burfman
burfman's Journalthe deeper you look into the universe the more of these you see......
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_ring
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_lens
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_Cross
burfman.......
NYTimes - Why a Big Utility Is Embracing Wind and Solar
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Well it looks like the air is going to get cleaner for the planet in-spite of what anyone does or says. It can happen fast or slow depending on the politics - (but we can forget about 'clean coal' being a viable option due to the economics regardless of what the commander in chief says), The greening of electricity production will happen....... so score one for the planet..... and breath a little bit easier
Burfman......
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Source: NY Times
Xcel Energy is a utility company with millions of electric customers in the middle of the country, from Texas to Michigan. In booming Colorado, the company asked for proposals to construct big power plants using wind turbines and solar panels.
The bids have come in so low that the company will be able to build and operate the new plants for less money than it would have to pay just to keep running its old, coal-burning power plants.
You read that right: In parts of the country, wind and solar plants built from scratch now offer the cheapest power available, even counting old coal, which was long seen as unbeatable.
Xcel, Colorado’s biggest power company, has pitched a plan to regulators that will involve replacing two large coal-burning units with renewable energy and possibly some natural gas. The company expects to save tens of millions of dollars as a result. Power bills in Colorado have been falling recently, and they are likely to fall further with this plan.
[link:https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/opinion/utility-embracing-wind-solar.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region|
Why a Big Utility Is Embracing Wind and Solar
Source: NY Times
Xcel Energy is a utility company with millions of electric customers in the middle of the country, from Texas to Michigan. In booming Colorado, the company asked for proposals to construct big power plants using wind turbines and solar panels.
The bids have come in so low that the company will be able to build and operate the new plants for less money than it would have to pay just to keep running its old, coal-burning power plants.
You read that right: In parts of the country, wind and solar plants built from scratch now offer the cheapest power available, even counting old coal, which was long seen as unbeatable.
Xcel, Colorado’s biggest power company, has pitched a plan to regulators that will involve replacing two large coal-burning units with renewable energy and possibly some natural gas. The company expects to save tens of millions of dollars as a result. Power bills in Colorado have been falling recently, and they are likely to fall further with this plan.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/06/opinion/utility-embracing-wind-solar.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region
Well it looks like the air is going to get cleaner for the planet in-spite of what anyone does or says. It can happen fast or slow depending on the politics - (but we can forget about 'clean coal' being a viable option due to the economics regardless of what the commander in chief says), The greening of electricity production will happen....... so score one for the planet..... and breath a little bit easier
Burfman......
Mario Cantone Signs Off as the Mooch
I'm going to miss him - Mario Cantone - maybe not so much Scaramucci
burfman......
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/opinion/mario-cantone-mooch-scaramucci.html
Video Shows U.S. Soldiers Surrendering Before Fatal Shooting in Jordan
Source: NY Times
Newly released video of the killing of three American Special Forces soldiers in November at the gate of a military base in Jordan shows that the episode, which was initially explained as a split-second mistake by a Jordanian guard firing on Americans who failed to stop, was actually a six-minute gun battle where Americans crouched behind barriers and repeatedly waved their hands in surrender as the gunman closed in and killed them.
The footage, which was made public on Monday by the Jordanian military, contradicts statements Jordanian officials initially made saying that the Americans had failed to stop at the gate, or that the accidental discharge of an American weapon sparked the shooting.
The video makes it clear that the gunman, Ma’arik al-Tawayha, a Jordanian Air Force sergeant, deliberately fired at two of the soldiers.
Sergeant Tawayha, who was wounded in the gunfight, was sentenced last week to life in prison for the killing of Staff Sgt. Matthew C. Lewellen, 27, of Kirksville, Mo.; Staff Sgt. Kevin J. McEnroe, 30, of Tucson; and Staff Sgt. James F. Moriarty, 27, of Kerrville, Tex.
The verdict sparked street protests among members of Sergeant Tawayha’s influential tribe, the Howeitat, who said he had acted within the rules of engagement and was being punished to placate a powerful ally. According to the Jordanian news media, the authorities responded with arrests and what the tribe says were intentional internet blackouts to limit spread of news of the protests, but the tribe has continued to press for a new trial.
James R. Moriarty, a Houston lawyer and the father of Sergeant Moriarty, said Monday that he was briefed by the F.B.I., which told him the video was released by Jordanian authorities to defuse protests and keep Sergeant Tawayha from being extolled as a martyr.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/24/us/video-shows-us-soldiers-surrendering-before-fatal-shooting-in-jordan.html
This story has been 'pushed off to the side' by all the other events of today.
