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CALL ON PRESIDENT OBAMA TO STOP THE PEBBLE MINE!

The EPA has determined that the Pebble Mine would spell disaster for Alaska’s Bristol Bay — its legendary salmon runs, its pristine environment and its Native communities. Please make your own voice heard at the White House immediately. 

Call on President Obama to save this national treasure by directing his EPA to use its authority under the Clean Water Act to stop the Pebble Mine!

Switchboard is the staff blog of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the nation’s most effective environmental group. For more about our work, including in-depth policy documents, action alerts and ways you can contribute, visit

great link for more info on the same

Self-Driving Car Licensed

Google's Self-Driving Car Licensed to Hit Nevada Streets

Google's autonomous vehicle cruises the Las Vegas Strip. (Image courtesy of the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles)Google's self-driving car is growing up right in front of our eyes: The fledgling autonomous vehicle program recently passed its driver's license test in Nevada, the first license of its kind in the United States. Obtaining Nevada's self-driving car license clears the way for Google to test its technology on public roads in the state.

Google's modified Toyota Prius was given the thumbs up after successful test drives in Carson City and on the Las Vegas strip. Alongside the special license, Nevada also issued the car a unique set of red license plates that include the infinity symbol and the words “autonomous car.” With any luck, those plates should differentiate all the other vehicles on the road from Google’s car, which has cameras and radar equipment strapped to the roof.

Nevada first began work on its autonomous vehicle licensing program last June when the state's lawmakers passed legislation toallow self-driving cars on public roads. In February, Nevada's Department of Motor Vehicles issued rules governing autonomous cars. The Nevada DMV rules currently limit the state's licensing to test vehicles; enthusiasts need not apply.

To be approved for road travel, autonomous cars must have a combined minimum driving time of 10,000 miles. Nevada also requires autonomous car operators to submit a complete description of their self-driving technology, a detailed safety plan, and a plan for hiring and training test drivers. The state requires a $100 licensing fee plus $13 for each set of license plates, but companies must also purchase a surety bond of $1 million to put up to 5 vehicles on the road. Nevada says a number of other unnamed companies are looking to follow Google and test self-driving cars on the state's public roads.

Despite allowing only beta cars at the moment, Nevada is looking toward a day when self-driving cars will be sold to the public. The state's DMV says it plans to issue privately owned self-driving cars a green license plate that will also include the infinity symbol. Motorists will also be required to obtain a special driver license endorsement before they can get behind the wheel of future robotic cars.

80 Percent Renewables Is Possible By 2050 by Climate Progress

Thinking Big: 80 Percent Renewables Is Possible By 2050

by Climate Progress

Americans have always prided themselves on thinking big. When it comes to energy, the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) has given big-thinkers everywhere a shot in the arm with a new study that concludes:

“Renewable energy sources, accessed with commercially available technologies, could adequately supply 80% of total U.S. electricity generation in 2050 while balancing supply and demand at the hourly level.”

This is a very big finding from one of the world’s most credible experts on advanced energy technologies. This detailed analysis makes clear that renewable energy is here, it is ready, and it can provide a very large share of the energy we need to run an advanced, prosperous and growing economy. The remaining question is whether we are ready to take the leadership to seize this opportunity.

great information in this link on how you can help!!!

Before we go into the high-level findings and some of the more impressive details, there are a few observations.

The first is on what the NREL study says about what we don’t need to hit 80 percent renewables.

We don’t need some crazy cool new technology or some groundbreaking invention. We aren’t waiting on the scientific community to make some breakthrough. Would revolutions in storage and batteries help us reach 100% renewable energy? Sure. But this 80 percent by 2050 target is possible with commercially available technology. That’s a big deal.

The second is about what this study shows we do need to make this renewable energy future a reality.

We need to transform our thinking about modernizing our electricity system — on everything from system planning and flexibility, to new business models and market rules. America needs to take the same approach it took with every other strategic infrastructure upgrade that unlocked economic growth in our past. From building railroads and highways to rural electrification, we focused our policies on capturing the scope and potential payoff of a major national project. That included providing the incentives to businesses and consumers through smart policy to lift all boats and increase economic productivity.

So before the dirty details: kudos to NREL for taking a look at what is possible and for laying out something visionary. The national debate on building a renewable energy future desperately needs to be re-focused and this report is a great step in that direction — making it clear that bold ambition is readily achievable.

Later this month, the Center for American Progress will also release a report on the convergence of renewable electricity, energy efficiency and smart grid technology, and how these technologies together represent a state change in our national energy infrastructure. Our piece on the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) revolution builds on NREL’s findings to lay out a framework for this national energy transformation.

