Difference between revisions of "Category:Energy"

This category covers the various means by which we generate electricity, including fossil fuels and alternatives. (Note: this page will be phased out, so for the most recent info, choose the specific pages):

For specific examples of alternative energy production methods, see Solar, Geothermal, Hydrogen Nuclear, Bio-fuels and Wind.

For environmental issues related to energy production, see Global Warming and Fracking,as well as Fossil Fuels.

See also Sustainability and Transportation. Grist.org has excellent coverage of energy issues.

Overviews

America’s Power Plan: The Crucial Role of Distributed Resources 9/13.

300 Years of FOSSIL FUELS in 300 Seconds and what to do now ***

Great short animated overview of Tar Sands.

The Third Carbon Age: Don’t for a Second Imagine We’re Heading for an Era of Renewable Energy, a fine historical overview of fossil fuels by Michael T. Klare.

Energy innovator Amory Lovins (TEDtalk) shows how to get the US off oil and coal by 2050, $5 trillion cheaper, with no Act of Congress, led by business for profit. The key is integrating all four energy-using sectors—and four kinds of innovation. In his new book, Reinventing Fire, Amory Lovins shares ingenious ideas for the next era of energy.

International Energy Outlook 2013 to 2040 9/13.

Alternative energy overview.

Switch (new documentary) unassumingly explores the vast landscape of energy generation. We follow Scott Tinker, a geologist by training, as he studies energy sources in an effort to understand the fundamental transition that must take place in order to adequately provide for the world’s future energy needs. By using his personal metric of all the energy he requires in one year, (20,000,000 watt-hours) immense concepts are brought to a human scale. Tinker is given remarkable access to a hydro facility constructed within a mountain in Norway; deep water oil platforms two hours from shore; Belle Ayr Mine, the largest coal mine in the US; and even a hydro-fracking operation.

Coal 101 short video.

Peak Oil Overview.

Utilities for dummies: How they work and why that needs to change includes solar. 5/13

Three new PBS shows on energy and climate: EARTH: The Operators' Manual, Energy Quest USA and Powering the Planet. 4/12 Power Surge by PBS Nova explores green energy. 4/11. Also NPR's Burn: An Energy Journal see also (video).

Extreme Energy Means an Extreme Planet (editorial) 10/12.

A Cubic Mile of Oil and audio overview.

Our Energy Dilemma in Three Easy Charts.

Video overview.

Humor: video. Evil mad scientists are clearly behind all energy innovations humor/. US is T-Rex of energy use.

New Scientist Site

National Academy of Science

Greenpeace Report: Energy [R]evolution: A Sustainable U.S.A. Energy Outlook, details how the United States can cut greenhouse gas emissions to the levels we must reach in order to prevent the worst effects of global warming and simultaneously build a sustainable economy. 16 page summary

Sustainable Energy – without the hot air recommended by Stewart Brand.

Environmental Working Group has info and action.

Pembina Institute info on green energy transition (Canada).

Beyond the Light Switch This two-part, two-hour documentary series thoughtfully considers the trade offs of carbon capture and storage, hydraulic fracturing for natural gas, a nuclear renaissance, the costs of solar power, the sprawl of wind power and the feasibility of a super grid.

The Evolving Energy Revolution: Stanford's Jane Woodward visits Google's Mountain View, CA headquarters to discuss the energy landscape. February 2009, part of the Green@Google series. How do we use energy? Why should we care about energy? How about a revolution? (video). An excellent systemic Big Picture view.

College 8/EE 81C has lots of great resources, though you'll need to access via UCSC Library.

Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geo-politics of Energy by Michael T. Klare summary.

US Energy Information Admin Annual Energy Outlook has data and charts.

== News == (see also News Page)

News Sites

KQED PBS Quest

Grist has good energy coverage including the iPod inventor's thermostat, Apple to build green HQ and grassroots electricity reduction. 12/11

Greenmuze has lots of out-there ideas including a desert solar ice maker.

Treehugger, orientation interview with Chris Tackett. transportation and energy.

Stories

Overwhelming the Grid with Renewable Energy 10/13.

You can look forward to more energy blackouts in a climate-changed world 7/13.

World’s first hybrid wind/current generator could generate double the power 7/13

San Onofre nuclear power plant to be closed permanently 6/14.

Shell to drill world’s deepest offshore oil well in Gulf of Mexico after blowing Arctic drilling.

Solar panels could destroy U.S. utilities, according to U.S. utilities 4/13

New cap and trade bill 2/13.

The surprisingly low-tech solution to big cities’ climate woes: Triple-pane windows 2/13

UCSC awarded $4.5 million NSF grant for renewable energy research 10/12.

Nearly 50 percent of new electricity generation capacity added in 2012 was renewable 12/12.

Actor and activist Mark Ruffalo launched the Solutions Project nearly a year ago and has been working with Mark Jacobson, a Stanford University professor of civil and environmental engineering, to plan a conversion to renewable energy.

Scientists create digital watch powered by cyborg lobsters Grist 10/12

As Congress lets wind tax credit die, the wind industry struggles to finish key projects 9/12.

Commercial wave energy 9/12.

West Virginia coal activist Maria Gunnoe is used to intimidation. Gunnoe has been an activist for years, in 2009 winning the Goldman Environmental Prize (video} for her work trying to stem mountaintop-removal mining. The prize came with a $150,000 award – money she planned to use modestly: to extend the city water system to her house. But she was recently threatened with child porn charges by Republican legislators. She is in the documentary Burning the Future. 7.12

Power play: Can utilities turn energy efficiency into fun and games? 7.12

Using viruses to generate electricity. 5/12

Design challenge: Defense Department has devised an energy-based combat scenario and invited both experts and amateurs to fool around with ideas that will "reduce energy consumption, improve energy efficiency, and diversify its energy supply." 5/12

Laser Induced Fusion 3/12

Joby Energy is a local company looking for people to create high altitude wind. images and video. Its founder is also working on an electric flying car.

