Helix wind turbines are helical shaped (think long twisted wind catchers) scoops that catch the wind in either direction as low as 8 mph, sustained winds to 80 mph, and gusts of up to 125 mph. They are low maintenance and preliminary tests show that output is as stated, which many times is not the case with wind turbines.
The best thing to come if all goes well with the test turbines is that they are ready to crop up across the country quite easily. After all the mobile cell towers are already there. The Helix turbines will hopefully illiminate the use of any fossil fuel to operate the mobile cell towers. This looks like it may also illiminate “dead zones” in rural and remote areas of the country too because mobile towers will be stand alone, generating their own power. The article went on to say that the turbines will pay for themselves within 6 months.
I’m curious as to why the earth is experiencing so many earthquakes? Does one trigger another? Is mankind having an impact on them in some way? I ran into some interesting articles beginning with blaming oil industry drilling to some pretty good evidence that the Indonesian earthquake of 2004 that triggered the tsunami actually weakened fault lines worldwide.
Telegraph.co.uk website posted an article that stated:
A recent US study found that the 2004 earthquake weakened fault lines around the world, including California’s San Andreas Fault.
The research, that was published in the journal Nature on the day the latest earthquake in Indonesia hit, suggested the tsunami could have caused an increase in earthquakes around the world since.
Boy, it’s been one heck of a week. September 23, Australia witnessed a dust storm that looked like something from a Martian landscape. The dust particles illuminated red by the sun hung like a fog over Sydney’s harbor. Check out the video:
A few days later a Typhoon hit Manila bringing so much rain that 80% of that city was under water, hundreds of people were missing, and thousands of people were displaced.
Another good video follows:
Today an 8.3 earthquake beneath the ocean near the American Samoan islands generated a tsunami and warning for the Hawaiian Islands 2300 miles north. Five foot waves erupted hit Samoa following the earthquake.
Read more: http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/sep2009/2009-09-29-01.asp.
Oddly these events–a dust storm, a typhoon, and a giant undersea earthquake that generated a tsunami were each 3 days apart and severe. All we need is a volcano to erupt on October 2 to round things out.
I caught the end of Good Morning America today and a young man from Malawi was being interviewed about his project and ensuing book, The Boy That Harnessed the Wind. This teen from a third world country had the drive and tenacity to built a windmill from junk laying around like old wagon parts, wood, plastic, metal, even an old flip-flop was made useful. It’s quite an inspiring story.
William Kamkwamba lived such a poverty stricken life his parents at one point could not afford the $80.00 annual tuition for school. He was determined to keep up with his own education and according to the interview on GMA he absorbed a physics book and a book about constructing a basic windmill and applied what he learned. An engineer was born. William constructed a tall windmill from “what not” found laying around in the yards where he lives.
In the meantime everyone in the village thought William was crazy. They still had a tendency to believe in magic. Imagine what they thought when William’s windmill lit up a light bulb?
Flash forward and William is on Good Morning America. He has a book about how he did it. And the people of the village use the power from his windmill as a cheap way to recharge their cell phones. I figure William will not only get to go to high school at this point but will surely make it through college too.
I am amazed at just how often America shoots itself in the foot when it comes to the competition. After hearing commercials that oil companies and special interest groups in the U.S. are spending 80 million to lobby against clean energy legislation, and the San Francisco Examiner reported Chevron alone spent $6 million in just one quarter to lobby for the same, I read that Nippon Oil, Japan’s leading oil company, along with others are set to test recharging service for electric cars at gas stations. http://www.sfexaminer.com/economy/ap/53818532.html http://www.japantoday.com/category/technology/view/oil-firms-to-test-recharging-service-for-electric-cars-at-gas-stations.
Talk about going with the flow, and gaining a piece of the new pie in Japan. I also just blogged about Baoding, China turning their economy over to green technology in relatively short time and how that proved to be very lucrative. Chinese officials were pleased. It won’t be long until they are ahead of us on the green game too.
Meanwhile in the EU, European regulation for approval of hydrogen vehicles is now effective. We’re still haggling over fuel efficiency standards when Russia declared the era of cheap gas is over back in December. Putin stated: “The expenses for the development of gas fields rise sharply,” at a meeting of Natural Gas Exporting Countries in Moscow. “[]The era of cheap gas is over.” http://dwv-info.org/e/news/mirror/2009/hm0902.html#Chinafördert.
So some of our biggest competition like Japan, China, and Russia know the bottom line. It’s time for change. Embrace it or get behind. Our U.S. automakers ignored the competition, and look what happened. We just don’t quite seem to grasp the urgency of the situation. It’s not just about climate change anymore. There is new green industry out there and it seems to be taking off in leaps and bounds elsewhere.
When we consider how much petro the U.S. uses, about ¼ of the world’s total, and that we only have 3% of the world’s oil reserves here, the math doesn’t add up to support the motto that we only have to get away from foreign oil by getting and using our own does it? So what’s the sense of going in that direction, when ultimately it will be a bust in the long run?
Who benefits from the argument against a cleaner earth, but the polluters?
