19 Percent of Teens Say They Have Stopped Using Facebook
About 90 percent of online teens use at least one social networking site, Facebook being the top social destination, but 19 percent of teens who have created a Facebook profile say they no longer visit the social site or are using it less.
Visit the original post at: TMCnet-News

Microsoft Recognizes Plantronics with Back-to-Back Partner Awards
Plantronics, a provider of personal audio communications for professionals and consumers, has been selected as a finalist for the Microsoft Partner Awards in the OEM Hardware Solutions, Device Manufacturing Partner of the Year category for the second year running.
Visit the original post at: TMCnet-News

Solar Impulse Completes 24-Hour Solar Flight

The idea of a round-the-world solar flight took a big step closer to reality with the completion of a test flight lasting over 24 hours.

The Solar Impulse, a completely solar powered plane, had its maiden flight just a couple months ago. Now, it has proved itself in an even bigger test by flying through the night on the stored power it collected during its daytime flight. The plane was flown by André Borschberg, the CEO and co-founder of the Solar Impulse project who, after landing, remarked, “I have just flown more than 26 hours without using a drop of fuel and without causing any pollution!”

From this, the next steps of the program will get even more ambitious. In 2011, Solar Impulse plans to build a second plane which will be capable of making ocean crossing flights. Then, it is projected that in 2013 they will undertake a round the world flight.

via: ZDNet

Visit the original post at: EcoGeek.org

Weekly Intelligence Brief: July 05 – July 12

This week’s Wind Energy Update news brief includes the following companies and organisations: DECC; Vestas; Atlantic Power & Idaho Wind Partners; Vattenfall; UKA & Vestas; Sheringham Shoal Wind farm; CanWEA; SeaEnergy & Nantong COSCO Ship Steel Structure Co; and New Jersey’s Offshore Wind Economic Development Act.

read more

Visit the original post at: Wind Power News

Nokero-World’s First Solar Powered Light Bulb?

Third world residents and campers worldwide will be interested in Denver based inventor Stephen Katsaros’ solar powered light bulb named “Nokero.”  A lifelong “tinkerer,” Katsaros has developed a simple bulb that’s powered by sunlight. He hopes that people in developing countries will eventually migrate to his bulb and give up the kerosene lamps they are currently using.

A quarter of the world’s population is still burning fuel for light and those light sources emit 190 million tons of carbon dioxide. Not to mention candles and kerosene lamps are potential sources for starting life threatening fires.

Katsaros’s manufacturing process is lean to the point he can sell the bulb’s for $15 per bulb retail and approx. $6 if bought in bulk. Many of the world’s people who he envisions using these bulbs on a daily basis live on $2 a day so the bulb design is simple and cost effective.

Fully charged, the Nokero bulb provides approximately 4 hours of light and lasts 2 years. It’s rainproof, shatter-resistant and has replaceable parts giving the bulb a potential to last for years.

Here are more details from Stephen Katsaros’ interview at the Denver Post.

Here’s his site for the solar powered bulb the Nokero.

Visit the original post at: Solar Power News

Nokero-World’s First Solar Powered Light Bulb?

Third world residents and campers worldwide will be interested in Denver based inventor Stephen Katsaros’ solar powered light bulb named “Nokero.”  A lifelong “tinkerer,” Katsaros has developed a simple bulb that’s powered by sunlight. He hopes that people in developing countries will eventually migrate to his bulb and give up the kerosene lamps they are currently using.

A quarter of the world’s population is still burning fuel for light and those light sources emit 190 million tons of carbon dioxide. Not to mention candles and kerosene lamps are potential sources for starting life threatening fires.

Katsaros’s manufacturing process is lean to the point he can sell the bulb’s for $15 per bulb retail and approx. $6 if bought in bulk. Many of the world’s people who he envisions using these bulbs on a daily basis live on $2 a day so the bulb design is simple and cost effective.

