Editor’s Note: Scientific American ‘s George Musser will be chronicling his experiences installing solar panels in Solar at Home (formerly 60-Second Solar). Read his introduction here and see all posts here .
Editor’s Note: Scientific American ‘s George Musser will be chronicling his experiences installing solar panels in Solar at Home (formerly 60-Second Solar). Read his introduction here and see all posts here . I may be one of the few people in my town to have solar power right now, but if the news I’m hearing from the Solar Power International trade show this week is right, a wave of installations is about to sweep the country.
Beginning with the Obama administration’s $70-billion commitment to ramping up the U.S.’s reliance of wind, water and solar power (not to mention hybrid vehicles) in February through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and ending with December’s international climate conference in Copenhagen , this year promises to be pivotal in the worldwide development and adoption of renewable energy sources. Pivotal in the sense that 2009 could go down as the moment the green revolution gained substantial footing thanks to a swelling of political and financial support or as a colossal missed opportunity due to power grabbing and misguided policy. [More]
Beginning with the Obama administration’s $70-billion commitment to ramping up the U.S.’s reliance of wind, water and solar power (not to mention hybrid vehicles) in February through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and ending with December’s international climate conference in Copenhagen , this year promises to be pivotal in the worldwide development and adoption of renewable energy sources. Pivotal in the sense that 2009 could go down as the moment the green revolution gained substantial footing thanks to a swelling of political and financial support or as a colossal missed opportunity due to power grabbing and misguided policy. [More]
Editor’s Note: Scientific American ‘s George Musser will be chronicling his experiences installing solar panels in Solar at Home (formerly 60-Second Solar). Read his introduction here and see all posts here . What a beautiful Indian summer day to inaugurate our solar panels.
Aerospace and aircraft companies as well as the military have been challenged to find ways of effectively shielding sensitive electronic equipment such as radar and radios from electromagnetic interference (EMI) without adding a lot of weight to aircraft and satellites (the more massive they are, the more fuel they need to stay in the air or achieve orbit, respectively). Whereas EMI can lead to headaches like erased data and loss of connectivity for casual computer and cell phone users, the problem is far more serious in aircraft, where interference can jam cockpit radio and radar signals, preventing pilots from sending and receiving crucial information. [More]
American homes and their energy consumption account for nearly 40 percent of U.S. emissions, 626 million metric tons of carbon in 2005 alone. But 33 simple actions–ranging from improving the insulation to carpooling–could cut those annual carbon emissions by 123 million metric tons
In December leaders from around the world will meet in Copenhagen to try to agree on cutting back greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come. The most effective step to implement that goal would be a massive shift away from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy sources
Editor’s Note: Scientific American ‘s George Musser will be chronicling his experiences installing solar panels in Solar at Home (formerly 60-Second Solar). Read his introduction here and see all posts here . The first message I got from my wife last week was happy news indeed: “Solar guys are working on our roof!” As readers of this blog know, we’d started the process of installing solar panels back in February , and we had no idea what were getting ourselves into
Market prices don’t reflect hundreds of billions of dollars in hidden costs of energy production to human health and the environment, a National Research Council panel said in a report released today. “There are many external effects of energy production and use,” said Jared Cohon, president of Carnegie Mellon University and chairman of the panel that wrote the report.