Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Confidential e-mail reveals that the new Medupi Power Station may not have enough water!

This makes for scary reading! The DA has blown the whistle on the fact that adequate water has not been secured for the new R70 billion, 4200 MW Medupi coal-power station in Limpopo, due for full operation in 2015. In fact, it could precipitate an environmental catastrophe in which Hartebeespoort dam could be pumped dry.

See the following link for the article: http://www.da.org.za/newsroom.htm?action=view-news-item&id=7326

The confidential e-mail is available at: http://www.damediacentre.co.za/documentvault/emailsmedupi.pdf

Frank

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The benefits of efficient building

Buildings = 40% of emissions. Energy Efficiency can cut 1/3 of emissions with investments that pay for themselves. So why don’t we do it?? Frank

http://blog.reegle.info/blog/the-benefits-of-efficient-building.htm#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed

Population growth has no relation to global warming

Quote: ‘...the real problem is the growth in consumers and consumerism– not just “people.”’

http://www.urbansprout.co.za/population_growth_has_no_relation_to_global_warming

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Model shows that China can power itself completely from wind - no coal or nuclear required

Amazing! This should put the wind-cant-be-used-as-baseload denialists into shock!

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/23460/?a=f

Google aims for R0,40 / kWh from solar

If they do it, bye coal and nuclear! Again, it highlights the short sightedness of SA’s current energy policy. We should be doing this research here in SA!

http://www.reuters.com/article/GlobalClimateandAlternativeEnergy09/idUSTRE58867I20090909?pageNumber=1

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Frank & the Proven 15kW Wind Turbine


Ive been on a 3 week overseas mission to meet with suppliers and prospective suppliers. Spent a week in Soctland hands-on with these big 15kW Wind Turbines. The first one in South Africa will be in installed next week!

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

A Moment of Silence

MOMENT OF SILENCE - By EMMANUEL ORTIZ, 11 Sep 2002


Before I start this poem,
I'd like to ask you to join me
In a moment of silence
In honor of those who died in the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon last September 11th.

I would also like to ask you
To offer up a moment of silence
For all of those who have been harassed, imprisoned,
disappeared, tortured, raped, or killed in retaliation for those strikes
For the victims in both Afghanistan and the U.S.

And if I could just add one more thing...
A full day of silence
For the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have died at the
hands of U.S.-backed Israeli
forces over decades of occupation.
Six months of silence for the million and-a-half Iraqi people,
mostly children, who have died of
malnourishment or starvation as a result of an 11-year U.S.
embargo against the country.

Before I begin this poem,
Two months of silence for the Blacks under Apartheid in South Africa,
Where homeland security made them aliens in their own country.
Nine months of silence for the dead in Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Where death rained down and peeled back every layer of
concrete, steel, earth and skin
And the survivors went on as if alive.
A year of silence for the millions of dead in Vietnam - a people,
not a war - for those who
know a thing or two about the scent of burning fuel, their
relatives' bones buried in it, their babies born of it.
A year of silence for the dead in Cambodia and Laos, victims of
a secret war ... ssssshhhhhhh...
Say nothing
we don't want them to learn that they are dead.
Two months of silence for the decades of dead in Colombia,
Whose names, like the corpses they once represented,
have piled up and slipped off our tongues.

Before I begin this poem.
An hour of silence for El Salvador ...
An afternoon of silence for Nicaragua ...
Two days of silence for the Guatemaltecos ...
None of whom ever knew a moment of peace in their living years.
45 seconds of silence for the 45 dead at Acteal, Chiapas

25 years of silence for the hundred million Africans who found
their graves far deeper in the ocean than any building could
poke into the sky.
There will be no DNA testing or dental records to identify their remains.
And for those who were strung and swung from the heights of
sycamore trees in the south, the north, the east, and the west...

100 years of silence...
For the hundreds of millions of Indigenous peoples from this half
of right here,
Whose land and lives were stolen,
In postcard-perfect plots like Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee, Sand Creek,
Fallen Timbers, or the Trail of Tears.
Names now reduced to innocuous magnetic poetry on the
refrigerator of our consciousness ...

So you want a moment of silence?
And we are all left speechless
Our tongues snatched from our mouths
Our eyes stapled shut
A moment of silence
And the poets have all been laid to rest
The drums disintegrating into dust.

Before I begin this poem,
You want a moment of silence
You mourn now as if the world will never be the same
And the rest of us hope to hell it won't be.
Not like it always has
been.

