Its about my thoughts feelings on just about everything, from Advertising to Zoology ..ok haven't gotten that far yet

Friday, September 05, 2008

Flood in the Dodder River

A tree broke near the river with all the rain we have been having over the last few months and then got stuck by the bridge which formed a natural damn. If you see in the background behind the Dropping Well pub there is a nice lake.... well that was the car park. Don't think I will be going to the Well tonight!



View the album here too

For video








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Monday, June 02, 2008

Use Sunlight to Make Fuel From CO2


Scientists from Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico discovered a way to utilise the power of sunlight to produce methanol and or gasoline (petrol). Now I must say at first glance this is exciting but unfortunately if they discover a way to perfect this then this could assist in reducing the overal global contribution of large power plants and general industry to the Global Warming contribution with their outputs.

Maybe if Governments were not so short sighted they could force the oil companies to contribute some of their massive new profits to invest in this and a few other Carbon Scrubbing technologies. Sunlight to Petrol method they claim that it
reverses the combustion process, recovering the building blocks of hydrocarbons. "This is about closing the cycle," said Ellen Stechel, manager of Sandia's Fuels and Energy Transitions department. "Right now our fossil fuels are emitting CO2. This would help us manage and reduce our emissions and put us on the path to a carbon-neutral energy system."
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The prototype device, called the Counter Rotating Ring Receiver Reactor Recuperator (CR5, for short), will break a carbon-oxygen bond in the carbon dioxide to form carbon monoxide and oxygen in two distinct steps. It is a major piece of an approach to converting carbon dioxide into fuel from sunlight.

“Our overall objective with this prototype is to demonstrate the practicality of the CR5 concept and to determine how test results from small-scale testing can be expanded to work in real devices,” Miller says. “The design is conservative compared to what might eventually be developed.”

But then if you can imagine that every C02 producing power plant had one of these connected, then it could completely close the loop with not only stop the pumping of more C02 into the environment, but lengthen the time we have with fossil fuels. This could be a win win situation.


Scientists Use Sunlight to Make Fuel From CO2


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Sunday, June 01, 2008

The Price of Oil going to cause the next Global Recession.

The Price of Oil and how it is going to cause the next Global Recession, but there is something we can do about it!

I just received this in my email, and I must say its brilliant. Usually I just delete the chain mails, but I got this through Digg (now spammers please don't use this method) and I must say its simple and ingenious, and I for one am going to follow this though in Ireland. Rabbit About: Forums - Petrol Prices - I know this has been going around for a while, but.....

The price of Oil, Petrol, Gas what ever you call it has gone through the roof and its something that really frustrates me on how much like cattle we are to the GREED of the oil industry, they stumbled upon a way on how to easily make massive profits on fear.

The first big hike in prices was the invasion of Afghanistan and then it went up a few cents, to almost $50 (US) wow it was expensive, then it was the fear that the Oil would stop flowing after Iraq, well it didn't but the prices stayed high at over $70-80 a barrel. And the Oil experts were saying that the prices here to stay because of the constant fear of the Middle East exploding.. hell when has it not been in fear of this. But I think then the industry as a whole had an Eureka moment!

They then realised that just the fear of something happening in a local event will make the pricing crazy with almost double percentage growth change in the price in a few short days.. It was the storm in the Gulf of Mexico that pushed prices above $85 (not too sure of the prices at the time but I think its accurate). Now the Gulf only produces not even 10% of the Oil Production in the US, which equates to not even 2% of world production. The storms were going to effect the production for a few days maybe even weeks. But now all of a sudden it made a big difference on the Global Market, forgetting the fact that if the production was seriously effected the US Oil reserve would have taken up the slack and the Federal Government could have made the companies step up production to shore up the short fall when the storms abated. Forgetting the fact that previous years there were storms and it did not make much of a difference in the price.

We have been conditioned by fear to accept these prices, as a part of life, but what has been forgotten is that production costs have not increased by 300% in the last few years. But the cost to the consumer has. Another big jump was the scare of Russia has or is about to pass the Peak Production cycle. Bam! another jump in prices on the global stage. Forget the fact that the US passed theirs in the 70's at the same time there was a ARAB OIL PRODUCTION EMBARGO! Which means they were not selling theirs to the west at all. There were massive fuel shortages all over the world, ques at pumps for miles and I remember my father filling up several gallon tanks at a time and leaving them at the bottom of the garden because he and no one new when they were able to get oil again... NOW THAT WAS FEAR, REAL AND JUSTIFIED. Then the price of Oil increased from about $5 to about $9 in two years. But there was a real shortage then the price increases were justified as there was scarcity of supply. More Pricing here.

The ironic thing was when Opec discovered the new pricing model they discovered not only new world power but how much more money they could make.

