A confidential, 120-page catalogue of spy equipment, originating from British defense firm Cobham and circulated to U.S. law enforcement, touts gear that can intercept wireless calls and text messages, locate people via their mobile phones, and jam cellular communications in a particular area.
The catalogue was obtained by The Intercept as part of a large trove of documents originating within the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, where spokesperson Molly Best confirmed Cobham wares have been purchased but did not provide further information. The document provides a rare look at the wide range of electronic surveillance tactics used by police and militaries in the U.S. and abroad, offering equipment ranging from black boxes that can monitor an entire town’s cellular signals to microphones hidden in lighters and cameras hidden in trashcans. Markings date it to 2014.
Cobham, recently cited among several major British firms exporting surveillance technology to oppressive regimes, has counted police in the United States among its clients, Cobham spokesperson Greg Caires confirmed. The company spun off its “Tactical Communications and Surveillance” business into “Domo Tactical Communications” earlier this year, selling the entity to another company and presumably shifting many of those clients into it. Caires declined […]
DroneSeed’s drones would rapidly reforest logged lands by planting seeds, spraying for invasive species, and monitoring the tree growth process.
Planting trees in remote forest locations is a slow, laborious process that still relies on humans with shovels to do all the work. DroneSeed, a company based in the Pacific Northwest, wants to drastically modernize that process by employing squadrons of drones to plant seeds, spray for invasive species, and monitor the tree growth process.
Forests are important for mitigating the effects of climate change, acting as carbon sinks that absorb as much as 30 percent of annual CO2 emissions. Logging can also be a means to sequester carbon, with wood products in some cases a substitute for fossil-fuel heavy materials such as concrete and steel. Either way, trees need planting, and DroneSeed works with both forestry companies to reforest logged areas, and environmental NGOs to combat deforestation.
In the case of timber companies that work about 7 […]
Fukushima workers
Since the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster, over $628 billion has been spent in the cleanup process and the cost is continuing to climb. Radioactive decontamination, waste disposal and compensation payments are included in this price. Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) is asking for more taxpayer money to finish the job.
“There are numerous problems that are all interconnected, but one of the biggest that we are facing at the moment is the highly contaminated water that is being stored in huge steel tanks at the site,” Aileen Mioko-Smith, an anti-nuclear activist with the group Green Action Japan, told DW. “They are running out of space at the site to put these tanks, the water that is being generated on a daily basis means they have to keep constructing more, and the ones that are not welded have a history of leaking.”
After the nuclear accident TEPCO, and six other utility companies, all charged consumers at least 327 billion yen in rate hikes to help with the costs from the disaster.
Costa Rico
Costa Rica has managed to run on renewable energy for 113 days straight, putting it on course to break its own record from 2015, when it relied on nothing but renewables for 285 days of the year. In total, Costa Rica provided 99% of its energy needs last year with renewables alone. (emphasis added)
The country’s geography helps a lot. The majority of this power comes from hydroelectric plants, which are possible thanks to lots of rain and lots of mountains. But Costa Rica is also diversifying, with ventures in geothermal energy, and also solar—after all, a country doesn’t want to rely on a single source for all its power, especially in these times of unpredictable climate change.
In five years, Costa Rica plans to be carbon neutral. With electricity, this is completely achievable, it seems. But it still runs its cars on gasoline, so switching to electric cars will be far harder. The governments plans on work on offsetting those carbon emissions in other ways.
As […]
Earlier this year, Ellen Williams, the director of ARPA-E, the U.S. Department of Energy’s advanced research program for alternative energy, made headlines when she told the Guardian newspaper that “We have reached some holy grails in batteries.”
Despite very promising results from the 75-odd energy-storage research projects that ARPA-E funds, however, the grail of compact, low-cost energy storage remains elusive.
A number of startups are closer to producing devices that are economical, safe, compact, and energy-dense enough to store energy at a cost of less than $100 a kilowatt-hour. Energy storage at that price would have a galvanic effect, overcoming the problem of powering a 24/7 grid with renewable energy that’s available only when the wind blows or the sun shines, and making electric vehicles lighter and less expensive.
But those batteries are not being commercialized at anywhere near the pace needed to hasten the shift from fossil fuels to renewables. Even Tesla CEO Elon Musk, hardly one to underplay the promise of new technology, has been forced to admit that, for now, the electric-car maker […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