Feds change rules to encourage offshore wind and wind label 2/12

Green hack-athon designs apps for energy efficiency, like the Green Button that downloads smart meter data.

Poo Power see video.

19 year old's solar power breakthrough. 9/11 Also a Genius Award winner on energy conservation software Interview.

Google Clean Energy report says green good for economy. 5/11

Green Wharf is a UCSC student-led project. Wind on the Wharf is also a UCSC project. EV charging project.

The Smart Grid explained and smart meters demyth-ified

Some really out there ideas, including an energy-generating Rubik's Cube can be found at GreenMuze.

Planet Forward is a bottom-up effort on WWW and PBS to have public input into energy policy.

Breakthrough Bloom Box fuel cell 60 Minutes video. CSMonitor and critique/FAQ

Interactive

WattzOn is a free online tool to quantify, track, compare and understand the total amount of energy needed to support all of the facets of your lifestyle, brought to you by Saul Griffith, who is doing really interesting work on high altitude wind electricity generation.

How Much Oil Is Left? simulation. infographic.

Game/simulation: World Without Oil from Institute for the Future (see Superstruct on Games page.

Dot Earth NYT Andrew Revkin blog on energy.

Nuclear plant simulator game (no earthquake mode).

Books

Excerpt from Jeremy Rifkin's The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World, Palgrave Macmillan 2011. excerpt 2 on education and politics etc). audio interview and book excerpt) KQED 10/11.

Before the Lights Go Out lays out the reality, in polls: Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of clean energy, even though they remain bitterly divided over the impending doomtastrophe of climate change. Koerth-Baker says we can’t capitalize on the first if we keep muddying it up with the second. Sample on compressed air as battery.

Conservation/"Negawatts"

For energy efficiency, Americans deserve a big thumbs-up By John Upton. America’s population and economy are both growing, yet its energy appetite is falling. That’s because of substantial energy-efficiency gains made in recent decades. Those gains are helping the country reduce oil imports, save money on power bills, and move toward meeting a goal set by President Obama of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent between 2005 and 2020. The news is laid out in a Natural Resources Defense Council report cheerily titled America’s (Amazingly) Good Energy News.10/13.

The surprisingly low-tech solution to big cities’ climate woes: Triple-pane windows 2/13.

WattzOn is a free online tool to quantify, track, compare and understand the total amount of energy needed to support all of the facets of your lifestyle, brought to you by Saul Griffith, who is doing really interesting work on high altitude wind electricity generation.

Power play: Can utilities turn energy efficiency into fun and games? 7.12

Bike powered electricity(video).

A Genius Award winner on energy conservation software Interview.

James Brew discusses how small changes to your house can make huge changes in our environment. TEDx video 12/10. 70-90% of all energy is wasted, mostly inefficiency by lack of design.

Video

Three new PBS shows on energy and climate: EARTH: The Operators' Manual, Energy Quest USA and Powering the Planet. 4/12 Power Surge by PBS Nova explores green energy. 4/11 Excellent overview.

NPR's Science Friday audio and video news.

Filmmaker David Parker directed this short video, "Light," to more viscerally express the energy wasted from electric lights unnecessarily left on.

Shadowlands is a Greenpeace presentation of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the displaced people, and the human cost of a serious nuclear accident.

TEDtalks

TEDtalk series, the End of Oil, investigates alternatives.

TEDtalks countdown to the best of the year includes using lightbulbs for wi-fi data transmission.

Energy from floating algae pods Call it "fuel without fossils": Jonathan Trent is working on a plan to grow new biofuel by farming micro-algae in floating offshore pods that eat wastewater from cities.

Donald Sadoway is working on a battery miracle -- an inexpensive, incredibly efficient, three-layered battery using “liquid metal." TEDtalk video. 3/12

Angela Belcher: Using nature to grow batteries.

60 Minutes segment on Fracking, injecting chemicals under high pressure to extract natural gas. 11/10.

James Brew discusses how small changes to your house can make huge changes in our environment. TEDx video 12/10.

Donald Sadoway: The missing link to renewable energy. In this accessible, inspiring talk, Donald Sadoway takes to the blackboard to show us the future of large-scale batteries that store renewable energy. 3.12

Amory Lovins on winning the oil endgame

Saul Griffith is doing some of the most interesting work around energy. In this webcast, he'll take a scientific look (physics and chemistry based) at all of the earth's energy resources, both stored (nuclear and fossil fuels) as well as renewable (solar, wind, wave, geothermal, tidal, wave, photosynthetic). Looking at the sizes of each of these resources and comparing them to humanity's energy consumption is far from depressing. Although humanity uses a lot of energy, there are very large sources of non-carbon producing energy that can be tapped to meet our needs.this is a brilliant and funny 60 minute talk, plus 30 Q&A) at LongNow****. Saul has multiple degrees in materials science and mechanical engineering and completed his PhD in Programmable Assembly and Self Replicating machines at MIT. He is the co-founder of numerous companies including: Low Cost Eyeglasses, Squid Labs, Potenco, Instructables.com, HowToons, Makani Power, and WattzOn, a free online tool to quantify, track, compare and understand the total amount of energy needed to support all of the facets of your lifestyle. Saul has been awarded numerous awards for invention including the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Collegiate Inventor's award, and the Lemelson-MIT Student prize. In 2007 he received a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant." fantastic TEDtalk on high altitude wind. short video on his carbon diet.

Taylor Wilson built a nuclear reactor -- in his backyard when he was fourteen years old. TEDtalk 3/12

David MacKay: A reality check on renewables, he uses hard math to assess our renewable energy options. 6.12

Fossil Fuels

Three new films on oil Dirty Oil, also Crude and Fuel. Crude traces the story of a lawsuit brought by 30,000 rural Ecuadorians against Chevron, which denies responsibility for turning their traditional rainforest home into a dumping ground for crude oil waste, sickening and killing generations of people. The makers are currently under legal attack; you can help)And Fuel (highly recommended) follows director Josh Tickell on his quest to convert the world to biofuels extensive interview.

