TheHotSpring.net » Zero-combustion paradigm

Deep Green Economy: Real-time Sustainable Social Justice

Joseph Robertson — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 02:15:07 +0000

We are moving through a period of global economic transition. The new economy will favor complexity over hierarchy, and work with ecosystems and civil society, to achieve a more harmonious relationship between individuals and their environment. There are certain key points that will define this progress and build resiliency and generative capacity into the global economic system...

Toward a Deep Green Economy

Joseph Robertson — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:18:27 +0000

Obama Suspends Tar Sands Pipeline, Pending Review

Joseph Robertson — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:02:47 +0000

Amid intense and gathering pressure from the grassroots to the state government of Nebraska, to a national coalition of activist organizations, tens of thousands of demonstrators and an intensifying drumbeat from leading scientists, Nobel laureates and concerned public officials, Pres. Barack Obama this week ordered the suspension of the Keystone XL pipeline project. The pipeline would carry tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico, for export to other nations, and would run through some of the most sensitive and important fresh water systems in the US.

Nuclear Power & Offshore Drilling May Keep Oil Prices Artificially High

Joseph Robertson — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 18:50:23 +0000

With gasoline prices at record highs in 2008, 2009 and 2010, 2011 has looked like a microcosm of the longer oil-market trend: consistent increases in pricing, fuel costs hurting small business and the middle class, slowing the pace of economic growth in the US, and—maybe most strangely of all—no national policy to motivate [...]

Blueprint for a Renewable Energy Infrastructure Bank

Joseph Robertson — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 22:41:10 +0000

We need a system of cooperative public-private infrastructure financing, a national infrastructure bank. But we also need to use that fabric of cooperative investment and output to foster specific areas of major improvement to our national economy. The model could be replicated across the world, but the US is uniquely positioned to deploy this [...]

Saturation vs. Scalability: Old & Costly vs. Clean & Efficient

Joseph Robertson — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 19:02:43 +0000

The fossil fuel saturation problem, known to states like Texas as an ongoing "energy emergency", means we need to be actively searching not only for alternative fuels, but also for investment opportunities where we can build in drivers of more generalized prosperity, i.e. a restored and strengthened middle class, and accelerating returns in productive capacity.

Solar Roadways to Power Smart Energy Economy (video)

Joseph Robertson — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 17:43:53 +0000

Solar Roadways is proposing a long-view paradigm-shift solution to major infrastructure, energy and climate challenges. The Solar Roadways system would might, at present, cost about three times what it costs to install an asphalt road, but would be more durable more easily replaced in modular fashion, and able to pay for itself by generating [...]

New Development of Carbon Fuels May Be Drag on Economy

Joseph Robertson — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 19:31:41 +0000

Opportunity cost is a serious, long-term stress on economies hampered by rampant governmental corruption, or by severe productive resource deficits—in consumer capital, infrastructure, or long-term reliable energy flows. With the ongoing boom in development of shale gas drilling and tar sands oil recovery, there is now massive investment, into the tens of billions of dollars of public and private money, in high-risk, low-yield ways of extracting carbon-based fuels, with the explicit purpose of extending old-fashioned combustible fuel technologies beyond what would otherwise be economically viable.

Pipeline Rupture Pours Oil into Yellowstone River

Joseph Robertson — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 15:43:57 +0000

The rupture of a pipeline in Montana has caused at least several tens of thousands of barrels of oil to spill into the pristine Yellowstone River, raising concerns about the tar sands pipeline planned to pass through the most important fossil aquifer in North America. The spill is precisely the kind of irreversible and unnecessary [...]

Moving Minds with Citizen-Centered Non-partisan Discourse

Joseph Robertson — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 22:10:05 +0000

Citizens Climate Lobby is an international non-partisan, non-profit volunteer organization, working to build political will for a livable world. To do that, they aim to find an ideologically neutral, democratically viable, market-focused way to reduce the amount of carbon trapped in Earth's atmosphere and speed the transition to clean, renewable fuels.

