Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
B.C.’s green economy could hit $27B within decade
The green economy in British Columbia could be worth more than $27 billion by 2020, according to an independent study.
The Vancouver-based GLOBE Foundation report assesses the economic and employment impacts associated with the transformation of the provincial economy toward lower-carbon energy generation and usage, as well as business practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to a news release.
via B.C.’s green economy could hit $27B within decade.
Population Zero?
At a TED talk, Bill Gates offered this equation:
Total CO2 = World population x Services x Energy of each service x CO2 per unit of energy
And Mark Frauenfelder comments:
The neat thing about an equation that uses only multiplication is that if any of the four factors can be reduced to zero, then you don't have to worry about the other three factors. The total CO2 output will be zero. So which one can we make zero?
via Boing Boing.
Alas, the equation doesn’t quite get the global picture. Even if the damn breeders stopped breeding and human population were reduced to zero (hey, I can dream, right?), there would still be CO2 production from volcanoes and numerous other sources.
Seems as if Bill Gates’ equation is akin to the Windows operating system: a bit of wishful thinking built upon a false premise.
Voyager invests in charging stations for electric cars
Voyager Capital hasn’t made many bets in the clean technology arena. But that’s changing today with the Seattle venture capital firm leading an investment in Coulomb Technologies, a Campbell, Calif.-based company that is developing a worldwide network of electric vehicle charging stations.
Voyager, along with Rho Ventures, is leading a $14 million investment in the company. Other investors include Siemens Venture Capital and Hartford Ventures.
Coulomb opened its first charging station — operating under the ChargePoint name — in 2008 in San Jose, California. It most recently opened other facilities Detroit, Lincoln City, Oregon and Honolulu, with the company saying that it plans to have more than 1,000 stations up and running this year.
via Voyager invests in charging stations for electric cars.
Managing Pacific Northwest dams for a changing climate
Civil engineers at the University of Washington and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’s Seattle office have taken a first look at how dams in the Columbia River basin, the nation’s largest hydropower system, could be managed for a different climate.
They developed a new technique to determine when to empty reservoirs in the winter for flood control and when to refill them in the spring to provide storage for the coming year. Computer simulations showed that switching to the new management system under a warmer future climate would lessen summer losses in hydropower due to climate change by about a quarter. It would also bolster flows for fish by filling reservoirs more reliably. At the same time the approach reduced the risk of flooding. The findings are published in the Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management.
“There are anticipated dramatic changes in the snowpack which ultimately will affect when the water comes into the Columbia’s reservoirs,” said co-author Alan Hamlet, a UW research assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering who works in the UW’s Climate Impacts Group. “We were trying to develop new tools and procedures for changing flood control operating rules in response to these changes in hydrology, and to test how well they work in practice.” Read the rest of this entry »
Doctor sentenced to 5 years in prison for assaulting bicyclists in Brentwood
A doctor convicted of assaulting two bicyclists by slamming on his car brakes after a confrontation on a narrow Brentwood road was sentenced today to five years in prison.
The case against Thompson, 60, has drawn close scrutiny from bicycle riders around the country, many of whom viewed the outcome as a test of the justice system’s commitment to protecting cyclists.
The July 4, 2008, crash also highlighted simmering tensions between cyclists and residents along Mandeville Canyon Road, the winding five-mile residential street where the crash took place.
One cyclist was flung face-first into the rear window of Thompson’s red Infiniti, breaking his front teeth and nose and cutting his face. The other cyclist slammed into the sidewalk and suffered a separated shoulder.