Three new films on oil Dirty Oil, also Crude and Fuel. Crude traces the story of a lawsuit brought by 30,000 rural Ecuadorians against Chevron, which denies responsibility for turning their traditional rainforest home into a dumping ground for crude oil waste, sickening and killing generations of people. The makers are currently under legal attack; you can help)And Fuel follows director Josh Tickell on his quest to convert the world to biofuels.

Richard Sears thinks hard about the post-oil world. He's a visiting scientist at MIT, after a long career as a VP at Shell. TEDtalk 2010

In Carbon Nation, "director Peter Byck covers an impressively wide range of ground within his film's compact running time as he introduces us to a stirring cross-section of pioneers, researchers and innovators committed to helping the world reduce its carbon footprint."

"More oil spilled in Nigeria 'every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico'" Link

New short film on fracking by Gasland director. 7.12 Gasland a documentary about drilling for natural gas. official site.

Reinventing Fire Energy-related economic, security, and environmental threats are intensifying the national conversation about how to regain energy leadership and competitiveness, restore jobs and prosperity, and build a secure and climate-safe energy system. Yet America lacks a comprehensive vision of how a market economy can achieve these transformational goals. RMI has that vision, and is now building its detailed roadmap.

Power Struggle: Why the green energy dream may not happen. PBS Now documentary 23 min. NOW travels to California, which has the most ambitious clean energy plan in the nation. But the state's efforts face stiff opposition from property owners and conservationists who prefer renewable energy from "local sources," such as photovoltaic rooftop solar panels. 8/09 link. See also PBS Nova CA's Big Energy Gamble

Power Paths offers a unique glimpse into the global energy crisis from the perspective of a culture pledged to protect the planet, historically exploited by corporate interests and neglected by public policy makers. The film follows an intertribal coalition as they fight to transform their local economies by replacing coal mines and smog-belching power plants with renewable energy technologies.

Navy Secretary Ray Mabus believes that the US military can jump-start the clean energy revolution. watch

Bill Gates unveils his vision for the world's energy future, describing the need for "miracles" to avoid planetary catastrophe and explaining why he's backing a dramatically different type of nuclear reactor. The necessary goal? Zero carbon emissions globally by 2050. TEDtalk 2/10

The California ballot in November will include an initiative calling for the suspension of the state's landmark climate change law (AB 32) until unemployment drops from the current 12 percent to 5.5 percent, a level rarely reached in recent decades. Here Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune spars about AB 32 with Cathy Reheis-Boyd, President of the Western States Petroleum Association. Their exchange was part of "Drill, Baby, Spill," a conversation about the oil disaster and how to transition to a clean energy economy from ClimateOne series in SF.

Jim Boyd, Vice Chair of the California Energy Commission, and Dan Miller, Managing Director of The Roda Group, also took part in the lively dialogue at Climate One at The Commonwealth Club on May 18th, 2010.

PBS Global Focus special segment on Denmark, which bought wind energy industry the US abandoned and is now the world leader. Includes segment on Samso Island, which is now carbon neutral after ten year effort.

The Big Energy Gamble (Jan. 2009) Can California's ambitious plan to cut greenhouse gases actually succeed? Watch now (50 mins.) PBS Nova

UCTV has many interesting videos of talks on this topic. see also issues

Fora TV also has green talks, including this panel discussion of our energy future by Jim Angle, Karen Harbert, John Podesta, Christine Todd Whitman, Robert James.

Green Rim is about students in CA (Stanford and SJSU) and China working on alternative energy and efficiency (shown on PBS).

MIT videos on energy and environment.

Citizens take over the grid. In response to Germany's expanded reliance on nuclear energy, Ursula Sladek created her country's first cooperatively-owned renewable power company. Learn more at goldmanprize.org.

Vinod Khosla, founder of Sun Microsystems, became a venture capitalist, provides a look at renewable energy and the key criteria necessary to differentiate real solutions from niche opportunities. His focus is on "Chindia" solutions - how to identify them, the issues with forecasting them, the importance of cost, scaling, and carbon trajectory, and the policy prescriptions that can help drive these. Google talk 2009.

T. Boone Pickens: Let's transform energy -- with natural gas 3.12

Nuclear

Citizens in Massachusetts allege that Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Plymouth has violated the Clean Water Act on over 33,000 occasions. If the EPA does not respond to the allegations, the citizen group will sue the owner of the plant, Entergy, for over 800 million dollars. (text and audio) 10/12.

Shadowlands is a Greenpeace presentation of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the displaced people, and the human cost of a serious nuclear accident.

Cell phones and microwave ovens also emit radiation 10/12.

Timeline.

So Far Unfruitful, Fusion Project Faces a Frugal Congress 9/12

Ed Moses: Clean Fusion Power This Decade LongNow talk. Ed Moses is director of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore Labs. Focusing massive amounts of laser light for a billionth of a second, the NIF is expected to demonstrate ignition of a fusion reaction (more energy out than in) for the first time in the coming year, followed by the prospect of a prototype machine for generating continuous clean energy by the end of this decade. That could change everything. The NIF itself is a spectacular work of "technological sublime." 6/10.

What's Next for Nuclear? Quest KQED video 9/12.

Flood Threat To Nuclear Plants Covered Up By Regulators, NRC Whistleblower Claims 9/12

New Documentary: Thorium Dream (an alternative to conventional nuclear).

Thorium, an alternative nuclear fuel

Jonathan Fetter-Vorm's Trinity is a nonfiction book-length comic for adults about the birth of nuclear weapons. Although primarily a history book, Trinity is also a pretty good nuclear physics primer, making good use of the graphic novel form to literally illustrate the violence of atoms tearing themselves apart, and the weird, ingenious, improvised mechanisms for triggering and controlling that violence. 6/12.

Nuclear Aftershocks PBS FRONTLINE travels to three continents to explore the debate about nuclear power: Is it safe? What are the alternatives? And could a Fukushima-style disaster happen in the U.S.? 4/12

Plutonium disposal 5/12.

