Cameron: Avatar style Pandora’s box opened by BP

Posted on August 27, 2010 by quest

BY ETHAN SACKS
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Director James Cameron says audiences don’t have to look to the stars to find resonance for his sci-fi blockbuster “Avatar,” which returns to theaters Friday with nine more minutes of footage.

They can find a big, oozing parallel right in the Gulf of Mexico.

“The BP mess is a classic example of how our energy policies, or lack thereof, are going to hurt us,” Cameron recently told the Daily News. A symptom of the same corporate greed that drove the fictional RDA Corporation to pillage the planet Pandora in the film, he said.

Cameron had a close-up view of the environmental devastation in the first few weeks after the April 20 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion. In early June, the 56-year-old writer-director-producer convened with a group of 25 experts who came up with a suggestion of a method to plug the leaking wellhead that had been spewing one million gallons of oil a day. After ignoring his group’s report, BP successfully adopted an almost identical method two months later.

“Lots of technologies were offered to us. They were thoroughly evaluate by a team of industry engineers,” BP spokesman Robert Wine responded by email. “We did have some contact with James Cameron. His technologies were not suitable.”

But Cameron said the the oil giant has been running roughshod over the EPA, Coast Guard and scientific experts since the early days of the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history. He points to the use of the toxic dispersant, Corexit – BP says it weighed the risks and had government approval – and the company’s blockade of outside inspection of the wellhead site.

“It’s a bit like having the bank robbers run the video surveillance of the vault,” says Cameron.

He’s hoping moviegoers leave his movie this weekend thinking a little bit more about the environment – in the Gulf and beyond. There’s nothing wrong with a little nutritional value to go with all that popcorn in Cameron’s book.

“[The world is in worse shape] than anything I dreamed up for ‘The Terminator,’” said Cameron, referring to his 1984 post-Apocalyptic thriller. “I should make a new ‘Terminator’-like movie where someone travels back in time to warn us before it’s too late.”

NEW AVATAR EDITION RELEASED IN THEATERS

Kamchatkas ecotourism strives for investment

26 August, 2010, 17:10

Kamchatka has the highest prices for gas, fuel and food in Russia. Everything needs to be shipped in. Located in the far north east of Russia, the region feels as remote as anywhere on Earth.

Opportunities for small business are further complicated by the extreme climate of a land bedeviled by earthquakes and typhoons. But it is just this quality of untamed wilderness that makes Kamchatka a destination for adventurous tourists – and the money they bring.

Although larger than California, the peninsula has only 300 kilometers of paved roads.
Traveling to most parts of Kamchatka is almost impossible for anyone who does not have access to an Mi-8 helicopter, Galina Volgina, head of department, Kamchatsky ecotourism society, points out.

“Ecotourism is purely small business, it’s 100% self-reliant risk and it provides employment for the population. The main problem is lack of infrastructure. We need small aviation and helicopters in order to take tours around Kamchatka, but it costs a lot and regulations are tough for the operations of helicopters and small aviation” Volgina insists.

Kamchatka is home to many natural wonders, including 26 active volcanoes, half the world’s population of Steller’s sea eagles, and the largest population of brown bears on Earth. But in order to see it all, one needs to flee the city by boat or helicopter.

The average price for an hour’s rental of a helicopter starts at $3,500, seriously adding to the price of tours. But operators say the number of tourists is still higher than the number of available helicopters.

Over 20,000 nature-lovers come to Kamchatka annually. Most arrive on cruise ships, spending just a few days and seeing only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the peninsula’s attractions.

Just one third of travelers come as real adventurers. Tourists from Japan and the US are ready to pay $200 a day to discover nature’s hidden treasures.

But even with the high prices, the tour operators find it difficult to make a profit, not to mention the high direct expenditures on infrastructure.

“The tourism industry in Kamchatka is worth $3 million. However, most of that is taken up by costs – hotels, helicopters, off-road jeeps and special transportation,” says Volgina.

Kamchatka is unlikely ever to become a mass holiday destination. But the locals believe there is room for specialist ecotourism to grow. They want the government to invest more seriously in the peninsula’s infrastructure to improve access, while preserving its unique natural heritage.

Man honored for solar energy efforts

A San Rafael man who drowned June 25 in a kayak accident is to receive a posthumous award next month for championing clean energy alternatives.

Ray Dracker, a 55-year-old Gerstle Park resident, was at the forefront of a solar energy project in the Mojave Desert worth several billion dollars prior to his death in North Carolina. Dracker was a senior vice president with Solar Millennium, a German company that was working with Southern California Edison to build two 242-megawatt solar power plants worth $1 billion each on federal land near Death Valley.

The award is being given Sept. 14 by the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies. The group’s Clean Power Champion Awards Ceremony will be at the Citizen Hotel at 926 J St. in Sacramento.

