Planet Berry LLC

Sunday, January 22, 2012

The Battle For Solar & Energy Security

All nations big and small have a very common security need at their core. It doesn't matter if you have billions of barrels of oil bubbling out of the ground today or tomorrow. The Earth has a finite reserve of everything. We live on a physical planet. Thus the physical storage properties will one day be exhausted. Simple math.

To secure the long term safety and way of life for a nation we must look above. We must focus all of our resources on what isn't in the ground or oceans. The Sun burns brightly every day. Every day the Sun allows for energy to be harvested in the form of Solar Energy. It doesn't need a place to store it on the planet it just delivers the same powerful combination of light, warmth and potential energy to all that want to use this clean source of electricity harvested from Solar Technology.

We have the technology today. We have the ability to economically harvest the Solar Energy and provide the long term sustainable energy fields for our future needs. So why is it that when we look statistically country by country we just don't see the "Plan" to get off the oil drug? The will of the people is the key in one man's opinion. Each nations people must stand up and be heard. Where democracies exist there must be a vote of the people to move their government in a direction of Energy Security in the form of Solar Energy and Wind Energy.

The governments must make the use of alternative energy their policy driver. This is paramount to the overall success of a nations energy security. It isn't about the military technology of the future for without energy they will not fire.

Thank you for visiting. Try out the new Mona Vie Shake

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Chinese manufacturer gambles on iPad 2S cases

While we’ve been referring to Apple’s next generation iPad as iPad 3, according to 9to5Mac Chinese accessory maker Chinee has gone and gambled on iPad 2S — not only the name, but the form factor as well, producing what might just be the first case for the unannounced, unspecified tablet.

Case producer "Chinee" of China has begun selling cases for a device that it called "iPad 2S." The name obviously stems from the name iPhone 4S, where the S notes an internal technical specification update rather than a re-design. Based on previous "iPad 3″ rumors, the new tablet will follow that naming convention. The new iPad is rumored to look identical to the iPad 2, but it will be slightly thicker. The seller of these "iPad 2S" cases said its new products fit a design that is 1MM thicker than the iPad 2′s form-factor. The case maker also claimed such design knowledge came from sources within Apple's supply chain.

Having your accessory ready to go on launch day can make for much higher profits, but if they end up banking on the wrong form-factor — something that happened with iPhone 5 cases last year — it can cost them a bundle.

Even betting on a name on the packaging — iPad 2S in the case — can be a risk. The “S” in Apple iOS device marketing usually used to reduce expectations and push-back when new devices don’t look as significantly updated as their internals suggest, like the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4S.

With a 20481536 resolution Retina display boost, would Apple really call their 3rd generation iPad an iPad 2S?

Source: iMore - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch blog

Increasing Energy Security

There is a lot of discussion lately about domestic energy production and American energy security. For the Obama Administration, moving towards the goal of energy independence has been a clear priority since day one. When President Obama took office, the United States imported 11 million barrels of oil a day. The President has put forward a plan to cut that by one-third by 2025 by strengthening domestic production of our energy resources, making our homes and buildings more efficient, and transitioning to a wide range of clean energy technologies.

When it comes to domestic energy production, the numbers speak for themselves. Since 2008, U.S. oil and natural gas production has increased, while imports of foreign oil have decreased. Here are the facts:

In 2011, U.S. crude oil production reached its highest level since 2003, increasing by an estimated 90,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) over 2010 levels to 5.57 million bbl/d.
U.S. natural gas production grew by an estimated 7.4 percent in 2011– the largest year-over-year volumetric increase – and easily eclipsed the previous all-time production record set in 1973.
Overall, oil imports have been falling since 2008, and net imports as a share of total consumption declined from 57 percent in 2008 to 45 percent in 2011 – the lowest level since 1995.

In May of last year, President Obama outlined a series of additional steps to expand domestic oil and gas production as part of his long-term plan to reduce our reliance on foreign oil. More specifically, the President directed the Department of Interior (DOI) to conduct annual lease sales in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve (NPR-A), speed up the evaluation of oil and gas resources in the mid- and south-Atlantic, develop new incentives for industry to develop unused leases both onshore and offshore, extend drilling leases in the areas of the Gulf impacted by the temporary moratorium following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and lease new areas in the Gulf of Mexico.

Significant progress has been made in many of these areas. For instance, in December 2011, DOI held the first oil and natural gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico since the oil spill. The sale, which covered over 1 million acres, attracted more than $338 million in total bids – about $100 million more than average for Western Gulf sales over the previous decade. During the same month, DOI held a lease sale in Alaska’s NPR-A that generated winning bids of over $3.6 million and covered 17 tracts on over 140,000 acres.

The Administration has also taken historic action to reduce our dependence on oil by making our cars and trucks more efficient. In July of last year, the President announced the next phase in the Administration’s program to increase fuel economy, which will require a performance equivalent to 54.5 miles per gallon for model year 2017-2025 passenger vehicles. Taken together, the standards established under this Administration span Model Years 2011 to 2025. They will save American families money at the pump, for a total of $1.7 trillion in fuel savings over the life of the program. They will clean up our environment, cutting greenhouse gas emissions by more than 6 billion metric tons over the life of the program, while reducing pollutants like air toxics, cause soot, and smog.

