CNN has a neat list of the top 10 life-affirming movie moments. The list is not focused on just cheesy feel-good movies, it also lists movies that have appeal separate from the feel-goodery. From It’s a Wonderful Life to Blade Runner.
From heartwarming classics to instant blockbusters, these are the on-screen scenes that never fail to fill you with joie de vivre.
A company in California, Nanosolar, as produced solar chips that generate electricity at $0.90 per watt. If sales go well this is a massive breakthrough for solar energy as this a milestone in solar electricity.
After five years of product development – including aggressively pipelined science, research and development, manufacturing process development, product testing, manufacturing engineering and tool development, and factory construction – we now have shipped first product and received our first check of product revenue.
… Today we are announcing that we have begun shipping panels for freefield deployment in Eastern Germany and that the first Megawatt of our panels will go into a power plant installation there.
As far as the first three of our commercial panels are concerned:
Panel #1 will remain at Nanosolar for exhibit.
Panel #2 can be purchased by you in an auction on eBay starting today.
Panel #3 has been donated to the Tech Museum in San Jose.
This is without a doubt, really reat news. Japan has halted whailing for the year, after pressure from the Australian government. A hat tip to Kevin Rudd and his fellow Aussies for convincing Japan to change their ways.
The country’s chief government spokesman, Nobutaka Machimura, revealed the backdown at a news conference today.
Japan had planned to harpoon 50 humpbacks
He said: “Japan will not hunt humpback whales.â€The country had planned to harpoon around 50 humpbacks on its current expedition, the first time since the 1960s that Tokyo would have hunted the species, which are popular with Australian whale-watchers.
Mr Machimura added: “It’s true that Australia expressed quite a strong opinion to Japan on this.
“As a result, I hope that this will lead to better relations with Australia.â€
You may have heard of the urban rumors that argue Hummers have less of an environmental impact than hybrids because of toxic batteries used in hybrids. So are hybrids more damaging to the environment than Hummers?
The answer is a definitive no.
You can disprove most of the false claims by doing a bit of math. Regarding the hybrid battery, let’s say a Hummer is driven 200,000 miles in its lifetime. Its EPA rating is 14 miles per gallon in the city and 18 miles per gallon on the highway. Let’s be real generous and assume it is driven only on the highway at a reasonable speed, yielding the maximum mileage. Divide 200,000 by 18, and you’re talking 11,111 gallons of gas.
Next let’s calculate the Btus in that amount of gasoline and convert them to kilowatt-hours. Gasoline has between 115,000 and 125,000 Btus per gallon, so the Hummer would burn through about 1.3 billion Btus over those 200,000 miles. Since there are 3,412 Btus in a kilowatt-hour (kWh) of energy, this would convert to almost 400,000 kilowatt-hours, which, at the rock-bottom price of five cents per kilowatt-hour, would be about $20,000, or almost as much as the price of a Prius. If the energy to make the hybrid battery came from fuel oil, which has around 140,000 Btus per gallon, it would take an estimated 9,524 gallons of oil to match the Hummer’s 1.3 billion Btus. At $2 a gallon, that’s also about $20,000.
Here’s a great list of objects you might not have known that you can recycle from Co-op America.
Compact fluorescent bulbs
CDs/DVDs/Game Disks
Foam packing
Exercise videos
Toothbrushes and razors