QuestPoint n the Mix Updates – A GREEN RENAISSANCE

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Stimulus Dollars stimulate GETS Energy Services

Posted on August 27, 2010 by quest

Berkeley, CA,: GETS Energy Services is a triple bottom-line social venture that provides subsidized energy upgrade services to moderate-income residents in Berkeley and Richmond, CA. New Foundry Ventures, is advising and assisting Rising Sun Energy Center in launching GETS Energy Services as a pilot business model that the will then be scaled to other communities. This partnership combines Rising Sun’s weatherization expertise, as a leading green workforce development and energy retrofit services organization, and New Foundry’s extensive background in building sustainable and scalable social enterprises.

New Foundry Ventures, a social enterprise business incubator, is looking to build on the growing market demand for home retrofits and the $625 million the government has already invested in green job training. The goals of the GETS Energy Services enterprise are to lower moderate-income homeowner utility bills and make homes more comfortable, healthy, durable, and energy efficient, while providing transitional employment for graduates of Rising Sun’s GETS (Green Energy Training Services) workforce development program. The GETS workforce program is an optional energy efficiency training module that participants of RichmondBUILD can apply to participate in. GETS Energy Services will provide talented and qualified graduates from the GETS training program with their first experience working in the green sector.

Through a partnership forged between Rising Sun Energy Center, the City of Berkeley, City of Richmond, and PG&E, GETS Energy Services is able to provide Berkeley and Richmond residents with exclusive incentives of up to $7,000 on energy efficiency improvements. The cities of Berkeley and Richmond are able to provide funding to this partnership thanks to the Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant that they were awarded as part of their broader climate change strategies to reduce their CO2 impact. The cities decided to make some of these funds publicly available to residents to encourage energy efficiency improvements in the residential sector.

“This is a great opportunity for the community. We’re expecting to create 15 new jobs within the first year, and reduce a homeowner’s energy consumption by 20-40 percent, which reduces a homeowner’s utility bills at the same time,” said New Foundry Venture’s Project Manager Jade Rex. “Furthermore we’re also helping reduce CO2 emissions. The residential sector accounts for 21 percent of total U.S. CO2 emissions, which is more than twice the emissions produced by passenger cars. Reducing emissions from the housing sector can have a real and measured impact on the environment.”

Applications are now being accepted. To apply and find out more about income qualifications, homeowners can contact GETS Energy Services at 510-655-1501 ext:17 or visit http://www.risingsunenergy.org/content/getsenergyservices.html.

Nobel winner says solar and wind will lead

Posted on August 26, 2010 by quest

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 24 (Xinhua) – Solar and wind will become Earth’s dominant contributor of energy due to continuous research and development of alternative energy, a Nobel-prize winning scientist said on Tuesday.
Total oil and natural gas production, which today provides about 60 percent of global energy consumption, is expected to peak about 10 to 30 years from now, followed by a rapid decline, said Walter Kohn, Ph.D., who is with the University of California, Santa Barbara.
“These trends have created two unprecedented global challenges,” said Kohn who shared the 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. “One is the threatened global shortage of acceptable energy. The other is the unacceptable, imminent danger of global warming and its consequences.”
Kohn noted that these challenges require a variety of responses. “The most obvious is continuing scientific and technical progress providing abundant and affordable alternative energies, safe, clean and carbon-free,” he said at a special symposium at the American Chemical Society’s 240th National Meeting in Boston.
Because the challenges are global in nature, the scientific and technical work should enjoy a maximum of international cooperation, which fortunately is beginning to evolve, he said.
The global photovoltaic energy production increased by a factor of about 90 and wind energy by a factor of about 10 over the last decade.

Kohn expects vigorous growth of these two effectively inexhaustible energies to continue during the next decade and beyond, thereby leading to a new era, the SOL/WIND era, in human history, in which solar and wind energy will become the earth’s dominant energy sources.
Another important issue, incumbent primarily on developed countries, whose population has pretty much leveled off, is reduction in per capita energy consumption, Kohn said.
“A striking example is the U.S. per capita consumption of gasoline, approximately five times higher than the global average,” he said. “The less developed world, understandably, aims to bring their standard of living to a level similar to that of the highly developed countries; in return they should stabilize their growing populations.”
Kohn noted that he is impressed by students on his campus who spent their own collective funds to fully solarize an athletic building. “When it comes to providing leadership by young people in the area of energy conservation and energy efficiency and global warming – they are fantastic,” he said. “It is a major social commitment for our times.” Source English.news.cn

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World’s Largest Urban Forest Was Planted by Hand

