A four minute video that certainly made my day.... 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvG2XptIEJk

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From Slashdot:

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Environmentalists Win Big EPA Ruling

By Bryan WalshThursday, Nov. 13, 2008

Environmentalists have long known that when it comes to climate change, coal will be a dealbreaker. The carbon-intensive fossil fuel provides nearly half of the United States' electricity, and is responsible for some 30% of the country's greenhouse gas emissions. That's just due to the coal plants already operating — as the U.S. looks to expand its energy supply to meet rising demand in the future, over 100 coal plants are in various stages of development around the country. If those plants are built without the means to capture and sequester underground the carbon they emit — and it's far from clear that such technology will be commercially viable in the near-term — our ambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and avert climate change will be meaningless.

That's why a decision issued on Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Environmental Appeals Board is so important. Responding to a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club over a new coal plant being build on American Indian reservation land in Utah, the board ruled that the EPA has no valid reason to refuse to regulate the CO2 emissions that come from new coal-powered plants. The decision pointed to a May 2007 ruling by the Supreme Court that recognized CO2, the main cause of climate change, is indeed a pollutant under the federal Clean Air Act and therefore needs to be regulated by the EPA. In the months since that landmark decision, the EPA — with the support of the Bush Administration — has doggedly refuse to regulate CO2, much to the dismay of environmentalists. The board's decision will force the EPA to consider CO2 when issuing permits for new power plants, potentially making it — at least in the short-term — all but impossible to certify new coal power plants. That's because the EPA will need to reconfigure its rules on dealing with CO2, which is found in greater concentrations in coal than any other fossil fuel, that force plants in the permitting process to be reevaluated, delaying them for months or longer. "In a nutshell it sends [new plants ]back to the drawing board to address their CO2 emissions," says Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club's National Clean Coal campaign. "In the short term it freezes the coal industry in its tracks." (See TIME's special report on the environment.)

The Sierra Club had originally sued to stop the construction of Deseret Power's Bonanza Generating Station in Vernal, Utah, part of their nationwide campaign to stop new coal. The 110-megawatt plant, which received its EPA permit in July 2007, would have emitted 3.37 million tons of CO2 a year — the equivalent to putting another 660,000 cars on the road. In detail, Thursday's decision means that any new air pollution permits for coal plants will require that Best Available Control Technology (BACT) be used to reduce CO2 emissions, the same criteria currently used for other pollutants, like sulfur dioxide or soot. BACT requires companies involved in power plants to use the best available technology to control pollutants — it's a tool to keep pollution controls up to date as both safety technology and our understanding of pollution impoves. In the past, CO2 wasn't affected by BACT because the EPA didn't recognize it as a pollutant. This decision changes that.

Right now, however, there is no definition of BACT for CO2, and environmentalists estimate it will take six months to a year to figure that out. In the meantime, all other coal plants in the permitting process, or stuck in the courts, will be frozen. Over the longer term, it's possible that new coal plants may be impossible to certify at all until a technology exists to greatly reduce or sequester carbon emissions from coal plants — and currently none has been proven. "The decision says the EPA can't ignore CO2," says Nilles.

That effectively punts the future of coal in America to President-elect Barack Obama's incoming Administration. It's not yet clear how he'll act, but his renewable energy advisor Jason Grumet has said that Obama would be willing to use the EPA to directly regulate CO2 — something President George W. Bush has refused to do. "This lays the groundwork for Obama to move quickly to put in place a regulatory system and begin to achieve CO2 reduction and build that clean, 21st century economy he talks about," says Nilles. Obama's position on coal isn't exactly clear, though he has said that he will work to develop "clean coal" plans that can capture and sequester carbon. What's certain is that the future of coal just got a lot cloudier — and the future of the climate might be a bit brighter.

From: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1859049,00.html

For the past 10 years, Ed Hauser threw his entire life into saving the green corner of Whiskey Island, a peninsula with grassy fields and meadows on Lake Erie at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River.

As the head of Friends of Whiskey Island, Hauser collected signatures on petitions, attended too many public meetings to count and spent money from his retirement plan in a campaign to preserve the 20 acres as a park and block expansion plans by the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority.

Hauser, 47, died Friday morning. The Cuyahoga County coroner's office ruled he had a heart attack, spokesman Powell Caesar said.

Known as "Citizen Hauser" and the "Mayor of Whiskey Island," Hauser enjoyed seeing people use what became the county-owned Wendy Park in 2005, which has a marina, beach restaurant, sand volleyball courts and became home to several festivals.

"I was astounded at how many people were enjoying it on Labor Day," said his sister, Sylvia Hauser, 51 of Streetsboro. "If it hadn't been for my little brother .¤.¤."

Cathy Stahurski, Ed Hauser's girlfriend of 11 years, said she was with him when he became ill at 4 a.m. Friday morning. She said his back was hurting and he was sweaty, but he did not want to see a doctor.

She finally persuaded him to go to the hospital with his sister, but he died in the car.

Stahurski said Hauser was an engineer who was laid off from LTV Steel Co. 10 years ago. After that, he threw himself full time into being an activist.

