Battery Hackers Are Building the Future in the Garage Revolutions that start in the garage are nothing new. The one-car shed in which David Packard and William Hewlett launched the partnership that would grow into Hewlett-Packard Co. is known as the birthplace of Silicon Valley. So Jason Hughes may be on to something. In a cluttered four-car garage in suburban Deptford, New Jersey, Hughes spent the better part of last year hacking a 1,400-pound battery recovered from a wrecked Tesla Model S and reworking it into a stacked array that can store energy from his solar-power system. His battery tinkering resolves the issue of intermittency since his green power will be available whenever he needs it, night or day, rain or shine. A day trader by profession, the 31-year-old doesn’t want to save the world. The mattress-sized Tesla battery did — it’s elephantine as lithium-ion batteries go — even if it cost him $20,000 and hundreds of hours of tinkering to make it work. Battery entrepreneurs have begun to even talk like revolutionaries.
Energy Storage Paves Way for Electricity Independence The costs today are prohibitively high for mass adoption, but there are already residential energy storage solutions on the market, such as those developed by the UK's Moixa Energy. The German government is even setting aside €50m (£36m; $56m) a year to offer subsidies to its citizens specifically to help buy storage batteries. Since May 2013, some 5,500 Germans have been given on average €3,200, with demand increasing all the time. According to Julia Hertin at the German Advisory Council on the Environment, cost is still a barrier. "There could be a point when [storage] becomes a game changer, but we're not there yet." But costs will come down. "The storage market looks and smells just like the solar PV market did [then]," he says. Indeed forecasts suggest the market could be worth anything between $30bn and $400bn in the next five to seven years. The Spanish island of El Hierro is using hydro energy storage to become self-sufficient in renewable energy Electric transformation
Your shower is wasting huge amounts of energy and water. Here’s what you can do about it. (Anthia Cumming / Istock photo) You know that moment well: You’ve turned on the shower, but there’s no way you’re getting into it quite yet. The water’s not hot enough. Shower wonks have dubbed this extremely common pattern “behavioral waste,” or waste that occurs because of human habits. For a standard shower head, every minute wasted equates to 2.5 gallons of water — and insofar as some of it is warm, says Schein, “that’s energy-rich water that we’re running down the drain.” Run the numbers and there’s no getting around the fact that we have a gigantic problem here, people. Showering drives almost 17 percent of water use in homes, and an average American family uses some 40 gallons of water per day in the shower. What’s more, because water coming out of shower heads is supposed to be hot water, showers are also energy hogs. But how do you get people to do it? “It’s taking longer and longer for hot water to arrive at the shower or other points of use over the home,” says Sherman. 1. 2.
What’s Your Climate Change Elevator Pitch? Katharine Hayhoe, PhD, says: Start with values. Say what you care about. This post is part of the research project: Flashcards The clever folks over at Climate Denial Crock of the Week (that’s Peter Sinclair) and Skeptical Science (John Cook) were in San Fran back in December, interviewing scientists, when they had the brilliant idea to ask each one to give their best climate change “elevator pitch.” The set-up is simple: You’re on an elevator. Somebody says, “Oh, hi, you’re a climate scientist? Katharine Hayhoe rocks the first one. And no wonder. Watch the video. Click here to see a bigger version.
The Risk of Northwest Oil Spills Sightline Series The oil industry has big plans for Northwest waters. Officials in Washington are deciding whether to permit huge new rail-to-vessel facilities, while Canadian regulators weigh a massive tar sands pipeline pointed at the Salish Sea. If they are built, the industry’s plans would mean unprecedented growth in crude oil shipped by both land and sea. In this series, “The Risk of Northwest Oil Spills,” Sightline explains the facts about the proposals, sifts through the data on oil spills, and examines the risks to the Northwest’s most important waterways. For broader analysis of the oil-by-rail industry in the Northwest, see the series “The Northwest’s Pipeline on Rails.” For analysis of the traffic impacts of oil and coal trains in communities throughout the Northwest, see the series “The Wrong Side of the Tracks.” 8. Oil terminals could mean five-fold increase in major vessel traffic. 6. Fossil fuel proposals could mean 39 percent increase in vessels. 5. 4. 2. 1.
