Geocentric Universe

Our planet, among other dimensions

Thursday, July 28, 2005

To illuminate musty corners

According to Slashdot, a startup in Tennessee has developed a way to pipe sunlight into buildings in fiber-optic cables. Imagine how many yawns would be prevented if something like that was installed in every conference room.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Canyonland rush

RedNova is reporting about a resurgence in uranium mining in the plateau country of southeastern Utah, after years where little uranium was mined in the US. Hopefully, it will cause fewer problems than the 1950s frenzy, whose prominent mounds of slag are now targets of costly and laborious cleanup attempts to keep the Colorado River from being polluted. Uranium is now largely mined in Canada and Australia, but the present production rate is less than the amount used by nuclear reactors - apparently there are large stockpiles from earlier decades. (Via PeakOil.)

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Climate court

Grist has a story on how an Inuit representative body intends to complain to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights that the US has been ruining their livelihood through its contributions to greenhouse warming. Legal attempts by Tuvalu and several states to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions haven't come to much.

Monday, July 25, 2005

Oil and beer

Some Danes have brewed the world's first open-source beer, with the recipe and logo released under the Creative Commons License. As some skeptics observe in the guestbook, lots of people already give away beer recipes. Since I have other uses for my bathtub, I'll have to wait for some enterprising local to bring Vores Øl to a local pub for a fair judgement of the value of this contribution to the public domain. (Via Slashdot.)

Meanwhile, Chevron seems to be intensifying its peak-oil-esque promotion, Will You Join Us. According to Edgar in Crisis Energética, they're advertising on Mexican CNN, definitely several steps above the pastoral SUV ads we see more often here.

Sunday, July 24, 2005

Carmaker Survivor

Daniel Akst, in the NY Times (free registration required), tells Ford and GM that promoting fuel-efficient, low-emissions vehicles is one of their few options for becoming profitable anytime soon, given low-cost competition from China. When Bill Ford became CEO a few years ago, there was some hope that Ford would move in that direction, but Ford has instead brought out ever more bulky ATV pretenders, and even the prospect of bankrupcy may not be enough to make them change their ways.

Friday, July 22, 2005

Congress gets serious about saving energy!

Setting the clock forward will magically convince people to turn off lights. A representative from Massachusetts munificently announces "this is a huge victory for sunshine lovers", especially ones that don't like to get up before lunchtime. Airline lobbyists are complaining that it would be complicated to keep flights at the same clock time.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Pedal-powered internet

Ephraim Schwatrz writes in InfoWorld about a nonprofit that's combining regional wireless with solar and bicycle-generated electricity to provide internet service to off-grid African villages. I wonder what it's mostly used for. (Via Maariv.)

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Tours disputations and biodiesel tours

The Manila Times reports on a big conference on population held in France where the effects of population growth on carbon dioxide emissions seem to have been a hot topic. Doesn't sound very new.

In more encouraging news, DaimlerChrysler India says it's testing cars fueled by pure biodiesel in faraway Ladakh. As might be expected, German engineers are involved.

Moving away to our satellite, Google is commemorating the old (36, to be exact) first Moon landing with an extension to their Maps.

Intro

No, I don't particularly believe in the geocentric model. In my vague notion of the universe's shape, it has no center. But earth is far the most interesting planet I know about, and for most purposes, it's very much in the middle of things. I also do earth science for my dissertation research. I said it would be good for there to be a blog devoted to
  • intriguing state-of-planet links I (and my minions) discover,
  • local and global environmental issues,
  • developments in earth science,
  • neat environmentally friendly technology, and
  • informed (or at least thought-provoking) commentary.

For general comments or if you'd like to post here, e-mail me.

Welcome, and happy surfing.