Energy
Talking clean energy in Vegas
Speaking of gambling…Streaming live from Las Vegas, it’s the National Clean Energy Summit, featuring (among others) Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and UN Foundation boss Tim Wirth.
How many lightbulbs does it take to change global warming?
Well, many. But, according to the S-G, it can make a big difference:
Recently, I visited an ambitious project to promote energy-saving lighting in China. By phasing out old-fashioned incandescent lightbulbs and introducing a new generation of lighting, China expects to cut national energy consumption by 8 per cent.
This can have a profound global impact. Consider this: lighting accounts for 19 per cent of world energy consumption. Scientists say we can reduce that by a third or more merely by changing lightbulbs.
Sure, it’s one thing to use the nifty-looking CFL bulbs in your own house, but one house times…China…makes for a lot of energy saved.
(image from flickr user TheRogue under a Creative Commons license)
Conservation Win
Clever, though, as Advertising Peanuts points out, it’s not as clever during the day. Eskom is the government-controlled electricity provider in South Africa, where this message hits home.
Not sated on soot?
If you couldn’t get enough of my soot coverage this morning, here’s more. Everything you need to know about black carbon in 2:14.
What to burn in the developing world?
As I was cleaning out my feeds this morning, I stumbled across this brilliant article on Black Carbon, part of a series on “stopgap measures that could limit global warming.”
Black Carbon, aka “soot,” produced by primitive cooking stoves in the developing world, accounts for up to 20 percent of global warming according to some scientists and represents “low-hanging fruit” — the most possible bang for the buck (in regard to both cost and effort) in confronting climate change.
Not two minutes later, this report popped up on BBC tv (BBC, why no embed?) about researchers at Nottingham University who have discovered a way to make fuel out of banana peels (abundant in many parts of the developing world) and sawdust using no specialized equiptment. Aside from dramtically reducing the occurrence of comic accidents, burning banana peels could also reduce the use of firewood as fuel, limiting deforestation and, therefore, addressing climate change.
Count me skeptical that, if this is as cheap and easy as the researchers suggest, savvy entrepreneurs in the developing world wouldn’t have already figured it out. Nonetheless, I like this coverage because it focuses on access to cheap, renewable, and environmentally friendly sources of energy in the developing world, an issue that doesn’t get enough air time and dramatically affects both climate change and the MDGs. The real answer? I like solar cookers, but that may just be because I’m loathe to disagree with the Boonstra.
NPR loves the grid
NPR is sure doing its due diligence on the “smart grid.” This week they’re running a 10-part series — every day both on Morning Edition and All Things Considered…now that’s dedication.
This morning, while moving my car to a legal spot, I caught Part 5: Getting Constant Current From Fickle Winds, which explores the chicken and egg problem that potential wind farmers face in South Dakota. They are slow to build wind farms because there are no power lines to take the energy to market, and they won’t build power lines because there is no power generation yet. Seems like a deal could be worked out…
My favorite so far? Part 1: An Aged Grid Looks to a Brighter Future. Also love the cool interactive map they’ve built so you can better envision the grid.
![[Promo for electric grid interactive map]](http://media.npr.org/news/graphics/2009/apr/electric-grid/thegrid_387.gif)
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The SC; HRC; DPRK; South Sudan
The SC: The Security Council today held its last consultations under the Council Presidency of ROK. Tomorrow, Russia will take over the rotating Presidency of the Security Council for March under Ambassador Vitaly Churkin.
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The SG; Mali; Middle East; Palestine
The SG: At the Fifth Global Forum of the UN Alliance of Civilizations in Vienna, Austria today, the SG emphasized the role of youth in ensuring a “prosperous, equitable and peaceful future.”
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The SG; DRC; HRC; Palestinian Prisoner
The SG: In Ethiopia over the weekend, the SG is now in the United Arab Emirates. Today he met with Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, where the two discussed developments in the region, including Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan, and in the Middle East Peace Process.
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