Listen to a sane debate about nuclear energy UK 3/12. US debate 4/11

BURN: An Energy Journal is a four-hour, four-part audio broadcast and digital documentary series exploring "the most pressing energy issues of our times. Part One of the series, titled "Particles: Nuclear Power After Fukushima" 3/12

Center for Investigative Reporting coverage.

The United States' Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the construction of the first two nuclear reactors to be built in this country since 1978. They're both part of the same power plant complex, near Augusta, Georgia. 2/12.

Living on Earth interview on safety and debate on Fukishima anniversary]. 3/12 related audio and video.

Nuclear Energy After Fukushima Googletalk Tom LaTourrette RAND 2012

Inside Japan's Nuclear Meltdown PBS Frontline 3/12.

Atomic States of America is a new documentary based on the book Welcome to Shirley: A Memoir from an Atomic Town by Kelly McMasters Audio interview.

The World's Largest Environmental Cleanup has Problems is about Hanford WA. LOE.org audio and text. 2/12.

co-founder Bill Gates confirmed Wednesday he is in discussions with China to jointly develop a new and safer kind of nuclear reactor. 12/11

New Documentary: Thorium Dream (an alternative to conventional nuclear).

Fukushima analysis: IEEE Spectrum has a big special feature online now about the Fukushima nuclear disaster and its after-effects. It includes an interactive map showing the impact that Fukushima has had on evacuation of residents, contamination of soil, and contamination of food and water supplies. 11/11.

The Future Of Nuclear Energy In The U.S. Before the Fukushima disaster, nuclear power was being rebranded as a green form of energy. New York Times energy reporter Matt Wald explains how the situation in Japan is now raising questions about the safety and disposal of nuclear waste in the U.S. Audio 4/1/11 on Fresh Air.

Safecast is open source crowd-sharing site for tracking radiation in Japan, but could be expanded.

Sunflowers for bio-remediation of radiation. 8/11.

In this first-ever TED debate, Stewart Brand and Mark Z. Jacobson square off over the pros and cons. Video. A more recent radio debate 4/11

Bill Gates unveils his vision for the world's energy future, describing the need for "miracles" to avoid planetary catastrophe and explaining why he's backing a dramatically different type of nuclear reactor. The necessary goal? Zero carbon emissions globally by 2050. TEDtalk 2/10.

Wired Magazine article on thorium, the "green nuke." 1/10

Per F. Peterson is Professor and Chair of the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Nuclear Energy: Future Directions is a one hour talk from oct 09 (video)

Sourcewatch.org portal on the issue, including re-branding as green.

Living on Earth (NPR) coverage of nuclear power. Includes fusion.

Physicist Steven Cowley is certain that nuclear fusion is the only truly sustainable solution to the fuel crisis. He explains why fusion will work -- and details the projects that he and many others have devoted their lives to, working against the clock to create a new source of energy. TEDtalk video.

Atomic Americaby Todd Tucker. On January 3, 1961, nuclear reactor SL-1 exploded in rural Idaho, spreading radioactive contamination over thousands of acres and killing three men: John Byrnes, Richard McKinley, and Richard Legg. The Army blamed "human error" and a sordid love triangle. Though it has been overshadowed by the accident at Three Mile Island, SL-1 is the only fatal nuclear reactor incident in American history, and it holds serious lessons for a nation poised to embrace nuclear energy once again.

Yucca Mountain

Finland's version of Yucca Mtn audio interview with documentary filmmaker of Into Eternity.

President Obama has big plans for the future of commercial nuclear energy but the industry still has to deal with the waste it's generated over the past 50 years. The administration has pulled the plug on the Yucca Mountain repository so, today, half a century of radioactive waste remains at power plants. That's costing taxpayers and ratepayers billions of dollars a year. Living on Earth's Bruce Gellerman investigates the flow of federal funds and nuclear waste in the second story in our series. (9:15) audio and text 3/10

Radioactive e-waste in India 4/10

Chernobyl Radiation Killed Nearly One Million People: New Book Nearly one million people around the world died from exposure to radiation released by the 1986 nuclear disaster at the Chernobyl reactor, finds a new book from the New York Academy of Sciences published today on the 24th anniversary of the meltdown at the Soviet facility. Eighty percent of children born to irradiated parents in Belarus, the Ukraine, and European Russia suffer elevated rates of serious diseases.More 4/10

Stephen I. Schwartz, Cowell '87 Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940, Brookings Institute, 1998.

Living Under the Cloud  : Chernobyl [videorecording]/ produced and directed by Teresa Metcalf ; Metcalf Productions Inc Published Oley, PA : Bullfrog Films, c1993 Call Number Location McHenry Media Center VT3978

Karen Silkwood a whistle-blower on industry practices that could have endangered millions of Americans was the portrayed by Meryl Streep in Silkwood VT6062 clip

Searchable map of US reactors.

Inside the Fukushima exclusion zone: the photography of Satoru Niwa.

Clean Fusion Power this Decade LongNow talk 6/10

Uranium mining and Native people.

Nuclear plant simulator game (no earthquake mode).

New Documentary: Thorium Dream (an alternative to conventional nuclear). (Video)

Hydropower

Great Wall Across the Yangtze. To China’s leaders, the Three Gorges Dam is the most significant engineering feat since the construction of the Great Wall, but to its critics worldwide, it is a social and environmental disaster. As the debate rages on, GREAT WALL ACROSS THE YANGTZE tells the complex story of extraordinary sacrifice in the face of modernization.

Small-scale turbines have big potential big potential Small-scale hydropower

Wave and Tidal Power

Green Wharf is a UCSC student-led projects. Wind on the Wharf is also a UCSC project, and is looking at wave energy.

World’s first hybrid wind/current generator could generate double the power 7/13

Marine Energy Projects Pick Up Momentum

Oregon commercial scale wave energy 9/12. see also

The Power of Ocean Waves UCTV video.

7/11 NPR story some history (Audio and text).

World's largest tidal turbine installed.

Wave energy video from SRI energy.

Hydrogen

Where's My Hydrogen Highway? Quest audio with sideshow 6/9.

