“‘The Altamont is killing more eagles than the local population can reproduce,’ says [Doug] Bell [wildlife program manager at the East Bay Regional Park District] who does research on golden eagles. ‘It’s taking out more youngsters than they can produce and replace themselves with. Their population is going down the drain’.”
The wind energy company that received a controversial extension this March to continue operating hundreds of old wind turbines in the Altamont Pass is now planning to shut them down, according to an email KQED has obtained. The company might also be replacing them with fewer new turbines, a move that would make its operation safer for birds.
Altamont Winds, Inc. (AWI), one of the largest operators in the East Bay’s Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area, told the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) in an Oct.…
Continue Reading“The potential for traditional geothermal power plants is limited by the scarcity of areas in the United States where geothermal energy is available, and by the diminishing supply of water as the geothermal resources age. In California, waste water has been used to augment the natural supply of water.”
Electricity has been produced successfully from geothermal sources for decades. The first successful geothermal power plant dates at least from 1911 in Larderello, Italy.
Today, in the United States, there are successful geothermal power plants in California and in Nevada.
The potential for traditional geothermal power plants is limited by the scarcity of areas in the United States where geothermal energy is present, much less commercial, and by the diminishing supplies as geothermal resources age. In California, waste water has been used to augment the natural supply of water.…
Continue ReadingAnother Halloween has come and gone. But the Malthusian virus of doom-and-gloom toward self-interested, voluntary choice rages on. The neo-Malthusians may now concede that we are not running out of resources, but the new line is that we cannot mine and burn what we know we have because we are running out of climate.
More can be added to this list, but the ‘big three’ of today’s alarmism are climate scientist James Hansen, Obama’s science advisor John Holdren, and deep ecologist and founder of 350.org, Bill McKibben. Some quotations follow:
“We have at most ten years—not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse emissions.”
-James Hansen, 2006. “The Threat to the Planet.” New York Times Review of Books
… Continue Reading“We cannot afford to put off [climate policy] change any longer.