tingilinde

100 watts per 1000 miles

When I give talks about energy I find most audiences confuse energy and power and seem to have a better grasp of the concept of power. So I often state energy use in terms of power ... power is just energy per unit time, so if you use a certain among of energy in a year, it is possible to state the use in terms of a average power expended over the full year.

Americans burn something over twelve thousand watts a year - think of it as 120 one hundred watt light bulbs left on all year. The world average is about 2,000 watts.

Flying in a fully loaded 767 on a domestic flight turns out to require about 100 watts per 1,000 miles flown in a year. So 20,000 miles of flying in a year alone equals the average world citizen's power use or twenty 100 watt lights left on all year.

speaking of food

Mark Bittman at Ted (NY Times) on what we eat - our Western diet is an odd form of malnutrition

cooking with manjula

Lindsay recommends Manjula's Kitchen on youtube

This episode looks interesting - make naan with a pizza stone

Sukie and Nancy may be interested

pining for the fjords

a norwegian blue perhaps?

snip

55 million year old fossil remains of parrots discovered near the North Sea

Scientific researchers have discovered the fossil remains of parrots in Scandinavia which are more than 55 million years old. The findings, published in the current issue of Palaeontology, indicate that parrots, which today only live in the tropics and the southern hemisphere, once flew wild over what is now Norway and Denmark. This suggests that parrots may have first evolved in the North, much earlier than had previously been considered.

“Obviously, we are dealing with a bird that is bereft of life, but the tricky bit is establishing that it was a parrot,” explains Dr David Waterhouse, the lead author of the scientific paper. “As with many fragile bird fossils, it is a wonder that anything remains at all, and all that remains of this early Danish parrot is a single upper wing bone (humerus). But, this small bone contains characteristic features that show that it is clearly from a member of the parrot family, about the size of a Yellow-crested Cockatoo.”

steve cisler is gone

Steve's death came as a shock, but not a surprise. He had been fighting cancer for some time.

He was one of the kindest and most interesting people I've known. We first met in the early 90s doing some community networking and I was fascinated by his librarian - almost anthropological - approach to understanding the world.

There was nothing like traveling with him. Rank or station meant nothing and his fierce dedication to those without means was an inspiration to me. On a trip with him in 1996 it struck me that I was traveling with the first librarian of the Internet.

He convinced me that I should tithe time to causes and people I believed in. I have been doing this for years and it is the greatest gift he gave me.

I was his backoffice partner in the unconnected project. He was traveling and observing the unconnected and, to better understand things, kept himself from the Internet. Every few weeks I would get a memory card with his notes and images for posting on the blog. I have arranged that this blog will be hosted indefinitely.

I feel cheated - we should all feel cheated. Far too young.

energy efficiency

From the Economist - if energy conservation is such a good idea, why don't more people do it?

In the US mandating efficiency seems to be a good thing (appliances), but home owners seem to demand as much as thirty percent payback before investing in conservation. Education and bribery may be answers along with sharp increases in energy prices, but it is difficult motivating consumers and small businesses.

interesting article ...

green cartoons

great little shorts noted by Jessica

(although methane from cows is mostly from the other end)

interesting new journal - renewable and sustainable energy

Potentially good - from the American Institute of Physics

It is probably too early in backward countries like the US, but physics and applied physics are going to be valuable backgrounds.

more distorted maps

worldmapper

make sure you have some time

where new zealand is huge

distorted movie maps from a VW ad

when smart isn't

A test of the Smart Fourtwo in the LA Times.

and another from the NY Times

Small, cute, poor handling, bad transmission and terrible mileage for something this size.

Properly designed, there is no reason vehicles of this size shouldn't exceed sixty miles per gallon and electric or plug in hybrid versions could do much better. There is a niche for small commuter cars that mostly stay away from major highways - but first we need good designs.

sewernet

OK - this is something of a private joke, but Norm and I are flushed with pride.

snip

Bournemouth has become the first town in the UK to get super-fast internet connections - via the sewerage system.

More than 88,000 homes and businesses in the Dorset town will benefit from internet speeds up to 100Mbps under the scheme, considerably faster than consumer broadband speeds on the market.

Fibre firm H2O Networks Ltd is funding the £30m project.

It will lay its special cables through the sewerage system over the next six months.

H2O has been offering the underground network to businesses and universities around the UK for several years and plans to create a nationwide network for consumers over the next few years.

It is also cheaper and more environmentally-friendly to use the UK's 360,000 miles of sewers rather than dig up roads to deploy the fibre.

Elfed Thomas, CEO of H2O Networks, added: "This is just the start of bringing next generation connectivity to the UK."

...

two wheeled ev use in china

We've all heard about the explosion of car use in China and worry about its long term implications, but cars are still beyond the means of most citizens. It turns out bicycles and gas or electric motorbikes are still common.

The growth of the two wheeled electric segment is particularly impressive. A new study(1.7 MB pdf) by Weinert, Jonathan X., Joan M. Ogden, Daniel Sperling, Andrew F. Burke from UC Davis takes a fairly deep look.

There is a good chance for quite a bit of growth. Modularity applies and sophisticated (lithium ion) battery development would have a positive impact. Finding cleaner sources of electricity would be good, but even with China's heavy use of coal (1 kg CO₂/kWh_china vs. 0.58 g/kWh_us), the efficiency of a small electric bike buys quite a bit over most four wheel vehicles.

Of course a vibrant market of several tens of millions of advanced two wheel electrics would put a huge downward pressure on prices - perhaps enough to make them attractive in "advanced" regions like the US.

but new jersey isn't denmark

It is very important to encourage car dependancy and thinking about the last century I guess. And it isn't just this school - "no bike" policies are increasingly common in suburbia.

Many studies indicate kids are terrible drivers, so providing parking places for kids with cars and none for bikes is a bit daft. If the road is an issue, perhaps it makes sense to recognize kids are important and reduce the speed limit to 20 or 25 mph (something that probably makes sense in all towns to encourage bike use). Maybe the students will learn a bit about activism.

and there are other things to consider...

(thanks for the link Greg)