resume posting under the same name but at a posh a new address. For those of you frequented the blog over the past year thanks for the kind words and encouragement. ( Seed Media)
Creating something valuable out of discarded single use products is a basic tenant of the environmental movement. A new system for converting trash into ethanol and methanol could help reduce the amount of waste piling up in landfills while displacing a large fraction of the fossil fuels used to power vehicles in the United States. ( Technology Review)
US factories producing ethanol fuel for cars may consume as much as half of the country's corn crop next year -- more than double earlier government predictions. Feedlot owners, who intensely feed corn to cattle and pigs for four to six months before slaughter, have seen their costs rise dramatically because of ethanol production. ( Boston Globe)
Baltimore Gas and Electric will join the movement this year as it begins testing meters that, among other things, could save customers money by rewarding them for using less power during times of peak demand, as on hot summer afternoons. ( Baltimore Sun)
ExxonMobil Corp gave $16 million to 43 ideological groups between 1998 and 2005 in an effort to mislead the public by discrediting the science behind global warming, the Union of Concerned Scientists asserted Wednesday. (San Jose Mercury)
Once the domain of hippies, whose off-the-grid escape doubled as an anti-establishment rebuke, renewable energy is now a pillar of California politics. In recent months alone, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed the California Solar Initiative, which aims to help bring solar power to a million rooftops, as well as a landmark greenhouse-gas reduction law. ( LA Times)
Today, only a tiny fraction of U.S. biodiesel is made from chicken fat, but that seems likely to change. The rising cost of soybean oil -- which accounts for roughly 90 percent of all biodiesel fuel stock -- is pushing the industry to exploit cheap and plentiful animal fats. ( Washington Post)
While it sounds like a promising idea, it turns out that the
long-lasting, swirl-shaped light bulbs known as compact fluorescent
lamps are to the nation’s energy problem what vegetables are to its
obesity epidemic: a near perfect answer, if only Americans could be
persuaded to swallow them.
(NY Times)
Oil companies posted record profits while drivers griped over the price of gas at the pump. As the year drew to a close, gasoline prices were almost 15 cents higher than they were at the end of 2005. ( Consumer Affairs)
Aviation is believed to be less a factor in the Earth's warming than power plants or vehicular traffic. But its emissions are considerable. On a New York-to-Denver flight, a commercial jet would generate 840 to 1,660 pounds of carbon dioxide per passenger. That's about what an SUV generates in a month. ( USA Today)
