This seems to be an interesting threshold to have reached ... for a whole country, Spain, to get the majority of their electricity from a renewable resource like wind power.
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Thursday, March 22, 2007
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Powerful Little Light: LED With 1,000 Lumens
Lights is perhaps something we take for granted but have you tried living without electric lights? I haven't, though I have spent some time in places where there are no electric lights. The people who live there have all sorts of ways to create light when there's no electric lights.. like, candles. Anyway the ability to have light when it's dark is one of the miracles of the modern age. But it's also a curse of sorts because electric lighting has become so ubiquitous that it's using a tremendous amount of power. The most common light bulb, the incandescent bulb, wastes 95% of the energy sent into the bulb, yet the companies that make them have done a great job keeping costs down, and the inexpensive price is a barrier to entry for any other product.
There are two sorts of electric lights which are more efficient than incandescent bulbs. The compact fluorescent is about 3x as efficient, and those bulbs last 10x longer (or thereabouts) so the higher price for the compact fluorescent pays for itself over the life of the bulb but I suspect the much higher price puts off most people and hence they are not so popular. However LED lighting is even more efficient, using about 1 percent the power required for an incandescent bulb, while lasting hundreds of times longer. Unfortunately LED bulbs which could adequately light a room were astronomically expensive and almost nobody knows these exist much less own any.
Osram has developed a small light-emitting diode spotlight that achieves an output of more than 1,000 lumens for the first time. That's the same brightness as a 75 watt bulb.
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Sunday, February 11, 2007
Putin Says U.S. Is Undermining Global Stability
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia accused the United States on Saturday of provoking a new nuclear arms race by developing ballistic missile defenses, undermining international institutions and making the Middle East more unstable through its clumsy handling of the Iraq war.
In an address to an international security conference, Mr. Putin dropped all diplomatic gloss to recite a long list of complaints about American domination of global affairs, including many of the themes that have strained relations between the Kremlin and the United States during his seven-year administration.
...The comments were the sternest yet from Mr. Putin, who has long bristled over criticism from the United States and its European allies as he and his cadre of former Soviet intelligence officials have consolidated their hold on Russia’s government, energy reserves and arms-manufacturing and trading complexes.
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Nuke detectors to ring New York, official says
New York City will be protected by a ring of devices to detect nuclear or dirty bombs before the end of the year, the Department of Homeland Security said Friday.
...Under the "Securing the Cities" initiative, detectors will be placed along highways, at truck stops, in weigh stations and at other sites on the perimeter of New York, as well as locations closer to the city center, an official said.
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Iran says wants to stay within nuclear rules
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad marked the 28th anniversary of Iran's revolution on Sunday pledging to maintain the country's nuclear program but saying he wanted to remain within international rules.
...His comments had prompted talk Iran might say it had begun installing 3,000 centrifuges at its Natanz uranium enrichment plant, defying a U.N. sanctions resolution which gave Tehran until February 21 to suspend enrichment or face more measures.
...The proposal would permit Iran to keep its uranium enrichment infrastructure of several hundred centrifuges but it would not be allowed to feed any processed uranium hexafluoride (UF6) into the machines while negotiating with six world powers over a package of incentives to observe U.N. demands.
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Friday, February 9, 2007
Thursday, February 1, 2007
Inherit the Wind
Inherit the Wind is a story about the reuse of oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico to host wind turbines. It seems that the wind in the Gulf is very strong and that it's a good place for wind power, and that the wind tends to blow the strongest on hot days when the need for power is the most. Seems like a great fit, especially as there's all these leftover oil platforms.
This story makes for an interesting contrast against the wind project off Nantucket Island. In that project the locals are complaining up and down that the wind turbines will "ruin" their ecological situation because it will "ruin" the view of the unfettered ocean. Sigh.
As it says in the article, in the Gulf they have 50+ years experience with having big structures in the ocean.
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