The BBC is reporting that the UK government has agreed to allow two huge windfarms to be built off the eastern coast.
“The £1.5bn London Array scheme will have 341 turbines rising from the sea about 12 miles (20km) off the Kent and Essex coasts, as well as five offshore substations and four meteorological masts.
The government said both schemes would make “a significant contribution to the aim of a five-fold increase in the UK’s renewable energy resource by 2020”.
This book should be on every environmentalists Christmas list…..although it might change your views on this jolly time of year. To every person who spends more time shopping this season than spending time with their family, I say the booklet Consume This – Buying That Matters is for them. The Canadian Centre for Pollution Prevention (C2P2), through the support of the Ontario Trillium Foundation, has developed this booklet to teach youth on the topic of sustainable consumption. The 40-page booklets teaches youth to understand that where, how, when and what the consume has an impact on the environment, empowering youth to make environmentally friendly choices. The book outlines simple ways to reduce personal environmental impacts and participate in sustainable comsumption activities.
Visit the C2P2 website to download a FREE electronic version. Although I strongly suggest memorizing the electronic copy, full colour printed copies can be ordered using the online order form on the website or by calling 1-800-667-9790, or e-mail info@c2p2online.com. The booklet is printed by an EcoLogo Certified printer on 50% post consumer paper with vegetable based inks
Tired of not having your own personalized luffa?
Did you know that you can grow your own luffa in your backyard? Well you can. Groovy Green has not one but two posts on how to grow your own luffa.
“Many people are surprised when they find out I grow my own Luffa sponges. “Don’t those come from the sea?â€, is the standard question to which I respond that the Luffa is a vegetable you can grow in your very own garden.”
Long time readers of ThingsAreGood may know that we like to talk about algae. Today is no exception, Living on Earth is running an interview with a man who dearly loves algae, particularly burning algae for biofuels.
“Berzin grows algae because they’re super rich in oil. In some species, oil accounts for half the little creature’s body mass. In fact, algae synthesize 30 times more vegetable oil per acre than plants like sunflowers or rapeseed. The algae biodiesel can be used to run engines, or converted into methane or fermented into alcohol. And here’s the best part: algae eat carbon dioxide for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And one thing the global warming world has too much of is CO2 from fossil fuel burning power plants.”
Here’s a documentary that aired in 1995 that looks at the feasibility of free energy. Energy from water is brought up a few times. It is very optimistic about the idea of free energy and I’m hoping that one day we get free energy that doesn’t damage the environment.
Most people scoff at the idea of free energy but it wasn’t that long ago that people scoffed at the thought of using water to power machines (steam trains for example) and oil to power more machines (smog machines for example). That being said there is some questionable science in the vide, but we can dream can’t we?
From the movies description at Google Video:
“In the opening stages Arthur C. Clarke explained how there were four stages in the way scientists react to the development of anything of a revolutionary nature. “Free energy” was now working its way through these four stages of reaction, which were:
a: “It’s nonsense,” b: “It is not important,” c: “I always said it was a good idea,” and d: “I thought of it first.””