Renewable Energy

Sail Transport Network: Interview with Puget Sound sailor David Reid

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David Reid has distinguished himself by actually getting his own sailboat and succeeded in making trial voyages to demonstrate the feasibility of sail power for passage and freight. In September of 2008 Dave sailed with friends from the Olympic Peninsula, Washington, to Seattle, with a load of organic produce. Flying the Sail Transport Network burgee and documenting the costs, time and other aspects of the voyage, the first STN tangible project came about.

With twig and dung

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From the hills of the Deccan Plateau in western India’s state of Maharashtra, the world of export fuels is unimaginable. In these hill villages firewood is still the primary fuel. In the hour before the sun goes down over the hills and the temperature drops, women bearing head loads of bundles of light branches head back to their simple homes. What these families have in common with many hundreds of thousands of households in rural India is their continued reliance on wood as fuel, whether for cooking or, as in these windswept hills, for keeping warm.

Energy in the real world

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As fossil fuels become less available, judicious use of the remaining reserves becomes even more important. We must come to realize that fossil fuels (as well as concentrated sources of minerals) are a gift from the earth and previous to life. To mistakenly call solar or wind energy renewable and include the capturing mechanisms leads to both false hopes and perhaps poor allocation of limited fossil fuels and funds.

Aviation fuels and peak oil (thesis)

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Future aviation fuel supply is compared to future aviation fuel demand. … This scenario envisages a substantial lack of jet fuel by the year 2026. The aviation industry will have a hard time replacing this with fuel from other sources even if air traffic remains at today’s level. (Thesis advisor: Kjell Aleklett of ASPO).