Daily Archives: December 11, 2008

Mystery Man Silences 500MW Turbine
On 10PM, Friday 28th of November, in full view of CCTV cameras, a lone man climbed two electrified, razor-wired security fences at one of the UK’s major coal fired power plants, walked up to an unlocked door, and proceeded to shut down a 500MW turbine – apparently cutting off enough electricity from the grid to power a city of about half a million people. He then turned around and walked out, leaving only a home-made banner that read “no new coal”. According to folks over at The Guardian (one of the few sources to report on the story), the power plant operators, the police, and the protest community are all desperate to kn

It really is quite extraordinary. We quoted Don Blankenship of Massey Energy earlier, but NRDC has found the tapes and edited highlights for us short attention span types. Essentially,

Warehoused bales of reclaimed cardboard awaiting recycling. Image credit:Pulp and Paper Canada,

Over the past few months, the abrupt drop in prices for recyclable materials has taken many by surprise. Now questions are arising about the causes of the price drop and also how these lower prices are impacting residential and commercial recycling programs. A recent New York Times article touches on these points.

So why the new rock-bottom prices

Photo credit: Janis Miglavs

While the definition of what makes green wine is wildly debatable—different certifications allow different levels of sulfites, which are a naturally occurring part of the fermentation process—one thing we can agree on is that vineyards and wineries using sustainable farming methods and organic grapes produce wines that are just as good as (if not better than) those from conventional wineries. Here, a few re

The fun never stops with the humorists at the Competitive Enterprise Institute; one never knows what cause they will satirize next. Like the Onion, you often have to look twice to tell if they are serious or not. We laughed till we cried at their CO2: we call it Life skits of a couple of years ago; cracked up at their defence of the top-loading washing machine; now they are having their way with a hilarious parody campaign to, get this, defend bottled water.

Photo credit: National Restaurant Association

As further evidence that locally-grown food is going mainstream, a new survey of 1,609 chefs by the National Restaurant Association ranked locally-grown produce as the hottest trend for 2009.

In October 2008, the association surveyed American Culinary Federation member chefs, asking them to ra

photo: contri

Since the internet loves lists, here are our best-to-worst energy options if we want to improve energy security, mitigate global warming and reduce air pollution, according to Stanford University professor of civil and environmental engineering Mark Z Jacobson: 1) Wind power, 2) Concentrated Solar power, 3) Geothermal, 4) Tidal, 5) Solar Photovoltaics, 6) Wave Power, 7) Hydroelectric, Nuclear & Coal with carbon capture and storage (tied for last and which he recommends not using at all).

This is bound to ruffle a few feathers, so here are Professor Jacobson’s comments on how he came to