The soldier from Jordan that murdered 7 Israeli schoolgirls in cold blood back in 1997 served 20 years of his 'life' sentence was released still unrepentant to a 'welcoming celebration' recently. This guy probably won't serve a 'life' sentence either for murdering 3 US soldiers as he has support from a significant tribe in Jordan that regards him as just 'doing his job'.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/12/world/middleeast/israel-jordan-ahmad-daghamseh-island-of-peace-massacre.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/17/world/middleeast/jordan-killing-us-soldiers.html
"OUT OF BREATH" follows a group of volunteers who travel to North Korea to help those with TB.
"OUT OF BREATH" follows a small group of international volunteers who travel to North Korea every 6 months. They work side by side with North Korean doctors to fight the spread of a deadly infectious disease called multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). Each visit, the volunteers deliver medicine and check progress, but the heavy lift of treating and caring for the patients is left to the North Korean medical staff. Working together under difficult conditions, the volunteers and North Koreans have forged unexpected bonds and achieved something incredible - one of the highest MDR-TB cure rates in the world.
I saw this last night on NHK (Japanese TV Network). It is available on the web until July 16th.
It is eye-opening to see real North Korean medical staff working with a international non-profit to cure people with multi-drug resistant TB.
You should watch this very good look at real people in North Korea before NHK removes it from the web - for some reason they never leave their programs up there very long. I guarantee that you won't be disappointed with this program - politics is pushed off to the side and both sides are just interested in helping cure these very sick people with hard to treat conditions.
burfman.........
[link:https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/vod/lens/20170703/|
Fisticuffs Over the Route to a Clean-Energy Future
Source: NY Times
Could the entire American economy run on renewable energy alone?
This may seem like an irrelevant question, given that both the White House and Congress are controlled by a party that rejects the scientific consensus about human-driven climate change. But the proposition that it could, long a dream of an environmental movement as wary of nuclear energy as it is of fossil fuels, has been gaining ground among policy makers committed to reducing the nation’s carbon footprint. Democrats in both the United States Senate and in the California Assembly have proposed legislation this year calling for a full transition to renewable energy sources.
They are relying on what looks like a watertight scholarly analysis to support their call: the work of a prominent energy systems engineer from Stanford University, Mark Z. Jacobson. With three co-authors, he published a widely heralded article two years ago asserting that it would be eminently feasible to power the American economy by midcentury almost entirely with energy from the wind, the sun and water. What’s more, it would be cheaper than running it on fossil fuels.
And yet the proposition is hardly as solid as Professor Jacobson asserts.
In a long-awaited article published this week in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — the same journal in which Professor Jacobson’s manifesto appeared — a group of 21 prominent scholars, including physicists and engineers, climate scientists and sociologists, took a fine comb to the Jacobson paper and dismantled its conclusions bit by bit.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/20/business/energy-environment/renewable-energy-national-academy-matt-jacobson.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-1&action=click&contentCollection=Economy®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article
It's a good entry towards thinking big to clean up our environment.
Even if we can't see how to achieve 100% renewable energy right now, we need to be moving in that direction.
The storage technology is the key to making it all work, we need to push research into better battery technology.....
Burfman................
U.S. Reports a Major Milestone in Wind and Solar Power
Source: Scientific American
Ten percent of all of the electricity generated in the U.S. in March came from wind and solar power, marking the first such milestone in U.S. history, according to a new U.S. Energy Information Administration report.
The EIA estimates that wind and solar farms likely generated 10 percent of America’s electricity in April as well, which would be another first, according to the report.
This year’s milestone shows that renewables are becoming a major source of electricity in the U.S. and can no longer be considered “alternative” energy, said Christopher Clack, CEO of the power grid modeling firm Vibrant Clean Energy and a former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration researcher.
The report’s findings represent a marked increased from March 2016, when wind and solar generated 8.6 percent of total U.S. electricity. Overall, about 7 percent of U.S. electricity comes from wind and solar annually, up from less than 1 percent a decade ago. Texas is the country’s biggest wind power producer and California is the largest solar producer.
Read more: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-reports-a-major-milestone-in-wind-and-solar-power/
Looks like our electricity production is getting greener in a measurable way.
I'm expecting the trend to continue regardless of what this administration does.
burfman......
Mark Russell last summer singing about Trump at a birthday party....
Mark Russell at a birthday party for journalist and author Myra MacPherson last summer.
burfman........
article in the nytimes: India, Once a Coal Goliath, Is Fast Turning Green
So it may not matter too much what we do politically or don't do as far as greening the planet's energy production.
As far as the rest of the world is concerned, it's going to happen anyways, we can speed it up or slow it down a bit, not stop it.
So here's to the future with clean power.
burfman...................
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/world/asia/india-coal-green-energy-climate.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-lede-package-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0
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Member since: Thu Jan 16, 2014, 03:01 PMNumber of posts: 264