High-Level Findings

The executive summary of the NREL report highlights a few key findings:

We Can Deploy Lots and Lots of Renewables Nationwide: 80 percent of U.S. electricity could be generated from renewable sources by 2050. Every region in the U.S. would contribute substantially to the RE base, in a way that is consistent with local resources.

Multiple Technology Pathways Exist to Get Us There: Any existing constraints on transmission capacity, flexibility, and resource availability can be compensated with other resources, technologies, and approaches that balance loads and improve reliability.

The Lights Will Stay On: Electricity supply and demand can be balanced hourly in the 80 percent renewables scenario, event with 50 percent coming from variable generation. Ironically, the challenges are not from renewables failing to produce, but rather mainly involve managing low-demand periods and curtailment of excess generation.

Technology Advances and New Ideas Wanted: Increasing the system flexibility is crucial. This will require new technology advances, new operating procedures, new business models, and new market rules which are conducive to increased flexibility.

More Transmission Infrastructure Needed: It is absolutely necessary to build new transmission if this renewable future is going to be a reality.

All these points indicate that the electricity system is not struggling with a lack of technology; it is suffering from a classic failure of imagination and foresight in implementation. Aside from new transmission and some technological advances, the the current roadblocks are due to entrenched business models and market rules that are not designed to reward efficiency, integration, or new entrants into the generation market. It hasn’t always been this way. At its best, America has been a leader in the development of forward thinking national infrastructures. In this report, NREL points the way toward continued leadership.

What could the 2050 electricity mix look like?

The NREL study went through several different renewable penetration scenarios evaluated against a baseline. The baseline scenario was the business-as-usual path where we continue phase out support for renewables and the energy mix is mostly dominated by fossil fuels. The other scenarios show a variety of levels of renewable penetration, starting with 30 percent RE and continuing up in 10 percent increments to 90 percent RE.

Here’s a breakdown the possible renewable generation mixes for 2050:

Three of the more interesting conclusions from this graph are:

Wind and Solar are Big Winners: Wind stands to gain the most in terms of absolute KWh from NRELs scenarios- largely at the expense of coal and natural gas. Solar, however, has the largest percentage increase across the board.

Nuclear Remains Pretty Stable in All Cases: Nuclear power will remain a relatively consistent proportion of the energy mix under all scenarios; however, it won’t see any new growth in base load power plant construction.

Ending Reliance on Fossil Fuels is Possible: Even with the shale gas boom in the United States, these models show natural gas could play a smaller role in the total energy mix than some analysts are predicting. Also, technological stability can be maintained across the overall system with declining coal generation.

Regionally Specific Solutions: Doing What You Do Best

Another great breakdown from the NREL report is how every region will contribute its own blend of renewables to the national mix. 

Obviously, different areas have different strengths and this graph does an excellent job of showing precisely what those are:

Here you can see concentrated solar power (CSP) in the Southwest, wind in the Central region, and biomass in the Southeast playing dominant roles. Every area plays to its strengths, and is woven together to create a more diverse, reliable and flexible energy system nationwide.

There Is Massive Potential for Reducing CO2 Emissions (Without Losing Reliability)

It makes sense that higher percentages of renewables would decrease emissions. The NREL study, however, does a great job of mapping out the precise implications for carbon in the charts below:

As you can see, under the baseline scenario (BAU) we are in big trouble, with CO2 emissions rising. However, the higher the penetration of renewables in the electricity mix, the more dramatic the implications for lowering carbon.

Here’s another way to put that data:

The big takeaway here is that under the 80 percent renewables scenario, natural gas-fired and coal-based electricity generation also declined by about 80 percent by 2050. Consequently, so did emissions.

Overcoming Obstacles: Grid Flexibility and New Transmission

The study evaluates renewable energy penetration scenarios with several variables; including constraints on transmission, flexibility, and resources. Each of these constraint scenarios had implications for how exactly renewables were utilized.

For instance, a constrained transmission scenario favored resources that don’t require transmission like rooftop PV. Constrained flexibility meant more reliance on non-variable renewables, like CSP, and less on utility-scale PV and wind. Under the constrained resources scenario, biopower, geothermal, and hydro (which you can’t find everywhere) were limited; whereas CSP and onshore wind reached high levels of penetration.

What does this have to do with obstacles? Well, system planners, operators, and Public Utility Commissions that want to hit high renewable targets will have to harness different technologies based on their constraints. We can’t do much about the resource constraints issue, but we can do something about flexibility and transmission nationwide. Here’s a little more background on why that’s necessary and what it would entail.

Grid flexibility, or the ability of the grid to meet demand in a variety of changing circumstances, is a crucial component of an efficient and useful power system. As higher percentages of renewables are incorporated, however, some have expressed concerns that the grid will not be flexible enough to meet demand. This is largely because supply and demand must be balanced in real time.