Learning Resilience From Peru’s Ancient Civilizations As the UN’s COP 20 climate negotiations in Lima slowly progressed last year, I went on a journey through the Sacred Valley of the Incas, a valley close to Cusco, the capital of the Incan empire of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. I wanted to see how climate change is already affecting the Peruvian Andes and how researchers are working to evaluate the effects of climate change and help locals who are adapting to them. My first stop was Moray, an archaeological site that lies about 3,500 metres above sea level. Moray hosts what may have been an agricultural research centre in the age of the Incas. Scientists believe that the area of concentric terraces was used by farmers to experiment with growing different species of wild plants at different heights. In this way, the Incas could work out which plants would grow best at different altitudes and temperatures. The snow-capped mountain of Chicon in southern Peru can be seen clearly from the hills surrounding Moray. Introducing biochar
FEMA to deny funds to climate change deniers Katherine Bagley, INSIDECLIMATE NEWS Posted: Sunday, March 22, 2015, 1:09 AM The Federal Emergency Management Agency is making it tougher for governors to deny man-made climate change. This may put several Republican governors who maintain that the Earth isn't warming due to human activities, or prefer to take no action, in a political bind. "If a state has a climate denier governor that doesn't want to accept a plan, that would risk mitigation work not getting done because of politics," said Becky Hammer, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council's water program. The policy doesn't affect federal money for relief after a hurricane, flood, or other disaster. "This could potentially become a major conflict for several Republican governors," said Barry Rabe, an expert on the politics of climate change at the University of Michigan. Climate change affects droughts, rainfall, and tornado activity. Among those who could face a difficult decision are New Jersey's Gov.
Boston’s Winter From Hell Photo CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — BY now you’ve seen the starkly beautiful shots of Boston buried under snow: the panoramic city under a white blanket; snowbanks so high they crest over parked cars; piercing icicles glinting for two full stories from gutters dammed with ice; coat-muffled people dwarfed by snow-walled corridors that once were sidewalks. You may have seen the funny images as well: the man snowboarding down an all-but-empty major boulevard, pulled by his friend’s snowmobile; drunk men diving out of second-floor windows into six-foot snowbanks; windows that merely frame a wall of snow. But for those of us living here, it’s not a pretty picture. We are being devastated by a slow-motion natural disaster of historic proportions. Decades of underinvestment and alleged mismanagement of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, known as the T, have meant that the nation’s oldest subway system has been partly or entirely halted for nearly a month. But everybody is desperate.
Solar Streets: New Roadways May Ditch Asphalt for Energy-Generating Sunshine ... As a kid in the 1960s, before most people had even heard of solar power, Scott Brusaw imagined “electric roads.” Almost five decades and two government-funded prototypes later, the electrical engineer from Ohio is on his way to raising $1 million to start producing solar panels for our streets and highways. Not to power the light, mind you—to function as streets and highways. Soon you may be driving on solar panels that power the buildings you’re passing by. “We can use [photovoltaic panels] to create roads, parking lots, tarmacs—anything under the sun,” Brusaw says. The biggest challenge Brusaw faced was engineering a case to protect the fragile solar cells. It may take some time to see them on highways, though. “The regulatory challenges of putting solar panels on rooftops were significant over the last 20 or 30 years,” Fromer says. Electric safety concerns would also need to be addressed, he says, considering that the road is not controlled.
Satellite and Information Service (NESDIS) March 16, 2015 Artist Rendition of GOES-R. Credit: Lockeed Martin One year from now, NOAA’s GOES-R weather satellite will be launched into space. So what does that mean for you? We’ve got five reasons to be excited about this launch: What’s the weather going to be? Perhaps you turn on the TV or radio, or check your favorite weather website or smartphone weather app to get the latest forecast. Weather satellites, like the GOES satellites, are the backbone of NWS weather forecasts. More, better, faster! Do you live in an inland state, a state with a coastline or a state with a mountain range? A REAL life-saver. This expedited data means that forecasts will be timelier, with more “real-time” information in them, allowing NWS to make those warnings and alerts that much faster, thereby potentially saving lives. And a faster forecast is a big deal for our economy. Want to know how to improve your own weather intel? Having and keeping electricity flowing is a big deal.