Ed Ring

HHO, or "Aquagen" is a new fuel that can be mixed with gasoline and will improve mileage by 50%.  Any truth to this?  And in its pure state, what PSI does this "aquagen" require for storage onboard and in wholesale transport?  Hydrogen requires 10,000 PSI; what does HHO require?  How much energy is required to manufacture this gas?  What's the difference between this and "Brown's Gas," or "Oxyhydrogen"?  In burning apparently HHO turns into harmless H2O.  Is this a bunch of green snake oil, or is this another exciting and very real innovation? We once received an email to the editor, requesting anonymity, stating a 747 jet had been modified to use water as fuel.  Then again, on the internet one can find supposedly sworn testimony from USAF officers stating a craft the size of Manhattan emerged from the ocean and flew into outer space. Ref: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa1meqFFjjM  This is a news video reporting...

If you look at the drive towards "LCFS" fuel (LCFS means "lower carbon fuel standards"), it appears that natural gas powered vehicles are the wave of the future.  Can you say "natural gas powered series hybrid"? The GM "Flextreme," set for production in Europe, is the only series hybrid employing an onboard diesel we've ever heard of. As for a natural gas powered series hybrid, who knows... Read this recent email from someone on the ground, responding to EcoWorld's feature "The Case for the Series Hybrid," published a few years ago: After reading your article today (even though it's two years old), I have some points to make.  These points are for everyone else promoting electric/hybrid...

Back in June 2006 we posted "We Need More Freeways," a position that has, along with our nuanced position on climate change - and perhaps other controversial positions, to lead to a recent post on DeSmogBlog entitled "EcoWorld: a website officially unconcerned with accuracy." DeSmogBlog's "about us" page states they "exist to clear the PR pollution that is clouding the science on climate change." Before noting our response to the post on DeSmogBlog, it is important to state we respect the dignity and the sincerity of anyone who takes a position opposed to our own. Like any media property, our goal is to report news and provide analysis, but we also have an editorial position. We reject the tone of many blogs who demonize anyone who disagrees with them, and that is reflected in our arguments as well as in our option to delete comments that make personal attacks. If DeSmogBlog's commentators disagree with us - good for them. If they want to dub me "Ed 'Freeway'...

Which of these solutions is more space efficient?  If you assume 5.0 watts (peak) per square foot for thin film photovoltaic, you end up requiring 4.6 acres per peak megawatt-hour (MWp), about the same as Nevada Solar One’s solar thermal farm (4.7 acres per MWp). Thin film PV panels now have a factory cost of about $1.00 per watt, which is quite cost competitive with solar thermal. Remember there isn’t nearly as much balance of plant with photovoltaic. With solar thermal, the solar field is just the beginning - you need the heat concentrators, the boiler, the turbine, and the condensing loop. While Ausra and others have designs somewhat more space efficient than Nevada Solar One (Ausra’s proposed Carrizo plant will only require about 3.6 acres per MWp), more efficient PVs require far less space. A high-end PV will generate 20 watts per square foot (peak), which equates to 1.15...

If you can't make rooftop photovoltaics pay financially without feed in tariffs, tax credits, accellerated depreciation, rebates, and subsidized loans - and even with all that it's still barely better financially than just sticking to natural gas or coal fired grid electricity - how on earth can something like this succeed at the utility scale? Solar fields in Ontario's vast open spaces. (Photo: Optisolar) One reason solar energy still cannot compete financially vs. conventional energy is because the value of future energy output from a photovoltaic system is discounted when calculating, for example, an internal rate of return.  But economic models that put a time-value on...

Climate models forecast increasing temperatures on earth because of increasing levels of atmospheric CO2, but observational data appears to contradict this claim. Subsequent to publishing the feature "The Fluid Envelope - A Case Against Climate Alarm" by Dr. Richard Lindzen, we received an email from a science journalist questioning one of the central assertions in Lindzen's report. The writer wanted to know on what basis Dr. Lindzen was claiming there has been no significant warming in the last 10+ years. In response, Lindzen emailed the following table, showing temperature trends for the last 27 years. This data is based on global (including over the ocean) average temperature readings per year, per altitude, as reported by the U.K.'s Hadley Climatic Research Unit: altitude (meters/feet) hPa Trend (C/decade) 24,000/79,000 30 -0.84 20,000/65,500 50 -0.76 16,000/52,500...

If you read EcoWorld at all, you'll know where we stand. Today we continued to post on the listserve of www.treelink.org, an excellent resource for urban foresters to exchange tactical information on how to plant and maintain healthy urban treescapes. When their dialogue moves from tactics to strategy and theory, a few realities emerge. First of all, most of these urban foresters work for government agencies, and secondly, nearly all of them subscribe to "smart growth" principles. And over the past few days we've indulged in a flurry of posts on that listserve to hopefully convince some of them to think twice about all the conventional "smart growth" wisdom that has become almost impossible to challenge. Eight fundamental criticisms of smart growth constitute our premise, expressed in some detail in our post "Letter from Wingnuttia." Here are our criticisms of smart growth principles in brief: 1 - It creates "urban...

This is part two of a series of comments and responses posted on www.treelink.org's listserve, as part of a discussion regarding whether or not it is futile to try to have a viable urban forest given the "smart growth" trends towards ultra high density cities.  Part one is entitled "Smart Growth & Housing Prices."  Remember the natural evolution of low density suburbs along the urban fringe? Now an "urban service boundary" surrounds every city - with ultra high density right to the edge. Goodbye trees, goodbye gardens, and goodbye property rights and freedom. There is no shortage of land in California.  California could add another 4 million homes onto one acre each and it would only use an additional 4%...

Is it a stretch to suggest "smart growth" is encouraged by municipal bureaucracies because it causes the price of housing to rise, which in turn increases property tax revenues? Maybe, maybe not. Our latest salvo on this topic began yesterday on a listserve we proudly belong to, and at least so far, haven't been banished from. The listserve is operated by Treelink.org, probably the most reputable and useful forum available for urban foresters to exchange information. Problematic, however, is the fact that nearly all of these urban foresters are full time employees of public sector agencies, or to a lesser extent, work for nonprofits. It is important for everyone in the public and nonprofit sector to understand something - you exist because of private sector profits. Business profits are taxed, and those taxes pay your salaries and benefits. Even if you are part of a nonprofit, to the extent...

Since publishing "Jatropha Reality Check" we've received comments, but also direct emails to the Editor.  Many of these were from growers - and one new writer, a grower also located in Madagascar, provided some interesting insights. "We planted Jatropha in 2003 and have been taking care of the plantation by pruning, irrigating, applying fertilisers and managing pests and diseases.  However, in 2007, the average yield was 100 Kg of seeds per hectare.  It could be possible that the yields were low due to powdery mildew, sudden drop and raise of temperatures on a few days and heavy rain on a few days last year. We are investigating the matter and are conducting further trials this year and hope to achieve minimum of 3 tonnes per hectare this year (June – Dec 2008).  It is in this context I thought that exchange of information with the concerned people in Madagascar would improve our...