Congestion San Francisco: the criticism crunch
The narrow hilly streets are packed during commute hours fogging up the city with exhaust.
Should San Francisco required a congestion tax?
The proposal:
http://www.contracostatimes.com/search/ci_10090870?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com
The reaction:
http://www.contracostatimes.com/search/ci_10117757?IADID=Search-www.contracostatimes.com-www.contracostatimes.com
The sober view:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/04/AR2005060401388.html
Of course, there are alternatives....
Critical Mass: the bicycle solution to traffic?
Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7-MxK8AvHI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erVP1iD9o9M
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Waste Coal Use?
What happens after the headlines?
Headline:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/08/020812070617.htm
Next:
ComEnergy was formed by CSIRO and Liquatech Turbine Company in
2003 to commercialise the hybrid coal gas turbine technology developed by
CSIRO. The technology allows waste coal and methane to be burnt effi ciently to
produce electricity. In June 2006, The Technology Transfer Centre
58% of Liquatech Pty Ltd was acquired by EESTech Inc. At the close of the
2006-07 fi nancial year CSIRO sold its 50% stake in ComEnergy to EESTech Inc,
a US listed company.
Now: The name was changed. The technology:
http://eestechinc.com/index.php?page=16
How clean can coal be?
Headline:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/08/020812070617.htm
Next:
ComEnergy was formed by CSIRO and Liquatech Turbine Company in
2003 to commercialise the hybrid coal gas turbine technology developed by
CSIRO. The technology allows waste coal and methane to be burnt effi ciently to
produce electricity. In June 2006, The Technology Transfer Centre
58% of Liquatech Pty Ltd was acquired by EESTech Inc. At the close of the
2006-07 fi nancial year CSIRO sold its 50% stake in ComEnergy to EESTech Inc,
a US listed company.
Now: The name was changed. The technology:
http://eestechinc.com/index.php?page=16
How clean can coal be?
Post-Industrial Gardening
When I decided to put in a biointensive garden, I knew the double-dig would be hard work. Discovering that I had to do an archeology excavation instead meant pouring more sweat into the soil. Apparently, the company that built my house decided to use landfill instead of dirt, then covered it with 3 inches of burmuda grass turf. Underneath lay 2 foot blocks of concrete, 8-12 in chunks of concrete, spark plugs, rusted fishing weights, wire and nail, conduit, shards of glass, plastic hotels from Monopoly, 15 year old styrofoam cups. an old pocket knife, even an arrowhead. My shovel lost its tip, I nearly lost my patience when the volume of trash filled a 5 gallon bucket for every 12 square feet dug, and my creed, "You can't throw it away, there is no away", got reinforced.
After digging the garden three times and running the dirt through at sieve, I have redeeming my backyard from the construction waste and garbage. How are those in poverty going to dig without my hardened steel shovel.
Cut your waste stream or the world will suffer the consequences.
After digging the garden three times and running the dirt through at sieve, I have redeeming my backyard from the construction waste and garbage. How are those in poverty going to dig without my hardened steel shovel.
Cut your waste stream or the world will suffer the consequences.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Beginnings...
Beginnings...
There is a Jewish proverb that says "All beginnings are hard," The first beginnings are perhaps harder than even the proverb makers knew.
Life's beginnings are a mystery. I taught AP Biology for a number of years. One old exam question used to fascinate me. What characteristics would the first cell have to have? My students rarely got it because it involved a type of thinking new to them.
The answer key listed these as some of the crucial traits:
small, single-celled, lipid bilayer membrane, DNA, a mechanism for making proteins, a means of taking in nutrients (diffusion, I suspect), a means of getting rid of wastes (also diffusion), ATP, and the ability to reproduce. If you've not studied biology, that may not sound like much, but if you have, the chemical impossibility of making ATP without enzymes while not being able to make enzymes without ATP makes this ludicrous. This process cannot be done in a lab without very specialized conditions which are in no way similar to early Earth conditions. Reproduction of DNA is far more complex. The DNA code had to match the code for the necessary proteins, in fact had to be used to make those proteins, another complex process.
Yet the question was asking about the FIRST cell.
How could such complexity come to be?
I have yet to see a plausible answer to this AP Biology question.
Beginnings are indeed hard.
There is a Jewish proverb that says "All beginnings are hard," The first beginnings are perhaps harder than even the proverb makers knew.
Life's beginnings are a mystery. I taught AP Biology for a number of years. One old exam question used to fascinate me. What characteristics would the first cell have to have? My students rarely got it because it involved a type of thinking new to them.
The answer key listed these as some of the crucial traits:
small, single-celled, lipid bilayer membrane, DNA, a mechanism for making proteins, a means of taking in nutrients (diffusion, I suspect), a means of getting rid of wastes (also diffusion), ATP, and the ability to reproduce. If you've not studied biology, that may not sound like much, but if you have, the chemical impossibility of making ATP without enzymes while not being able to make enzymes without ATP makes this ludicrous. This process cannot be done in a lab without very specialized conditions which are in no way similar to early Earth conditions. Reproduction of DNA is far more complex. The DNA code had to match the code for the necessary proteins, in fact had to be used to make those proteins, another complex process.
Yet the question was asking about the FIRST cell.
How could such complexity come to be?
I have yet to see a plausible answer to this AP Biology question.
Beginnings are indeed hard.
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