Thursday, October 27th, 2011
KEES VAN DER LEUN, - Grist
Stephan: This is very good news, and I am sure the American invented, but German and Chinese built equipment we will import will make a huge difference in the Green transition out of the petroleum era.
Kees van der Leun has an M.Sc. in physics from Utrecht University. In 1986, he joined Ecofys as its third employee. Ecofys is an international consultancy specialized in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and climate change. At present, he is its COO.
Click through to see the graphs which accompany this report, and you can also download the reports referenced in this piece.
For a long time, the holy grail of solar photovoltaics (PV) has been ‘grid parity,’ the point at which it would be as cheap to generate one’s own solar electricity as it is to buy electricity from the grid. And that is indeed an important market milestone, being achieved now in many places around the world. But recently it has become clear that PV is set to go beyond grid parity and become the cheapest way to generate electricity.
Whenever I say this I encounter incredulity, even vehement opposition, from friends and foes of renewable energy alike. Apparently, knowledge of the rapid developments of the last few years has not been widely disseminated. But it’s happening, right under our noses! It is essential to understand this so that we can leverage it to rapidly switch to a global energy system fully based on renewable energy.
Solar cells.A hundred solar cells, good for 380 watts of solar PV power.Photo: Ariane van DijkWorking on solar PV energy at Ecofys since 1986, I have seen steady progression: efficiency goes up, cost goes down. But it was only on a 2004 visit to Q-Cells’ solar cell factory in Thalheim, Germany, that it dawned on me that […]
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Wednesday, October 26th, 2011
JAEAH LEE, - Mother Jones
Stephan: Once again we have evidence that lack of proper corporate regulation led to a disaster. This time to a generation of little girls having their lives blighted because their health was trumped by profit. And note that the FDA still does not support a ban on BPA because the plastics industry finds BPA so cheap to use and profitable to sell. We need a new paradigm.
A new study shows that girls who were exposed to chemical bisphenol-A (BPA) as fetuses are more highly prone to hyperactive, anxious, aggressive, and depressed behavior than boys of similar age. BPA, an estrogen-mimicking chemical used to harden plastic, is found in consumer products ranging widely from canned soups to baby bottles and grocery receipts.
The study, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, joins a mounting body of evidence linking BPA to various reproductive and developmental diseases. The study’s authors tested urine samples of 244 mothers during pregnancy and at birth and of their children for the first three years. The urine tests showed BPA in 84 percent of the women’s samples and in 96 percent of the children’s, with indications that behavior problems in the girls rose with rising BPA levels. But while the study shows a strong correlation between behavioral change and BPA levels, its authors say more research is needed.
Meanwhile, other studies in recent years have linked BPA exposure to impaired thyroids, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, breast and prostate cancer, and infertility in both men and women. The Pediatrics study confirms two previous ones finding that prenatal exposure to BPA affects child behavior, and it’s the first […]
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Wednesday, October 26th, 2011
DAVID EDWARDS, - The Raw Story
Stephan: This is what the Right wants to replace Planned Parenthood with. Just another aspect of its war on women.
A North Carolina abortion rights group revealed Monday that most ‘crisis pregnancy centers
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Wednesday, October 26th, 2011
TOM ENGELHARDT, - AlterNet
Stephan: Some will remember that some time ago I ran a report on the size of the National Security State, saying it totaled more than a trillion dollars a year. Several readers at the time wrote to say I was buying into 'left wing disinformation.' Well here is further evidence that the figure really is as big as I had cited. This amount a money is so large most people cannot even tell you how many zeros it takes to make a trillion -- in the U.S., the U.K. and most developed nations it is 12 zeroes, 1,000,000,000,000.
Think of Iraq as the AIG of wars — the only difference being that the bailout there didn’t involve just three payouts. More than eight years after the Bush administration invaded that country, the bailout is, unbelievably enough, still going. Even as the U.S. military withdraws, the State Department is planning to spend billions more in taxpayer dollars to field an army of hired-gun contractors to replace it. Afghanistan? It could have been the Lehman Brothers of conflicts, but when Barack Obama entered the Oval Office he chose the Citigroup model instead, and surged troops in twice in 2009. In other words, he double-TARPed that war, and ever since, the bailout money has been flooding in.
Until now — as the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations make clear — ‘too big to fail
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Wednesday, October 26th, 2011
MARIA CHENG, Medical Writer - KCBY/The Associated Press
Stephan: Here is what may be some good news -- your cell phone probably won't kill you.
LONDON — Danish researchers can offer some reassurance if you’re concerned about your cellphone: Don’t worry. Your device is probably safe.
The biggest study ever to examine the possible connection between cellphones and cancer found no evidence of any link, suggesting that billions of people who are rarely more than a few inches from their phones have no special health concerns.
The Danish study of more than 350,000 people concluded there was no difference in cancer rates between people who had used a cellphone for about a decade and those who did not.
Last year, a separate large study found no clear connection between cellphones and cancer. But it showed a hint of a possible association between very heavy phone use and glioma, a rare but often deadly form of brain tumor. However, the numbers of heavy users was not sufficient to make the case.
That study of more than 14,000 people in multiple countries, in addition to animal experiments, led the International Agency for Research on Cancer to classify electromagnetic energy from cellphones as ‘possibly carcinogenic,’ adding it to a list that also includes things such as coffee and gasoline engine exhaust.
But that designation does not mean the phones necessarily pose a risk. […]
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