Good morning folks.
Today’s video showcases an electric car owner in Oregon with a need for speed. This guy’s gas free vehicle dusts everything on the local race track, and makes one wonder what could be accomplished with electric motors and batteries if we put the same amount of energy and capital toward them as we did the internal combustion engine. The main reason we became a petroleum based society right now is that John D. Rockefeller happened to be the most heartless and cutthroat businessman on the block, and an all-around asshole. The continuing greed and self delusion of our oil industry is to blame for the perpetuation of our silly fossil fuel system. Why else are we digging under a mile of ocean to extract a substance that requires significant refining and burns dirty, when we can create energy far more efficiently and cleaner?
Our shortsighted decisions as a nation and a species have created a spaghetti bowl of very troubling intertwined problems that can only be solved when we confront their root cause – our day by day choice to feed our monsters.
Remember, buy local or grow it yourself!
Love to all, Millard
Good afternoon folks.
Today I am highlighting a very innovative architectural project on the big island of Hawaii. It was among the Top Ten green projects for the American Institute of Architects in 2007, and has the kind of features architects just love to geek over.
Possibly the most interesting feature is the passive cooling system, which employs air drawn over cold seawater pumped from 3000 below sea level. The air flow is generated passively through stack ventilation. The project is definitely worth a look.
Remember everyone, buy local or grow it yourself!
Love to all,
Millard
Good morning folks.
The video for the day is basically a promotional production for a European solar cell manufacturer. It is not the most thrilling video I have ever posted. In fact, what is most interesting about it is not what it shows, but what it does not show.
In the production of photovoltaic cells, how likely is it that 29 of the workers will be blown to pieces in an instant because they work in a dangerous, gas and soot filled, confined space hundreds of feet underground? How possible is it that solar industry employees will lose their lives in an explosion in the middle of the ocean, and that the loss of life will be compounded by a massive environmental disaster resulting from the substance they came to extract? How many environmental catastrophes have you heard about that have resulted from the production of PV cells? How many wars?
In the last few weeks there have been two disasters resulting from the extraction process for fossil fuels. In West Virginia coal miners lost their lives because mine owners flout safety regulations. The oil slick from the drilling platform explosion in the Gulf Of Mexico may reach environmentally sensitive marsh land, and has already claimed 11 lives. British Petroleum has assumed responsibility for the cleanup, and was not insured for a catastrophe of this type. Do you know why? They make billions of dollars a year. It is an economic hit, but in the long term it is just a bump in the road.
For the families who have lost loved ones in these disasters, it is impossible to overstate the tragedy they are facing. The loss of a father in the prime of his life can devastate a family, as I can personally attest, and these folks will be paying for these disasters long after BP’s stock has recovered from this economic glitch.
How many more lives are we going to throw away for profits on an obsolete technology? If we were to divert the effort that we put into oil and coal energy to producing wind and solar energy, our “energy crisis” would be over. Our real reasons for continuing our military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan would evaporate (both are fossil fuel wars). Our current energy model is making a few hundred people obscenely wealthy and powerful, and for this they are holding the rest of the 7 billion people on earth in a toxic prison of oil and coal.
That solar cell video may be a bit boring and cheesy, but boring and cheesy sounds much better than tragic and criminal to me.
Remember everyone, buy local, or grow it yourself!
Love to all,
Millard
Good afternoon folks.
I hope you have the time to watch this 40 minute video in its entirety. It is a great expose of just why nuclear power is not sustainable in any sense of the word. It is unfortunate that we keep looking for the next “big solution”, and the solutions we usually hear about are very top down controlled, finite resource that lend themselves to metering. The problems with nuclear power though go far beyond the fact that plutonium is a very scarce resource.
There is still no solution for where to put nuclear waste once the reactor is spent. The radiation from this waste is extremely toxic and carcinogenic, as the residents around Chernobyl and Three Mile Island are still experiencing to this day. The few solutions that are out there are very costly and heavy on the carbon output, nullifying any potential reduction of of carbon emission relative to fossil fuel energy generation.
I don’t believe there is a next “big solution” for energy. I believe our energy demands must be met through sustainable regional solutions. Anyway, if you don’t mind being a little scared straight by the truth, this video is a must watch, and will dispel any notion you may have about the viability of nuclear power.
Remember, buy local or grow it yourself!
Love to all,
Millard
