LittleYellowFrog

Boeing have just flown a fuel cell powered light aircraft with a person on board – they picked a motor-glider for this trial flight which seems a sensible choice.

In other news, Ireland is installing the world’s largest underwater turbine built by Seagen.

Both of these articles came to my attention via InventorSpot

In another article which shows how the environmental movement is, at times, running to stand still, the BBC reports that we are on the cusp of a huge increase in air travel from India. Target passenger numbers of 100 million passengers a year for Delhi doesn’t bode well for the environment.

Nevertheless, the West is hardly in a position to preach here – we don’t seem to be doing a great deal to discourage air travel ourselves.

The BBC is reporting on a UN paper about biofuels. The UN-Energy inter-agency group have published a paper entitled “Sustainable Bioenergy: A Framework for Decision Makers” (PDF download). It raises concerns that over-enthusiastic production of biofuels has the potential to displace food crop production, lead to clearing of existing land and potentially exclude local participation in this new aspect of the economy. However, if managed properly, some or all of these problems can be avoided.

It seems the UK has just had the second warmest winter on record according to UK Met Office. The Met Office spokesman also observes that the five warmest years on record are the last five.

Business Week points to a new book by Giles Slade entitled “Made to Break”.

The book is about the planned obsolecense of many of today’s consumer goods and what we (as producers or consumers) might do to break this cycle and get away from the throwaway society.

Sounds like it might make an interesting read.

I had read about this a while ago but had forgotten that I’d seen it until I came across it again this week and was dismayed by it once more.

Came across what? Why, the story of the ongoing – destruction of the Appalachian mountains of course.

Destruction? Why? Why, to mine coal of course. These folks are literally blowing up mountains to get at the coal. The debris that remains fills up the valleys.

Watch the video at the above site. That such beautiful landscapes are being destroyed for their coal alone is a crying shame.

The Telegraph reports that most Britons believe climate change is happening and agree that something should be done about it – however, their preference is, perhaps naturally, for taxes which will not affect them personally.

Is climate change for real or are we getting carried away with ever-increasing bad news? New Scientist looks at both sides of the (often politically-motivated) debate.

ScienceDaily reports that atmospheric Carbon Dioxide levels are now at their highest levels since records began (379.1ppm in 2005). The article says that there has been a 35.4% rise in CO2 levels since the 1700’s.

The WMO report itself can be found here

If you missed the Solar Power 2006 conference held in San Jose in between 16th and 19th of October don’t worry - you can catch video versions of all the presentations online at this TV Worldwide page.

A number of the speakers presentations are also available from the same place.

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