Pothole power for cars

Byoliveridley

Via the TNR E&E blog comes this story of capturing some of the energy wasted when a vehicle moves over bumps and potholes on the road. Indian drivers are waiting with bated breath for this prototype to become a reality! The takeaway messages are that most of the mechanical devices we use today have many points where waste energy can be captured and put to use.

A team of MIT undergraduate students has invented a shock absorber that harnesses energy from small bumps in the road, generating electricity while it smoothes the ride more effectively than conventional shocks. The students hope to initially find customers among companies that operate large fleets of heavy vehicles. They have already drawn interest from the U.S. military and several truck manufacturers.

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    NC House Smoking Bill passes committee

    Byoliveridley

    Updates on the smoking bills I mentioned last week….

    Bill Would Extinguish Indoor Smoking Statewide :: WRAL.com

    Dismissing North Carolina’s heritage as a tobacco state, a House committee on Tuesday passed a far-reaching indoor smoking ban.

    The Judiciary Committee passed the ban by a 9-4 vote. The measure would prohibit smoking in all indoor workplaces in North Carolina, including bars and restaurants. The rules also would apply to private clubs, except those with nonprofit or tax-exempt status.

    The measure would be complaint-driven — local health departments would act on complaints from the public — and violators would first receive warnings.

    “This was a significant and important event to advance the public’s health in North Carolina,” said Dr. Leah Devlin, director of the state Division of Public Health.

    But critics of the legislation, House Bill 259, pointed out that it faces an uphill battle on the House and Senate floors.

    “What they really want is a complete prohibition of indoor smoking in North Carolina,” said state Rep. Paul Stam, R-Wake. “We all know smoking is nasty and dangerous. The question is whether, in a free society, you let people do some things that are nasty and dangerous.”

    Some opponents said passing the bill could set the stage for similar bans inside personal vehicles and homes.

    “You want to smoke and you own the building. Is it really that bad for the public?” asked state Rep. Ronnie Sutton, D-Robeson.

    Yes Paul and Ronnie, not only did you construct a straw man, you blew smoke on it, gave it lung cancer, tortured it with cigarette butts and finally set it on fire. Sheesh, what asses.

    Update

    From Laura Leslie, WUNC (our local NPR affiliate) reporter who maintains a reporter’s blog at WUNC

    Under the current version of the bill, which isn’t available on the web just yet, only NON-profit clubs could allow smoking – like the Elks Lodge, for example.

    So for the standard nightclub or bar, smoking would be banned.

    Hope it helps – and thanks very much for reading!!
    Laura

    So, that’s a lot of progress on the house bill, making it very close to the senate bill.

  • Global warming wins the Nobel peace price

    Byoliveridley

    Well, I guess if Gore had become president of the US, this would not have happened (among other things that would not have happened). On the other hand, the U.S would have conceivably taken a leadership role in the issue (if the senate and congress would have cooperated).

    Gore and U.N. Panel Win Peace Prize – New York Times

    Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize Friday for their efforts to spread awareness of man-made climate change and lay the foundations for counteracting it.

    ”I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize,” Gore said. ”We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity.”

    Gore’s film ”An Inconvenient Truth,” a documentary on global warming, won an Academy Award this year and he had been widely expected to win the prize.

    What does this do for climate change? Well, nothing! Unfortunately! Good for the IPCC, though. And, good for Gore. I thought at the beginning of 2007 that this was the year that worldwide perceptions about the threat of global warming would change, Gore’s movie and the IPCC report had a big hand in making that happen.

  • GE Plumbs the Depths

    Byoliveridley

    The very excellent htww blog by Andrew Leonard on Salon brought this “clean coal” video to my attention. It is a year old, but new to us!

    Do watch. In a one minute commercial, GE manages to greenwash on clean coal, be incredibly sexist, and, in an act that screams a giant F@#$ You to all involved, use as a soundtrack, a song about the misery of coal mining and the hardship faced by miners. I thought it was a parody, it had to be, apparently, NOT!

