Unintended consequences.
We always talk about them- but rarely consider the truly unintended circumstances. Like the effects of climate change.
Continue reading The Hidden Facts of Climate Change
I wrote about the Chevron plant that converts solar energy to steam, so that they can recover oil using a smaller carbon footprint. This Coalinga (CA) plant is pretty darned big. It’s on some 65 acres and nearly 8000 mirrors that track the sun. (They are called heliostats.) And, it yields some 29 MW of steam.
Continue reading Broken Promises?
Coal is still king? Well, the US certainly has an abundance of coal. And, a slew of power plants around the world are still running on coal. (Admittedly, many of them are in China.)
Continue reading Power Plants and Carbon Dioxide Emissions
Way, way back. Back when we seemed to care about our infrastructure, we promised that we would have swimmable and drinkable water all over this country. A good portion of that promise relied on waste water reuse and desalination plants.
Continue reading More on that water-energy nexus. It’s really tight in CA
So, when I visited my son (he lives in Downtown Manhattan), I just had to visit my old library haunts. One of them is the main library building in Manhattan- the one in Bryant Park. (This used to be the site of the prime reservoir for New York City; the water supply moved upstate and this site because the library.) The other was the library that used to be open 24-7, the Mid-Manhattan Library.
Continue reading The brains behind “Copper Top”
I’ve written about our infrastructure failures. In particular, how we have not upgraded our electrical transmission systems to preclude hacking or terrorist attacks. There have been attacks (for example in California) that took the power station off line for a month. That attack destroyed some 17 transformers and left parts of Silicon Valley in the dark.
Continue reading At least someone is upgrading infrastructure
Just because our government seemingly has no clue that infrastructure is critical, does not mean that business doesn’t. And, they are getting fed up with the inaction. Because, despite the hoopla from the last election, business knows that they don’t do it alone. Their profits rely upon telephones that work, roads that let trucks move, electric power transmission lines that can’t be hacked by terrorists- or just plain crazies.
Continue reading Business knows we need infrastructure
As I’ve written before (here is but one example), I’ve been concerned that we have been rebuilding communities along the Mississippi for a long time. Because the river floods its banks, destroying those communities along the shoreline. We should consider rebuilding those cities and towns at higher elevations.
Continue reading This is just one leg of the stool
Water. Energy. Food. Lacking any one item makes existence pretty tough. The problem is compounded because all three are related. That’s why it’s called the water-energy-food nexus. A century or two ago, this was less obvious, since they were all locally sourced.
In America, we haven’t built a new petrochemical refinery in years. which is why when one of them gets shut down (hurricane, accident at the plant, a blocked waterway), fuel costs rise in a heartbeat.
Continue reading And, you thought we had some big ships…