Fully charged, the Nokero bulb provides approximately 4 hours of light and lasts 2 years. It’s rainproof, shatter-resistant and has replaceable parts giving the bulb a potential to last for years.

Here are more details from Stephen Katsaros’ interview at the Denver Post.

Here’s his site for the solar powered bulb the Nokero.

Visit the original post at: Solar Power News

Jobs In Solar: Energy Consultant (New York)
Date: 2010-07-10, 1:33AM EDT
Reply to: admin@advisorsenergy.com

A growing energy company needs consultants to sell electricity, natural gas, solar energy solutions, wind energy solutions, lighting retrofits, utility audits, Cogeneration and energy management. e-mail: admin@advisorsenergy.com. Visit us online at www.advisorsenergy.com. Earning potential is over $100,000. We provide Leads. 

Location: New York
Compensation: Earning potential is over $100,000.

• Telecommuting is ok.
• This is a contract job.
• OK to highlight this job opening for persons with disabilities
• OK for recruiters to contact this job poster.
• Phone calls about this job are ok.
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

Visit the original post at: Solar Power News

Oil Prices, Recession-Depression, and Investment

Join the forum discussion on this post

The following is a guest essay by Kevin Kane. Kevin is the author of the Energy Fanatic Blog.

Oil Prices, Recession-Depression, and Investment

Low Oil Prices Foster Future Oil Price Peaks

By Kevin Kane

As the global economy stalls, some economists including Paul Krugman argue that unless governments take action now, we risk slipping into a period of recession, or possibly even depression. If the world economy does double dip, ceteris paribus, oil prices will decrease following weak consumer demand. Should this double dip turn into a recession, or even worse, a depression, its long term impacts on oil supply additions and renewable energy innovation will be considerably negative.

Low oil prices are in general bad for consumers over the long run, particularly in a globalizing economy that has proven itself capable of expanding faster than the oil industry can bring on new additions to daily oil production capacity. We could sum this phenomenon up with the statement, “Low oil prices today are bad for consumers tomorrow.” This is true because,

(1)  A near-perfect linear relationship exists between oil prices and supply-addition investment—new supplies are added only when companies invest in discovering and developing wells with income gained from the sale of produced oil. Thus, higher oil prices today help to create lower prices tomorrow (See the Figure below that utilizes FRS Data); and,

(2)  Low oil prices result in governments and energy companies cutting energy R&D investment, which slows technological breakthroughs, diversification from oil, and the climb over the learning curve for costly substitutes.

?

Low Oil Prices Foster Future Oil Price Peaks

If we enter a recession and economic output declines, oil prices will follow along with investments in supply-additions and energy R&D. When prices increase again, our ability to offset these price movements with new supplies or substitutes will be limited—such a scenario portends a repeat of exactly what happened from the mid-1980s to August 2008.

Although the relationship between oil prices and future supplies proves to be straight forward, we need to apply something more technical other than a scatter plot to identify the causal relationship between oil price changes and investments in energy R&D

The Oil Price and R&D Connection: From Renewable to Nuclear Power

Oil prices directly influence changes in investment for government R&D in fossil fuel technology, nuclear power, batteries and energy storage, renewable energy, and efficiency technology. This is an empirical and causal reality extrapolated from multiple panel regression analysis in my thesis titled “Oil Cross-Price Elasticity of Energy R&D Demand: A 12-Country Panel Analysis.” This thesis shows that despite all the rhetoric, policy papers, institutions, and promises, government investment in energy R&D reflects shot-term erratic political behavior rather than keen and calculating long-term energy security strategies.

Even more alarming, statistical results in aforementioned thesis suggest that we are not learning from the past. With the exception of a few cases of sustained disinvestment, governments generally continue to change energy R&D investment with oil price fluctuations despite over-investment and under-investment experiences in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively.

