David Mackay’s new book is a great resource for preparing for life after petroleum. Read Mapawatt’s review of the book. You can buy it on Amazon or download it for free.

Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air

In a clear and concise review and essay, Robert Zubrin lays out the case for Methanol becoming the energy carrier for the 21st century and beyond.

Zubrin, an aerospace engineer and president of Pioneer Astronautics, comments on the book,  Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy written by Nobel laureate chemist, George Olah.  His commentary takes a very technical tome and provides a concise summary of the case in language that the average reader can understand.

Read the entire essay, The Methanol Alternative, at New Atlantis.

Responding to a question from a city councilwoman about transportation and infrastructure in the stimulus bill during a town hall forum in Ft. Myers, Florida, President Obama said that the days of just building sprawl are over.

From a transcript provided by Transportation for America:

Not only do we need to rebuild our roads, our bridges, our ports, our levies, our dams, but we also have to plan for the future. This is the same example of turning crisis into opportunity…Now, look, this is America. We always had the best infrastructure. We were always willing to invest in the future. Governor Crist mentioned Abraham Lincoln. In the middle of the Civil War, in the midst of all this danger and peril, what did he do? He helped move the intercontinental railroad.  He helped start land grant colleges. He understood that even when you’re in the middle of crisis, you’ve got to keep your eye on the future. So transportation is not just fixing our old transportation systems but its also imaging new transportation systems.

That’s why I’d like to see high speed rail where it can be constructed. That’s why I would like to invest in mass transit because potentially that’s energy efficient and I think people are alot more open now to thinking regionally in terms of how we plan our transportation infrastructure. The days where we’re just building sprawl forever, those days are over. I think that Republicans, Democrats, everybody recognizes that that’s not a smart way to build communities. So we should be using this money to help spur this kind of innovative thinking when it comes to transportation. That will make a big difference.

OAKLAND, Calif. — It will cost $515 billion annually through 2030 to wean the world off fossil fuels in favor of clean energy sources, according to a report released last week by the World Economic Forum.

Onshore and offshore wind, solar thermal and photovoltaics, waste-to-energy, geothermal and next-generation and sugar-based biofuels were identified as large-scale clean energy sectors that governments throughout the world should pursue to address energy security and climate change, the report (PDF) said.

The report, released at the annual meeting in Davos, suggests the transition to clean energy should be included in government stimulus plans, which is similar to U.S. President Barack Obama’s efforts to include billions in renewable energy and energy efficiency measures in the massive stimulus bill making its way though Congress.

The report’s release comes within days of Texas awarding $5 billion in projects aimed at propping up capacity of the state’s transmission lines, which currently cannot handle incredible growth in wind energy generation.

When the projects are completed, there could be up to 2,900 miles of new power lines. Texas leads the country in wind generation, and current power lines are near capacity.

Ocean Power Technologies, Inc. has installed one of its PowerBuoy wave power generation units (earlier post) near Kaneohe Bay on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. This is the third PowerBuoy to be deployed by OPT over the past two months at sites in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

OPT PowerBuoy

The Oahu PowerBuoy was launched under the Company’s ongoing program with the US Navy for installation of PowerBuoys off Marine Corps Base Hawaii at Kaneohe Bay and will be connected to the Oahu power grid. Further, the US Navy has added $300,000 in funding for this program to provide for extended operation of the PowerBuoy system.

More…

A researcher at Montana State University has found a micro-organism in a plant in South America that could fuel vehicles one day. The unusual fungus contains the essence of diesel, which one could use to run a bus, for example, without processing it at all.  Listen…

I am often a skeptic of theories until I can read enough information to support a logical conclusion that the theory is true or false.  Climate change was one of those theories that I wondered if it was really true.  I watched a Youtube video of a young scientist who used standard logic to determine that the best option was to assume that climate change was real and to do something about it.  Here’s the video to watch and help you make up your own mind on climate change:

Polar Ice Caps Melting by September

It appears that the ice at the North Pole has decided to melt and should be completely melted by this September.  I guess you can look on the bright side; now you can take a cruise to the North Pole and experience what many an explorer froze to death trying to accomplish!

It’s also a well-known fact that there is oil under the Arctic Ocean.  I guess it will also be easier to drill for it now…

- Veggie Ranger