Aug 18, 2010 Energy Talks
The BP well blowout, fire, explosion and platform collapse, and the ensuing crude oil leak are without doubt the result of human failings. Underestimating the quality of the reservoir is one reason, perhaps some engineering choices and safety oversights, inadequate equipment, testing that didn’t work out in the real world and all the rest only show that human planning can come up short. Now that its over this writer can recoil from the anger felt as the catastrophe unfolded. Yes, the well getting away is cause No. 1 – something that has happened before and will happen again – hopefully with more and more infrequency. The lessons keep coming – from drilling into the earth since Drake’s day; the pressures down there can surprise you. But the sorrow of the lives lost was quickly overcome by the shear idiocy of the media and political response. There has been essentially no worthy information making the mainstream press or incorporated into political activity. The reverse is the fact – misinformation is rampant and the consequences, not counting the loss of life itself is simply incredible. The President’s behavior has been an utter failure – doing far more damage than the oil itself. The offshore drilling ban is keeping 50,000 jobs without paychecks topping $2 billion in payroll losses alone, not counting the effect throughout the local economy in the situation where the major economic engine, tourism, disappeared. The President’s action wasn’t just foolish, but cruelly focused on a few innocents, thoughtless and without any kind of leadership or sense of responsibility to the local area or the nation as a whole. The reaction actually fed the media hysteria – a fault beyond forgiving in a leader. No gulf beach trips and minigolf photoshoots will take away the realization the President is out of his league. In the meantime property values are gong to be hit with incomes going down. From Texas to Florida the tourism business is in shambles and may take years to recover. There are many reports that no one is buying Gulf seafood, even in areas unaffected by the spill
Aug 17, 2010 Sponge
In an article titled “Feedstocks for Lignocellulosic Biofuels” published in Science, Chris Somerville of the University of California, Berkeley, and Deputy Director Steve Long of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with bioenergy analysts Caroline Taylor, Heather Youngs and Sarah Davis at the Energy Biosciences Institute suggest that a diversity of plant species, adaptable to the climate and soil conditions of specific regions of the world, can be used to develop “agroecosystem” for fuel production that are compatible with contemporary environmental goals. Well, press release and research notes aside, they mean that there can be a set of plant species that could provide substantial amounts of biomass grown widely across the planet without an impact on food and feed production. The troubled firm BP, well before the Gulf well crisis, funded the study. The study authors discuss the sustainability of current and future crops that could be used to produce advanced biofuels with emerging technologies that use non-edible parts of plants. Such crops include perennial grasses like Miscanthus grown in the rain-fed areas of the U.S. Midwest, East and South; sugarcane in Brazil and other tropical regions, including the southeastern U.S.; Agave in semiarid regions such as Mexico and the U.S. Southwest; and woody biomass from various sources.
Aug 17, 2010 Environmental Controls
Compatible with: gas, electric, oil-fired, wall and floor furnaces; gas-fired and oil-fired boilers; gas and electric air conditioning; hot water (2-wire); single stage heat pump Energy Star rated Batteries not included Pre-programmed Robo door opening Product DescriptionIncludes à conomy Comfort 7 dà ace of room of contrôle of the thermostat â  [...]
Latest Entry