In February I built a PVC-and-plastic-sheeting greenhouse/airlock on my back porch. This weekend I put it back up, adding some plastic shelving and some steel for the frame. I thought about adding fluorescent lights to supplement winter sunlight, but I figure the cost for the bulbs and electricity would defeat the structure's more critical ( Read more... )

"For her 10th birthday, Nicole Kuepper received an inspirational present from her parents - her first solar-energy kit ( Read more... )

One of the best birthday presents I've ever gotten was a copy of "The Millennial Project: Colonizing the galaxy in eight easy steps" by Marshall Savage http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=1-9780316771634-10Read more... )

http://www.conocophillips.com/Tech/energyprize/index.htmRead more... )

" A Spanish company is planning to take 3 square miles of desert southwest of Phoenix and turn them into one of the largest solar power plants in the world ( Read more... )

http://www.slate.com/id/2183606

"The irony of CFLs is that they actually reduce overall mercury emissions in the long run. Despite recent improvements in the industry's technology, the burning of coal to produce electricity emits roughly 0.023 milligrams of mercury per kilowatt-hour. ( Read more... )

I installed a programmable thermostat in January, set to the EPA's recommended energy saving program. I put up thermal curtains on the glass door, fixed the front screen door, put clear plastic covers on a couple windows, and tried in general to cut down on electricity use. And it worked. I went from ~25 kilowatt hours a day to ~16, at the same ( Read more... )

Heat-powered absorption cooling is an old idea. People had kerosene-fueled refrigerators back in the early years of the 20th century ( Read more... )

UPDATE: Yay!

" CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Astronauts successfully unfurled a torn solar power wing at the international space station on Saturday after spacewalker Scott Parazynski cut loose a tangled clump of wires and patched everything up.Read more... )

I saw this post on andrewsullivan.com and thought it was pretty good:

"Any real solution to our climate problems will surely involve building more nuclear power plants - and we should be doing more of that ourselves as well as encouraging many developing countries to do the same. But the knowledge behind nuclear reactors is very hard to insulate ( Read more... )