Solar energy cooked food in India
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
India is well-known for delicious food, and the kitchen is considered to be a sacred place in any Indian home. And now India has something else to be proud of: the world’s largest solar kitchen. The system has been installed as a collaboration between the Academy for a Better World and Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University, with technology from Solare-Brücke, Germany. With 84 receivers and cooking at 650 degrees, the system can produce up to 38,500 meals a day when the sun is at its peak!
More pics and writup here:
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/03/17/world%e2%80%99s-largest-solar-kitchen-in-india-can-cook-upto-38500-meals-per-day/
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Absence of consensus
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
"Future dangers will not come from the same source [communism]. The ideology will be different. Its essence [environmentalism and climate alarmism] will, nevertheless, be identical – the attractive, pathetic, at first sight noble idea that transcends the individual in the name of common good, and the enormous self-confidence on the side of its proponents about their right to sacrifice the man and his freedom in order to make this idea a reality."
"What I see in Europe and the U.S.," Klaus cautioned, "is a powerful combination of irresponsibility, of wishful thinking, of implicit believing in some form of Malthusianism, of a cynical approach of those who are themselves sufficiently well-off, together with the strong belief in the possibility of changing the economic nature of things through a radical political project."
Read more:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/floy2.html
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Labels: 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, Climate change
Nanosolar
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Silicon Valley-based Nanosolar’s Powersheet was named innovation of the year by Popular Science. The Powersheet is a solar cell made with printing-press style machines that set down a layer of nanoparticle ink onto metal sheets as thin as aluminum foil. The panels can be made for about a tenth of what current panels cost and at a rate of several hundred feet per minute.
Nanoparticle ink is a proprietary ink developed by Nanosolar that makes it possible to simply print the semiconductor of a high-performance solar cell on highly conductive yet low-cost foil.
Nanosolar’s cells use no silicon and the company’s manufacturing process allow it to create cells that are as efficient as existing cells for as little as 30 cents a watt versus about $3/watt for existing silicon-based solar cells. For comparison purposes, to compete with coal that cost per watt has to be in the $1 per watt range.
Nanosolar is backed by several heavy hitters including Google’s founders, Benchmark Capital, SAC Capital, GLG Partners, OnPoint Technologies (the US Army’s private equity fund), and others including a $20 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.
Drooling for a chance to invest in this company? Stand in line - the firm is privately held and is presently not accepting any new capital.
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Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming
Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.
No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.
Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.
Let's hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans -- and most of the crops and animals we depend on -- prefer a temperature closer to 70.
Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.
Update 2/27: The graph for HadCRUT (above), as well as the linked graphs for RSS and UAH are generated month-to-month; the temperature declines span a full 12 months of data. The linked GISS graph was graphed for the months of January only, due to a limitation in the plotting program. Anthony Watts, who kindly provided the graphics, otherwise has no connection with the column. The views and comments are those of the author only.
From:
http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm
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Waging an eco-friendly war in Iraq!
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Courtesy: The Onion.
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