The NREL study acknowledges this concern and explains how 80 percent renewables still allow for a flexible grid.

First, the 80 percent renewable scenario must provide adequate generation capacity to meet demand. The NREL study showed that the 80 percent renewable scenario provided more than enough capacity to meet demand — even under times of system stress. Storage technology and transmission infrastructure would also chip in massively. In other words, the lights would still stay on.

In addition to being able to meet generation capacity requirements, the system must have a certain amount of energy on standby, also known as an “operating reserve.” The NREL study found that the 80 percent scenario was more than sufficient to meet these requirements. In their words: “integrating high levels of variable generation is not an insurmountable task even under relatively conservative assumptions for transmission and institutional flexibility.”

“the supply- and demand-mix, planning and operating reserves, and transmission system predicted by ReEDS under the scenarios analyzed were sufficient to meet load on an hourly basis, and that hourly mismatches between supply and demand on a regional basis were therefore not anticipated.”

Share the Wealth- Building New Transmission

Getting to 80 percent renewables efficiently suggests the need for construction of 110-190 million miles of new transmission and 47-80,000 miles of new intertie capacity across the three interconnections. This would cost anywhere from $6.4 to $8.4 billion annually. However, this is in line with recent annual investments of $2 billion to $9 billion annually from 1995-2008. So, the new infrastructure demands are well in line with our national trajectory.

An interesting implication for transmission, though, is that NREL found its use would increase by 8 percent (from 32 to 40 percent) with the 80 percent scenario. This is what enables every region to significantly contribute to renewable energy supply. For more on the transmission issue, you can see the fourth volume of the NREL study here.

The report offers a great blueprint for thinking about our energy future. It once again shows that a renewables-dominant energy system is not a technical challenge, but an engineering and creativity challenge.

why we should worry about Mick Romny's pedigree

As a corporate raider, as opposed to trader, Romney made his mark in the world today, "I have been led to believe, if I can believe everything I read in the papers.. If this is so we can see a painful irony in this video as to why it might not be good to have this type of person leading the country....I hear a lot of it in his speeches the call of the small entrepreneur as the savior of the USA if not the world...However no sign of how he is on the side of the SMALL entrepreneur is evident if you look at the big picture of who is backing his campaign and who benefits if he is elected.
please watch video...
This video I think shows how the mind of the corporation raider works, they don't necersarily see building stones to the end product and dream, a balance sheet and profit are number one.
Thermaskirt is now sold throughout the WORLD , and makes annual profits exceeding £5,000,000 pa. Take that, Dragons! Inventor told to leave the den is beating the crunch with million-pound contract

An entrepreneur who was rejected on Dragons' Den has just won a multimillion-pound order.

Inventor Martin Wadsworth went head to head with Duncan Bannatyne and Theo Paphitis who argued that no one would buy his product ThermaSkirt. But the businessman is now beating the credit crunch crisis after just securing a contract worth up to £4million next year alone.

Into the den: Inventor Martin Wadsworth goes head to head with Duncan Bannatyne as he shows him ThermaSkirt And the firm has secured orders from other companies which could see its turnover rise even further.

Mr Wadsworth, who appeared on the BBC2 show last month, was rounded on by the  Dragons after asking for £150,000 for a 10 per cent stake in his company DiscreteHeat ,which manufactures a radiator that looks exactly like a skirting board. The inventor, who had a sparring session with multi-millionaire Mr Bannatyne, said: 'Going on Dragons' Den was a very daunting experience and very nerve-racking.

'You don't meet the Dragons beforehand or afterwards so there is no camaraderie.

'It turned into something very adversarial. It really was an ordeal by fire.

'I walked in and saw them for the first time and gave them my presentation.

'Then as soon as I finished the first question, Duncan Bannatyne asked what was wrong with my product.

'So straight away, it was head to head with him. I didn't fall for that one and said you tell me what is wrong with it and I will counter.

'He couldn't come up with anything because we don't have any problems. It is pretty bullet-proof.

'He has no idea of anything to do with the plumbing industry and suggested we make it out of wood.

'Mitt Romney’s record running the Bain Capital investment firm continues to get close and sharp-edged scrutiny, giving the Obama campaign ammunition as it tries to defend its own record during rough economic times.

Specifically, critics say that Bain during the years of Romney’s leadership had a direct hand in sending US jobs abroad. A long piece in the Washington Post this week details such activity when Romney ran the firm.

