This fully animated website educates viewers on issues of animal cruelty in our society. Shockwave Flash is required.

Click Here! 

Solar Tower by EnviroMissin

Fuji's batteries are becoming more environmental friendly. This is just the kind of spirit we like in production companies! Check them out here:

http://www.greenfuji.com/

Nissan LEAF™: Polar Bear

Solar Power Towers Coming To California

The United States of America will now produce clear power that can light up as many as 11000 to 277500 homes in the country. The Sectary of Interior Ken Salazar has given a go ahead to the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating system, a project proposed by BrightSource of Oakland that can produce up to 370 megawatt of clear energy and generate nearly 1100 opportunities for employment. The project, located in San Bernardino Country, California, is the inaugural large-scale solar energy project on US public soil to use the power tower.

• The project, which will be in three phases, will finish by the year 2013.
• This know-how takes the help of mirror fields so that solar energy is pointed on the power tower receivers closer to every array. To generate electricity, Steam from the solar boilers in the towers is used to drive a turbine and electricity is produced.

How will it help the Administration.
The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating system will be one project that will be a win-win situation for both the administration and BrightSource.

• This will give a boost to administration’s efforts for quick growth of production of renewable energy on public property on a large scale. Whereas the Sectary of Interior had given a green signal to first of such projects on October 5, with Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating system, this figure has reached to 3.
• A day later, Salzar also signed a lease deal with Cape Wind to generate 468 megawatts of clean renewable electricity for Nantucket Sound Communities by purchasing a 130 turbine offshore wind farm.
• This would be the first lease on the Outer Continental Shelf to develop commercial wind energy.
• All these efforts will help USA to build a clean energy economy that could generate 1124 megawatts of clean energy to lit-up between 337000 and 843000 homes.
• It will reduce carbon emission and help the nation as a whole by making USA independent in its energy needs and strengthen its national security.

How will it help BrightSource Energy.

• The decision gives the power to Interior’s Bureau of Land management to give a site in the Southern California’s Mojave Desert, close to the Primm, Nevada border, to BrightSource so that they can use it for 30 years, provided they comply with all conditions including rent.
• BrightSource will be eligible to recover 30 percent of their cost, which the energy developers can recover under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, provided they have started the construction work before or in 2010. The U.S. department of Energy has also awarded them $ 1.37 billion in conditional loan guarantees as per the provisions of Recovery act.
• The project Ivanpah is processed by Bureau of Land Management and the California Energy Commission (CEC) cooperative model established by an October 12, 2009 agreement. It is based on an agreement between Secretary Salazar and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, which tells the Interior and state agencies to take initiative to develop renewable energy in the land of California, which is best suited to the environment.

Environmental hazards And public accountability.
Keeping with the norms of the state- private partnership and the fact that it is working on harnessing alternative means of energy, BrightSource is required to make its share of contribution to protect the environment. BrightSource will be needed to acquire around 7300 mitigation acres. According to a plan of the US Fish and Wildlife services, which BrightSource has to follow, it has to test 3 million Desert Tortoise selected by Bureau of Land Management in California for diseases and then monitor them by locating them to a more suitable place. The company will also have to contribute to the joint compensation fund created by Federal and State agencies and operated by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for the negative effect it causes to various resources including water and wildlife.
As a part of its social duty, BrightSource has allowed its solar energy enhancing projects to go through various public scrutinies for environment hazards. These include:

• Public scoping in 2007
• Draft environment Impact Statement in 2009
• Full public involvement in 2009
• A supplement draft in 2010 before a final environment Impact Statement was prepared.

As noted by Salazar, important changes were made in the project. The size of BrightSource’s project was cut by 15%, from 4,073 acres down to 3,471 acres and the number of heliostats (solar mirrors) from 214,000 to 173,500 by the Bureau of Land Management after this scrutiny.
Reacting to these changes made in the project after public scrutiny, Salazar said, “Since it is essential that we learn from our past experiences to make certain that we wisely develop clean energy at the appropriate places, I am happy that changes have been made to improve the project.”

Linkin Park - What I've Done

Song dedicated to global warming. Enjoy!

Human Effects: Air Pollution and Heat...

Human Effects: Air Pollution and Heat... Summary

The sprawling urban metropolis of Vancouver, British Columbia.
As the human population has grown in size and become more industrialized, societies have increased their impact on the atmospheric environment. The most dramatic effects result from the release of numerous gases and particulates. Although many of the emissions that we consider pollutants result from natural processes, rapid dispersion of these materials prevents them from causing negative impacts. In industrial and urban areas, on the other hand, these emissions are concentrated into smaller areas and often lead to serious problems.
Some atmospheric pollutants are released directly into the atmosphere (primary pollutants), while others result from transformations of other gases (secondary pollutants). Particulates are solid and liquid aerosols that can be produced as either primary or secondary pollutants. Recent research has shown that the health effects of the smallest particulates are most critical because they are easily lodged in lung tissue. Pollutant gases include carbon oxides, sulfur compounds, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds (also called hydrocarbons), and photochemically formed gases (the most notable of which is ozone). Each gas presents its own set of health problems, ranging from reduced immunity to permanent lung damage to cardiovascular problems.
Up until the middle part of the twentieth century, efforts to control these emissions were instituted on a local scale. Beginning in 1955, the U.S. government began to enact laws designed to improve air quality across the nation and reduce the number of major health problems that result from air pollution. The original Clean Air Act and its amendments have had a dramatic impact on air quality. This legislation has required the formation of local agencies to monitor pollution levels and ensure compliance with federal standards. It has also required the automobile industry, power utilities, ore smelting plants, and manufacturing industries to reduce the amount of their emissions. While reductions in many pollutants have been dramatic, numerous cities in the United States still have not met clean air goals.
The amount of air pollution does not depend entirely on the activities of people; atmospheric conditions also affect the dispersal of pollutants. If winds are strong and constantly shift direction, pollutants are distributed over a larger area and concentrations decrease. Statically unstable air also favors the dilution of gases and particulates by enhancing vertical mixing. On the other hand, stable conditions and, in particular, the presence of an inversion, can greatly restrict vertical motions and concentrate pollutants near the ground.
Human impacts on the atmosphere are not restricted to pollution. The urban heat island is a well-known phenomenon in which changes in the surface (e.g., the replacement of vegetated surfaces with concrete and asphalt), the existence of buildings with vertical walls, and the release of heat as a by-product of human activity combine to increase temperatures. These increases are most notable during the evening and nighttime hours and in the winter season. We have now looked at the natural processes that make up daily weather, and the ways humans analyze, predict, and alter the resultant patterns. The next two chapters concern the longer-term state of the atmosphere—the climate