Fracking Gives Hydrogen Fuel Cells New Life (text and audio).

== Wind == ( See also Wind)

As Congress lets wind tax credit die, the wind industry struggles to finish key projects 9/12.

Wind 101 video overview.

Wind on the Wharf is a UCSC project.

Joby Energy is a local company looking for people to create high altitude wind. images and video.

Prospecting for wind (video).

Feds change rules to encourage offshore wind and wind label encourages development. 2/12

Winds of XChange [electronic resource] : the environmental movement and the global development of the wind energy industry / Ion Bogdan Vasi. 2011

Segway inventor's inflatable wind turbine: The inventor of the Segway, Dean Kamen (who has also worked on clean water and green energy) has come up with an idea for an inflatable wind turbine. Its main advantage is that it's mobile: imagine parking your EV and sending your inflatable wind turbine up into the sky to charge it while you're at work. It could be moved to take advantage of the best winds as they shift, and, more to the point, It could also be mounted on top of a building or on the side of the road in order to double as a billboard.More

Germany has so much wind energy, they’ll pay you to take it More 10/11

New documentary Cape Spinon the Cape Wind project, the largest offshore in US 8/11. link w/ trailer.

Earth Policy Institute overview/stats/status Link

Saul Griffith unveils the invention his new company Makani Power has been working on: giant kite turbines that create surprising amounts of clean, renewable energy. TEDtalk video.

PBS Global Focus special segment on Denmark, which bought wind energy industry the US abandoned and is now the world leader. Includes segment on Samso Island, which is now carbon neutral after ten year effort.

UC's Lawrence Livermore National Lab's Julie Lundquist explains how wind turbines convert the forces of the atmosphere into electricity for our homes, businesses, and even cars. UCTV video 3/10 one hour

Inspiring story of the Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. At age 14, in poverty and famine, a Malawian boy built a windmill to power his family's home. Now at 22, William Kamkwamba, who speaks at TED, here, for the second time, shares in his own words the moving tale of invention that changed his life.

California captured an early lead in wind power, thanks to ambitious tax incentives in the 1980s. In recent years, we've fallen behind states like Texas and Iowa. But nobody beats Denmark. It generates fully one fifth of its electric power from wind. audio 12/09

NY Times reports "the American housing market remained in the doldrums in 2009 and automakers sputtered along, but the wind industry continued to boom, according to a report released Thursday. A record 10,010 megawatts of new wind capacity was installed in the United States last year, accounting for 39 percent of new electrical generation, the American Wind Energy Association said in its annual report.

That raises the nation’s total wind energy capacity to more than 35,000 megawatts, or enough electricity to keep the lights on in 9.7 million homes. “Over the past five years, wind power and other renewable energy technologies, combined with natural gas, have provided over 90 percent of all new generating capacity in the U.S.,” the report’s authors stated..." More 4/10

UC's Lawrence Livermore National Labs Julie Lundquist explains how wind turbines convert the forces of the atmosphere into electricity for our homes, businesses, and even cars. video 1/10 50 min.

Residential Power Flowers, a vertical turbine design.

Birds:

a rather disturbing video, but also what can be done.

New wind turbines reduce bird fatalities. 1/11

Bird strikes 3/11

Miracle cure for Wind Turbine System.

Quiet turbine said to be more bird safe

Solar

Energy democracy: Three ways to bring solar to the masses (nice overview current situation, including community mini-grids) 9/12.

Solar plane attempts transcontinental flight in preparation for world trip. 5/12

Plant based solar energy. Scientists at Vanderbilt University are using proteins found in spinach to generate solar power. (audio) 9/12.

Google's Green Energy Czar on Solar Thermal Energy (video).

Solar thermal to heat houses (videos).

Japan's new solar R&D park. also images.

Freeing energy from the grid Justin Hall-Tipping (TEDtalk).

Solar cooker text and audio 8/11.

UCBerzerkeley is building an artificial leaf, a super-efficient solar power source. (Audio) 11/10.

3D map shows NYC solar potential video 7/11.

Earth Policy Institute overview/stats/status Link.

MIT researchers have discovered an inexpensive way to harness and store the sun's energy. The new technology only needs 5 liters of water, 4 hours of sun and a 16 x 20 foot array of solar panels to produce 30 kilowatt hours of electricity. That's enough to power a four-person household all day—and night.

After 55 years of development, photovoltaic electric generation is at a historic moment as it transitions from a niche technology to a significant source of clean, carbon-free energy. Swanson discusses the promise of photovoltaic solar energy, policy issues needed to meet this promise, and how the industry is addressing these challenges. video 10/09.

Photovoltaic electricity explained (video from Beyond the Light Switch documentary)

Scientific American's Musser explains how he installed PV. (video).

Thin Film solar shingles, the future? (video from Beyond the Light Switch documentary).

California - Carbon = A Cleaner World? GOVERNOR ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER. Recorded Sep 24 2009 Link audio (free Realplayer download required).

The New Gridlock: Los Angeles may be facing a new kind of gridlock; not on the road, but on the electrical grid. 3/09

Solar Realities: This two-part series explores the issues, opportunities and challenges surrounding solar power in California.

SAVED BY THE SUN - The State of the Union for Solar Energy webinar by creators of Nova program. Quicktime video. 2010

Solar Incentive US map, Oregon's pilots of a solar highway (and other useful graphs and info)

Paul MacCready flies on solar wings 2010 update

The QinetiQ Zephyr unmanned solar plane has just shattered the world record for unmanned long duration flight by completing two weeks of non-stop flight at Yuma, Arizona, easily passing the previous official 30 hour record set back in 2001 by Northrop Grumman's RQ-4A Global Hawk. QinetiQ is a UK defence and research company that designed the Zephyr to be ultra-light, so light in fact that it is launched by five people holding it above their heads and trotting down the runway until the plane develops sufficient lift.

Bill Gross, the founder of Idealab, talks about his life as an inventor, starting with his high-school company selling solar energy plans and kits. Learn here about a groundbreaking system for solar cells -- and some questions we haven't yet solved.

solar furnace melts steel (and incinerates hot dogs) video.

