Efforts to harness the energy potential of Earth’s ocean winds could soon gain an important new tool: global satellite maps from NASA. Scientists have been creating maps using nearly a decade of data from NASA’s QuikSCAT satellite that reveal ocean areas where winds could produce wind energy.
In a recent program for Ecology Radio, David Steinman interviewed Pete Altman, Climate Campaign director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, about the broadly supported Green Jobs report released by the NRDC and the Center for American Progress in late September. If you haven’t listened to the program, I encourage you to do so.
In 1610, Galileo Galilei rocked Europe with his published account of four heavenly objects that appeared to orbit the planet Jupiter. We know them today as Jupiter’s largest moons — Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto — but at the time, his observations flew in the face of the long-held belief that all heavenly bodies orbited [...]
World energy consumption is projected to grow by 50 percent between by 2030, driven by robust economic growth and expanding populations in the world’s developing countries, according to the International Energy Outlook 2008 Report (IEO Report) released by the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Average world oil prices in every year since 2003 have been higher than the average for the [...]
Scientists and researchers say renewable forms of energy can help provide a new energy future that is cleaner, improves global security, strengthens the economy and contributes positively to the quality of life for all. Contributing to the urgency of developing this new energy future is the prediction from the Energy Information Agency that U.S. energy [...]
Movement of warmed sea water through the flat, Pacific Ocean floor off Costa Rica has been reported by an international team of earth scientists. The movement is greater than that off mid-ocean volcanic ridges. The finding suggests possible marine life in a part of the ocean once considered barren.
With about 71 percent of the Earth’s [...]
Capturing methane from landfills and other sources is paving the way to a clean, green energy source and reducing greenhouse gases in the fight against climate change. Through the Methane to Markets Partnership (M2M), the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is funding 20 projects that will help 12 countries increase their capture and use of [...]
It has been snowing on Mars and it took a Canadian scientist using Canadian technology to recognize it. Seems that Canadians know snow when they see it.
“Nothing like this view has ever been seen on Mars,” said Jim Whiteway of Toronto’s York University and the lead weather scientist for NASA’s Mars Lander project.
“It’s a major breakthrough,” said [...]
From time to time, we browse recently released Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports and highlight those with potential interest to our readers. This week’s release was so extensive we’ve organized documents into broad categories.
Have you ever sat in a traffic jam and thought about the fossil fuel being wasted? Or the effect of all those idling engines on air quality? Or the greenhouse gases being created? If only we could get around as efficiently as ants seem to find our picnics…
Crops in Space? Absolutely… especially if people are to travel for months and years to other worlds and systems. It would be impossible, for instance, to send along enough food and water for a team of space explorers on a mission to Mars. The reality is food and water production over a full life cycle [...]
It seems logical that coal would be used as the predominant non-renewable fuel of the future until other non-petroleum-based substitutes are fully developed. Coal burns cleaner, despite the false image that associates coal with the dingy, smog-choked air of the old coal-burning cities and towns, particularly during the Industrial Revolution. Furthermore, according to The World [...]
