How Biodiesel Works" If you've read or watched the news lately, you've probably come across some article, snippet or sound bite related to oil and oil prices. Even in your daily routines, there's a good chance of someone mentioning it. Whether it's in automotives, economics, history, geography or politics, oil has managed to filter into almost every aspect of our daily lives. It's one of the most discussed (and controversial) commodities that consumers rely on daily. All of this talk about oil sparks continued interest in gasoline alternatives. Lost in the mix are the biofuels, fuels made from biological ingredients instead of fossil fuels. In this article, we'll take a closer look at biodiesel, one of the major biofuels. Generally speaking, biodiesel is an alternative or additive to standard diesel fuel that is made from biological ingredients instead of petroleum (or crude oil). Biodiesel is safe and can be used in diesel engines with little or no modification needed. Photo courtesy U.S.
The Trend Toward Part-Time Employment Let's take a close look at Friday's employment report numbers on Full and Part-Time Employment. Buried near the bottom of Table A-9 of the government's Employment Situation Summary are the numbers for Full- and Part-Time Workers, with 35-or-more hours as the arbitrary divide between the two categories. The Labor Department has been collecting this since 1968, a time when only 13.5% of US employees were part-timers. That number peaked at 20.1% in January 2010. The latest data point, over four years later, is only modestly lower at 18.9%, up from 18.8% last month, which was the interim low. Here is a visualization of the trend in the 21st century, with the percentage of full-time employed on the left axis and the part-time employed on the right. The Impact of the Great Recession Here is a closer look since 2007. The two charts above are seasonally adjusted and include the entire workforce, which the CPS defines as age 16 and over. The Core Workforce: Ages 25-54
Silent Spring Summary Environmental Issues > Health Main Page > All Health Documents Although their role will probably always be less celebrated than wars, marches, riots or stormy political campaigns, it is books that have at times most powerfully influenced social change in American life. Thomas Paine's Common Sense galvanized radical sentiment in the early days of the American revolution; Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe roused Northern antipathy to slavery in the decade leading up to the Civil War; and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, which in 1962 exposed the hazards of the pesticide DDT, eloquently questioned humanity's faith in technological progress and helped set the stage for the environmental movement. Carson, a renowned nature author and a former marine biologist with the U.S. "Things Go Out of Kilter" Carson was happiest writing about the strength and resilience of natural systems. DDT, the most powerful pesticide the world had ever known, exposed nature's vulnerability. Silent Spring
Portable Power Station - Urban Survival The Paradox of Wealth: Capitalism and Ecological Destruction John Bellamy Foster is editor of Monthly Review, professor of sociology at the University of Oregon, and author of The Ecological Revolution (Monthly Review Press, 2009). Brett Clark is assistant professor of sociology at North Carolina State University, and author (with John Bellamy Foster and Richard York) of Critique of Intelligent Design (Monthly Review Press, 2008). The core argument on the paradox of wealth here was first introduced in a paper by both authors, entitled “Marx’s Ecology in the Twenty-First Century,” presented by Clark at the International Symposium on Ecological Civilization, Sanya, Hainan, China, June 23, 2009. Subsequent versions were delivered by Foster at the Marxism 2009 conference, University of London, July 4, 2009, and the Political Economy of the World-System Miniconference, University of San Francisco, August 7, 2009. —The Editors This fatal flaw of received economics can be traced back to its conceptual foundations. The Lauderdale Paradox
Build a Simple Solar Heater After walking into my workshop one December morning and feeling a bone-chilling 10 degrees, I decided to install a heating system. Given the rising costs of propane and my family’s environmental concerns about using nonrenewable fossil fuels, a solar solution seemed fitting. I’m a retired aircraft engineer, but you don’t need a similar background to tackle this project. In fact, a solar air heater built into new construction or added to an existing building can be an easy and inexpensive heating solution. Following the simple principles and plan outlined here, you can heat your workshop, barn or even your home with free heat from the sun. If it works here in Bozeman, Mont., it’s bound to work wherever you are. I reviewed many solar collector concepts and decided to install a thermosiphon air collector on the south wall of the workshop. To minimize costs, I integrated the collector with the structure and used readily available materials. How It Works Performance and Economics Nuts & Bolts
Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet | Michael T. Klare "Klare’s superb book explains, in haunting detail, the trends that will lead us into a series of dangerous traps unless we muster the will to transform the way we use energy."—Bill McKibben Oil recently hit $140 a barrel, and it is still climbing. Unlike the oil shocks of the 1970s, this dizzying leap is not the product of an OPEC embargo or a sudden flare-up in the Middle East. Now in paperback, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet surveys the energy-driven dynamic that is reconfiguring the international landscape: Russia, the battered Cold War loser, is now the arrogant broker of Eurasian energy, and the United States, once the world’s superpower, must now compete with the emerging "Chindia" juggernaut for finite and diminishing resources.
Peak Oil: a brief introduction Revolution Green: A True Story of Biodiesel in America