Baby, I've Changed.

Its almost like we've got a three party system going on here. Its the Democrats vs. the Republicans vs. the Republicans. Nevermind that the two types of Republicans are nearly indistinguishable from the lame-duck to the next duck in line. The latter Republicans have decided that its time for a change, stating that "Washington isn't working". Well maybe you should get your asses back there and punch the time clock while you're still allowed in the building. But despite the new stream of rhetoric about change and fixing "things" no one seems to be able to say what the New Grand Old Party would do differently from the current one, apart from understand less about the needs of people who don't have summer homes. Here are a few of the "changes" I noticed on McCain's site that we can we can look forward to:

• Magically reducing gas prices (he must have that wand George lost), continuing tax cuts for the wealthy and various other tax breaks that reduce revenue without explaining how to make up the difference.
  
• Fighting climate change by producing more power, domestically drilling for oil (growing our own opium) or burning coal and crops. Rewarding oil companies to keep gouging us and paying little
  attention to technologies that would ease their strangle hold and
  actually reduce global warming.
  
• More war; somehow increasing the size of the military despite it being underfunded and over-deployed as it is.
  
• Free range, sink or swim health care.
  
• Population increases through abstinence-only education and overturning Roe v. Wade; reducing our dependence on foreign adoptions. (domestically drilling for babies)
  
• Protecting people's rights by outlawing same-sex marriages. (not sure I follow)
  
• Protecting children from the dark side of the Internet... somehow.
  
• Protecting human dignity. (no torture, maybe?)
• Ensure that everyone keeps a trigger lock on their armor piercing high capacity magazine assault rifles.
• Provide high-speed Internet to all Americans (even you John?) by allowing local communities to build connections if the local telcom monopoly has waived its right of first refusal.
  

Its kinda like McCain is the boyfriend who did something stupid and
noticed that his lady is really pissed off. He wants to make it right,
but doesn't know what's wrong, and not if it means making real changes. The
classic "I'm not going to tell you if you don't already know." Lets
hope he doesn't show up tonight with wilted carnations and a 6-pack of condoms.

• Editorial - John McCain Runs Against Themselves - Editorial - NYTimes.com

Like, Thanksgiving And Stuff?

Well shucks. It appears to be November and I still have post stubs going back all the way to September. Lets see what we can do about that; DP style.

<-- Maybe this is why I'm psyched to see wind turbines on the horizon. I think they're pretty.

• EcoGeek: energy plant

This little future-Civic looks pretty kickass. Slap a type R badge on the back and stick a diesel under the hood and its really something to get excited about. Honda is bringing the diesel; its gonna rock; just bide your time.

• Jalponik: Type R to burn oil

Nice little tip here: cotton balls soaked in petroleum, once lit, will burn through pretty much anything. I'm gonna start carrying cotton balls and steel wool in one pocket with Vaseline and 6 volt batteries in the other.

• Lifehacker: Start a fire in the rain

We're gonna need a term for faster than fast as balls. Remember the concord? Childs' play. Forget twice the speed of sound, when you're in a hurry you need mach 5. Maybe a little faster. That's what the EU is hoping to get out of the A2; fueled by hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Looks like we keep finding reasons to love hydrogen. Now if we could just figure out how to make an ass-load of it.

• Register: Hypersonic hydrogen airliner

Yeah, you can find good stuff in the trash. Especially if you know a little something about art, apparently. Although I gotta believe if you're lookin for large cash settlements, your chances are a little better playing the lottery or jumping in front of limos.

• Treehugger: Dumpster diver finds $1m

Maybe its just cause my windows transfer more heat than a Central American arms merchant, but I'm totally in love with these windows. They have three, count em, three highly insulating panes. The center of which has a heat reflective surface like a one way valve. So in the summer you can keep heat out, but flip the frame during winter to keep heat in.

• EcoGeek: Better Windows

I know that anesthesiologists are generally very good and people normally don't wake up in the middle of surgery; but if I opened my eyes and saw a couple of surgeons standing over me with a bottle of hot sauce I would FREAK OUT. Straight-up crazy. Like they'd have to knock me unconscious with a shoe.

• AP News: Doctors test Hot Sauce

This one was gonna to be a joke about Cheney. I'm sure you can fill in the details.

