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Want to take a virtual tour in the world of distributed power?   

Thanks to Equity Green, I learned the news that San Francisco Launches Solar Energy Mapping Website.

A solar mapping web tool was recently launched for the city of San Francisco.  Its actually pretty cool and addicting.  I liked scrolling over all the houses to see who is saving more per year with their solar panels. 

Let me second that.

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Truth be told, anyone with their eyes open is overwhelmed by the wealth of interesting, insightful, and high quality material out there — in soft (blogosphere) and hard (books, etc) copy.  This drives us, all too often, into stovepiping our focus, gaining ever more knowledge about an ever narrower focus area.

Our challenges — as individuals, communities, nation — are, however, multifaceted, systems-of-systems issues that demand a more holistic look, with a willingness to explore linkages and to gain some insight as to (un)intended consequences.

Some institutions and organizations strive to provide the basis for taking that step, to provide a window on complex interactions and opportunities for confronting (and surmounting) the challenges we face.

Worldwatch Institute, in my experience, is one such institution. Their annual State of the World series tackles major issue areas, from multipe (and quite high-quality) perspectives to inform about challenges, options for dealing with them, and insights from real experience (“lessons identified”) about alternative paths.  And, this year’s effort is most definitely a valued addition to this series. 

From Lagos to Los Angeles; Malmo to Mumbai; Acra to Washington, DC; State of the World 2007: Our Urban Future examines the “fantastic array of challenges and possibilities” for sustainable urbanism across the globe for the coming century.

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Sometimes we learn in rather interesting ways.  Well, to give credit where credit is due, I bumped into Rollerblading glimpse of the future credit Roller-blading in the Google parking lot led to early awareness that something was up when it came to Google and PHEVs, as solar panels were going up over parking spots with plugs hanging from the roof structures. 

So my wife and I play rollerhockey. That’s hockey on rollerblades. The trick is to find a good parking lot without obstructions that’s the flat, the right length, and that has curbs that can serve as boards. For 10 years Stephanie has played with a group of friends in what was the SGI HQ parking lot in Mountain View.

It just so happens that this is now Google. And the group, now including me, continue to play there.

Recently Google installed an impressive set of solar panels over the lots but Sunday we noticed that a bunch of the arrays had new power cables hanging down from them with plugs. Only one thing they could be for… plugging in cars.

Two weeks after announcing a major initiative to Green the Computer, Google announced RechargeIT  with the tag line: 

“Recharge a Car, Recharge the Grid, Recharge the Planet”

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Or, well, perhaps we should not, big news in wind.

T Boone Pickens, of oil fame, has announced plans to build the world’s largest wind farm, with two to four gigawatts of name plate capacity.  This wind farm is proposed for Texas, home of the world’s currently largest wind farm: the 735.5-megawatt Horse Hollow project near Abilene. The project is estimated to cost $6 billion (including transmission lines) and would begin construction in 2010. 

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Perhaps we need to rub our eyes, but it looks like there are outbreaks of bipartisan sanity emerging on energy issues.  A just introduced bill to promote plug-in hybrids is a poster child of sane policy concepts.

From co-sponsor Orrin Hatch (R-Utah):

“With the rapid industrialization of countries like India and China, the demand for gasoline is unprecedented, and that’s translated into higher costs at the pump,” Hatch said. “We’re already feeling the pain of that, and it’ll get worse unless we start shifting our transportation sector away from liquid fuels and on to electrons. The best way to motivate that shift is with these market-based incentives, rather than Federal mandates.”

From co-sponsor Maria Cantwell (D-Wash):

 “Our transportation system in this country is out of date,” said Cantwell. “We need to take advantage of new technologies to bring our cars and trucks up to speed, save consumers money, and diversify our country off of fossil fuels. We produce enough extra electricity right now to power most of the cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs on our roads. It’s time we made plug-in hybrid technology available to more Americans.”

Bi-partisan sanity?  Wow, need to rub my eyes again …

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A week ago, the Washington Post Outlook section featured, under the banner “FACT CHECK”, a malicious attack on Al Gore starting off with flagrantly false information.

The outrage floursished …

As per Gorephobia Prominent in the Washington Post,

Sometimes you can’t make things up.

Under the title “Fact Check”, Andrew Ferguson starts his Sunday Washington Post OPED

You can’t really blame Al Gore for not using footnotes in his new book, The Assault on Reason.

Ferguson is absolutely right … and, amazingly arrogant in his disdain for common understanding of “truth” …

Like almost every academic / scholarly work published nowadays, Assault on Reason does not have footnotes … rather it has endnotes.

Well, today, the saga continues as the Post‘s ‘voice of reason’, the intermediary between the readership and the newspaper’s practices, spoke up.

Follow me over the fold to learn about Deborah Howell’s failure to right the wrong …

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The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) looks to have just taken major decisions related to CTL and biofuels, ones that could have major impact on future energy (and pollution) developments there.

Coal-to-Liquids (CTL) / Liquid Coal is currently a major rage, with significant CTL subsidies being considered in the Senate. There were grand plans for CTL not just in the United States, but even more so in the PRC.

We talk about the PRC being far worse on energy policy than the United States and pursuing polluting technoloyg, well this looks to be turning around.

Well, at the same time the United States considers rushing headlong into CTL, the People’s Republic of China might just have cancelled all CTL programs.
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Perhaps you missed this … but … sometimes you can’t make things up.

Under the title “Fact Check”, Andrew Ferguson started his OPED in last Sunday’s Washington Post Outlook section:

You can’t really blame Al Gore for not using footnotes in his new book, The Assault on Reason.

True, but not truthful or honest. No footnotes but 20 pages of endnotes …

Well, in the six days since publication, The Washington Post has received a flood of complaints and commentaries … and they’ve acted … well … sort of …

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Most people are unaware just how many kilowatt hours their computers burn and how many pounds of CO2 they help pump into the atmosphere. Interested in learning about this, there is no better place to start than Michael BlueJay’s Saving Electricity site.  

Reducing energy use when you turn on your computer looks like it is going to get much, much easier.  Earlier today, Climate Savers smart computing was announced at the Google campus.  This initiative targets a 50% reduction in computer electricity usage by 2010.

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Follow-ups are sometimes merited. My last diary, Gorephobia Prominent in the Washington Post, began:

Sometimes you can’t make things up.

Under the title “Fact Check”, Andrew Ferguson starts his Sunday Washington Post OPED

“You can’t really blame Al Gore for not using footnotes in his new book, The Assault on Reason.”

Ferguson is absolutely right … and, amazingly arrogant in his disdain for common understanding of “truth” …

Like almost every academic / scholarly work published nowadays, Assault on Reason does not have footnotes … rather it has endnotes.

Well, I (along with many others) contacted The Washington Post. And, we’ve been told, “a correction will be run” …

Follow me past the fold for my response …

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