Besides Whiskey Island, he also served as a citizen watchdog on port authority activities, championed a steel museum in Steelyard Commons and was vocal about Cleveland's lakefront plans.

It wasn't unusual to see him at a public meeting about the proposed medical mart.

A 2006 documentary called "Citizen Hauser" chronicled his dogged activism.

"Ed Hauser made this world a better place, not always with his causes, but with his attitude towards people," Stahurski said. "Even his enemies liked him."

Elaine March, co-founder of Friends of the Crooked River, said there will be activists who come after Hauser, but no one will be able to fill his shoes.

"I believe he was the quintessential environmental activist," Marsh said. "He was persistent, he did unbelievable research and he used that research in very thoughtful ways."

Hauser was the fourth of five children born to Walter and the late Theresia Hauser. He graduated from Maple Heights High School in 1979 and Cleveland State University in 1990.

He loved to kayak, and could often be found in Lake Erie off Whiskey Island. He moved from Cleveland's West Side back into his childhood home in Maple Heights in May.

Michael D. Roberts, a free-lance writer in Orange, got to know Hauser last year as he worked on a story about the port authority. He called him "the most influential activist of the last decade in this town."

Services for Hauser will be Monday at 7:30 p.m. at Vito-Nero Funeral Home, 6130 Turney Road, Garfield Heights.

Just in from Midtown Brews community member Jeff Hershberger: a suggestion for a 2009 Midtown Brews guest and topic. (A reminder: anyone can suggest topics, guests, or invite students and colleagues, friends and family to Midtown Brews. All topics are suggested by someone in the Midtown Brews community.)

Jeff says..."Paul van der Sluis and he's a Ph.D. materials scientist (or maybe physicist) working for Philips in the Netherlands.  I met him at a conference in August.  He was there to talk about a third-world cookstove he's developing, which burns wood more efficiently and with less harmful smoke.  It uses a thermoelectric generator to power a fan to blow air into the fire."

Watch the video from BioEnergy Lists: BioMass Cooking Stoves below:

Jeff continues...

"But I think you'll be more interested in hearing him talk about his carbon-neutral house.  I chatted with him during a break and he talked about a number of fairly simple and retrofittable strategies that cut utility bills to a fraction of what they are for most people.  For example, he preheats his shower water by running it through solar collectors on his roof.  Then he uses the warmth of the shower drainpipe to preheat what goes to the roof!  Thermodynamically it makes a lot of sense."

You can read a little more about Paul here.

The notes from CloudCamp London, courtesy of blogger, Gojko Adzic:

CloudCamp London 2: private clouds and standardisation

http://gojko.net/2008/11/14/cloudcamp-london-2-private-clouds-and-standardisation/

CloudCamp returned to London yesterday, organised with the help of Skills Matter at the Crypt on the Clarkenwell green. The main topics of this cloud/grid computing community meeting were service-level agreements, connecting private and public clouds and standardisation issues.

The meeting was again organised as a set of lightning talks followed by a few open space discussions, with Alexis Richardson working as a host and keeping track of time. The length of lightning talks was halved to five minutes, but Simon Wardley again achieved an amazing feat – going through seventy slides in just five minutes. (At the first CloudCamp in London, he ran through a hundred slides in ten minutes). His talk was again a pleasure to watch, although it was mostly centred around the same issues as the last time: standards and avoiding a vendor lock-in. Trying to describe the risks involved in a vendor lock-in, he talked about a scenario when one company buys a huge number of machines, another provides a cloud on top of that, the third provides virtualisation to split the cloud into a number of “small” machines, fourth builds applications on top of that, fifth provides services based on those applications and so on. If the company that owns the hardware goes bust, the whole pyramid will collapse, affecting thousands of small companies that actually run applications on the fifth and sixth levels. He could not resist making a joke about sub-prime mortgage market, comparing this situation to one bank having a lot of houses, another packaging that into a financial instrument, third splitting that into lots of small instruments and so on. As a way to avoid system failure, Wardley again asked for more standardisation between vendors.

Read the full post.

SEEDA is an example of public and private investment in local creativity to accelerate on the ground innovation.This is a replicable model that puts economic development investment into the hands of local business leaders.

Prosperous regions take on a "many eye balls" approach and follow through with rapid response investment in small, multiple efforts. Quick, agile.

It will take many efforts to reverse the deep damage and residual blight twenty years of poverty has left on Northeast Ohio. There are no one shot solutions anymore. Single, deep pocketed institutions are obsolete and can not be held accountable as all knowing in networked economies. Markets move too fast and mature at a never experienced before with exponential complexity.

What would SEEDA look like if business leaders of the Midtown Brews community replicated this model to invest in technology, the creative industries and/or energy projects?

SEEDA’s aim is to create a prosperous, dynamic and inspirational region by helping businesses compete more effectively, training a highly skilled workforce, supporting and enabling our communities, while safeguarding our natural resources and cherishing our rich cultural heritage.

Accountable to Government, SEEDA is a business led organisation, governed by a Board whose Members have wide-ranging experience in industry and commerce, local government, education, trade unionism and voluntary service.

SEEDA's work looks like The Digial Media Awards South.

