Dirty Energy Trick Vs. Renewable Energy Treats
Got this in the email today from Greenpeace…
Trick or Treat? It’s hard to tell these days what’s a trick and what’s a treat when it comes to energy. Ideas like “Clean Coal” and nuclear power may sound like solutions to oil and gas dependency, but in reality, these negative energy sources should be avoided at all cost (and they DO cost!).
Don’t let a mask like “clean” coal fool you into thinking coal is safe. Underneath the industry’s costume lurks a dark and scary truth. Coal is a dirty, polluting fossil fuel that contributes nearly 40% to overall global warming emissions, and so-called “Clean Coal” technologies like Carbon Capture and Sequestration are decades away from viability — if they ever prove viable at all, that is. Simply put, there is no such thing as “Clean Coal.”
So what about nuclear power? Well, that’s an even scarier prospect. You can’t see the dangers of nuclear power, but, like an ancient vampire, nuclear waste can last for several centuries. Leaks of this radioactive waste can slowly kill anyone who is exposed to it, while waste storage sites represent dangerous threats to our national security.
More frightening still is the cost of nuclear power: Every dollar spent on nuclear energy would go 7-10 times further if it were invested in efficiency measures and renewable energy. Just comparing the cost of nuclear development vs. the cost of switching to renewable energy sources like wind and solar makes me want to scream. It’s time to drive a stake through the heart of the nuclear industry.
But we need not live in fear of these dark powers. We can choose to step into the light of solar energy and feel the clean breeze of wind power.
TAKE ACTION >> Tell Congress to reward us all with renewable energy NOW.
Renewable energy is a solution that’s already in the bag, and the economic and climate benefits that come with it are oh-so-sweet. The choice between dirty energy tricks and renewable energy treats is in YOUR hands.
The Building Blocks Of Life
Researchers have found that the faster an animal is growing, the more energy from food it uses. As animals age, their energy use levels out.
Ever wonder where all that food your teenager devoured was going? Not only does the food go into the teen’s daily activities–running, doing homework, breathing and playing video games, but food converted to energy also fuels growth of new tissues–bones, vessels, cartilage, muscle.
In poorer areas of the world, part of the energy yielded by food might be deflected for the body’s defense system in fighting disease. Children and teens in such conditions will not grow as tall or big as their healthy counterparts who were able to allocate more of their energy stores directly to growth.
In the October 31 issue of Science, researchers funded by the National Science Foundation report on a model that shows that the food baby mammals and birds use to grow always stay proportional to how fast they are growing. This relationship stays remarkably stable for all sizes and types of animals.
Chen Hou of the Santa Fe Institute compares the building of an animal to the building of a house: “When you build a house the materials alone are just part of the story. You might pay $1,000 for the bricks, but you will spend much more for the workers and the rest of the overhead. Same with building a body–new muscle and bone are just part of the energy expenditure; laying that new tissue down costs much more.”
Previous energy budget models have typically been based on either rates of food consumption or metabolic energy expenditure. Hou and his colleagues are the first to reconcile the two approaches and to highlight the fundamental principles that determine rates of food assimilation and the rate of energy allocation to maintenance of a body and to its growth, activity and storage. They confirmed their model with data from 14 different mammals and birds from the chicken to the fox.
In the future they will be interested to see how the rates of food intake and growth compare in reptiles and insects.
The current modeling work is not only important in agriculture and husbandry, but will lend key insight into child obesity and the relationship of diet control to exercise and weight loss. This research can also shed light on how food restriction can retard aging.
Devastating Anti-Palin Ad
Obama has come out with a devastating, yet classy attack ad against the McCain/Palin campaign. Really brings home how unready McCain is to be president.
Solar Death Rays, Fun With Science
I have always been fascinated by taking sun light and concentrating, collecting, converting, and otherwise using it for fun and exciting purposes. But perhaps the most dramatic of these sort of examples is concentrating a whole lot of sunlight into a single point.
Any kid that ever took a magnifying lens outside and burned stuff with it knows that in even just a little bit of sun there is a tremendous amount of energy. Imagine then what you could do if you took a whole lot of sun and concentrated it into a small area! (cue diabolical laughter).
(note the need for mad scientist goggles in the above video, see! I am not the only one that thinks these things are essential for all mad geniuses.)
Heck you can even concentrate the moon light!
These things are no joke!
I so need to get me one of these!
Obama’s Thirty Minute Ad
Here it is…
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