Planet Relations

An announcement from the Society of Environmental Journalists highlighting winners of the SEJ’s 10th Annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment alerted me to a great article from Portland-based writer Dave Wolman entitled Accidental Wilderness. Published in the May 24, 2010 edition of High Country News, the article chronicles the biological richness of lands owned [...]

According to a new study by the US Geological Society, fallen autumn leaves contribute as much mercury to the environment as precipitation. This is significant because precipitation was previously the major route for hazardous mercury in the air to be deposited to the environment. Most of the mercury in fish and food webs come from [...]

If you want to save energy and cut greenhouse gas emissions then focus on urban water conservation. That’s according to a new report entitled Drops of Energy: Conserving Urban Water in California to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions (May 2011). The policy paper was produced by the UC Berkeley School of Law’s Center for Law, Energy [...]

On Monday, the media reported on a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey detailing the consequences of a winter ‘superstorm’ scenario that would strike the US West Coast and produce precipitation levels exceeding those experienced on average once only every 500 to 1,000 years. How bad is that? The model depicted a storm that [...]

With the rise of smart phones and camera phone technology, quick response or QR codes are popping up everywhere from display ads to building permits to trail markers. A QR code is a type of bar code consisting of black modules arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded can be [...]

For a country with only 1.2 million residents and a record rainfall of almost three meters per year, you wouldn’t think that the tiny island nation of the Republic of Mauritius would have a water supply problem. But as of January 2011, local reservoirs are only at roughly 30-40 percent of capacity and the Minister [...]

It’s been 103 years since the Anderson Electric Car Company based in Detroit made the 1907 Detroit Electric car. Watch GM assemble its new Chevy Volt in a mere 90 seconds in this time lapse video.

In a state where the legislature is dysfunctional and often prefers to legislate through the initiative process, California lawmakers passed the California Energy Storage Bill – AB 2514. The bill requires the Public Utilities Commission to set targets for systems that store energy. Such systems are regarded as important for the efficient operation of an [...]

When you’re submitting a bid to replace the KC-X aerial refueling tanker at $29.55 billion for 179 airplanes, every second counts. Literally and figuratively. Unfortunately when your bid is 5 minutes late and is disqualified, it works out to $5.91 billion per minute. That’s what allegedly happened to Los Angeles-based US Aerospace and its Ukrainian [...]

Today, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory based in Golden, CO released the Western Wind and Solar Integration Study. The goal of the study is to better understand the costs and operating impacts due to the variability and uncertainty of wind, photovoltaic, and concentrated solar power. The study found that a 35-percent target for wind and [...]