Month: April 2014 (Page 2 of 3)

The Keystone Pipeline Project is basically a plan to build a pipe from Canada’s Alberta tar sands to PA in the U.S in order to transport crude oil more efficiently.

President Obama has extended his review of the Keystone Pipeline Project indefinitely. The reason for this hold up is due to a Nebraska judge ruling one of the state’s laws, allowing the pipeline to be built, unconstitutional. As the pipeline must pass through Nebraska, this will pose a major challenge.

The companies in Canada which are working on the pipeline are not happy with this and many other political hold ups in the U.S.

What do you think of the pipeline project? Is it sustainable since it would increase efficiency and produce jobs, or is it not since it would increase the use of fossil fuels?

Link here

At this moment, only ~11 states are bottle deposit states. In another words, you would be charged 5 cents extra per plastic and glass bottles and aluminum cans (10 cents for Michigan). And once you take them to the recycling machines to return these bottles/cans, you’d get a refund of that five cents (ten for Michigan). I personally think that all 50 states should be bottle deposit states and 5 cents is not enough. Maybe ten or even twenty might be reasonable. When people are being charged more, they will be more motivated to have a more sustainable mind, even if they choose to buy bottles.

To be more specific, a higher unit price may reduce the number of people who purchase the products. In addition, people who choose to purchase the products would at least save up the used bottles so that they can bring them to the recycling machines, which would not only pay them back but also that it motivates them to recycle significantly more. To make things even better, this would reduce the amount of littering from cars, bodies of waters and in public and private properties. Less littering would mean more beautiful landscape and protecting children and animals from the ultimate consequences like glass lacerations and the Great Pacific Trash Island (whereas birds and fish mistake plastic for food).

Named Keplar 186f and located 500 light years away the first Earth “twin was found by NASA’s Keplar planet-finding mission. Is it possible that we can one day utilize the resources of another planet. The technology needed is far more advanced than where we are now but knowing what is out in space is very exciting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/science/space/scientists-find-an-earth-twin-or-maybe-a-cousin.html?_r=0

I attended Thomas White’s presentation on dolphins. He is a strong advocate for the protection of dolphins and their rights as intelligent individuals. He started by asking why humans have “human rights.” This was answered with a description of defining human characteristics, some of which include self-awareness, self-control, emotions, individual personalities, and respect for one another. It was then shown that dolphins are also believed to have many similar characteristics, based on studies done over the past few decades. If it is unethical to treat humans in a poor manner due to these characteristics, then it makes sense that dolphins should also be treated with respect; not kept in captivity or hunted.

Thomas White mentioned his website which, you can see in this link.

As public pressure builds to dig up coal ash from waste lagoons in North Carolina, Duke Energy is facing a potentially massive cleanup bill that the Charlotte electric utility has been trying to dodge.

Early indications suggest Duke’s price tag could approach $1 billion, based on ash removal expenses in South Carolina. Deciding who pays the bill – Duke’s customers or its shareholders – would pose another challenge.

http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/03/08/3682139/duke-energys-1-billion-cleanup.html

This article is about the future of off-the-grid living, and how we may be at a turning point due to the availability of cheap batteries from Tesla Motor’s new factories. I think these batteries would make sustainable energy sources much more viable, such as when used with solar panels (see my last post).

Link Here

This article espouses the benefits of solar power once it becomes competitive with and eventually cheaper than fossil fuel power. The main point is that this will help lower wealth inequality since everyone will have access to their own cheap power. However, I don’t believe this makes complete sense because many places in the world do not have enough sunny days for solar power to completely replace fossil fuels. This does not mean that solar power won’t have a large part in the future of energy, but just that energy storage needs to improve at the same rate that solar panel costs go down.

Link Here

At the University of Texas at Austin, the manager of the oil and gas drilling logs collection has looked into and researched the option of “drilling” for water to solve the current drought in Texas. Researchers are using records to map brackish groundwater to eventually go to a desalination plant. It was determined that an aquifer in West Texas holds 4.9 trillion gallons of fresh water and 27.7 trillion gallons of brackish water. However, this all depends on the support from legislature to make it happen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/11/us/digging-up-old-drilling-logs-to-strike-not-oil-but-water.html?ref=science&_r=0

This article discusses how at the University of Illinois researchers are developing a computer model to help plant scientists breed better crops. They use soybean as an example and predict a 8.5% jump in productivity with a 13% drop in water loss and a 34% increases in radiation deflection. Technology advances like these will continue to advance the sustainability of agriculture and much more.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140403132355.htm

The article below discusses how for all of the power and wealth that the United States has we are ranked 16th in the Social Progress Index. Our impressive military and economic strengths do not translate well for our health, ecosystem sustainability, basic education, personal safety and much more.

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/04/should-the-united-states-care-that-its-not-no-1/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1&

This is kind of random but I came across this video and I thought it was pretty interesting. It relates to food sustainability.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUtnas5ScSE