In 1979 President Carter tried to move America off of oil dependence. Part of this was install solar panels on the White House. These were removed by President Reagan. video. See also Documentary and Trailer

Solar water heaters made from plastic soda bottles video

Bio-Fuels

Bio-Energy (actually quite different than bio-fuel)

Yat Li, associate professor of chemistry at UCSC, and team developed the solar-microbial device which harnesses sun and sewage to produce hydrogen fuel, using only sunlight and wastewater to produce hydrogen gas could provide a sustainable energy source while improving the efficiency of wastewater treatment. The hybrid device combines a microbial fuel cell (MFC) and a type of solar cell called a photoelectrochemical cell (PEC). In the MFC component, bacteria degrade organic matter in the wastewater, generating electricity in the process. The biologically generated electricity is delivered to the PEC component to assist the solar-powered splitting of water (electrolysis) that generates hydrogen and oxygen.

Pig poo fuel 8/12.

Microbes Transform Wastewater to Energy LOE.org audio and text 2/12.

Juan Enriquez offers a glimpse of some ground-breaking research to explore the potential of bioenergy. Our current energy sources -- coal, oil, gas -- are ultimately derived from ancient plants -- they're "concentrated sunlight." He asks, Can we learn from that process and accelerate it? TEDtalk video.

A solar powered floating scum collector that sucks up algae and combines it with a chemical (this part is a bit vague) and transforms it into bio-oil instantly. When you need oil, you can go to your pond or swimming pool and harvest it instantly.

Craig Venter Can we create new life out of our digital universe?" asks Craig Venter. And his answer is, yes, and pretty soon. He walks the TED2008 audience through his latest research into "fourth-generation fuels" -- biologically created fuels with CO2 as their feedstock. His talk covers the details of creating brand-new chromosomes using digital technology, the reasons why we would want to do this, and the bioethics of synthetic life. TEDtalk video.

Genetically modified microbes are the new thing in biofuels. Some university labs and high-tech startups say they’ve engineered organisms that can make fuels like ethanol and diesel with just sunlight and carbon dioxide. It’s called direct solar liquid fuel. 11/09 audio

Energy from sewage/algae Loe.org 5/10

Bio-Fuel

Fuel From Waste, Poised at a Milestone 11/12

Starbucks' Food Waste Fuels Experimental Biorefinery 9/12.

Friends of the Earth critique 2/12

TEDTalks: Plant fuels that could power a jet. Algae plus salt water equals … fuel? At TEDxNASA@SiliconValley, Bilal Bomani reveals a self-sustaining ecosystem that produces biofuels -- without wasting arable land or fresh water. Bomani runs NASA’s Greenlab research facility, where he is developing the next generation of biofuels.

Vertical bio-reactor

Talk of the Nation Science Friday coverage NPR.org. roundup

E-coli breakthrough UK 7/10

Fuel, the Film. Winner at Sundance. Interview/overview with director. (highly recommended) follows director Josh Tickell on his quest to convert the world to biofuels extensive interview.

Greasy Rider: Two Dudes, One Fast Food Fueled Car, and a Cross-Country Search for a Greener Future "Is it possible to drive coast-to-coast without stopping at a single gas pump? Journalist Greg Melville is determined to try. With his college buddy Iggy riding shotgun, he sets out on an enlightening road trip. The quest: to be the first people to drive cross-country in a french-fry car. " Long video interview with excerptsand full version

For Chris Somerville, director of the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) at UCB, whether and how biofuels can be "truly positive" for carbon emissions and our energy supply is, as the saying goes, "in the details." (Video).

What's the Next Big Thing? Nova PBS 2011

The Big Green Bus is a group of 15 Dartmouth students on the ultimate 10-week cross-country journey. Our mission: to educate the American public about environmental responsibility and alternative energy. Our vehicle: a bus fueled by waste vegetable oil. Google talk (video).

Geo-Thermal

Scientists are exploring new technologies to harness the power of dormant volcanoes for geothermal energy. (text and audio) 10/12.

A Google-funded project has discovered a large geothermal resource under West Virginia that could more than double the electrical generation capacity of the high-profile coal state.

Bjork's on a quest to see Iceland take back its geothermal resources. 1/11

Earth Policy Institute report

Overview by Lester Brown.

See KQED's Climate Watch for coverage.

A century-old energy technology that taps steam from hot underground rocks is poised for a massive expansion up East Africa's Rift Valley in the 21st century. The news comes as countries across the world, from Guatemala to Papua New Guinea, are beginning to plug into geothermal energy as a new and promising alternative to coal and oil-fired power generation. Today the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) announced the completion of project testing advanced seismic and drilling techniques in Kenya that has exceeded all expectations. Wells of steam, able to generate 4-5 MW of electricity and one yielding a bumper amount of 8MW, have been hit using the new technology. It could mean a saving of as much as $75 million for the developer of a 70MW installation as well as reduced electricity costs for generators and consumers, experts estimate. More

European town creates local resources (ads).

Fossil Fuels

The Third Carbon Age: Don’t for a Second Imagine We’re Heading for an Era of Renewable Energy, a fine historical overview of fossil fuels by Michael T. Klare. 8/13.

Coal 101 short video.

Native Americans are taking the lead in protecting natural resources from oil.

Shell to drill world’s deepest offshore oil well in Gulf of Mexico after blowing Arctic drilling.

Extreme Energy Means an Extreme Planet (editorial) 10/12.

In his new book Greedy Bastards, Dylan Ratigan explains how "vampire industries" like oil and coal have forged "an unholy alliance with government based not just on the money that they contribute to political campaigns and spend on lobbying, but on their ability to hypnotize us with false prices."

NPR's Burn: An Energy Journal see also (video)

Worst oil spills in history.

Blood and Oil (video).

Natural Gas (see new Fracking page)

60 Minutes segment on Fracking, injecting chemicals under high pressure to extract natural gas. 11/10.

T Boone Pickens TEDtalk on energy policy 3/12.