• National Geographic: King tut died in hunting accident

I just couldn't resist the title of this one. Now that's good journalism. I'm not exactly sure how you make bio-fuel from lamb, but I'm sure quality is directly related to the fluffiness.

• EnvironmentalGraffiti: Cute Fluffy Lambs Sentenced to Death

This is pretty cool. It's a memory card with wifi built right in. So whenever it can find the Internet it'll upload your newest pictures whereever you want. Those chumps who bought that kodak wifi camera are kickin themselves now. Too bad my cameras take CF. Where's the Sea-FI love?

• Engadget: Eye-Fi Wifi enabled SD

Dangerous = Cool. Its just a fact of life. The more dangerous the activity, the cooler you look while doing it. For example: skydiving. Pretty cool looking. Now strap on a jetpack and some wings. Evel Knievel never dreamed of looking so good. Reminds me of the switchblade from Die Another Day, but with jet engines.

• Register: Stealth strap-on jet plane

Ocean Motion

Wave power is something that I don't really think about all that much when I consider clean alternative power sources. Normally my thoughts drift straight to solar and wind and then on to the dreamy hunk that is fusion. But that may be off base. Here's a presentation by Max Carcas of Ocean Power Delivery at a Google Tech Talk.

The presentation is about an hour long but it gives great details about the actual device as well as energy potential, market and economics of wave power. Watch the video if you have the time he's much better at explaining it than I am, but I'll put some of my notes below. Skip to about 26:00 for video of the wave tank simulation.

• Google Video: Wave Energy
• Treehugger: Max Carcas of Ocean Power Delivery
• Ocean Power Delivery Limited
  

Solar currently generates 100 watts per square meter, wind 1000 watts per square meter while wave power houses the potential for 20,000- 70,000 watts per square meter depending on teh region. Wave energy can be thought of as compressed stored wind energy.

Waves are a highly forecastable energy source, which is a major concern with wind and solar generation. Output, even without forecasting, can be held constant within a 5 and 10% threshold.

The device is called "Pelamis" (a type of sea snake) for its vertical and horizontal motion as waves pass under it. It resides in an optimal depth of 80m which is 2-10km from shore depending on the region. At this depth the waves are not compressed by the shore and retain more energy while remaining in a non-volatile state (not breaking).

A single unit is 140m long and 3.5m wide with 4 rigid sections and 3 joints that contain pneumatic actuators. The joints move up and down as well as side to side at non uniform angles to induce a kind of harmonic tuning that is used to maximize the power output depending on the type of wave. That single unit will average around 750 KW output which is enough for about 500 homes.

The device is designed to be survivable with "load shedding" as an innate feature of the design. If a large wave is encountered it will simply pass through the wave rather than rising too high on a crest and breaking apart. This is much the same as the way that wind turbines can feather in excess wind or a hydro-electric plant can discharge excess water.

The technology was designed using existing technology as a guide. Natural gas, Oil and various other marine industries have developed standards couplings and materials that are well suited to this type of environment. The device itself employs very few revolutionary, and untested, modules which makes it very reliable.

The current cost of deployment per kwh is above wind but below solar. There is a distinct trend in applications of new technologies that cost drops fairly dramatically as process is streamlined and technologies refined. Wind turbine prices have dropped 80% since the first wind turbine project; so one might make an educated guess that a similar trend will follow for wave power. Government subsidies generally provide incentive to new projects during the first few years to help with this innovation cost hurdle, as we've done for solar and wind.

I Bet Crude Oil Tastes Great!

Ethanol gets me so riled up. I mean, sure its a great way to stop using foreign oil and prop up the sagging farm industry. You know, aside from its general inefficiency, its failure to address the Neanderthalic burning-stuff-for-power lack of innovation, and the destruction of a perfectly useful commodity. People have been taking it up lately because that's a great way to impress the middle of the country. You know that same, unimproved commodity you're been growing all your life? Well turns out that it just got 7 times more expensive! Bullshit.

You want to grow power? Plant a field full of photo voltaic cells that do a much better job of harnessing sunlight and turning it into usable fuel. And I won't need to subsidize you cause it won't be ridiculously expensive to turn a mild profit.