Graphene: Flexible, Wearable, Ultrathin, Ultrapowerful Electronic Substrate

Joseph Robertson — Sat, 21 May 2011 21:21:18 +0000

Graphene is a single-layer of carbon atoms bound together in a chemical pattern. It can have 300 times the strength of steel, and significantly more conductive ability than today’s semiconductors. And, being made of carbon atoms, it can be produced from abundant resources at what may someday be very low prices.

The result: flexible, wearable, [...]

Carbon Fee and Dividend: to Spur Job Creation, Industrial Boom

Joseph Robertson — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 17:49:19 +0000

There is one way of steering outmoded, combustion-burdened economic systems toward a healthier state-of-the-art 21st-century energy economy, that will not entail rapidly escalating price burdens on a consumer market economy. With a carbon fee and dividend approach, we can make sure that only those interests that refuse to innovate and to improve their standards of operation for power generation pay for falling behind.

Australian Scientists Invent Graphene Paper, 10x Stronger than Steel

Joseph Robertson — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 14:38:46 +0000

Scientists at the University of Technology of Sydney, Australia, have established a process for making paper ten times stronger than steel. This innovation allows for the creation of ultra-lightweight portable devices, and for the development of casings and component materials for airplanes, automobiles, and other weight-sensitive transport technologies.

In effect, graphene paper, with a [...]

The Usership Society: Decentralized Energy Next Stage for Democracy

Joseph Robertson — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:53:47 +0000

Ownership is liberating only if it liberates; the new paradigm has to be a participatory society

In order to push his 2004 bid for re-election, and his radical and untenable economic ideology, George W. Bush touted the need for an “ownership society”. In theory, this meant ordinary people could have access like never before to [...]

Beyond Sustainability: A Deep Green Future

Joseph Robertson — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 17:34:15 +0000

What do we mean when we talk about sustainability? Do we mean forging, after thousands of years of civilization, at last, a truly sustainable relationship with nature? Do we mean "net-zero" resource impact (which, by the way does not necessarily equate to being rid of practices corrosive to natural systems)? Do we mean "living within our means", according to the metabolic limitations of our natural environment?

ClimateTalk #3: Utopia or Oblivion

Joseph Robertson — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 13:00:05 +0000

Global solutions to a global crisis: climate justice & the science of viability
Date: April 7, 2011 @ 2:30 pm
Location: First Floor Lounge, Falvey Memorial Library

For the third ClimateTalks roundtable event of the academic year, two faculty members will present advanced analysis of the climate crisis, from the [...]

Nuclear Crisis, the Folly of Drilling & How to Build a Clean Energy Future

Joseph Robertson — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 16:12:38 +0000

We have the technology, right now, to power our entire national economy on clean energy. What we are lacking is the built infrastructure and the political will to accelerate the transition. This means a major policy shift is required, one that will put the power of choice back in the hands of consumers, limiting the reach of oligarchies that rely on taxpayer funding for combustible fuels and nuclear power.

Total Radioactive Material at Daiichi Far Exceeds Chernobyl

Joseph Robertson — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 14:28:51 +0000

Reports from Japan's NHK television find Fukushima Daiichi reactors contain 560 tons of reactor fuel —70 tons at reactor #1, 90 tons each at reactors 2-5, and 130 tons at reactor #6— and 680 tons of spent fuel rods —50 tons, 100 tons, 90 tons, 130 tons, 160 tons and 150 tons, at reactors 1-6 respectively.

Clean Energy for a Strong Economy (video)

staff — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 01:54:29 +0000

Clean Energy for a Strong U.S.A. is a short film that explores clean energy economy in a new way. You'll hear from laid-off workers given another chance by clean energy investments; veterans who know their role in the clean energy economy will make America safer; and business leaders and investors who see new ways to revitalize our economy and make the United States the global leader in clean energy.

Pres. Obama Commits to 80% Clean Electricity by 2035

Joseph Robertson — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 18:02:52 +0000

Last night, in his 2011 State of the Union address, Pres. Barack Obama said he will commit the United States to securing 80% of its electricity from clean, renewable resources by 2035. He said the US government will support this goal with major new incentives for private-sector innovators, research and development, small business and improvements to infrastructure.