Right after I read about Baoding China being the first city to go really green in China, I also found this article about the U.S. and China partnering for clean energy research. The article on ABC New’s website stated this effort is a compromise between the two governments that disagree on whether China should join wealthier nations in cutting its greenhouse gas emissions. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/WireStory?id=8085845&page=1.
According to the article: “With initial financing of $15 million and headquarters in both countries, the center will focus on coal and clean buildings and vehicles, said U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu. It highlights potential U.S.-Chinese cooperation in an industry that Washington says could create thousands of jobs.” It certainly garnered thousands of jobs for Baoding China.
Oddly, I happened to catch the Emmy nominated interview between Fareed Zakaria of CNN and China’s Premier Wen Jiabao on Sunday about the same time. Wen offered insight as to why China does not respond to the rest of the world’s assertion that they are a super power and should be more proactive and involved politically around the world. Wen said China is not a super power by any means. He said although China is moving fast with their economy and social reform, there are far more rural areas that are below par compared to China’s major cities.
And while we see China as communist, Wen seemed to describe China as more socialist/capitalist—think Hong Kong here. Fareed asked if Wen thought socialism could support a free market system? Wen explained there are visible workings of a free market and the invisible. The best scenario is a balanced free market through guidance and regulation by government. Wen sighted the book A Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith as an ideal. It is considered the first modern work of economics and Smith is considered to be the father of modern economics. A central belief of Smith is that labor is the measure of a nation’s wealth not it’s stores of gold and silver. Sound’s like China.
Both countries are hoping to avoid trade barriers by working together. The article stated: “China is promoting solar, wind and hydroelectric power to reduce reliance on imported oil and gas, which its communist leaders see as a strategic weakness. But Beijing has rejected binding emissions commitments, saying it is the responsibility of rich countries to cut their own output.” Again, they do not view themselves as a super power.
The whole time Wen was talking so candidly about the future, he made sense, and actually seemed charming. China will certainly be promoting a much greener economy since this interview took place before the breaking story about Baoding China’s resourceful turnaround from an auto and manufacturing center to a major supplier of solar and green tech products. This puts China is a position ahead of us already, super power or not. We’re still haggling over whether a turnaround away from polluting industry to a green driven economy will work, while China did it and knows that it not only works, but is also high profitable. It creates those better than gold jobs.
However, as smart and innocent as Wen appeared to be in the interview, and as I found myself agreeing with him on certain assertions about trade, and labor, the mantra going on in my mind was Tibet, Tibet, Tibet. Look what China did and continues to do to those innocent and wonderful people and the pristine land they maintained for centuries high in the Himalayas. China will surely pollute that area too. Fareed addressed Tibetan issues in this interview also and the answer was still pretty hard-line. On top of Tibet, what about China’s attempts to march on Taiwan as it has so many times before?
The interview is a good look at how China thinks. Fareed began the interview with Wen by asking how the Chinese feel about the state of the U.S. economy considering we owe China so much money. It was the million-dollar question over a possible default in payment if things don’t recover quickly here. Wen assured that China has confidence the U.S. will return to prosperity. It wants to help the U.S meet that goal. It looks as if this partnership for clean energy research might just be China’s way of pushing us to that prosperity—for China’s own sake. Make no mistake, China is out for number one always.
Watch some of the interview even though it is not about the environment per se, it is a good snapshot of China, a country we will soon partner with for clean energy research.
Uh oh. I just read this article on ABC News website, http://abcnews.go.com/International/JustOneThing/Story?id=8327868&page=1, about Baoding China reinventing itself from an automobile/textile city to a green hub that is so prosperous it will probably become a model city pretty quick. The Chinese are very industrious people and Chinese officials like profit. The Mayor of Baoding Yu Quns has shown them that going green is unbelievably doable and profitable in short time. So you see where the “Uh oh” comes in? While we’re arguing about global warming, the Chinese will be terribly busy doing what they do best—copy and improve on a massive scale what Yu Quns did in Baoding, another missed opportunity for the U.S to become a leader.
Yu’s style of transformation was drastic but Baoding let industrial pollution go on for so long that drastic measures were necessary. Yu saw thousands of dead fish floating in Baoding’s largest lake. Yu took action and closed down “several hundred factories whose pollution was to blame. The city lost 2% in annual economic growth. That’s a high price to pay. In the U.S. this would be political suicide. Our fossil fuel industry would destroy the guy. But Yu learned a lesson that we should grasp quickly: “Polluting first and cleaning up later is very expensive…So we [Baoding] chose renewable energy to replace traditional industry.”
The ABC news info went on to say, “In three years, Yu has transformed Baoding from an automobile and textile town into the fastest-growing hub of solar, wind, and biomass energy-equipment makers in China. Baoding now has the highest growth rate of any city in Hebei Province. Its “Electricity Valley” industrial cluster – consciously modeled on Silicon Valley – has quadrupled its business.” Uh, oh.