Posted on August 25, 2010 by quest

From the top of Rio de Janeiro’s towering mountain of Corcovado, at the feet of the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue, the high rise urban centers neatly tucked along the shoreline are dwarfed by the rugged natural skyline. On these peaks, for as far as the eye can see, grows the dense jungle of the Tijuca forest — the largest urban forest in the world — which gives Rio the feel of city that has managed to coexist with nature like none other on the planet. But things weren’t always so harmonious. In fact, there was once a time where these hills were stripped bare, deforested to make room for plantations. The truth is, this sprawling forest was replanted by hand. For as much attention that’s given to deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in the last centuries, Brazil’s Atlantic forest ecosystem has fared much worse. Home to a multitude of unique species, the Atlantic forest once extended along nearly the entire Brazilian coastline, though today only small patches remain. To support Brazil’s population, the majority of which live in close proximity to the ocean, these forests were largely cut down to make room for development — and Rio’s Tijuca forest was no exception. Read on: Source:Treehuger

Vice President on Employment and Economic Impact of the Recovery Act

Vice President Joe Biden today issued the following statement on a new report from the Congressional Budget Office on the employment and economic impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: “This new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is further confirmation of what we’ve been hearing from leading economists, the nation’s governors and families across the country: the Recovery Act is working to rescue the economy from eight years of failed economic policy and rebuild it even stronger than before. When the CBO, Congress’s top watchdog and an institution widely-respected on both sides of the aisle, says that because of the Recovery Act as many as 3.3 million Americans are on the job today and the unemployment rate is as much as 1.8 percent lower, it’s impossible for even the most cynical, bent-on-rooting-for-failure critics to deny. So while Republicans in Congress – the same party that got us into this mess in the first place – may want to turn back the clock and drive us back into the same ditch we’re making our way out of, it’s now clearer than ever before that we can’t afford to go backward; we have to keep moving forward and build on measures like the Recovery Act that are creating jobs and making us competitive in the 21st century economy.” According to the CBO report, “Estimated Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on Employment and Economic Output from April 2010 through June 2010,” in the second quarter of 2010, the Recovery Act: • Raised the level of real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) by between 1.7 percent and 4.5 percent, • Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points, • Increased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million.

Jenna Dewan Tatum’s Interview for PETA

The 29-year-old actress dropped her clothing and slipped under some scaly body paint for PETA’s new ad campaign against the use of accessories made from snakes, lizards, alligators and crocodiles. “I couldn’t believe that that is what happens for a wallet or a purse,” Jenna said in her interview with the organization.See the video.

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Test drive an electric car

Posted on August 24, 2010 by quest

Forty percent of consumers report they are likely to test drive an electric vehicle, according to a new study of online American adults from the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)®. The study, Electric Vehicles: The Future of Driving, suggests electric vehicles entice consumers with improved environmental quality and potential cost savings, but leave them with questions about battery life and convenience of battery charging. “But concerns regarding battery life, charging stations and limited mileage may keep some consumers away until a comprehensive infrastructure is in place.”

Consumers are open to considering an electric vehicle in the future, with 42 percent reporting they are likely to follow news reports about electric vehicles. However, overall awareness of the various types of alternative vehicles remains low. While nearly one-third (32 percent) report they are familiar, or very familiar, with hybrid vehicles, only about one-quarter are familiar with electric-powered vehicles (25 percent).

For the first time, electric vehicles will be featured at the 2011 International CES, showcasing a full range of high- and low- speed vehicles, energy storage devices and charging equipment. This new CES TechZone will feature major automotive companies, including Audi, in the Las Vegas Convention Center’s North Hall. Those consumers who are open to buying an electric vehicle cite the positive environmental impact and potential cost savings as primary reasons to do so. More than three-quarters of those surveyed (78 percent) said the vehicle’s ability to run without gasoline is the greatest advantage, followed by less pollution (67 percent), and the lack of need for oil changes and tune-ups (60 percent).
“Environmental benefits, coupled with potential cost savings in fuel and tune-ups, will lead to increased interest for electric vehicles and potential floor traffic at dealerships,” said Ely. “But concerns regarding battery life, charging stations and limited mileage may keep some consumers away until a comprehensive infrastructure is in place.”

Martin Eberhard, a former CEO of Tesla Motors, now Director of Battery Research for Volkswagen, was recently interviewed by several different publications about what direction VW was heading in regarding their research into electric vehicles. Some of the answers were pretty interesting.
While many of the OEM’s are exploring different methods for packaging cells together, Eberhard is continuing the work he did at Tesla in using battery packs made up of the “18650″ lithium-ion cells that are widely used in the laptop computer industry. The amp-hours of energy that can be crammed into a battery pack’s cells help determine the range of travel a full pack can deliver on a single charge. Eberhard said the growth rate in battery cell energy capacity had been running about 8 percent a year “and my bet is we’ll be on an 8 percent annual growth rate” in the future. To quote a friend and colleague over at Autoblog, “that’s a whole lot of percents!” At that rate the capacity of batteries will double with nine year.
In the interview Eberhard also stated that with EV’s batteries are THE most important part of the equation. He also believes the 18650 cell, is a commodity battery, and that it is the best hope for delivering less costly and more energy dense batteries because so many are made and so much work is being done by so many to improve them. In reality until the late 90′s consumer electronic boom, very little research had gone into battery technology for almost 70 years.

