waterotor

Land open to oil and gas drilling by during Presidents Bush (left), Obama (center), and proposed by Trump (right)

Where Coastal States Stand on Offshore Drilling

Orange: Opposes, Blue: Governor is in Favor, Tan: Undecided

At the End of the George W. Bush Administration

Blue: Open to Oil and Gas Drilling, Yellow: Not Yet Open, Orange: Under Protection

At the End of the Obama Administration 

Blue: Open to Oil and Gas Drilling, Yellow: Not Yet Open, Orange: Under Protection

Trumps Proposal

Blue: Open to Oil and Gas Drilling, Orange: Under Protection

Where Is America’s Offshore Oil?

Economically Recoverable Oil and Gas

nytimes

A Bicycle-Powered House?

bicycle-powered house?

duke energy solar initiative

hoover dam

New Tesla Breaks Consumer Reports' Ratings Scale, Bolsters Company's Stock

With a rare mix of blazing speed, safety and energy efficiency, the new Tesla Model S P85D left the folks at Consumer Reports grasping for ways to properly rate the car, after it scored a 103 — out of 100. "It kind of broke the system," says Jake Fisher, director of the magazine's auto test division.

Listing the all-electric car's attributes, including its improved handling and stopping power, Fisher says, "We're seeing numbers that we haven't seen before. So this kind of blew out the system. We're giving it a score of 100."

That final rating came after the product testing organization adjusted its metrics a bit (but it says it won't now grade all other cars on the P85D's curve). It posted the results online Thursday — and in a rare move, Consumer Reports didn't require a subscription to see the Tesla ratings (that move very likely played a part in the company's trouble with its Web servers).

In a video discussion of the Model S P85D, Fisher says, "We're not used to seeing large cars go 0-60 in 3.5 seconds. We're not used to seeing large cars that get an equivalent of 87 miles per gallon, and are that fast. So it really blows apart a lot of things."

Consumer Reports' experts note that the score doesn't mean the car has achieved perfection — for one thing, there's the $127,820 price tag of the tested model. That makes it the most expensive car that the magazine has ever tested. And then there's the base model's estimated range of about 250 miles on a single charge.

But the magazine's autos editor, Mark Rechtin, also notes that the Tesla is impressive for its quickness in applying power to the road — and pushing its occupants back in their seats.

"This car goes from 0 to 1.02 G's in less than a quarter of a second," Rechtin says, "which is almost as fast as the human brain can react."

That rush of speed happens silently, Rechtin added. He said, "The only other way that you can feel that, in a legal setting, is to basically jump out of an airplane."

We'll note that those speeds reflect a car outfitted with the "Insane" driving mode. The quicker "Ludicrous" mode gets to 60 mph in 2.8 seconds, according to Tesla.

The glowing review generated intense interest in the car Thursday (as of this writing, the Consumer Reports website has crashed); it also propelled Tesla's stock to an 8 percent gain, to a close of $242.99 on the Nasdaq market. That's quite a bounce for a stock that, at the opening of Monday's trading session, could be had (briefly) for $202.

On the performance of Tesla's stock, The Wall Street Journal notes, "at midday, Tesla's market value stood at $31.7 billion, up $2.5 billion from Wednesday's close."

In its first years in the auto market, Tesla has focused on high-priced cars. The Model S cost more than $50,000 when it was introduced, and the new Model S P85D has a base price of $104,500. But earlier this year, the company announced plans to produce a more affordable car called the Model 3, with a list price of $35,000. npr

Reduce, Reuse, Remove The Cellophane: Recycling Demystified

Taylor's number one tip: don't recycle plastic bags, even if they're full of newspaper. They gum up the whole processing system. Every few hours Taylor has to shut down the machines to remove all the plastic. Take your plastic bags back to the grocery store, Taylor says. And don't just throw your flip flops, bowling balls, and Christmas lights into the blue bin because you think they should be recyclable. Below are five more of his responses to readers' questions.