We are going to face a world where Oil will become more scarce, and yes I do strongly believe that we should seriously look at decreasing our dependency in Oil and its by products which are just huge, from our tooth brush to beauty products. I would much rather the actual increases be levied on us not by the oil industry but by our Governments who pocket the lions share of the increase and they say and allocate all of this money into research into Alternative fuels and new sources of Energy, hell even go to the Moon to mine for Helium-3 (have a nice post in draft on this).

But no the vast majority of these profits are going to the Oil industry and lining their pockets with even greater funds. The price of Oil has been the single largest contributor to the current state of the Global Economy. With more money and wealth transferred from the Middle and Working classes because the cost of the every day items increasing dramatically directly in the cost of just getting the goods to the store, then from actually getting to the store to buy them through to the actual cost of the raw materials themselves (plastic industry, paint some foodstuffs etc).

Over the last several months we have seen food riots across the world because of price increases now other every day goods are going to start doubling in prices if we do not do something about it... because if we do not we will see a Global Recession with mad inflation and there will be nothing we can do about it.

So please do something and stop this spiral of increase in the price of OIL!

So why not teach the industry a lesson and actually search out the cheapest supplier of Oil/Gas/Petrol you can find and keep on going to them and Prove to these Greed infested monsters that we the little people can actually make a difference!

The statement below is from Energy Information Administration
Do consumers impact gasoline prices?
Consumers have very little power as individuals but, if enough consumers give the same “market signal,” they can impact prices. First, when consumers buy gasoline at service stations in their areas with the lowest price, they take market share away from higher-priced stations; these stations may then eventually reduce their prices to be more competitive. The second way consumers impact the market is by reducing gasoline consumption. If enough people reduce driving or switch to more energy-efficient vehicles, gasoline demand would decline and prices would be dampened.

Visit RabbitAbout this Snip taken from them..
I am sending this note to a lot of people. If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) ... and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers! If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it... ..

THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!



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Friday, December 07, 2007

Irelands Carbon Budget

The Irish Minister for the Environment John Gormley (Green Party) has announced a Carbon Budget today in Dail (Irish Parliament). In essence the policies will be:

Every Government initiative will "carbon-proofed" prior to instigation.
Their is new Motor Taxation on cars that will charge owners of larger cars by the following:
Motor tax rates will be graduated as one moves up the CO2 bands.

* Band A (under 120 grams per km) - €100.
* Band B (121-140 grams per km) - €150.
* Band C (141-155 grams per km) - €290.
* Band D (156-170 grams per km) - €430.
* Band E (171-190 grams per km) - €600.
* Band F (191-225 grams per km) - €1,000.
* Band G, the top band -€2,000, reflecting CO2 emissions of over 225grams per km.

"The clear objective of this new motor tax system is to influence the purchasing decisions of consumers by rewarding the buyers of low-emitting cars and charging a premium on less efficient vehicles," Mr Gormley said.

Also he announced that incandescent bulbs will no longer be sold in Ireland by January 2009.

These are a start, but to be honest with you it is nowhere near enough. I would have expected so much more. If it was me I would have insisted on the following:

Tax Credits to all apartment management companies that install solar and wind powered generation to contribute towards the running of the electric power of the complexes

Issue "fuel stamps" like payments to every householder of €100 to purchase long life bulbs (total cost €146,952,100)

Place 100% environmental Levy on standard bulbs (potential revenue €95,812,769

Nett cost of the last two is a maximum €51,139,330 Saving to the consumer on power (average) €125 per year on electrical charges.

We would also reduce upto 700,000 tonnes in carbon emission production.

But because I am not in power can't do this, but I will make my own representations on this.


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Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Global Warming - Dramatic Climate Destabilization - wonderingmind42

This is the very best.... let me say this again THE VERY BEST presentation on understanding why we need to do something about Global Warming. The video was created by a high school science teacher in the US. This is what he says about the movie.

"An undeniable conclusion. (Go ahead. . . Try.) WARNING: mature content may be disturbing to some viewers.

For your navigation pleasure, the following is a list of the URLs of the entire "Expansion Pack" of videos supporting the video "How It All Ends." These videos anticipate and answer EVERY OBJECTION OR CRITICISM of the argument contained in "How It All Ends" that the author has ever heard. Unbelievable, but true. Go ahead--take 'er for a spin and see if you can find any holes!

Just click and enjoy! (Or, have the hairs on the back of your neck raised. . . )

The original video and the entire "Expansion Pack" are also available for download as MP4 files, available for editing, burning, subtitling, mashing up, ripping off, making fun of--whatever."


For more videos if you go here Wonderingmind42 on You Tube. There is nothing more I can add that will make this video any better or explain it any clearer, but you should watch this video.. NO YOU MUST!




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