13 DEC 2017 by ideonexus
The Coal Standard
Here's a thought: maybe we could buy off the simplistic goldbug-minded "money is a commodity" thinkers by proposing a coal standard? That is: treat burnable fossil carbon as money?
Like BTC, there's a finite amount of it remaining to be mined. Like BTC, mining the last reserves gets incrementally harder over time. Unlike BTC, if you burn it, it's gone for good, so there's an incentive to stockpile it and not burn it (ideally by stockpiling it in the ground, where it comes from, by buying lan... 1 
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notes26 FEB 2014 by ideonexus
The Problem of Energy
As a child, I read Friday by Robert A Heinlein, which portrayed a future in which energy needs are addressed by energy storage devices called "Shipstones", which are described as a way to pack more kilowatt-hours into a smaller space and a smaller mass than any other engineer had ever dreamed of. To call it an "improved storage battery" (as some early accounts did) is like calling an H-bomb an "improved firecracker."
In the novel, the Shipstone's eponymous inventor realised "that the problem... 1 notes
notesIsn't that is isn't plentiful. The sky is raining energy. It's that we have to collect it into buckets for use.
These are partial direct quotes, the direct quote is from a hacker news comment.
13 AUG 2013 by ideonexus
Global Warming is a Land Management Issue
One of the main causes of warming is the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere resulting from our burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal and natural gas. To understand the movement of carbon through the atmosphere and biosphere, we need to measure a lot of numbers. I do not want to confuse you with a lot of numbers, so I will ask you to remember just one number. The number that I ask you to remember is one hundredth of an inch per year. Now I will explain what this number means. ... 1 notes
notesWith proper land management, we can pull the excess carbon from the atmosphere and into biomass.
22 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
The Need to Get Off Foreign Oil
New technologies are advancing to the marketplace. but consumers can be wary of change. If they unequivocally demand alternatives to gasoline, for example, the marketplace will be activated, but ±ere is plenty of resistance to overcome. Recently, the president of Shell Oil, John Hoffmeister, expressed his views on world demand for energy and business opportunities ahead. Shell Oil's position, as Hoffmeister explained it, is ±at America will always need foreign oil even as it aggressively de...Folksonomies: environmentalism alternative energy
Folksonomies: environmentalism alternative energy
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notesGingrich argues that we cannot have an intelligent conversation on alternative energies and oil production unless we agree on this principle.
22 MAR 2012 by ideonexus
Pump CO2 into Greenhouses
In the Ne± Netherlands, a unique partnership between Shell Oil Company and Dutch greenhouse businesses enables surplus carbon dioxide produced at the Shell refinery in Pernis, outside Rotterdam, to be pumped into greenhouses as an alternative to pumping it directly into the atmosphere as waste. The partnership was made possible because of an existing pipeline (built a decade ago but never used) activated to pump gas from Rotterdam to Amsterdam. Dutch entrepreneurs bought the pipeline from th... 1 notes
notesAn unique collaboration between an oil company and fruit growers benefits both.
31 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
The Earth Self-Heals Better Than Humans Try to Heal It
Ecologically speaking, a spilt tanker load is like sticking a safety pin into an elephant’s foot. The planet barely notices. After the Exxon Valdez accident in Alaska the oil company spent billions tidying up the coastline, but it was a waste of money because the waves were cleaning up faster than Exxon could. Environmentalists can never accept the planet’s ability to self-heal.Folksonomies: environmentalism
Folksonomies: environmentalism
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notesThe Exxon Valdes was equivalent of "sticking a safety pin into an elephant’s foot" for the Earth.