Q. Does washing containers help? Or is it a waste of water? - Robert Kisling, Stillwater, Okla.

A. In some instances it is actually helpful because a jar of jelly or a half-empty soda bottle will contaminate the other material. So, we prefer that the food containing the materials get rinsed before it gets put in the recycling bin.

Q. Light bulbs, of all kinds. Can't put them in curbside recycling, recycling centers won't take them, so what should I do? - Michelle Rafter, Portland, Ore.

A. (A lightbulb) is not recyclable because it's a different type of a glass than a glass jar. And they'll break anyway... We don't take plate glass either, like a window glass. That also is a different kind of glass than a regular food container or a beverage container.

Q. Styrofoam! Why don't we recycle this? - Love Lulu, Philadelphia, Pa.

A. (Styrofoam) contaminates everything else when it breaks apart and comes through the plant.

Q. Can you recycle the thick plastic overwrap that comes on cases of bottled drinks? What about the cardboard bakery boxes that have a large plastic window on them? - Deirdre Gabriel, Alexandria, Va.

A. While that plastic wrap may be recyclable, at this particular operation, we're not capable of recycling that material. It's actually a hazard to us... it gets wrapped in all the mechanical moving parts that we use to separate the recyclable materials.

We prefer that the cellophane be removed from the package before it gets recycled... Too much of a particular item will (create) a circumstance where a container can go all the way to China and get rejected and have to be returned.

Q. Is it true that recycling plants are so harmful on the environment that it sort of cancels out the act of recycling itself? - Jeffrey Sartor, Clinton, Ms.

A. In this particular circumstance, a recycling plant like this, absolutely not. We are using high efficiency electric motors to drive the plant, to separate the material. We are basically taking a homogenous mix of recyclable material from a recycling bin and separating it into its components. If you look back over time, the value of the material that you separate is worth more than the process it costs to operate. In terms of harm to the environment, we are actually saving resources and putting things back in a more efficient way because of the recovery. npr

Apple Tops Greenpeace Clean Energy Index

In the latest Clean Energy Index published by Greenpeace, Apple topped all technology companies when it comes to running its worldwide operations on renewable energy. Apple topped all of its peers in the index including – Microsoft, Facebook, Google, HP, IBM, Amazon, Oracle, Yahoo, among others.

Through its Clean Energy Index, Greenpeace has been evaluating the energy requirements and the consequent energy choices of the top internet and internet-related companies since 2010. The index evaluates companies’  energy dependence on clean, nuclear, coal, and natural gas.

 

Greenpeace segmented Apple’s internet-related activities into: iCloud and iTunes. Both of these internet-based services of Apple function on 100% renewable energy. The organisation also lauded Apple’s efforts in terms of building the largest privately owned solar farms at its North Carolina data center, working with its utility in Nevada to power its upcoming data center there with solar and geothermal energy, and purchasing wind energy for its Oregon and California data centers.

How A Bigger Lunch Table At Work Can Boost Productivity

The loft-like San Francisco office of software maker Atlassian has an open central amphitheater, where all-staff gatherings and midday boot camp exercises are held.

Jay Simons, Atlassian's president, says the building was originally a book printing factory. He describes it "as a big, two-story warehouse with a lot of steel girders, a lot of natural light."

But the office's rapid expansion to 300 employees has led to gripes about conference room shortages. "We're butting up on growing out of the space," Simons says.

So, early this year, Atlassian installed heat and motion sensors to track when and how often every desk, room and table was used. The result? Desks were used only 20 percent of the workday; conference rooms an average of 40 percent, with peak utilization at mid-morning.

Simons says tracking employees' movements in an anonymous way will help guide choices to convert desk space into meeting rooms, or to stagger meetings to accommodate a growing staff.

"If we're using data to make an environment that people can be more productive in, ultimately that saves us money or helps us make more," he says.