Heaven forbid this story gets around in the U.S. that environmentalists and the Obama Administration are on the right track attempting to turnover polluting industry in America to clean renewables and at the same time create thousands of jobs for a big profit in a short time, (I’m being facetious). Of course there will be much dissing over here about what Yu accomplished over there blah, blah, blah. It’s not like Yu didn’t come up against opposition in the form of COMMUNIST PARTY LEADERS, yet he prevailed. We can’t get past the argument about being responsible for pollution that affects our climate. Those that pollute win the argument here. What’s wrong with this picture? It shows the power of polluting industry doesn’t it?
On that note, be prepared for new “Tea Party” like grass roots protests across America waging war against environmentally sound progress. The protests are backed by the fossil fuel industry as the heat is on against cleaner air, water, and new industry that might disrupt the status quo. They are called “Energy Citizens” rallies. http://current.com/items/90713635_big-oil-trade-groups-plans-to-recruit-employees-to-attend-anti-clean-energy-rallies.htm. All the while China quietly continues to build on a money making turnaround. The big fear here should be that they emerge as the new green powered super power, and ideal model for other countries? Uh, oh—again.
Watch the following video of the flip side of China with the Dirtiest City on Earth:
You can see the pollution in hot spots like this all over the earth, but naysayers till maintain human pollution doesn’t affect atmospheric conditions, suuuuuuuuure. The video speaks volumes. People that argue against cleaning up our act relative to pollution cannot claim to be friends of the earth.
Japan and the U.S. are moving toward a November agreement on “a joint project to develop clean energy sources such as solar power and biofuels as part of their efforts to forge a new partnership in combating global warming,” according the to website Japan Today.
President Obama is making the international rounds on environmental issues and developing alternative energy. It may be a better bet since our own country is split on the issue down political lines. But will the U.S. be able to keep pace with Japan? That country plans on 80% emissions cut by 2050.
A New York Times article reported that residents of Bundanoon, Australia voted to ban bottled water sales in their town to do their part in helping environmental concerns over landfills and save a little cash too. Only two people voted against the measure.
Bundanoon may very well be a small community of only 2500, but it wasn’t the first in Australia to restrict bottled water. Earlier the same day, the premier of New South Wales “banned all state departments and agencies from buying bottled water, calling it a waste of money and natural resources.” New South Wales is Australia’s most populous state.
Approximately 60 cities in the U.S. and some in Canada and the U.K. stopped spending tax dollars on bottled water during meetings and conferences, but Australia is the first to ban actual sales of bottled water products. Bundanoon was prompted to this latest move because a bottled water company out of Sydney wanted to set up operations in their small town. The idea of using Bundanoon’s water resources, trucking it out of town, and then reselling the finished product back to Bundanoon’s residents is nuts. They are still in a court battle over it and evidently won’t be having any of the finished product around at all now.
It’s curious that just 30 years ago no one had an interest is consuming so much water. You drank the stuff when you were thirsty. What I noticed happening back then were diet plans that required massive amounts of water to move fat out of the body, i.e. Atkins original diet. This may have jump-started the bottled water industry, along with concerns over polluted water in the 70’s that lead to the Clean Air and Water Acts. Although Perrier water was around, the first two massively produced brands worldwide that I recall were Aquafina—produced by Pepsi Cola, and Dasani—produced by Coca Cola. Coke and Pepsi admitted their bottled water is nothing more than tap water. So why are we paying for it? And I’d like to know, did the diet gurus, and the aerobics industry that took off about the same time have a big stake in the bottled water industry?
After writing blogs about bottled water, a pet peeve, I found that Pepsi and Coke didn’t want a bottle return policy for their respective water either because it would be too costly. What? They have a commodity that is could conceivably come out of hose into a bottle that we are routinely charged anywhere from $.79 to $1.25 for and they can’t afford a bottle return?
And although we’re still struggling with an overabundance of plastic containers, new products arrive in the market place on a regular basis that use even more plastic than necessary like the new Steamables line of foods where we just leave the food in the bag and steam them in the microwave, serve it up, and throw the plastic bag in the trash on a daily basis. The same goes for tossing a perfectly good zip loc bag after using it once. Our packaging needs to change, along with our attitude that “out of sight” means all is well.
Maybe if we were required to keep our garbage within sight, like in our own yards, we’d be way more ingenious at figuring out how to keep from producing a lot of it and in a big hurry to figure out how to get rid of it. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Environmental News Service (ENS) posted an article with the header: “17 Major Economies Pledge to Set Greenhouse Gas Limit by December.” The leaders of Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States said they are “convinced that climate change poses a clear danger requiring an extraordinary global response…”
The leaders promised to ’spare no effort to reach agreement in Copenhagen, with each other and with the other Parties’ in December in Copenhagen, where the UN Climate Conference will take place. These countries produce 80% of all pollution worldwide.
The major economies realize developing countries have greater priorities for economic and social development and feel that moving quickly to a low-carbon economy is an “opportunity to promote continued economic growth and sustainable development.” There is an urgent need to move forward at lowest possible cost in the area of clean energy.
Part of the plan for lowering CO2 emissions is to prevent future “deforestation and forest degradation and to enhance removals of greenhouse gas emissions by forests, including providing enhanced support to developing countries for these purposes.” The plan also includes doubling investments in clean technologies like solar energy, smart grids, carbon capture, use, and storage, better vehicles, bio energy, etc., by 2015.
