Green

Environmentally friendly, green ways of living

There are 355 posts filed in Green (this is page 5 of 36).

What does it take to drive an electric car in Canadian winters?

Good tips for wintertime EV driving.

So how on earth do you use an electric car in places that consistently get many feet of snow every winter?

Short answer: snow tires.
Long answer: plan ahead.

Being based in Vancouver — what passes for the Canadian tropics*, where snow had to be helicoptered onto local ski hills during the 2010 Olympics — your correspondent had no idea how well electric cars actually stack up until he started making inquiries.

But with winter approaching, a recent discussion on the Canada Nissan Leaf Owners Facebook group seemed apropos, all about driving plug-in electric vehicles in the northern winter.The overarching advice we got was to purchase snow tires, because low-rolling-resistance tires and ice don’t mix. Well-stocked winter survival kits were next.

Third place went to pre-heating the cabin while the car was still plugged in so the battery could maintain its maximum propulsion range and grid electricity could be used for the heat.

Source: What does it take to drive an electric car in Canadian winters? | VentureBeat | Enterprise | by J. O’Dell

The 19th Century plug that’s still being used – BBC News

The BEEB covers Apple’s rumored plans to kill off the phono plug. The story includes a quote from an Apple analyst:

“It feels painful because you’ve got hundreds of millions of devices out there that are using the old standard,” says Horace Dediu, a technology analyst with in-depth knowledge of Apple.

… and …

“Studying Moore’s Law and the history of technology, it’s clear we’re not going to stick around with something analogue for long,” he says. “It’s almost puzzling that it’s taken so long.”

Maybe because analog phone jack technology Just Works? Any guesses why an Apple stock analyst might like this move?

The Sum of Us petition is here, if you care to sign it.
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15 for ’15: Counting down to Top 5 online

A friend alerted me to this tweet that the News & Observer sent out this afternoon, prominently featuring Hallie:

Hallie represents tenacity in the N&O top stories list.

Hallie represents tenacity in the N&O top stories list.

It turns out her lawsuit story was the second most-read story on the N&O website. Pretty stunning, especially coming so late in the year.

We’re all still a bit surprised that Hallie’s activism has gotten as much attention as it has. If it helps change minds and get the state moving in the proper direction again this would be enough.
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The North Carolina town that’s scared of solar panels, revisited – Vox

Vox’s David Roberts takes an excellent closer look at Woodland’s solar vote.

On December 8, a modest local newspaper, the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald, published a story that ended up going viral, bouncing from Reddit to more than 220 other sites. It caused such buzz that even Snopes checked it out.

The story was about a town council meeting in Woodland, a North Carolina town with just over 800 residents. The council was considering whether to make a zoning change to a piece of land just outside town, to allow a solar farm to be built there. It would have been the fourth solar farm permitted around the town.

Source: The North Carolina town that’s scared of solar panels, revisited – Vox

Woodland gets hammered over public solar opposition

A story that ran last week in the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald reported that the town of Woodland, NC voted against a rezoning request for a solar farm after citizens opposed to the farm were concerned the solar farm would suck all the energy from the sun. Wrote News-Herald reporter Keith Hoggard:

Bobby Mann said he watched communities dry up when I-95 came along and warned that would happen to Woodland because of the solar farms.

“You’re killing your town,” he said. “All the young people are going to move out.”

He said the solar farms would suck up all the energy from the sun and businesses would not come to Woodland.

Jane Mann (Bobby Mann’s wife), also weighed in:

Jane Mann said she is a local native and is concerned about the natural vegetation that makes the community beautiful.

She is a retired Northampton science teacher and is concerned that photosynthesis, which depends upon sunlight, would not happen and would keep the vegetation from growing. She said she has observed areas near solar panels where vegetation is brown and dead because it did not receive enough sunlight.

She also questioned the high number of cancer deaths in the area, saying no one could tell her that solar panels didn’t cause cancer.

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Energy law change sours Facebook on NC

The market is speaking. Are our Republican state legislators listening?

