Oil prices are inching upwards again. Just as last year, some people are starting to tell fairy tales instead of facing the reality of limited oil supplies.
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Archive for June, 2009
Could Chicken Feathers Be The Salvation Of Hydrogen?
Posted in June 30th, 2009
Unless you are a vegetarian, you probably agree that chicken is delicious. But could this fowl have a future in automobiles? According to a presentation made at the 13th Annual Green Chemical and Engineering Conference this weekend…maybe. It seems that carbonized chicken feathers can hold hydrogen quite well; better than carbon nanotubes or metal hydrides currently being tested as hydrogen carriers. Could this solve the infrastructure problems currently holding hydrogen technology back?
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Hybrid Electric Scooter Runs On Anything That Burns
Posted in June 30th, 2009
by Jerry James Stone in Clean Energy, Motorcycles, Offbeat, Scooter, Segway, electric bike, hybrid, stirling
Segway inventor Dean Kamen is developing a hybrid electric scooter that can run on almost anything that burns.
According to the patent, the bike has a small two-piston Stirling engine right under the seat. Though with an engine of that size, it really isn’t going to provide much juice – not much more than 5bhp.
A Stirling engine is based on tech which predates internal combustion engines by almost 100 years. It’s kinda like a steam engine in the sense that it uses external combustion. They use pistons for the crankshaft, but unlike the alternatives they have no valves for no gas ever enters or leaves the cylinders.
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Is the United States drifting toward “war socialism”?
Posted in June 30th, 2009
We can still hope for unprecedented cooperation to manage the coming decline. But Jay Hanson (dieoff.org) may be right that if that cooperation doesn’t emerge, we may be faced with a decision about making preparations for an all-out and probably violent scramble for the world’s remaining resources–a contest in which a disciplined, cohesive and militarized society has the best chance of survival. Is he missing a viable third or fourth way?
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Disaster Transitionism
Posted in June 30th, 2009
by kristinsponsler in Community, Economics, Global, Human ecology & behaviour, Media & persuasion, Oil, Political movements, Solutions
If you haven’t read Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, you really should. It’s an examination of how the Chicago School of Economics and its adherents have taken advantage of or created crises to further their privatization agendas.
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