Perpetual Innovation

Blog

  • AP IMPACT: CO2 emissions in US drop to 20-year low – Yahoo! News

    AP IMPACT: CO2 emissions in US drop to 20-year low – Yahoo! News:

    CO2 from the US is down. WOW!. See the full EIA report on CO2 Emissions.

    The last time we had that was in 2009, we all assumed that was mainly because of the economic slowdown. But apparently, even then, part of it was because of the switching to NatGas.

    “[T]he U.S. Energy Information Agency, a part of the Energy Department, said this month that energy related U.S. CO2 emissions for the first four months of this year fell to about 1992 levels. Energy emissions make up about 98 percent of the total.“

     So the big reasons for the CO2 emissions reduction is primarily because of the switch to NatGas from coal in energy generation! … The slowing of economic growth down to 1.8% is another reason. 

     What’s amazing about this is that the switch to natgas is primarily driven by market forces. The power industry has been wining endlessly about the big food of the EPA on the juggler veins of the power industry… and of course the US economy. Yet, the move happened way ahead of schedule. 

     Low prices of nat gas make it, well, irresponsible, not to switch to clean gas away from dirty coal.

    Health benefits (fewer deaths and injuries in mining). Massive improvement in air and water quality. No coal ash to deal with.

     This would all be a good thing, if it weren’t for the massive increase in coal consumption from China and India. Where, exactly, is the benefit of us cutting back on coal when we simply ship it to China and they burn it. And they don’t worry about scrubbing it as much as we.

    China now burns half the coal in the world, and rising quickly.

     Sorry for looking good news in the eye and sounding skeptical. We sometimes simply need a little good news here and there and just to enjoy it.

     Ahhhh, NatGas, A cleaner addiction to a unsustainable problem.

    ‘via Blog this’

  • NASA GISS: Research Links Extreme Summer Heat Events to Global Warming. (It’s perception, Toto)

    NASA GISS: Research News: Research Links Extreme Summer Heat Events to Global Warming:

    Op Ed: We must stop rolling the dice on Global Warming.  (1 page)
    Full Paper/Presentation: Perception of climate change. (5.8 mb, PDF)

    James Hansen (& Soto & Ruedy, 2012) from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Exploration just completed a big study on world temperature change. This research uses simple, straight forward stats, and our friendly bell-shaped curve from elementary statistics. (It doesn’t use the complicated weather modeling with the spaghetti lines that almost no one really understands.)

    This is the same Hansen who first really started warning us that the climate has changed in the 1980s…
    “Toto, I’ve a feeling we‘re not in Kansas any more.”

    The graphics are powerful. Watch the the bell-shaped curve of temperatures move distinctly and precipitously to the right, compared to a “normal” 10-year period 30 years ago. And because of more extreme weather, the bell curve has flattened out.

    If you are a denier of global warming, you will be very sad about this report.
    If you haven’t made up your mind about global warming, you shocked by this revelation. And very sad about this report.
    If you’ve been a siren about global warming, this will make you want to cry. But it will also provide some of the most powerful materials ever, to go sound the alarm.

    Now your next conversation with God, or a mere mortal, for that matter, might go like this.
    “I’m sorry Sir, the patient is getting sick, and running a fever… and the fever is rising…  Yes, there’s about 7.1 billion people who are inadvertently, but consistently, poisoning the patient.. No, I’m sorry they don’t seem to want to stop doing what they’re doing… Why not? … Well, its a mater of perception!”

    Before reading this report consider this. Hansen et al. include the scorcher of a year in 2011 (think Texas and Oklahoma drought), but do not include the record-setting 2012 mega-scorcher.

    Related Links:

    + NASA What on Earth blog: The New Climate Dice


    Reference
    Hansen, J., Mki. Sato, and R. Ruedy, 2012a: Perception of climate change. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., doi:10.1073/pnas.1205276109. Early draft posted as “Public perception of climate change and the new climate dice”, arXiv.org:1204.1286.

    ‘via Blog this’

  • Advocacy: Sustainability a 3 part harmony series

    Advocacy: Sustainability:

    Check out this 3 part series on Sustainability.

    Part 1 talks about “What if they are right?”

    Part 2 addresses “How we liver our lives?”

    Part 3 takes on “A plan for the interim period?”

    Basically, what are we gonna do right here, right now.

    These are pretty long articles so sit back with a good late’ and let it rip.

    ‘via Blog this’

  • “Humans Are Almost Entirely The Cause Of Climate Change” Richard Muller Former Climate Change Denier – YouTube

    “Humans Are Almost Entirely The Cause Of Climate Change” Richard Muller Former Climate Change Denier – YouTube:

    This is a very interesting video/news from MoxNews.

    The Exxon Valdez has an oil spill, has a name change, has a name change, has a shipwreck, has a name change, and is now being dismantled/retired. The wreck, by any other name, is still Valdez.

    NatGas +/-  . . . Not so sure about the Frac’ng story… But hang in there til the end. It is well worth the wait. If it has equal likes and dislikes, then it is probably pretty good!

    Richard A. Muller, the last hold out of global warming, has now come out with a book. Once you remove the noise, the level of CO2 matches perfectly with global warming. It is important to know that humans are the cause, probably the primary cause, of global warming. This is good, kind of. “If we cause it, then there’s something we can do about it.” He didn’t think solar variations, volcanic eruptions, el nino, etc., had longer term impacts. “The carbon dioxide curve was right on.”

    Muller won the MacArthur Genius Grant 30 years ago. He was the last major skeptic on Global Warming. He just completed major research on global warming funded by the Koch Foundation, a ?conservative? group by the Charles G. Koch family, the oil billionair family. Anyone knowing about the funding source, would have been surprised about the results.

    He found last year that Global Warming is real.

    He now has determined that human activity seems to be the predominant cause. The rise in CO2 matches perfectly with the rise in temperatures. Correlation is not causation, but the correlation is very strong.

    Global economic shock to cut back on CO2 emissions? Energy efficiency. And switch away from coal. He suggests NatGas as immediate switch away from coal. NatGas produces 1/3 the level of CO2 as coal. (I’m not so sure about 1/3, I think it is 33% less CO2 than coal per energy equivolent.)

    The big thing is that the controversy of Global warming is dead. It’s a fact. It appears to be perfectly correlated with human factors that generate greenhouse gases (eCO2). So the next debate (or controversy, maybe) is what are we gonna do about it.???

    New version of his book:

    ‘via Blog this’

  • Apple, Samsung, Kodak, imitation… a little more… on the patent war.

    Apple, Samsung, Kodak, Imation: Intellectual Property – Businessweek:

    Here you go with a huge patent war. Smartphones, iPads and more.

    Apple has been trying to injoin Samsung from sales of Galaxy product line. No injunction yet, but Apple is winning so far in the USA. Kinda.

    This law suit will be telling.

    In the meanwhile the Apple-Samsung war is being fought across the globe. In Germany this week, Apple lost miserably and was ordered to make a public apology. That was belayed yesterday until appeals have been processed. See more about the apology and appeal here.

    The smartphone war chests are Apple, Samsung, Microsoft and Google. All those players in the market that don’t have to stand back and see the last gladiator(s) standing. It’s gonna be ugly for most/all of the other players?

    And whatever happened to all the great technology from Palm (HP)? I’m surprised the HP doesn’t sell or license it. Blackberry (RIMM)?

    Forget about the Olympics, the real contest is in the smartphone arena.

    ‘via Blog this’