    Sixteen Tons

    Some people say a man is made outta mud
    A poor man’s made outta muscle and blood
    Muscle and blood and skin and bones
    A mind that’s a-weak and a back that’s strong

    You load sixteen tons, what do you get
    Another day older and deeper in debt
    Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
    I owe my soul to the company store

    I was born one mornin’ when the sun didn’t shine
    I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
    I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal
    And the straw boss said “Well, a-bless my soul”

    You load sixteen tons, what do you get
    Another day older and deeper in debt
    Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
    I owe my soul to the company store

    I was born one mornin’, it was drizzlin’ rain
    Fightin’ and trouble are my middle name
    I was raised in the canebrake by an ol’ mama lion
    Cain’t no-a high-toned woman make me walk the line

    You load sixteen tons, what do you get
    Another day older and deeper in debt
    Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
    I owe my soul to the company store

    If you see me comin’, better step aside
    A lotta men didn’t, a lotta men died
    One fist of iron, the other of steel
    If the right one don’t a-get you
    Then the left one will

    You load sixteen tons, what do you get
    Another day older and deeper in debt
    Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
    I owe my soul to the company store

    Shame on them.

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    Canada to stop asbestos mining and stop defending it.

    Byoliveridley

    Canada’s long and sorry saga of exporting death (asbestos) and defending it loudly and proudly in international fora is over and I needed to mark this happy day on the blog. The newly elected provincial government in Quebec, the Parti Quebecois have followed through on their campaign promise to finally end this small “industry” employing a few workers. Canada will no longer produce asbestos, or fight the listing of asbestos as a toxic substance.

    It is going to take $50 million in government funds, a fraction of the cost of one fighter jet, to transition the workers away (if they get the money, not the mine owners). That’s it, why were we exporting death to India and other countries for this, I don’t know.

    Canada’s many conservative and liberal governments fought hard for years to preserve the industry, using techniques lifted from tobacco propaganda, or today’s climate change challenges. I leave you with the ruling Canadian government’s response: Finely tuned to appeal to everyone who likes mesothelioma, cancer and death.

    “Mrs. Marois’s decision to prohibit chrysotile mining in Quebec will have a negative impact on the future prosperity of the area,” (Industry Minister) Mr. Paradis said in a statement.

    That about sums it up. But, it is a good day for public health, nevertheless.

    Citing PQ pressure, Canada to cease defending asbestos mining – The Globe and Mail.

    Featured image courtesy wikipedia used under a Creative Commons license (a micrograph of asbestos fibres causing lesions in the lung).

  • The Waxman cometh for Alberta Oil Sands

    Byoliveridley

    Representative Henry A. Waxman of California ousted Representative John D. Dingell of Michigan from his post as chairman of the influential Committee on Energy and Commerce on Thursday, giving President-elect Barack Obama an advantage in his plans to promote efforts to combat global warming.

    via Longtime Head of House Energy Panel Is Ousted – NYTimes.com

    Why is this big news for Canada? Because Waxman would like to ensure that the US not allow any alternative fuel that has a bigger CO2 lifecycle impact than the conventional fuel it replaces to be used by the US government, as enshrined in US law.

    I don’t foresee a bright future for this dirty Oil Sands, with oil now dipping below $50 a barrel, and money short, even the economics (without any carbon pricing) do not make sense. We are probably 4-5 years away from commercial plugin hybrids. In the medium term, gasoline consumption is going to decline, and there’s nowhere we can sell this oil to if the US drops out as a buyer.

  • Climate Talks Sputter

    Byoliveridley

    China, India and the other developing nations are upset that commitments to provide financial and technological help made during a U.N. conference in Bali, Indonesia, in 2007 have not translated into anything more tangible.

    Mr. Meyer estimated that the United States, Europe and other industrial nations need to come up with $150 billion a year in assistance by 2020 to help develop clean energy technology for developing countries, reduce deforestation that contributes to rising temperatures, and help vulnerable nations adapt to changes attributed to greenhouse gases.

    G-8 Nations Fail to Agree on Climate Change Plan – NYTimes.com

    Yes, it is true, North America and Europe are responsible for a bulk of the greenhouse gas emissions currently in the atmosphere and need to do the bulk of the work. But it would also behoove India and China to make the right noises. There is no sense that we’re in this together, that we will all be affected, and India and China even more so

    Leadership is lacking, the US needs to take a first big step and start things of.

    Update

    The G8 has agreed to sign on to a limit on warming of 2°C rise in global temperature. Well, how do you get there without reducing CO2 in the atmosphere, which we apparently can’t agree to do? It’s like saying you need to go a 100km more on a road trip, but refusing to agree to fill gas.

    There is a chicken and egg problem here. The famously resistant to change US system is working through a climate bill. The world is waiting to see what will happen, but the version of the bill passed by Congress is not strong enough to avert a 2°C rise unless China and India are as aggressive and there is massive technological shift away from fossil fuels. The US system is waiting for signals from the world, reasoning they don’t want to act first and unilaterally. It’s all nice game theory for people watching from the sidelines, but life’s a little more serious…