If economic globalization continues as it has in the past, governments need to make a change by benchmarking their energy R&D investment levels on energy security goals rather than short-term market movements, perhaps by creating a more stable measure than oil price—changes in primary consumption demand serves as one example.

Whether we would like to substitute fossil fuels or use innovation to increase the supply of oil, whatever the timeline, a recession or depression scenario will slow this process, if not bring it to a halt. Unless governments break the pattern of benchmarking energy R&D investment levels to oil prices changes, history portends that a double-dip will have terrible implications for future energy security and the environment.

Visit the original post at: Energy News

New Bio-Based Adhesive Eliminates Toxic Petrochemicals

A newly discovered bio-based adhesive could help speed up the long, slow fade of petrochemicals.  Currently, a wide variety of pressure-sensitive adhesive tapes get their stickiness from petroleum-based polymers (large molecules composed of strings of repeating units).  Now an almost accidental discovery by researchers at Oregon State University raises the potential for replacing the fossil-derived substance with soy oil and other renewable oils.

“Green chemistry” – the replacement of toxic substances with safer alternatives -  is a rapidly growing trend, helped along by U.S. military’s growing interest in sustainability.  Though adhesive tape might not seem like such a big deal, when you think about all the masking tape, packing tape, duct tape, sticky notes and other tapes in daily use by industry, office workers and residences, it all adds up to a $26 billion global industry that could make the leap from petrochemicals into a more safe and sustainable future.

(more…)

Visit the original post at: Energy News

New Bio-Based Adhesive Eliminates Toxic Petrochemicals

A newly discovered bio-based adhesive could help speed up the long, slow fade of petrochemicals.  Currently, a wide variety of pressure-sensitive adhesive tapes get their stickiness from petroleum-based polymers (large molecules composed of strings of repeating units).  Now an almost accidental discovery by researchers at Oregon State University raises the potential for replacing the fossil-derived substance with soy oil and other renewable oils.

“Green chemistry” – the replacement of toxic substances with safer alternatives -  is a rapidly growing trend, helped along by U.S. military’s growing interest in sustainability.  Though adhesive tape might not seem like such a big deal, when you think about all the masking tape, packing tape, duct tape, sticky notes and other tapes in daily use by industry, office workers and residences, it all adds up to a $26 billion global industry that could make the leap from petrochemicals into a more safe and sustainable future.

(more…)

Visit the original post at: Energy News

UC Berkeley Study Touts Economic Benefits of FITs
The University of California, Berkeley has released the results of a study examining the economic benefits of a comprehensive Feed-In Tariff (FIT). The analysis shows that enacting a robust FIT in California to achieve the state’s 33% Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) would create three times the number of jobs, over 2 billion in additional tax revenue, and stimulate tens of billions in new investment. Furthermore, the adoption of a comprehensive FIT will cost-effectively fulfill California’s 33%-by-2020 goal on schedule.
Visit the original post at: Renewable Energy News – RenewableEnergyWorld.com

JA Solar Receives 70 MW Products Order
JA Solar has entered into supply agreements with Solar-Fabrik AG. Under the terms of the agreements, JA Solar is expected to supply Solar-Fabrik with approximately 70 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaic products.
Visit the original post at: Renewable Energy News – RenewableEnergyWorld.com

First Solar Launches Utility Systems Business
First Solar Inc. has formed a utility systems business group to address the large-scale photovoltaic (PV) system solutions market. Jens Meyerhoff has been named president of the group. Meyerhoff has served as First Solar’s chief financial officer since 2006.
Visit the original post at: Renewable Energy News – RenewableEnergyWorld.com

Air Products To Build 1.5-MW of PV at US Headquarters
Air Products will build a 12-acre solar farm at its corporate headquarters in Allentown, Pennsylvania with an installed capacity of 1.5 megawatts (MW), enough to serve the energy needs of nearly half of Air Products’ administration buildings.
Visit the original post at: Renewable Energy News – RenewableEnergyWorld.com