One of Waber's clients found that software developers who ate lunch in large groups wrote 10 percent more code than those who ate solo or with fewer colleagues. Salespeople with more relationships across an organization sold measurably more. That led to larger lunch tables and more strategic placement of coffee machines.

"Where do you spend time, who talks to who and those patterns are so critical when it comes to how effective we are and how happy we are at work," he says.

Waber's company carefully tracks its own employees. Even for things like determining which free snacks tend to draw people into break rooms.

Congdon says designing the ideal workspace is well worth the effort. When Steelcase redid its own offices, she says workers ended up happier with the various options for working and meeting. And, as a bonus, the company reduced its real estate footprint by 48 percent. npr

After Toxic Ash Spill, Energy Company And Locals Struggle Over Solution

When utility companies burn coal to make electricity — and it generated 39 percent of U.S. energy in 2013 — it leaves behind ash that can contain arsenic, selenium, boron and many other toxic substances.

For decades, that ash simply has been buried in pits near the power plants and covered with water. Now, in North Carolina, it's become a multibillion dollar problem. After a massive spill into the Dan River last year, the state ordered Duke Energy to clean up more than 100 million tons of stored coal ash, and the company has drawn up a plan that involves transporting it to two abandoned clay mines in Lee County.

Amy Adams, North Carolina campaign coordinator with Appalachian Voices, shows her hand covered with wet coal ash taken from the Dan River, which swirls in the background in February 2014. The Duke Energy spill coated 70 miles of the river with toxic sludge containing arsenic, selenium, and boron.

The nonabsorbent quality of the clay in the area is one reason Duke Energy and its contractor bought the Cherokee Clay and Brick mine across the road, and another in the next county over.

The plan is to dig up about 10 million tons of coal ash at 14 of the most critical sites across the state and bring it here on trucks and rail cars to a dry, lined landfill. The clay, they say, adds another layer of protection against leaks.

Duke Energy is the largest electric utility company in the country. After the spill last year that coated 70 miles of the Dan River in coal-ash slurry, the North Carolina General Assembly passed a first-ever statewide law requiring a coal-ash cleanup effort. That will start with identifying the most dangerous sites and devising long-term storage plans. npr

Solar Bike Path Opens This Week In The Netherlands

A Dutch project that integrates solar panels into a bike commuter path will officially open this week, on a special roadway outside Amsterdam. Power generated by the SolaRoad's panels will be funneled into the national energy grid.

The project in the town of Krommenie is being called the world's first public road that includes embedded solar cells. The crystalline silicon solar cells are encased in two layers of tempered safety glass, mounted in a concrete housing.

The equipment is part of pre-built concrete slabs that SolaRoad says have been refined in years of testing. The company says it's been a challenge to produce energy-producing slabs that are both durable and rideable by thousands of cyclists a day.

"It has to be translucent for sunlight and repel dirt as much as possible," the company says. "At the same time, the top layer must be skid resistant and strong enough in order to realize a safe road surface."

The section of the path that's opening this week is some 230 feet long. Its creators call it a test of an idea that could someday lead to roads that generate the same power that electric cars use to travel on them. npr

Hydrogen squeezed from stone could be new energy source

The method promises a new green energy source, providing copious hydrogen from a simple mixture of rock and water.

It speeds up a chemical reaction that takes geological timescales in nature.

In the reaction, the mineral olivine strips one oxygen and hydrogen atom from an H2O molecule to form a mineral called serpentine, releasing the spare hydrogen atom.

                               

The results were discussed at this week's meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, and have been published in the journal American Mineralogist.

The researchers heated olivine minerals in water to a couple of hundred degrees Celsius, and added a little bit of ruby (aluminium oxide) to the mix to provide a source of aluminium atoms.

The whole mix was placed into a miniature pressure cooker, formed of two diamonds, that squeezed the mixture to 2,000 atmospheres pressure.

The transparent diamonds allowed the scientists to watch the reaction take place.

