Fred Etcheverry lives in Santa Cruz, California with his wife Elsa. He is a freelance high-tech B2B (Business-to-Business) copywriter usually for clients in the nearby Silicon Valley. He is also an engineering consultant and teaches courses in industry and college on computers and electronics. When he is doing none of the above, he swims in the Monterey Bay, hikes in the Santa Cruz redwood forests, visits his adult children, or goes to art galleries, plays and operas with Elsa and friends.
Stan Ovinshisky graduated from high school and took machining courses at a technical school. With this formal education he has made significant contributions to solid-state physics, neurology, chemistry and cybernetics. He also invented an electric car battery. You may recall his appearance in, “Who Killed the Electric Car?”
Troubleshooting and making repairs in shop class utilizes the complete scientific method. To repair a malfunctioning device the student must first hypothesize why it is not working. Next the student must design an experiment (test) to determine the correctness of this hypothesis. The student must repair and test that the device is working.
We need a new model for production and consumption. According to World Watch, “If the consumption aspiration of the wealthiest of nations cannot be satiated, the prospects for corralling consumption everywhere before it strips and degrades our planet beyond recognition would appear to be bleak”
Certainly, the development of these turbines is a case of challenge and response since they were developed to meet the Scandinavian environment. GE and others will develop generators that will provide wind farms offshore where the windiest but harshest environments exist. Animal lover will be delighted to know that sea birds are able to avoid offshore wind farms.
The Texas American Federation of Teachers (AFT) cites the case of a widowed public school teacher that retired with a $900 monthly pension. She would have been eligible to receive $600 survivor benefits based on her husband’s Social Security contribution, but the windfall elimination provision (WEP) eliminated all of her survivor benefits.
Exciting developments are occurring in solar PV (photovoltaic) power generation. New technologies are improving manufacturing processes. Thin-film and organic (plastic) films promise to reduce PV power cost. Solar “grid parity,” the time when solar power will cost the same as fossil fuel power, is coming soon.
Aora-Solar, an Israeli company, has constructed and launched the first solar energy natural gas hybrid electric power plant. The flexibility of their design permits small communities to tap into solar power.
It’s no surprise that the United States Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufactures oppose the American Clean Air and Security Act, but so does Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. Dow Chemical and Ford Motors support it.
US oil, natural gas and coal (fossil energy) companies perpetuate the “energy independence” myth. According to this myth, importation of oil is our energy problem. Buying foreign oil is “the greatest transfer of wealth in history,” and “It sends money to governments that hate us.”
If you have every put your heart into a movement, you know that anyone who is coerced becomes a drag. Unfortunately, the national service issue is surrounded by the others-should-want-to-do-it-for-their-own-good myth.
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