SEEDA supports The Digital Media Awards South recognise and reward passion, creativity and business genius in the digital media sector in the south of England. If you work for or run a web agency or a games studio, or are engaged in social networking, e-learning, write a blog, or are an animation or digital TV company and have delivered creativity, commercial growth, or collaborative activity, then these awards are your chance to shout about your successes. More about the DiMAS. 2008 SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED
Around 95 companies and individuals submitted over 140 entries; each and every entry was thoroughly examined, honestly appraised and voted on by our judges. Winners will be announced at the ceremony on 27th November. View this year’s shortlist...

Jaguar, World's Most Powerful Supercomputer                        |

Irish Gov't Seeks To Rein In Cyber Bullying                        |
|   from the hands-stuck-in-wringing-

From Spegeil Online:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,590454,00.html

FOCUS ON RENEWABLES

EU Calls for Energy Supply Shake-up

In order to reduce its reliance on imported energy, Europe must diversify its sources of power in the future, tapping more wind and sun energy, the European Commission says. Brussels also argues that the lifespan of nuclear power plants should be extended.

The goal is a reduced dependence on imported natural gas and oil. And on Thursday, the European Commission in Brussels announced measures intended as a step toward that goal.

Key to the plan is a dramatic increase in the reliance on wind and solar power. The Commission on Thursday called for massive investments in wind parks and the construction of what it called a "Mediterranean Energy Ring" in southern Europe in order to connect more European households to solar and wind energy.

REUTERS

A solar park in Seville, Spain: A new EU supergrid would be fed by both sustainble energies and traditional power stations.

"We must break the vicious circle of increasing energy consumption and increasing imports," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said. "We must shield EU citizens from the risk external suppliers cannot honor their commitments."

Today, more than 50 percent of the energy used in Europe is imported from other regions, Barroso said. The imports come at a per capita cost for EU citizens of €700 annually, totalling close to €350 billion. Last year alone, energy prices in Europe rose by 15 percent. For that reason, Barroso said, Europeans need to become more energy efficient and also increase investments in domestic energy sources.

Wind Farms and Solar Parks

The EU would like to create a €1.2 trillion ($1.5 trillion) Europe-wide energy "supergrid" that would replace national grids and integrate multiple small renewable energy suppliers as well as larger power suppliers that, together, would help reduce climate-damaging emissions and reliance on foreign energy sources. There are also plans for a giant North Sea wind farm similar to those being developed in Germany and Denmark that would help power Northern Europe. In addition, a Mediterranean Energy Ring would tap vast solar power resources from North Africa to bring power to Southern Europe and beyond.

More controversially, the European Commission also wants to further promote nuclear energy. Currently, the 148 nuclear reactors located in Europe provide around one-third of all electricity used by Europeans. The Commission noted that the energy source produces very little climate-damaging emissions. In Germany, the government has committed itself to a phasing out all of its nuclear power plants by 2021, but the European Commission said there is a need to extend the lifetime of existing plants (over the next 10-20 years, the majority of nuclear power plants in the EU will reach the end of their planned lifespans) and to consider construction of new ones.

"Decisions about lifetime extension, new investments or replacement become more acute, notably in light of the EU CO2 reduction objective," the Commission said.

The Commission also seeks to improve household energy efficiency. Those undertaking major home renovation will be required to include measures aimed at reducing household energy consumption. EU-wide, the Commission argues, those measures alone could reduce energy consumption by 5 to 6 percent. The Commission is also proposing an energy labelling system for car tires that would inform consumers about the tire's effects on gasoline consumption. According to the Commission, tire resistance can increase a car's fuel consumption by up to 10 percent.

Despite all of these efforts, the Commission said it expects gas and oil imports from abroad to continue to increase, but EU leaders said they still wanted to reduce dependence on Russia, Europe's most important energy supplier. The Commission wants to push ahead with plans to build a gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea that would bring supplies from Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to Europe. As a response to Russia repeatedly interrupting deliveries to transit countries like Ukraine and Belarus during price disputes in recent years, which at times disrupted energy supplies in Europe, the Commission has called for the creation of a crisis response mechanism.

"A Christmas Tree of Action"

The core aim of the security policy, however, is to boost energy efficiency and existing plans to cut carbon emissions by one-fifth by 2020. Still, environmental groups say it doesn't go far enough.

In Brussels, WWF criticized the plan as a "Christmas tree of action," specifically ridiculing its lack of a mandatory target for energy efficiency. "The proposed measures fail in ambition as they do not include a mandatory energy savings of 20 percent for the EU -- a key move to reduce consumers' energy bill, boost innovation, facilitate the achievement of the EU's greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets and support a strong EU performance at international climate negotiations," WWF energy policy officer Mariangiola Fabbri said.

From Spiegel Online

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,590281,00.html

CAPITALIZING ON CLIMATE CHANGE

Power Company Gives Consumers the Nuclear Option

By Christopher Glazek in Berlin

A new offer from German power company RWE allows consumers for the first time to select a zero-carbon energy scheme fueled mostly by nuclear sources. But as Germany erupts in anti-nuclear protests, the company&