dispatches from Canada’s capital
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David MacKay’s Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air is a remarkably engaging book; it has certainly kicked off and contributed to some very energetic discussions here. The book, which was written by a physics professor at Cambridge and is available for free online, is essentially a detailed numerical consideration of renewable forms of power [...]
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Many forms of renewable power generation, such as wind and solar, suffer from differing power output depending on how intense the natural energy source is at any particular point in time. One neat exception to this is a tidal barrage with multiple lagoons. By managing the water level in each, it is possible to smooth [...]
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Over at Slate, there is an interesting article about art and chemistry: specifically, about the challenges involved in preserving artwork and historical objects that were made from fundamentally unstable plastics. As the article points out, this is an odd reversal of what most of the world is trying to do, namely eliminate plastic wastes that [...]
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Apparently, artificial ‘enhanced’ geothermal sites may cause earthquakes. The concept (mentioned here before) is to drill shafts down into hot rock formations, pump in cold water, and generate steam to drive turbines. It would considerably increase the number of regions where geothermal power could be used.
According to Swiss government seismologists and officials on the Basel [...]
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The United States Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) has released the most comprehensive report so far on climate change impacts in the United States: Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. The USGCRP consists of thirteen departments and agencies of the US federal government.
Some of the key findings include:
Climate changes are underway in the [...]
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The key thing that is required for dealing with climate change, and which our society does not yet possess, is seriousness. Seriousness of the kind that accompanied winning the Second World War – far more seriousness than we are displaying now in Afghanistan. We can afford to effectively lose that war, watching control pass back [...]
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