“So I ask this Congress to send me legislation that places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America.”
– President Barack Obama, February 25, 2009

Will congress pass such a bill? What else went on during the speech this week? What green issues were involved? You’ll find a summary about all that in tomorrow’s post! For now though you can head on over to 1Sky to become a voice in your community about these and other climate related issues.

I know today’s was as bit slack but we did it! One full month of a post everyday! Twenty-eight in a row! Stay tuned because we’ll continue to pump out the knowledge and news, up to date and often!

Did you know that plastics are classified with a number between 1 and 7 that represents the different types of resin used to create them? I didn’t! Head on over to the Green Plastics Buying Guide to learn about how you can chose the right kind of plastic to insure re-usability, safety, longevity and proper recyclability.

Iran is looking into Consentrating Solar Power (CSP) technologies that are currently in use in the more arid and open places on the planet. This method of energy production utilizes solar concentrators to superheat water and turn generator turbines using the steam produced. This technology sounds old fasioned, but it is a feasible method of producing renewable and cheap energy. This method is already being utilized in different countries; Spain being a the leader of the pack with a proposed 2GW of power to be produced by 2015. This sounds (and looks!) like something out of a fantasy novel but it seems as though the technology is just right for smaller scale developers in countries with vast amounts of land and clear skies. The Guardian has the full story.

That’s right there is a store with that exact name! Green-Living.com provides “earth friendly” home products. The splash page even has my favorite water bottle on it! Go check it out and see what they’ve got…  no clue how their prices are, but that is for you to judge!

Solar concentrators have been around since the days of Archimedes‘s Death Ray, but this new type of solar concentrator intended for PV cells is something new altogether. The Light-Guide Solar Optic (LSO) was created around the principles of total internal reflection and designed to concentrate the sun 1,000 times onto a PV cell in order to reduce the amount of PV material that is needed to produce the same amount of energy. The technology is soon to go into testing phases and could prove to be cost competitive with the (still expensive) thin film PV cells. You can get the whole low-down over at the Technology Review.

In Issac Asimov’s I, Robot (1950) the main source of planetary power was provided by solar collectors throughout the solar system that beamed energy back to those who needed it at the surface. Despite it’s science-fiction origin and unintuitive sound, this was never a far fetched idea, just a very difficult one to accomplish. Now however, space based solar power (SBSP) is looking to be an extremely likely candidate to change the course of human history by eliminating the need for earth based power generation. The article is so cool that I don’t want to spoil anything about it here so go check it out over at Universe Today.

Just imagine; unlimited, uninterrupted, 24-7-365 sunlight shining on advanced solar panels that stream raw energy back to the earth for distribution and use everywhere!

Again; I’m sick of the design.. So here comes a new one! Give me feedback on it please!!

PS – The site will be jumping around in design while I decide on something… at least the FEED will be visible, sorry if some other pages are not what they usualy are, that will be fixed soon.

Similar to using (freely generated and ever present) sound wave energy to create usable electricity, MIT researchers have thought up a way to generate a little extra juice for your plug-in/hybrid by adding shock driven generators to the mix. The system uses a turbine in the hydraulic fluid that turns whenever pressure is exerted on the shock. Read the rest over in Shock Turns a Jolt into a Volt.

As another quickie, there will be a major-ish site style update coming soon.

I recently started working in the permitting industry as an environmental scientist and I am quickly becoming aware of the vast level of work it takes to get large projects shovel-ready. I can’t say I approve of most of the wasted time involved in silly litigation, paper pushing and the all too long reaching effects of lobbyists but there are some factors involved that are worthwhile. Applying for and receiving approval from local, state and federal environmental agencies is of course one of those necessary and important factors that take some time. Unfortunately these processes leave loop holes for organizations (aka: undeservedly wealthy people that have “not in my back yard” syndrome despite their preached morality) to find ways to slow down or stop the progress of extremely important and well designed renewable energy projects. Two examples of this (Cape Wind and Hoosac Wind) are cited in the case study; Wind Power Permitting Challenges in the Northeast. I stumbled upon this while doing some research for another case study on the ridiculously slow progress of wind projects in Massachusetts.

Although I realize things like this take time, it is preposterous to believe that something as vital to our future, so obviously beneficial and non-detrimental (see Cape Wind FEIS) could be so viciously attacked by people that preach environmentalism and have enough money to make a difference but lack the desire to use their own ‘backyard.’ I won’t go into details but… how can any democrat be opposed to projects like this!?