Changing attitudes toward renewable energy in state government are apparently prompting Facebook to unfriend North Carolina.

An official with the California-based social media company told a reporter at the COP21 climate summit in a Paris suburb recently that Facebook would probably not expand further in the state because of ebbing support in state government for clean energy.

“We are only considering states with strong policies and a determination to produce renewable energy,” said Bill Weihl, head of sustainability at the company. He was quoted by Justin Catanoso in a story that appeared in slightly different forms in Triad Business Journal and The News and Observer of Raleigh.

Source: Energy law change sours Facebook on NC

Smog So Thick, Beijing Comes to a Standstill

Beijing calls a code red Tuesday for the very first time, finally admitting for once that its smog has gotten too dangerous to breathe.

BEIJING — Residents across this city awoke to an environmental state of emergency on Tuesday as poisonous air quality prompted the government to close schools, force motorists off the road and shut down factories.

The government, which for the first time declared a “red alert” over air pollution late Monday, even broadcast what sounded like bombing raid alerts in the subways — warnings telling people to take precautions with their health. Yet even with those extraordinary measures, the toxic air grew worse, shrouding this capital city of more than 20 million in a soupy, metallic haze.

Source: Smog So Thick, Beijing Comes to a Standstill

Computers getting more efficient all the time

I was chatting at a party Friday night with a gentleman who sells data center construction projects. He made the point that data center power consumption accounts for 4% of overall electricity consumption. What’s more, he said that this percentage is only going to go up.

I’ve been thinking for a while now about how cloud technologies are not only affecting our computing habits but also our power consumption. When the Internet Age first dawned, the backend of websites consisted of beefy servers that did all the work of serving up websites: databases to churn out data, a layer to render it (PHP, Java, etc.), and so forth.
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Scientists have figured out how to shock the salt out of seawater – ScienceAlert

Cool!

Researchers have developed a system that uses an electric shockwave to extract salt and other impurities out of salty or contaminated water, and say it could be scaled up for use in desalination or water purification plants, or be used to clean the vast amounts of dirty water produced by fracking.

Known as ‘shock electrodialysis’, the technique applies an electrically driven shockwave to a constant stream of flowing water. The current interacts with the charged salt particles, causing a stream of salty water to be pushed aside and separated from a stream of fresh water, and these are then funnelled into separate pipes.

Source: Scientists have figured out how to shock the salt out of seawater – ScienceAlert

Wake judge rules against teen facing off against NC on climate change | News & Observer

News and Observer reporter Anne Blythe wrote a follow-up story on Judge Morgan ruling against Hallie’s climate change petition case. Perfectionist that she is, Hallie was really nervous about how she thought her interview went but was pleased with the final result.

I was also glad that Anne’s story mentioned the outrageous attacks some have launched against our daughter and her efforts. Hallie could truly care less about them and Kelly and I find them sad. I really only mentioned them here in my blog because I think these folks really don’t understand how this makes them look. I’m sure their parents taught them manners, so they would certainly be above spewing hate towards a kid.

The truth is that Hallie is a tough, determined young woman posessing more self-confidence than many adults. She can handle herself just fine. And besides, when you pick a fight with a kid you’ve pretty much already lost, right?

Hallie Turner, the 13-year-old girl who took North Carolina to court over climate change, received disappointing news the day before Thanksgiving.

A Wake County Superior Court judge ruled against her effort to overturn a December 2014 decision by the N.C. Environmental Management Commission.

But with the pluck of a teen wise beyond her years, Hallie said Friday the ruling from Judge Mike Morgan had not deterred her.

“It’s an issue that I’m always going to continue trying to make a difference in,” Hallie said during a phone interview. “There’s lots of next steps that can be taken.”

Hallie, an eighth-grader at Ligon Middle School who has been marching and rallying against global warming since the 4th grade, is one of a number of teens taking their states and politicians to court over climate change.

Source: Wake judge rules against teen facing off against NC on climate change | News & Observer