“During the nearly 15 years that Romney was actively involved in running Bain, a private equity firm that he founded, it owned companies that were pioneers in the practice of shipping work from the United States to overseas call centers and factories making computer components, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission,” the Post reported. “While Bain was not the largest player in the outsourcing field, the private equity firm was involved early on, at a time when the departure of jobs from the United States was beginning to accelerate and new companies were emerging as handmaidens to this outflow of employment.”
Maybe its ME and I misunderstand what he means by small entrepreneur,,,MAYBE a small entrepreneur in Romney's world is KRAFT,nestle,coca cola, Kellogg's

Fracking what is it and what does it cost

Half of America Doesn’t Know What Fracking Is

If you read green news, even if only sporadically, you’ve heard of “fracking.” If you follow progressive politics, you’ve heard of fracking. If you know much about modern energy production, you’ve heard of fracking. If you’re an environmentalist, you’ve probably protested fracking.

But those descriptions don’t apply to the 63% of Americans who’ve never heard of, or aren’t familiar with, the practice known as hydraulic fracturing. That’s the eye-opening finding of a new poll, and one that was carried out with a pretty decent sample size to boot. Here’s how the results break down:

That’s crazy. Fracking has fundamentally transformed the energy debate—and energy production—around the world. It has helped create the glut of natural gas we’re currently sitting on, and that in turn is helping to drive coal out of business. It also poses numerous health and environmental risks that everyone—especially those who live in fracking-impacted areas—should be aware of. It can contaminate groundwater, spur small earthquakes, blast methane emissions into the sky, etc.

The poll reveals that there’s a lot of work yet to be done on energy education (that’s a massive understatement all around)—the public can’t make informed decisions about the controversial practice if it doesn’t even said controversial practice exists, after all.

So, for those of you reading this who’ve never heard of fracking: It’s the process wherein companies blast a highly pressurized chemical cocktail deep down into the earth, in order to fracture the rock layer to gain access to reserves of oil or gas.Well here you go please watch this short video 

Fracking Chemicals Likely Found in Water

Chemicals have been detected in two deep water wells in west-central Wyoming, the EPA said they are consistent with those used in gas production and hydraulic-fracturing fluids. Where did the synthetic chemicals come from? Most likely a gas field near Pavilion, Wyoming is the source. Pavilion is located within the Wind River Indian Reservation, which covers over two million acres and is where two tribes live – Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho.

About 150 gas wells in the Pavilion area are owned by Canada’s largest natural gas producer. A company representative said, “They’ve used terms like ‘likely’. What they’ve come up with here is a probability. It’s not a  definitive conclusion.” (Source: Bloomberg) However, the company has been providing water from a different source to about 21 families from Pavilion. Other residents have also sought outside water sources.

Alternate water sources were recommended for residents of Pavilion by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2010 due to their detection of petroleum hydrocarbons in well and groundwater. At that time the same agency said they couldn’t determine the exact source though. This year the  EPA dug their own monitoring wells in the aquifer and found, “compounds likely associated with gas-production practices,  including hydraulic fracturing”.  (Source: Bloomberg) They also said levels of the chemicals are well above safe limits.

This development is a big story potentially, because earlier this year EPA Chief Lisa Jackson testified before Congress that she knew of no proven case where the fracking process had affected water. She didn’t lie, but now the EPA has acknowledged it is likely  fracking chemicals have contaminated water.

At the time she made her statement a study from Duke University indicated fracking had contaminated water, but she may have been unaware of the research. 

 

vagina as a word is in the news lately and the Chinese have found a way to top the lot

Well here’s a story that sounds like an urban legend: Villagers in China unearthed a mysterious plant that they thought might be some type of mushroom. It’s described as “fleshy and meaty,” with “something that looks like lips” at one end, and on the other end there’s a hole with a shaft in between and … look, you see where this is going. It’s an artificial vag.

If the news video didn’t look legit I’d suspect this of being a fake, ginned up either to poke fun at unsophisticated village types or to mock the media’s credulousness. (Look for the part where the reporter talks authoritatively about this mysterious plant’s growing patterns and historical significance.) To me, it does look legit … but then again, what the hell do I know about Chinese TV? I will note that the program supposedly reporting on this novelty fungus, Xi’an Up Close, doesn’t seem to have any online presence that’s not related to this video, at least nothing associated with the English translation of the program name.

I really want it to be true, because it’s hilarious. But if it’s a fake, I hope posterity finds it ranking with the kidney thief and the dog that’s really a rat among the classic urban legends.

Chinese villagers discover "rare mushroom" but it turns out to be a rubber vagina, Dangerous Minds

neilallerart: WHO's got all the GOLD???

neilallerart: WHO's got all the GOLD???: My first question is,,Why do they keep on saying the savior of the country is the  Small business entrepreneur...I don't see any here!!!!!! ...