Sorry I finally got around to watching "Who Killed the Electric Car" so I'm very angry about inferior alternatives being pushed out because they may benefit a small subset of people for a short time. These hydrogen and ethanol technologies that are the "salvation of the energy dependence" completely fail to address the issue of environmental efficacy. Electric cars have been around since the beginning of cars, but we've been distracted all this time by a better advertised, but less effective, alternative. Don't get suckered in again. Don't buy an "efficient" 42mpg hybrid, don't wait around 5 years for a "where the hell will the fuel come from, oh its expensive and inefficient to create" hydrogen drive vehicle. There are gigawatts of electricity out there in wind, sunlight, and waves just waiting to be harvested. And electric cars the possess durability and performance to make use of that free power NOW, without the need to throw billions into "future research".

So next time you feel pressured to use one of these "new innovations" in fuel, reply that you're more temped to crack open a can of 10W-30 instead of Gatorade at the gym.

• Ethanol in America: "Our Crop. Our Fuel. Our Country." (TreeHugger)
• Checkbiotech.org: Ethanol's corn-fed boom holds hidden costs: higher food prices

State Of The Cons-umion.

No I didn't watch the State of the Union.  I've been doing my best to keep my head down and pretend that Bush doesn't exist until the situation resolves itself.  Which is, ironically, very much like Bush's foreign policy.  Not having watched, I don't really have any opinions to put forward (ethanol and coal?  You dirty son-of-a-...) about what was said or not said.  I will, however, refer you to Martin Eberhard of Tesla Motors.

• The Tesla blog: Vintage Oil and Other Hare-Brained Ideas

"One of the foremost principles that led me to found Tesla Motors was that, electric cars move our choice of energy source upstream from the vehicle, making them the ultimate multi-fuel vehicles: You can power them with clean (or dirty) coal; wind or solar power; clean, safe (or otherwise) nuclear energy; or even good ol' oil."

Upstream, this is the concept I've been talking about for as long as I knew you could run a car off electricity.  Now I've got a nice word for it.

"Imagine if you got a $25,000 tax credit for buying an EV for your "business," like you can for a Hummer "

Yeah, imagine politicians did more than pay public lip service to the environment before turning around and selling other peoples' souls to the auto and oil industries.

"I am not so enthusiastic about stepping up domestic oil production. I actually like our wildernesses, and I don't think we need to fill our few remaining unspoiled places with oil extraction industry. Lots of other people have written on this subject; let me just agree with them."

Damn right, Martin.  Well said.  I need to figure out how to get more into this company, short of stealing $100,000 for a roadster or for a 50,000 Whitestar.

Energy Stability With Battery Packs.

Whoa, this is an interesting concept. People are down on some kinds of alternative energy because they can be inconsistent and are not on-demand sources. If you have a cloudy day you'll generate less solar power. Or if there's no wind, you'll get less wind power. And the flip side is that you may end up generating more power than you need, but don't have any way to store it.

This article on plug-in hybrids pitches solutions all over the place. If plug-in hybrids were mainstream enough in the US, electric companies could benefit from stability and use a wider variety of sources. First, the electric providers should be pushing for plug-in hybrids because they will sell more electricity, which means more profit. (out of the oil companies pockets) They've over built production facilities to deal with usage spikes, so most of the time these factories are wasting overhead. By incentivising off-peak charging they could make full use of the capital expenditure they've made.

With higher profits, they could justify cleaner electricity improvements like coal plant upgrades or even starting alternative energy production. The plug-ins will help them again there. They can act as an energy buffer, using surplus energy at low demand hours and even offering it back to the grid when demand spikes or if an alternative source has a sub-par day. Think about it, millions of high quality storage batteries keeping our energy supply and consumption in collusion.

Some of the proposals integrate a "car IP" so that when you plug into the grid your account is credited or debited no matter where you are. So wherever your car is parked it is contributing to the communal power supply. If there is a natural disaster or emergency that cut power to regions, the cars could be used to keep essential systems running. And even if you sold all your electricity back to the community, you could still drive when you came back to your car using the gasoline supplement.

This may seem like quite the ambitious endeavor but its the best argument for a hybrid I've ever heard.

• Technology Review: How Plug-In Hybrids Will Save the Grid

Jury To Whiners: Suck It.

A Texas jury sided with a multi-million dollar out of state corporation over the complaints of local residents. Damn straight, I'm not usually for big companies rolling over the opinions of citizens, but screw these guys. The difference is in the details. This company runs the largest wind farm in the world and these plaintiffs are alleging that the turbines are a public nuisance. They say that the sounds created by clean, efficient energy are too much to bare. (well, they say that now that a judge told them they can't make a case against the look of the turbines) An impartial sound engineer took readings and found that the highest reading was 44 decibels. That's smack in between a residential area at night and a quiet restaurant. Or how about the wind blowing at 10 mph? Imagine that, a wind farm makes as much noise as the wind. How dare they?