These new fuel economy standards will dramatically cut our oil dependence, reducing consumption by an estimated 2.2 million barrels a day in 2025 (eventually reaching more than 4 million barrels a day as the fleet turns over), and saving 12 billion barrels in total over the lifetime of the program. To put that in perspective, it would take a pipeline that carried 700,000 barrels a day nearly 47 years to transport the amount of oil we are saving thanks to these new fuel economy standards.

Of course, the Administration has also been intent on developing and deploying clean energy technologies and positioning the United States as the global leader in the clean energy race. The Recovery Act invested more than $90 billion in clean energy, the largest such investment in America’s history. Those investments have created hundreds of thousands of jobs and spurred thousands of clean energy projects across the country. For example, the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Loan Guarantee Program has already supported more than 40 clean energy projects that will ultimately employ more than 60,000 Americans. And because of Recovery Act investments, we are on track to double non-hydro renewable electricity generation from 2008 levels this year.

In short, the Obama Administration’s approach to achieving American energy independence has been a comprehensive and sustained effort, with emphasis on boosting domestic energy production, increasing efficiency, and transitioning to cleaner energy sources.

But what’s abundantly clear is that there are no silver bullets when it comes to this challenge. And the idea, as some in Washington have tried to suggest, that building a pipeline is the ultimate answer to the question of American energy security and job creation is nothing more than a pipe dream. The truth is that just two of the Administration’s programs – the DOE Loan Guarantee Program and the EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards – will create more than 10 times the amount of jobs generated by the Keystone XL pipeline, which will only generate a few thousand temporary jobs. In terms of reducing America’s dependence on oil, the Administration’s fuel economy standards alone will save more than twice the amount of oil the Keystone pipeline would deliver.

Copyright Â© 2008-2010 CleanTechies, Inc. and Partners
This feed is for personal, non-commercial use only.
Written by The White House Blog. To the comments
(Digital Fingerprint: b008bf120fbd682ffd7ee5812c495c9a)

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)

Original: CleanTechies Blog - CleanTechies.com

New Green Jobs Rise from Keystone XL Pipeline Ashes

When President Obama put the seal of doom on a construction permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline, supporters of his decision were quick to point out that the pipeline will not create a significant number of permanent jobs, and that the President already has initiatives in place that create far more green jobs in the alternative energy sector. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, though. New green technologies that have been in development for the past few years are beginning to hit the market, particularly in the building industry, which means that more individual property owners have the opportunity to chip in their own efforts for green job creation.

Solar Power from Solar Shingles

One consumer technology that CleanTechnica has been following for a while is a rooftop solar product from Dow Solar (a Dow company), called Dow Powerhouse Solar Shingles. Dow announced that it was developing a thin-film solar technology integrated right into the roofing material back in 2009, predicting a mass market product by 2011. They weren’t far off the mark. In the summer of 2011 Dow started building a new solar shingle factory in Michigan, and it announced plans to start marketing the product in Colorado. In its latest announcement, the company has selected the first three dealers in Colorado authorized to sell the solar shingles.

Innovation and Green Jobs

Aside from creating new opportunities for property owners to participate in the green revolution, companies like Dow are also investing in the intellectual growth of U.S. innovators, through government and academic partnerships. Dow is an important partner in the “cool roofs” component of U.S. Department of Energy’s Sunshot Initiative, which is aimed at bringing the cost of solar power down to parity with fossil fuels. Dow was also a primary sponsor of DOE’s 2011 Solar Decathalon – a competition to promote energy efficiency and innovation in the building industry – and supported two of the 19 college teams that participated.

The Obama Administration and Green Jobs

White House blogger Heather Zichal mapped out the big picture in a post related to the Keystone announcement, noting that the number of jobs created by Keystone has already been dwarfed by the 60,000 jobs (or more) set to be created by 40 clean energy projects supported through federal loan guarantees, along with job creation potential related to EPA’s new standards for mercury and air toxics.

Green Jobs and Stronger Communities

One of the Dow-supported projects in the Solar Decathalon was called the Empowerhouse Project, which Dow describes as a home that “embodies the vision of Habitat for Humanity — that all people deserve safe, comfortable, affordable homes.” That, in a nutshell, expresses the full potential of sustainable job creation. In contrast to the path we’ve treaded since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, in which job creation is almost necessarily involved with increased pollution, we’re looking at the potential for creating new jobs that help to build stronger, healthier communities.

Image: Sprout. License Some rights reserved by Presidente.

Follow Tina Casey on Twitter: @TinaMCasey.

No related posts.

Source: CleanTechnica

Walls that Generate Electricity

Co-operative Insurance Tower Clad with Solar Panels - From tj.blackwell on Flickr.

Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation intends to start selling a material that enables the walls of buildings and various other structures (possibly wind turbine towers and nacelles) to generate electricity. One clear advantage of this is that solar panels would no longer be limited to the rooftops of these buildings. They can now be covered with solar cells.

The company intends to start selling the material in 2013. Each square meter of the material is said to be capable of generating 80 watts of power and the efficiency of it is said to be 11%. 11% efficiency means that it can generate 110 watts per square metre. 80 watts per square metre translates to an efficiency of 8%. So, I am assuming that it is the total area efficiency that is 8% and the single cell efficiency that is 11%.

The more realistic figure is the total area efficiency because it is measured using a realistic solar panel consisting of multiple cells.

Traditional c-Si (crystalline silicon) solar cell materials are expensive to integrate into walls, but, thanks to Mitsubishi’s creation of cells that use organic semiconductors manufactured using crude oil and other materials (instead of the silicon semiconductors currently in use, this new solar cell technology is thinner and lighter than current solar panels.

Comparison to other solar panels on the market: Most solar panels are 10% to 21% efficient. Organic solar cells can be manufactured more easily than traditional solar panels that use heavy casing materials such as glass and aluminium. Experts say the production cost of the new cells could be as low as one-tenth that of traditional panels. However, we have been unable to obtain any official release or facts on this new technology yet.

The company also reportedly wants to integrate the solar material into curtains and the bodies of electric vehicles.

Thanks to a Google+ reader for sharing this with us. Let us know if any of you find an actual news release or more info on this technology from Mitsubishi.

h/t Yomiuri.co.jp | Photo Credit: tj.blackwell

No related posts.

Source: CleanTechnica

Why That Fitness Program Didn't Work?

When we start any kind of fitness program we do so with the best possible intentions: we want to stick to it, see results, remain motivated, follow through with it and maintain the kind of fitness we achieve. But reality tends to be rather different. Sticking to the program can be difficult to say the [...]

Source: Mens Fitness

Cruise Ship Environmental Issues

When one thinks of cruise ships, one thinks of grand luxury, solitude, safety, and big. The January 13 capsizing of the Concordia off the coast of Italy, in which at least 11 people died, caught the world — including the cruise ship industry and its passengers — off guard and is shining a spotlight on cruise ship safety and environmental issues. The cruise ship hit a reef and nearly hit their fuel tanks. There was also concern over how the passengers were evacuated in this disaster. Beyond that there are other environmental concerns such as cruise ships air emissions and sanitary waste discharges.

It was only luck that the ship's oil is not already spewing into the sea—the hole in the hull missed the fuel tanks by a few feet, according to reports.

However, there are “normal” emissions or discharges from cruise ships at all times.

According to EPA cruise ships were involved in 87 confirmed illegal discharge cases from 1993 to 1998. Most of these involved the accidental discharge of oil or related substances. A few of the 87 cases involved large numbers of illegal discharge incidents. In addition, 17 other alleged incidents were referred to countries where the cruise ships were registered because the incidents occurred outside U.S. waters or because jurisdiction could not be clearly ascertained.

What sort of waste discharges are there? EPA was petitioned to review and study these issues. The petitioner raised the following points:

Black Water (sewage): A typical cruise ship generates as much as 210,000 gallons during a one-week voyage.

Gray Water (shower, sink, and galley water): A typical cruise ship is estimated to generate up to one million gallons a week. The petition states that current Federal regulations do not restrict gray water discharges except in the Great Lakes, and that gray water may pose environmental impacts as great or greater than sewage.

Hazardous Waste (waste from dry cleaning, photo labs, paint, and maintenance chemicals, etc.)

Solid Waste (food waste, plastic, paper, wood, cardboard, cans, glass, etc.)

Oily Bilge Water: Cruise ships are estimated to generate up to 25,000 gallons on a one week voyage.

Then there are air emissions.

Cruise ships incinerate between 75% and 85% of garbage according to the EPA in its 2008 study, contributing to smog in coastal communities and on the ocean. They also release incinerator ash and sewage sludge — blobs of concentrated toxins from the bottom of waste treatment facilities — into the ocean. They contribute nutrients, metals, ammonia, pharmaceutical waste, chemical cleaners and detergent to deep marine environments from sewage treatment systems that either don’t work as planned or aren’t able to remove such substances, according to tests in Washington and Alaska, interviews with state officials, the EPA study, and information provided by the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary. It’s legal to discharge untreated sewage in most areas of the United States farther than three miles from shore. But if you are 4 miles out?

Cruise ships burn fuel, much of it a cheap grade, which will continue until new international fuel standards take effect in 2012. A 2005 study done by WashPIRG, a public interest advocacy group based in Washington, estimates a 3,000-passenger ship generates the air pollution equivalent of more than 12,000 cars in a single day.

Article by Andy Soos, appearing courtesy Environmental News Network.

Copyright © 2008-2010 CleanTechies, Inc. and Partners
This feed is for personal, non-commercial use only.
Written by Environmental News Network. To the comments
(Digital Fingerprint: b008bf120fbd682ffd7ee5812c495c9a)

Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)