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Tag Archives: energy-ish
Anti-Romantic Lighting
If you’re ever taken out to dinner to a restaurant with fluorescent lighting, you can be pretty sure that your date is an idiot. That’s the least flattering kind of light known. Well, maybe it’s not as bad as yellow … Continue reading
Electric Cars Are Just Better
Last month I attended the New England Auto Show, and had a chance to see the three mass-market high-electric cars: The Nissan Leaf: 100 mi all-electric range, 24 kWh battery, 80 kW motors, no gas engine, $33K. The Chevy Volt: … Continue reading
Russians Throw at the Basket From Mid-Court
Just this week a Russian mogul, Mikhail Prokorhov, showed off the design of an all-Russian gas-electric hybrid car, the Yo. It’s an unfortunate name in English (it’s the letter ‘e’ in Russian), but they’re claiming 67 mpg and $14,500 when … Continue reading
Plating the Planet With PV
So I see from this report from GreenTech Media that the worldwide production of photovoltaic (PV) cells is due to pass 10 GW this year. That’s a kind of random milestone, but to put it in perspective, that’s about 2 … Continue reading
The Awesome, Yet Easily Controlled, Power of Nature
io9.com recently posted a nice set of pictures here, of Niagara Falls being shut off for maintenance in 1969 by the Army Corps of Engineers. Here’s what they looked like from Prospect Point when off: And here’s what they look … Continue reading
Bike MPG
It being officially spring (albeit with so much rain that even the ducks get depressed), I broke out the bike and bopped around a bit. There’s a nice rail trail near me (the Minuteman Bikeway) that covers about 2/3 of … Continue reading
The Inevitability of Zeppelins
The consistently interesting magazine “American Scientist” has a good article this month on energy issues and transportation, “The Other Climate Threat” by Andreas Schäfer, Henry D. Jacoby, John B. Heywood, and Ian A. Waitz. It’s behind a pay wall, unfortunately, … Continue reading
Power in your hands
So I was standing in the gas station, hose in hand, idly counting the seconds to fill my tank. About 80 for 12 gallons, or 9 gallons/min. I see that gas pumps are limited to 10 gallons/min, so that’s about … Continue reading
Noble Effort to Save Planet, or Death Ray?
So I’m reading about the Sierra solar power tower installation in Lancaster CA. That’s in the south central part of the state, about 40 miles north of LA. The system produces 5 MW peak from two 50m towers and 24,000 … Continue reading
A Niche in the Library of Babel 