This wind farm has 421 turbines on 47,000 acres maxing out at 735 MegaWatts. Awesome. I would love to see some big-ass turbines outside my window.

• Wind energy scores major legal victory in U.S. | Inside Greentech

Coal Diet.

Awesome. They're getting off the coal habit in California. Unfortunately they've still got to use up the coal they have hidden all over the house, under the mattress, the flour canister, the toilet tank. Oh and they get home delivery. And the contract doesn't expire till 2027. But that's OK, it'll give them some time to figure out another option. The first step is the hardest and by not renewing this contract they've gotten the ball rolling.

• Hugg / californian cities do not renew contracts for coal-fired power

Imagine your electricity bill. Now imagine it gone. Now imagine it replaced with a check for two grand. If you're in the Puget Sound area there's a serious opportunity and incentive to produce renewable power thanks to Initiative 937. Large utility companies need to increase renewable energy sources to 15% by 2020. So PSE is outsourcing the task, paying citizens that produce excess clean power for the grid.

• Hugg / Energy company to pay customers for power

Water Power Update.

I can't believe how many ideas there are for getting electricity from water movement. Wait; yes I can. I can't believe how few of them we use. Tide, current, wave, and different mechanical implementations for each. Add these to the list:

• Treehugger: New Innovations In Tidal Energy
• Hugg / S.D.E. Wave Power for $0.02 per kWh
• Hugg / brandl generator
• Hugg / wave plane
• Hugg / The Kobold turbine within the archimedes bridge
• Hugg / exploiting flows within water treatment works

Monday Greening

More wave power generation. These guys are floats anchored to the ocean floor that bob under the surface as wave crests and troughs roll by. I'm assuming that they're more sheltered and less susceptible to damage in rough seas.

• AWS Ocean Energy Limited

Bio solvent and striper; way better than chemical strippers that give me the jibblies.

• Treehugger: aMAIZEing: Bio-Based Paint Solvent & Stripper

Using corn to make biodegradable plastics like this water bottle and filter.

• Strange New Products: Corn-Based Water Bottle with Filter

Whole Foods is to sell wind power gift cards. Bound to be the best stocking suffers you give this year.

• Hugg / World Exclusive! Whole Foods to sell Wind Power Gift Cards

Why aren't there plug-in hybrids? A nice long article about the benefits of plug-ins that actually talks with engineers about why they're not here yet. Spoiler: they're worried about battery longevity.

• Hugg / "Still Miles to Go for the Plug-In Vehicle"

Watch Me Burn Your Dinner.

I've never really been so hot on ethanol as an alternative fuel. Sure, its technically renewable, but I'd rather see these fuels come from untapped resources, not re-purposed necessities.

I know its hard to get solid facts, since sources vary so widely on the subject. Mostly you hear about how wonderful ethanol is as a renewable fuel that releases zero carbon emissions and works in current engines. I don't want to discount those positives, but I think the glossed over downsides are worth contemplating. Environmentalist Lester Brown is a major proponent of using food for food. He points out that rising gas prices are making corn more profitable as fuel than as food. Ethanol plants are being installed all over the world, Brazil leading in production. Last year the US ethanol industry consumed more corn than the entire Canadian harvest.

"There is no international body to mediate the competition between 800 million people with cars and two billion of the poorest people who spend more than half their income on food.'

How is someone supposed to be able to compete with an industry that is willing to pay double an item's worth just to burn it? Couple the ethical dilemma of burning dinners with the fact that ethanol just shifts pollution. Sure, zero emissions when it is burned; but ethanol is produced using fossil fuels that release just as much carbon. Then think about the production and transport of crops using fossil fuels, and you'll realize that such a complicated process requires many layers of infrastructure that will all need to be modified as we try to shed fossil fuels.

Ethanol is a stopgap. Its meant to appease people without having to lay out for a new car that uses a fundamentally different technology. I'm not saying it isn't a small improvement over the past 50 years of consumption, but I find it hard to believe its superior to other methods of energy collection.

• globeandmail.com: New fuels depleting food supply, critic says