Renewable Energy

ODAC Newsletter – Apr 30

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As oil companies reported sharply increased profits this week, an estimated 5000 barrels of oil a day was spewing into the Gulf of Mexico following the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. This ecological disaster comes just a month after President Obama gave the green light to expand drilling off the US coast, and while the timing of the disaster could hardly be worse for big oil’s PR…

BBC on the impact of biofuels on Paraguay’s ecology and farmers

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Everyone should listen to this BBC report on the “price of biofuels.” It digs into a key question: what does Europe’s appetite for biodiesel mean for people and ecosystems in the countries that produce the feedstocks?

Deepshit Horizon: Earth Day began with a blow-out, will it end with one?

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On January 28th, 1969 the Union Oil Company’s Platform A, located six miles from Santa Barbara, CA experienced a “blow-out.” Highly pressurized deposits of natural gas pushed upward against the newly bored well causing oil to leak from the pipe and casings…The blow-out was devastating. Ironically, and tragically, this year’s Earth Day celebrations coincided with another oil rig blow-out, this time offshore of Louisiana. Like other recent mining disasters, the explosion and sinking of the rig caused by a well blow-out has claimed the lives of at least eleven workers.

Renewables out of the bottle

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Renewables have been growing as inside a bottle so far; a bottle made of disbelief, red tape and not enough financing. It is time for a little satori in renewable energy. Renewables can hold on their own with new and more efficient technologies, in particular the CdTe thin film version which may have an EROEI of 40. With such EROEIs, we can start thinking of renewable energy as abundant and cheap.

Food & agriculture – April 18

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– Inside Cuba’s urban agriculture revolution (video)
– Flight ban could leave UK short of fruit and veg
– Beating obesity
– The trouble with Brazil’s much-celebrated ethanol ‘miracle’
– ‘Biggest problem you’ve never heard of’: Peak phosphorus
– Phosphorus famine: The threat to our food supply (Scientific American)

Thinking the unthinkable about wood heating

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When homeowners fear high energy prices, winter power outages or loss of income they turn in big numbers to wood heating. It is a recognized pattern that’s been apparent each time people lose confidence in conventional energy price and supply…The thinking is that if everything goes to hell in a hand basket a wood stove can help get you through. That makes firewood a strategic fuel resource for families.

Wind industry growing in blue and red states alike

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As Paul Krugman’s New York Times Magazine cover story on environmental economics, “Building the Green Economy,” was ricocheting around the enviro blogosphere last week, the American Wind Energy Association released its annual report on the state of the wind industry.