The largest photovoltaic solar power plant in the US went online this Tuesday, eighty miles southeast of Tampa, amid the citrus trees and cattle farms of Arcadia, Florida.
With its 25-megawatt output capacity, the Desoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center built by Florida Power and Light generates nearly twice as much power as the facility it [...]
Are Coral Reefs Beyond Saving?
BBC News reports that prospects of saving the world’s coral reefs now appear so bleak that scientists have recommended freezing samples in liquid nitrogen to preserve them for the future so that, should global temperatures be stabilized, corals could be reintroduced.
If you’re wondering whether the situation is really that bad, read [...]
To dramatize the threat posed by rising sea levels due to global warming, Mohamed Nasheed, president of Maldives, has scheduled a Cabinet meeting for this Saturday, at which members will call upon on the international community to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The catch? They’ll be underwater.
Maldives is a nation of 1,200 coral islands with an [...]
This past weekend, the 2009 Solar Decathlon kicked off on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
Hosted by US Department of Energy and open to the public Oct 9-13 and 15-18, the Solar Decathlon is an international collegiate competition in which student teams compete to design, build, and operate highly energy-efficient, completely solar-powered houses.
Teams will be [...]
Behold, the Power of the Onion!
Onion processor, Steven Gill, of Oxnard, California, has been thinking about what to do with onion waste for the past ten years. His operation produces sliced, diced, slivered and pureed onions — and about 300,000 pounds of waste per day from the tops. tails and skins that aren’t used.
Enter Gill’s [...]
Sarychev Peak Volcanic Eruption as Seen from the ISS
This stunning photograph was taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station on June 12 as the Sarychev Volcano in the Kuril Islands northeast of Japan began spewing steam and ash into the atmosphere. Within three days, ash from the volcano was detected 2,407 kilometers ESE and [...]
Harnessing the Power of the Jet Stream
Researchers have compiled the first global survey of wind energy at high altitudes, where currents blow more steadily and 10 times faster than near-surface winds. If the energy of the jet stream energy could be harnessed using tethered, generator-kites, it could provide a major source of electricity for cities [...]
U.S. Wind, Solar and Geothermal Potential by Region
Source: U.S. Dept. of Energy, 2004
The Political Reality of U.S. Carbon Geography
A map of per-capita carbon by state shows how emissions are more concentrated in poorer, more conservative regions, suggesting the political difficulties of limiting greenhouse gas emissions.
Earth Policy Institute: Needed — A Copernican Shift
Just as Copernicus transformed our understanding by re-examining the relationship of Sun and Earth, Lester Brown [...]
Mountaintop mining, more commonly known as “mountaintop removal,†ranks among the ugliest and most violent examples of man’s disrespect for nature.
Most prevalent in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia and eastern Kentucky, mountaintop mining became widespread in the 1980s, and involves literally blasting up to 1,000 feet from the tops of mountains to expose the [...]
Delivering food security to an additional one billion people in Africa will become ever more challenging over the next four decades unless more intelligent management of natural resources and emerging opportunities are brought to bear.
In addressing this and other similar crises, the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development provided some new and sobering costs on how [...]
The Flawed Logic of the Cap-and-Trade Debate
Two prominent — and iconoclastic — environmentalists argue that current efforts to tax or cap carbon emissions are doomed to failure and that the answer lies not in making dirty energy expensive but in making clean energy cheap.
Nation’s First Feed-In Policy Fuels Solar Boom in Florida
While the renewable energy [...]