Because this is not a 9/11 poem.
This is a 9/10 poem,
It is a 9/9 poem,
A 9/8 poem,
A 9/7 poem
This is a 1492 poem.

This is a poem about what causes poems like this to be written.
And if this is a 9/11 poem, then:
This is a September 11th poem for Chile, 1971.
This is a September 12th poem for Steven Biko in South Africa, 1977.
This is a September 13th poem for the brothers at Attica Prison, New York,
1971.
This is a September 14th poem for Somalia, 1992.
This is a poem for every date that falls to the ground in ashes
This is a poem for the 110 stories that were never told
The 110 stories that history chose not to write in textbooks
The 110 stories that CNN, BBC, The New York Times, and Newsweek ignored.
This is a poem for interrupting this program.

And still you want a moment of silence for your dead?
We could give you lifetimes of empty:
The unmarked graves
The lost languages
The uprooted trees and histories
The dead stares on the faces of nameless children
Before I start this poem we could be silent forever
Or just long enough to hunger,
For the dust to bury us
And you would still ask us
For more of our silence.

If you want a moment of silence
Then stop the oil pumps
Turn off the engines and the televisions
Sink the cruise ships
Crash the stock markets
Unplug the marquee lights,
Delete the instant messages,
Derail the trains, the light rail transit.

If you want a moment of silence, put a brick through the window of Taco
Bell,
And pay the workers for wages lost.
Tear down the liquor stores,
The townhouses, the White Houses, the jailhouses, the
Penthouses and the Playboys.

If you want a moment of silence,
Then take it
On Super Bowl Sunday,
The Fourth of July
During Dayton's 13 hour sale
Or the next time your white guilt fills the room where my beautiful
people have gathered.

You want a moment of silence
Then take it NOW,
Before this poem begins.
Here, in the echo of my voice,
In the pause between goosesteps of the second hand,
In the space between bodies in embrace,
Here is your silence,
Take it.
But take it all...
Don't cut in line.
Let your silence begin at the beginning of crime.
But we,
Tonight we will keep right on singing
For our dead.

Emmanuel Ortiz is a third-generation Chicano/Puerto
Rican/Irish-American community organizer and spoken word poet residing
in Minneapolis, MN. He currently serves on the board of directors for
the Minnesota Spoken Word Association, and is the coordinator of
Guerrilla Wordfare, a Twin Cities-based grassroots project bringing
together artists of color to address socio-political issues and raise
funds for progressive organizing in communities of color through art
as a tool of social change.

Hawaii Tries Green Tools in Remaking Power Grids

1x Clever Island :) Frank


From http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/science/earth/15hawaii.html?th&emc=th

Thursday, September 10, 2009

One of SA's largest SWH projects rolled out at platinum mine

Awesome to see some big solar water heating projects being rolled out! This one has 270 collectors. At a guess, this system can deliver around 45,000 litres of hot water per day, although they only have 28 000 litres of storage, which is a bit small. It works out at 45 litres each day for each of the 1500 miners– enough for a short quick efficient shower. I hope they were clever enough to put low flow heads on the showers!

As the storage is a bit small, the electrical side will definitely kick-in between shifts, which is a bit of a waste, and on such a large system, why they did not use a heat pump instead of the electrical backup I do not know. Frank

http://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/one-of-sas-largest-swh-projects-rolled-out-at-platinum-mine-2009-09-09

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

PBMR socio-economic report flawed

Greetings from Scotland on a wet and windy day! In the article below the PBMR comes under more flack for a poorly done Socio-Economic Impact Assessment. Not surprising – PBMR’s have poor Socio Economic Impacts! Frank

http://www.energynews.co.za/web_main/article.php?story=20090827203547153&ltype=article

Tuesday, September 01, 2009

Gotta love George.... "Not Even Wrong"

Gotta love George Mobiot, even if the stuff he writes sometimes makes the carbon stand up on the back of your neck! Like:

“The targets and methodology being used by governments and the United Nations - which will form the basis for their negotiations at Copenhagen - are not even wrong; they are irrelevant. Unless there is a radical change of plan between now and December, world leaders will not only be discussing the alignment of deckchairs on the Titanic, but hotly disputing whose deckchairs they really are and who has the responsibility for moving them. Fascinating as this argument may be, it does nothing to alter the course of the liner.”

More below. Frank

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/08/31/not-even-wrong/