Vanity Fair article and video on water affected.

Natural gas' (mostly methane) role in Gulf oil spill. from Mojo

Drilling Down on Fracking loe.org 7/10

Gasland a documentary about drilling for natural gas. official site.

Gasland a documentary about drilling for natural gas. official site.

Coal

Grist has excellent coverage of green issues, and energy and climate in particular. Here's a sample on the real cost of coal. See also Current news from Democracy Now.

Mountaintop removal video.

West Virginia coal activist Maria Gunnoe is used to intimidation. Gunnoe has been an activist for years, in 2009 winning the Goldman Environmental Prize (video} for her work trying to stem mountaintop-removal mining. The prize came with a $150,000 award – money she planned to use modestly: to extend the city water system to her house. But she was recently threatened with child porn charges by Republican legislators. She is in the documentary Burning the Future.7.12

Coal ash dumped on poor people. 6.12

U.S. Coal Industry May Be Pushed Aside As America Switches To Cheap, Clean Energy Alternatives 6.12.

Burning the Future is a powerful documentary shown on PBS.

‘Peak Coal’ comes to Appalachia 9/11.

Coal Ash slurry overview. 6/12.

News: Nazi-era coal gasification bills are moving through Congress. Activists are recreating the Blair March 90 years ago which resulted in women and children being machine gunned (from a train by hired thugs) and bombed from airplanes (the Army did aerial reconnaissance). RFK Jr editorial These events are in John Sayles' Matewan (UCSC Media Center DVD3923) trailer and an award-winning novel Storming Heaven by Denise Giardina. This event prefigured the Ludlow Massacre.

Robert F Kennedy Jr (see Eco-heroes) has been a major activist on coal. Local 6/11 interview (video).

Time lapse images of mountaintop coal removal

Dirty Business: "Clean Coal" and the Battle for Our Energy Future, a documentary film. (review) Link.

Power and Smoke: A Nation Built on Coal (American RadioWorks)Apr 9, 2011.

Carbon Capture update 7/11 (text and audio). 12/11 article

The Last Mountain, directed by Bill Haney, shines a light on the dark side of our use of coal in the U.S. The film begins with the scary statistic that half of all the electricity used in the U.S. comes from burning coal, which is also the number one source of greenhouse gases globally. It then takes us to Appalachia, where 30 percent of U.S. coal is extracted through mountaintop removal. Sundance selection.

Living on Earth (NPR) coverage of coal power text and audio.

Graph of Massey safety violations and fines.

Black Lung makes a comeback. 70K coal miners have died. 7.12 (audio and text).

Time to bury cheap coal (editorial, but good data) 3/15 More from Grist. This all becomes more urgent and relevant after the second recent Massey fatal coal mine disaster. 4/10

Slideshow of coal ash disaster.

basics of carbon capture

Clean Coal: Myth or Reality? 2009 video.

Jeff Biggers is the American Book Award-winning author of Reckoning at Eagle Creek: The Secret Legacy of Coal in the Heartland. interview (video) 2010

Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future author interview (text).

Dirty Business reveals the true social and environmental costs of coal power and explores the murky realities of "clean coal" technology.

Coal River by Michael Shnayerson. 2009 book

Coal Swarm is a online project you can participate in to share info on coal. A project of Sourcewatch.org

Toxic sludge 3/10

Can Coal be Earth-Friendly? PBS Now 4/09 "Clean coal" explored.

Fighting Goliath follows the story of farmers, ranchers and Mayors fighting against the construction of 18 new coal-burning power plants in Texas. TXU Corp. withdrew eight of the 11 permit applications shortly before the case went to court, when it was announced that shareholders would sell the utility to private equity firms.

KilowattOurs Excellent documentary on energy use Watch online with script and links }}

20th Annual Goldman Environmental Prize which was awarded to grassroots activists from around the world today. We talk with recipients including Maria Gunnoe, a West Virginian who battled against King Coal and mountaintop removal, and Rizwana Hasan who worked to end the dangerous ship breaking industry in Bangladesh. 4/09 audio

Article on coal mining devastation in Appalachia

Strange as This Weather Has Been by Ann Pancake about coal mining region of Appalachia

Everything in Its Path By Kai T. Erikson Recounts the devastating personal and communal effects of the 1972 Buffalo Creek, West Virginia, disaster on a tightly knit Appalachian community suddenly uprooted and dispersed.

Google Earth stops mountaintop removal.

EPA chief Lisa Jackson on mountaintop removal, climate legislation, toxics, and more (text and audio interview. 6/09)

Interview with Nancy Sutley, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, says coal isn’t going away anytime soon. (text and audio interview. 6/09 )

Ken Hechler, the 94 year old legendary West Virginia congressman (a former coal miner who has worked for their rights), was arrested in a non-violent protest with NASA's celebrated climate scientist James Hansen, actress Daryl Hannah, Michael Brune (executive director of Rainforest Action Network), and Goldman Prize winner Judy Bonds (assaulted by coal supporter), and dozens of other coalfield residents after crossing onto the property of leading mountaintop removal coal mining company, Massey Energy. More 6/09 also video.

The Evolution of Byrd – Robert C. Byrd served as the Senator for West Virginia for 51 years. In that time, the coal state representative dramatically changed his opinions on a variety environmental issues. Audio and text. LOE.org 7/10.

Black Mesa Trustis Native People vs Peabody Coal

Oil

Oil drilling in the Arctic 8.12

Canadian Tar Sand aerial photo of carbon sink forests replaced by dirty oil (bad for climate) that's energy intensive to extract and will be shipped over Olglala Aquifer. See 350.org.

Peak Oil Understanding Peak Oil (video). Roland Horne, Thomas Davies Barrow Professor in the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford University, discusses the future of oil (2009). Petroleum Geologist Jeffrey J. Brown provides an overview of the global energy picture, focused on oil supply and demand and the impact of peak oil exports (2008). Peak oil talk at UCSB (video) 2/08

The Peak: Oil, Water and Climate Change CHRIS MARTENSON Recorded Jan 26 2010 audio (Realplayer)

Peak Oil and a Changing Climate Series

Infographics: Worst oil spills in history. [US oil suppliers] 2006

TEDtalk video on tar sands. 3/12

New books include Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization and Peak Everything also Drowning in Oil: BP & the Reckless Pursuit of Profit by Loren C. Steffy.

