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If you’re looking for a simple way to reduce home cooling costs, solar film and solar screens can be great solutions. Screens, a special mesh that blocks sunlight from reaching your window, and film, which is essentially a special tinting application that blocks heat and glare, are two cost-effective simple solutions to beat the summer’s heat. By blocking the sun from hitting windows and entering your home or office, you prevent heat from building up that will then need to be cooled by air conditioning
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Solar Screens and Solar Film for Windows, An Overview
Coal combustion isn’t healthy (see Accounting for total harm from coal would add “close to 17.8¢/kWh of electricity generated” ). Rep. Barton (R-TX) is not a “medical doctor,” but he plays one in Congress, deciding his own “hypothesis” about the health effects of mercury, soot, and smog is better than the decades of peer-reviewed literature on the subject. Better get out the head vice before reading Brad Johnson’s report (with video): At a congressional hearing on Friday designed to lay the groundwork for an effort to delay critical EPA toxic pollution standards , Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) claimed that reducing emissions of toxic mercury, sulfur dioxide and soot would not bring health benefits. Though conceding he is “not a medical doctor,” Barton offered the “hypothesis” that EPA estimates of the benefits of its proposed air toxics rule are “pulled out of the thin air” because there is no “medical negative” to the pollution: To actually cause poisoning or a premature death you have to get a large concentration of mercury into the body. I’m not a medical doctor , but my hypothesis is that’s not going to happen! You’re not going to get enough mercury exposure or SO2 exposure or even particulate matter exposure! I think the EPA numbers are pulled out of the thin air ! Watch it: The new power plant toxics rule will put over 30,000 people to work upgrading plants to dramatically reduce toxic mercury and other chemicals that cause neurological damage to fetuses and babies. Those upgrades will also cut enough particulate pollution to prevent as many as 17,000 premature deaths , 11,000 heart attacks, 120,000 cases of childhood asthma symptoms, 11,000 cases of acute bronchitis among children, 12,000 emergency room visits and hospital admissions and 850,000 days of work missed due to illness.
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Joe ‘I am not a doctor’ Barton denies any “medical negative” for mercury, smog, and soot pollution
The US Department of Energy has offered a conditional commitment for a $2.1 billion loan guarantee to support Units 1 and 2 of the Blythe Solar Power Project, a 484-megawatt solar thermal plant to be built in California. Sponsored by Solar Trust of America, the facility will be built adjacent to the City of Blythe in Riverside County and is expected to create over 1,000 construction jobs and approximately 80 operations jobs. The plant will help avoid an estimated 710,000-plus tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually, equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from over 123,000 vehicles. Units 1 and 2 of the Blythe development represent the first phase of a larger project that, when completed, will generate 1,000 megawatts of solar power using parabolic trough technology. Units 1 and 2 will include HelioTroughT collectors, which feature a larger yet simplified design, making them less expensive to build and install, and more efficient than earlier trough technology. The project will be the first concentrating solar power (CSP) parabolic trough plant to use an air-cooled condenser unit, which will decrease water use by nearly 90 per cent compared with a water-cooled CSP facility. The project will sell all of its electricity output to Southern California Edison and will deliver power into the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) power grid. Read more here … Related posts: Google-backed project to double solar thermal in US California sees ‘world’s largest solar deal’ California OKs solar thermal contract
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Advanced solar project wins $2.1bn loan guarantee
Say one thing for smart meters and their vocal opponents: it’s certainly helped liven up conversations about some formerly dry subjects. When, for example, could you have previously imagined the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) being heckled at a Silicon Valley event … while discussing the minutiae of AT&T’s merger with T-Mobile, no less? But that’s exactly what happened this week, as FCC chair Julius Genachowski was answering questions about the pending merger, all of it captured in a YouTube video posted by VentureBeat (the fireworks begin at around the 4:31 moment). The protesters were eventually removed, but not before delivering dramatic assertions like, “Three per cent of the population is electromagnetically sensitive,” “Millions of people are getting sick,” “Cellphones cause brain tumours — wake up,” and, simply, “Stop smart meters.” It’s hard not to utter the word “Luddite” upon seeing outbursts like this.
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When smart meter opponents attack
Photo Credit: Alan Brandt The switch has been flipped on Facebook’s first owned and operated data center.