The women of the Chevy Volt

Posted on August 24, 2010 by quest

The most eagerly awaited car of the year is the Chevrolet Volt, the first next-generation extended-range electric car to hit the road. General Motors has a lot riding on the car, and it took a lot of workers to make it. Many of them were women in what has been traditionally the boy’s club that was yesterday’s auto industry. GM pulled together some biographies of some of the key women involved in the design of the Volt. Interestingly, each one is a mom. Here is what GM wrote about them:Design
Nina Tortosa, is the lead aerodynamicist on the Volt team. Her team has spent more than 500 hours of time in the wind tunnel with the Volt, often testing and tweaking changes in 1 millimeter increments. While their work is done in small measures, the cumulative impact is significant: Nina estimates that aerodynamic development on the Volt extended the electric-only range by almost seven miles at highway speeds. She has two children, ages four and five. Nina was born in Barcelona, Spain, and graduated from Mounds View High School, just outside Minneapolis.

Britta Gross is director of Global Energy Systems and Infrastructure Commercialization. She is working to prepare utilities and to get communities across the country “plug-in ready,” not just for Volt but for the wave of electric vehicles predicted to be on the horizon (Global Insight estimates that plug-in electric vehicles and battery-electric vehicles could represent 20 to 60 percent of the market by 2030). This includes working with state and local governments on purchase incentives, with utilities to develop smart-grid and smart-charging technologies, and companies and municipalities to iron out home charging processes and to install charging stations at work places. Britta has two children, age 12 and 17; growing up, she lived in Kansas City, Chicago, and Baton Rouge. Read more

San Diego and SunEdison sign solar deal

SAN DIEGO, AT&T* and SunEdison today announced that SunEdison, a leading worldwide solar energy services provider and subsidiary of MEMC Electronic Materials, will expand AT&T’s national solar initiative by activating a new roof top solar power installation in San Diego. San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders as well as executives from AT&T and SunEdison were on hand to officially flip the switch on the solar power system. In addition to this installation in San Diego, AT&T has contracts with SunEdison to deploy five other solar power installations in California by the second quarter of 2011, equating to approximately 2 megawatts (MW) of total solar capacity for all six sites. The additional California solar deployments will be located in Dunnigan, Commerce, Mojave, Santa Ana and West Sacramento.

The solar power installation in San Diego is a 296 kW rooftop mounted photovoltaic system that will generate an estimated 420,000 kWh of energy in its first year of operation alone. Over 20 years, the power installation will generate more than 7.7 million kWh of energy – enough energy to power more than 720 US homes for one year. The environmental attributes associated with the solar power installation will avoid more than 8 million pounds of carbon dioxide during the initial 20 years of operation – the equivalent of taking more than 800 cars off the road according to SunEdison projections. “Partnerships such as this one between AT&T and SunEdison show why San Diego continues to be the national leader in solar energy,” said San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders. “Our residents and businesses have embraced clean energy, which not only benefits our environment, but also our region’s economy.”

The program is made possible through a strategic power purchase agreement (PPA) between SunEdison and AT&T under which SunEdison will construct, monitor and maintain an additional five solar power installations in California. In return, AT&T will buy the energy produced from the solar systems to offset their grid demand. Once activated, the six systems will total an estimated 2 megawatts of solar capacity and will generate over 3.2 million kWh of energy within the first year of operation. According to SunEdison projections, the environmental attributes associated with the six systems will avoid an estimated 62 million pounds of CO2 over 20 years of operation.

GREEN FOR ALL – PROTECT THE 360 – JOIN

CHICAGO – Green For All – in partnership with the Dew Tour – announced the launch of Protect the 360°, a campaign to engage and activate the action-sports community in efforts to curb climate change. The initiative is a direct response to fans’ concerns over global warming and its impact on outdoor sports.

“Climate change is real,” said Dave Mirra, BMX legend. “It affects everything from snow quality to quality of life. But doing little things – like turning off your lights or riding your bike instead of driving – can add up to make a difference. I am doing my part and I hope fans will join me in doing theirs to protect the 360°.”

The Protect the 360° campaign includes an interactive website that provides simple, useful information about how people can make their lives greener.

“Green For All works to educate new audiences about the benefits of going green,” said Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, CEO of Green For All. “2010 is the hottest year on record and we all have a part to play in curbing climate change.”