The process occurs, albeit very slowly, in the rocks that form the ocean floors around the globe. In these natural settings it is thought that the hydrogen that is produced either reacts with carbon to form methane, or is used by microbes that live deep in the rocks to sustain life deep beneath the Earth's surface.

It is not yet clear exactly how much of this non-biologically generated methane is being produced within rocks across the planet.

Olivine is a common green mineral, sometimes mined as the semi-precious stone "peridot". The serpentine mineral that forms from it is beloved of sculptors and is often used as a decorative facing stone for buildings.

                                          Natural serpentinisation is the way that olivine "rots"

The mineralogists at Lyon were expecting the reaction to take weeks, if not months, so having set the experiment running one afternoon they were shocked to discover that half of the olivine crystal had already reacted when they took a look at it the next morning.

They realised that the addition of aluminium, dissolved from the ruby crystal, was key, speeding up the rate at which the olivine crystals dissolve in water and new serpentine minerals grow. Any source of aluminium could be used, and at the lower temperature experiments the researchers also used bauxite.

Describing their finds, Dr Isabelle Daniel told BBC News: "Serpentinisation is very common in nature and occurs along mid-ocean ridges.

"Hydrogen is measured at all the hydrothermal vents from these places and a huge amount of hydrogen and methane is produced: it is a general feature of the mid-ocean ridges. It is a major source of energy for chemo-synthetic bacteria in rocks." read more: bbc

oil exploration and western gray whales

real plastic dinosaurs

no...

The World’s Most Beautiful Wastewater Treatment Plant

by Chris Tackett

Let this wastewater treatment plant show you how to live.

This may sound crazy, but it is exactly why the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies in Rhinebeck, New York constructed their Omega Center for Sustainable Living (OCSL), also known as the Eco Machine. We can learn some valuable lessons from this building.

The Omega Center for Sustainable Living may be the most beautiful wastewater treatment plant in the world. It is powered by solar and geothermal power, so it requires no additional power to operate. Unlike other wastewater treatment plants, the OCSL does not use chemicals to treat the water, but rather mimics the processes of the nature world, such as using a combination of microorganisms, algae, plants and gravel and sand filtration to clean sewage water and return clean drinkable water back to the aquifer.

In addition to doing all of this, the OCSL also functions as a classroom, to help educate and inspire people about the power of nature to provide solutions…

(read more: TreeHugger)

energy flow diagram

US energy consumption

solar energy maps

Congratulations to Germany for breaking their own record last month in harnessing solar energy!

By the end of 2012, Germany was ranked #1 for solar energy production per capita at 400 MW per million people while the United States was ranked #20 with only 25 MW per million people.

The United States is expected to double their usage of solar power by the end of 2015.

More info: http://bit.ly/154ZZkf

Photo via: National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Check out our new YouTube show here: http://bit.ly/1f7BMZl

An environmentally friendly battery made from wood

Taking inspiration from trees, scientists have developed a battery made from a sliver of wood coated with tin that shows promise for becoming a tiny, long-lasting, efficient and environmentally friendly energy source. Their report on the device — 1,000 times thinner than a sheet of paper — appears in the journal Nano Letters.

Liangbing Hu, Teng Li and colleagues point out that today’s batteries often use stiff, non-flexible substrates, which are too rigid to release the stress that occurs as ions flow through the battery. They knew that wood fibers from trees are supple and naturally designed to hold mineral-rich water, similar to the electrolyte in batteries. They decided to explore use of wood as the base of an experimental sodium-ion battery. Using sodium rather than lithium would make the device environmentally friendly.

Lead author Hongli Zhu and other team members describe lab experiments in which the device performed successfully though 400 charge-discharge cycles, putting it among the longest-lasting of all sodium-ion nanobatteries. Batteries using the new technology would be best suited for large-scale energy storage applications, such as wind farms or solar energy installations, the report indicates. acs.org npr.org