Energy

From Air to Rail

- Adam Clare

Air travel is very, very, very bad for the environment. So why am I bringing it up on this website? (yeah for rhetorical questions!)

A company is proposing to take old airplane fuselages and convert them into monorails. This just sounds cool! And it is! Energy for the trains comes from solar power, wind power, and regenerative breaking.

This is such a good use for old environmentally unfriendly technology because it takes it and makes it into a sustainable transportation system.

It has yet to be prototyped, but let’s hope that this system is built.

Net Metering in the USA

- Adam Clare

Net metering is a novel concept that allows property owners who produce their own energy to sell surplus power back to the electric grid. There are many, many, many reason why this should be adopted and the International Business Times looks at people are selling energy back to the grid not for profit, but for philosophical reasons. The profit must help the decisions though.

“Net metering essentially allows people to become mini-power producers. Programs vary state to state, but they are typically coupled with financial incentives that make it easier to invest thousands of dollars for photovoltaic panels, windmills or fuel cells. Since sun and wind are intermittent, customers still rely on the grid for steady service. The meter runs backward when more energy is produced than a customer consumes.”

Mine Heat for Energy

- Adam Clare

MIT researchers have come to the conclusion that geothermal energy is a good thing! They figure that a “significant” amount of energy that the USA uses can be produced using the earth has power.

“The goal of the study was to assess the feasibility, potential environmental impacts and economic viability of using enhanced geothermal system (EGS) technology to greatly increase the fraction of the U.S. geothermal resource that could be recovered commercially.”

Switch’n It Up!

- Vanessa King

ure-2.pngThe World Wildlife Fund started a great new campaign in 2006 called ‘Powerswitch’. The initiative has been working to eventually help the world’s power sector become completely CO2-free. The goals achieved thus far include more than 600,000 actions taken by individual PowerSwitch! supporters. They’ve even stopped the construction of new coal power plants and have pushed legislation that puts tough caps on CO2 emissions and boosts clean and efficient renewable energies.

How do I switch to clean energy from where I live?? It’s actually not as hard as you might think! In many countries, including Canada, you can choose to buy energy from green resources at a very comparable cost. There are many other ways you can work to decrease your global footprint as well.

In only one year the WWF’s campaign has effectively established networks and initiatives on different continents, which are longlasting and are continuing to grow even further. The more people learn about how they can help, the more alternatives to dirty, non-renewable energy sources will become popular and readily available. It all starts with us!

Cute Environmental Protection Ads

- Adam Clare 2 Comments

solarThe Environmental Defense Fund has produced a series of awareness-raising ads that show animals doing everyday tasks that humans can do to protect the environment.

The ads ask the simple question: if you don’t preserve nature, who will?

Scroll To Top