The Spill A joint investigation by FRONTLINE and ProPublica into the trail of problems -- deadly accidents, disastrous spills, countless safety violations -- which long troubled the oil giant, BP. Could the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico have been prevented?

Black Tide: the Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill audio interviews.

The political chemistry of oil: Lisa Margonelli shares her bold plan to wean America off of oil -- by confronting consumers with its real cost. (TEDtalk video).Her book about the oil supply chain, Oil On the Brain: Petroleum's Long Strange Trip to Your Tank.

Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil By David L. Goodstein (20 min video interview). Recommended by 81C course.

Blind Spot is a documentary film that illustrates the current oil and energy crisis that our world is facing. Blind Spot is a documentary film that illustrates the current oil and energy crisis that our world is facing. Whatever measures of ignorance, greed, wishful thinking, we have put ourselves at a crossroad, which offers two paths with dire consequences. If we continue to burn fossil fuels we will choke the life out of the planet and if we don’t our way of life will collapse. (2008) 86 min. Also at MEF.org

15 Biggest Oil spills of all time (map).

Robotic Oil Spill Cleaning Sailboats

Richard Sears thinks hard about the post-oil world. He's a visiting scientist at MIT, after a long career as a VP at Shell. TEDtalk 2010.

Microbes that eat oil audio 7/10

Alan Richards' UCSC Blood and Oil course.

Oil Eating microbes video

The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other ...By James Howard Kunstler. Article A number of videos

Rob Hopkins reminds us that the oil our world depends on is steadily running out. He proposes a unique solution to this problem -- the Transition response, where we prepare ourselves for life without oil and sacrifice our luxuries to build systems and communities that are completely independent of fossil fuels. TEDtalk video.

The Adventure Ecology team is working alongside high profile artists, film makers and photographers in the first Adventures in Waste mini mission destinations: Toxico oil in Ecuador.

Amazon Watch oil campaigns. Chevron/Texaco damage in Ecuador (indigenous people) Video.

Images of oil. In stunning large-format photographs, Edward Burtynsky follows the path of oil through modern society, from wellhead to pipeline to car engine -- and then beyond to the projected peak-oil endgame. TEDtalk video.

Game/simulation: World Without Oil from Institute for the Future (see Superstruct on Games page.

How Much Oil Is Left? simulation

the 1969 oil spill of Santa Barbara was a wakeup call and led to laws to protect environment.

Chevron & Sierra Club: Drilling for Common Ground video

A Crude Awakening 2007 documentary. Maker site has some nice accompanying documentation.

Crude Impact: Oil Companies and the Environment from LinkTV Video.

Bill McKibben's recent review in the NY Times recommends Paul Roberts' The End of Oil link and others on Global Warming. Roberts interview 2004. Roberts on panel discussion 2008

Avery Lovins on the Oil Endgame, a TEDtalk. See also www.oilendgame.com

ANWR Pro-Con

Blood and Oil Featuring Michael T. Klare (full preview online)

The notion that oil motivates America's military engagements in the Middle East is often disregarded as nonsense or mere conspiracy theory. In Blood and Oil, bestselling author and Nation magazine defense correspondent Michael T. Klare challenges this conventional wisdom and corrects the historical record. The film unearths declassified documents and highlights forgotten passages in prominent presidential doctrines to show how concerns about oil have been at the core of American foreign policy for more than 60 years -- rendering our contemporary energy and military policies virtually indistinguishable.

In the end, Blood and Oil calls for a radical re-thinking of US energy policy, warning that unless we change direction, we stand to be drawn into one oil war after another as the global hunt for diminishing world petroleum supplies accelerates.

Energy Wars? (from those wild-eyed Commies at the Financial Times) 3/10

Exxon Valdez comprehensive newspaper site

In the Wake of the Exxon Valdez : Devastating Impact of Alaska's Oil Spill by Art Davidson S&E Stacks - TD427.P4D39 1990

Cleanup workers continue to have health problems

Local Resources

Robert Ludwig works on Renewable bioenergy: hydrogen production by direct photoconversion.

Yat Li, associate professor of chemistry, and team developed the solar-microbial device which harnesses sun and sewage to produce hydrogen fuel, using only sunlight and wastewater to produce hydrogen gas could provide a sustainable energy source while improving the efficiency of wastewater treatment. The hybrid device combines a microbial fuel cell (MFC) and a type of solar cell called a photoelectrochemical cell (PEC). In the MFC component, bacteria degrade organic matter in the wastewater, generating electricity in the process. The biologically generated electricity is delivered to the PEC component to assist the solar-powered splitting of water (electrolysis) that generates hydrogen and oxygen.

Carbon capture technique produces hydrogen fuel, offsets ocean acidification Greg Rau.

Daniel Hirsch heads the Committee to Bridge the Gap, a non-profit nuclear policy organization focusing on issues of nuclear safety, waste disposal, smart meters.

College 8/EE 81C has lots of great resources, though you'll need to access via UCSC Library.

UCSC student-led projects. Wind on the Wharf is also a UCSC project.

Center for Remote Sensing (CRS)

Center for the Study of the Dynamics and Evolution of the Land-Sea Interface

Center for Sustainable Energy and Power Systems update on partnership with Hartnell.

Electrical Engineering

Green Technology

Transitions Santa Cruz. "Our mission is to be a catalyst for Santa Cruz' relocalization—the development of local self-reliance in food, energy, transportation, media, systems of care, economy and the arts—through a broadly inclusive community-building process." Monthly gathering the third Weds of the month.

The California Center for Sustainable Energy (CCSE) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating change for a clean energy future. Join us to learn about energy efficiency, renewable energy and clean transportation; take advantage of incentive programs and help promote sustainable policies and developing technologies.