, - University of Missouri-Columbia
Stephan: Here is yet another development in the solar technology trend. When one sees this kind of research one has to wonder what could be accomplished in making the Green Transition if war level money were being funneled in this direction.
Placing profit above all else causes us so much pain.
Thanks to Damien Broderick, PhD.
Efficiency is a problem with today’s solar panels; they only collect about 20 percent of available light. Now, a University of Missouri engineer has developed a flexible solar sheet that captures more than 90 percent of available light, and he plans to make prototypes available to consumers within the next five years.
Patrick Pinhero, an associate professor in the MU Chemical Engineering Department, says energy generated using traditional photovoltaic (PV) methods of solar collection is inefficient and neglects much of the available solar electromagnetic (sunlight) spectrum. The device his team has developed – essentially a thin, moldable sheet of small antennas called nantenna – can harvest the heat from industrial processes and convert it into usable electricity. Their ambition is to extend this concept to a direct solar facing nantenna device capable of collecting solar irradiation in the near infrared and optical regions of the solar spectrum.
Working with his former team at the Idaho National Laboratory and Garrett Moddel, an electrical engineering professor at the University of Colorado, Pinhero and his team have now developed a way to extract electricity from the collected heat and sunlight using special high-speed electrical circuitry. This team also partners with Dennis Slafer of MicroContinuum, Inc., […]
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JAY WALLJASPER, - AlterNet
Stephan: Here is a lovely bit of good news. I can also report that throughout Cascadia, the bio-region from above Vancouver to San Francisco, there is an emerging movement focused on creating thriving and resilient communities. Cascadia has citizen movements that are committed to getting through the perfect storm of transition we face in the most life-affirming way, whatever the rest of the country does. This report, is more polemic than I would like, but it gives a good sense of the flavor of our public conversation out here.
Jay Walljasper is editor of OnTheCommons.org, a news and culture website devoted to recognizing the importance of the commons -- those things that belong to all of us -- in modern life.
Everyone who cares about vibrant, vital cities loves Portland.
Oregon’s largest city manages to excel at almost every measure of urban livability from streetcars to bike commuters to microbreweries.
In fact, Portland gets so much positive press that our jealousy of the place can sometimes overpower our love. That explains the humorously jaundiced look at the city on the TV series Portlandia, where it is lampooned as a vegan Shangri-La where no one really has a job.
Here in Minneapolis, we’ve grown accustomed to chanting ‘We’re number two!
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Stephan: Thirty five years ago the U.S. and Canadian healthcare systems were very much the same in terms of their outcomes and costs. Then they diverged. Canada went to single payer and we went to the present day illness profit system. Think of it as a laboratory experiment. Two quite similar and adjacent nations, each pick a different path and, now, 35 years later we can look at how it all turned out. Please click through and look at the charts comparing them today.
Now we are going get to see how Vermont does with a system not quite as good as Canada, but significantly better than the rest of the U.S.
While the silence from most of US mainstream media remains deafening, the print and online news publication for physicians published by the American Medical Association – American Medical News – reported yesterday May 16 that Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin has scheduled a bill-signing ceremony for May 26 during which he will sign a bill approved by the Vermont Democratic-controlled legislature, with the state Senate voting 21-9 to pass it on May 3, and the House adopting it on May 5 with a 94-49 vote ‘that paves the way for the state to launch a health system approaching a single-payer model later in the decade and to create a state health insurance exchange’.
The measure creates a powerful five-member Green Mountain Care Board, members of which will determine the benefits and craft a funding plan for Green Mountain Care, a state universal health plan. The board would have wide authority over state health spending and health system reform. The bill requires the governor to nominate Green Mountain board members by Oct. 1 and the Vermont Senate to confirm them.
All Vermonters would be eligible for the plan, which would cover hospital services and prescription drugs.
Shumlin had pledged to enact […]
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, - BishopAccountability.org
Stephan: Someone asked me today how many priests have been involved in sexual abuse of children. Here is what, in my view, is a well-grounded answer. The data was compiled by BishopAccountability.org, from reports commissioned by the United State Conference of Catholic Bishops.
This is an appalling report. Imagine this was about postmen, or boy and girl scout leaders. What do you think would be the reaction in those cases?
As of April 11, 2011, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has counted 5,948 clerics ‘not implausibly’ and ‘credibly’ accused in 1950-2010 of sexually abusing minors. The USCCB total omits allegations made in 2003.
As of April 11, 2011, the USCCB has counted 15,736 individuals who have alleged that they were abused as minors by priests. The USCCB total omits persons who made allegations in 2003.
The USCCB hired the John Jay College of Criminal Justice to evaluate data submitted by member bishops regarding the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests, bishops, deacons, and seminarians. In its 2004 report, the John Jay College found that, according to survey forms completed by the bishops, they had received in 1950-2002 ‘not implausible’ allegations of sexual abuse of minors committed by 4,392 priests, including 12 bishops.
In 2004, the USCCB commissioned the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University to begin collecting annual data on allegations and settlements, and starting in Spring 2005, CARA has published a report each year. (See Bendyna’s 2/15/05 letter to Skylstad describing the commission, in the 2005 Report, PDF p. 12.) Among other data, that report counts the number of diocesan and religious order priests […]
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WHITNEY MCFERRON, - Bloomberg
Stephan: Here is the latest on the food trend. This of course is part of the climate change trend. The increase in extreme weather events is one of its manifestations.
Wheat crops in the U.S. Great Plains are showing signs that production may plunge more than the government forecast last week as hot weather and a lack of rain erode plant quality and force farmers to harvest early.
As of May 15, U.S. winter-wheat was in the worst condition since 1996, with 44 percent of fields rated poor or very poor by the government. The National Weather Service estimates rainfall in the past two months was less than half of normal in much of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, where insurance adjuster David Reed said he’s had 300 farmer claims for drought damage in his area this season, already 10 times more than last year.
‘I went out to look at fields, and it looked like the tips of the heads were burnt
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