Oasis Montana Fall 2006
Newsletter
page 4 - RE news bites & Quotable quotes
Renewable Energy News Bites:
Mayor Nickels of Seattle has decided to fight globe warming
gasses with a comprehensive plan to make cars, power plants and
furnaces more efficient.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/286629_climate27.html for
more information.
Renewables are making progress on the federal level: though
several major bills won’t be passed this year, the large number of
bills out there addressing renewable energy concerns and projects
indicated the maturation and popularity of the industry, according
to industry experts.
www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=45977 and
www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=45923 for
information on congressional interest in the technologies.
“'The decline of global oil production seems now irreversible.
It is bound to occur over a number of transitions, the first of
which I have called T1, which has just begun in 2006,” writes the
former Iranian oil executive. Dr. Bakhtiari talks about peak oil in
a very interesting article at
www.dailyreckoning.co.uk/article/06092006.html
A U.S. General in Iraq calls for renewable power for military
use; the head U.S. commander in western Iraq has sent the
Pentagon a ‘priority 1’ request for solar modules and wind
generators to assist with their diesel laden power supplies. The
U.S. military spends more money on transporting fuel than on the
fuel itself, and their diesel generators make a ‘hot spot’ that can
call enemy attention to U.S. outposts; read the article at
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0907/p01s04-usmi.html . The
general claims that lessening the army’s fuel use will reduce
casualties.
Trying to heat your pool? Or pools? Sandia Labs has a nice
website to see if you qualify for loans; this site is most useful if
you have a big pool, or have several pools, and is a quick qualifier
for third party solar pool financing:
http://energy.sandia.gov/QQ.htm for the lowdown.
Problem ‘hot spots’ in solar modules? In August of this year
we received a bulletin from Sharp Electronics Corporation that
certain modules purchased between September of 2005 and January of
2006 may develop a burn mark between the junction box and the buss
bar; modules that may be affected are the ND-200U1, ND-205U1,
ND-208U1 and ND-6AE1DA and 6KE1DA. Even more recently, we received
notice from our BP distributor that certain BP modules (and
fortunately we have sold very few of them) may be affected with a
similar problem, limited to modules produced between 2002 and 2004,
including the BP Solar 3, 4 and 5 series, as well as the SX line. We
appreciate Sharp and BP keeping us appraised, and we have more
information we can send you if you think you have modules that may
be affected.
Energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies will play
major roles in addressing global energy technologies, according
to this (1 MB PDF) article by Chuck Kutscher from the July/August
issue of Solar Today magazine: take a peek at
http://www.ases.org/chapter_newsletter/2006/JA06/Climate_Change_JA06.pdf
U.S. Windpower Reaches 10 Gigawatt Milestone: For the first
time, Texas has edged-out California as the leading wind power
producer in the U.S., with the highest cumulative capacity. Texas’s
total is currently at 237 MW of capacity—enough to power 600,000
homes. View this good news and other related information at
www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=45703
QUOTABLE QUOTES:
“God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease,
and avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot
save them from fools.” - John Muir
"BEST PRICE - BEST SERVICE - BEST QUALITY ---- pick any two"
- sign seen in a local hardware store
“Walking isn’t a lost art — one must, by some means, get to the
garage.”
- Evan Esar
“Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes” - if you can read this
you’re overeducated.
“I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity’” - Edgar A.
Poe
“It’s not easy being green.” - Kermit the Frog
“Do not speak unless you can improve upon the silence.” Quaker
saying
“Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s
right.”
- Isaac Asimov
“The scarcest resource is not oil, metals, clean air, capital, labor
or technology. It is our willingness to listen to each other and
learn from each other, and to seek the truth rather than seek to be
right.” - Donella Meadows
“It’s a shallow life that doesn’t give a person a few scars.” -
Garrison Keillor
“A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.” -
Betrand de Jouvenel
“A computer is like an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no
mercy.” - Joseph Campbell
“If the desire to kill and the opportunity to kill always came
together, who would escape hanging?” - Mark Twain
“In the end, our society will be defined not only by what we create,
but by what we refuse to destroy.” - John C. Sawhill
“Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep
deciding on what to have for dinner.’” - James Bovard
“Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics. I can assure
you that mine are still greater.” - Albert Einstein, writing a
letter to a 12-year-old boy.
“We have become great because of the lavish use of our
resources...but the time has come to inquire seriously what will
happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil
and gas are exhausted.” - President Theodore Roosevelt, 5/13/1908
Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtfully committed citizens
can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” -
Margaret Mead
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