UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development

The UN declared 2005-2014 to be the "Decade of Education for Sustainable Development" - unfortunately, it is pretty buried in the UN website. Here is the the URl link to the UN portal. As far as I can see nothing much is happening in the US. Is there something more interesting going on in Asia and Europe ?

Gore makes movie on climate change

Former vice president Al Gore features in a much discussed movie on climate change. I haven't seen it yet so if anyone can find a good link let me know. Here's a link to a discussion on Nature News.

Climate Change linked to earthquakes

In a recent new scientist article the possible mechanisms are described of the possible influence of Climate Change on geological processes like earthquakes, tsunami's and vulcanic eruptions. Those interested in the full article create a comment.

€10 billion for Fusion Reactor research

The €10 billion international project ITER will test whether fusion could become a viable source of abundant and clean energy for the future (via new scientisttech). I wonder what could be done with that kind of money in PV research.

Goldman Sachs Invests in Cellulose Ethanol

The Canadian company Iogen, a pioneer in producing cellulose ethanol, has announced that Goldman Sachs will invest 30 million Canadian dollars in this technology. Iogen runs the only plant in Ottawa to manufacture cellulose ethanol, though currently only as a demonstration project. Together with Shell and Volkswagen, Iogen is also looking into the economic viability of setting up a cellulose ethanol production plant in Germany. (via GAVE)

Plug-in hybrids visit DC

This is such a great marketing move... While automakers talked to the U.S. Congress about their problems, one company parked their solution outside. The press release shows quite a few famous politicians taking a ride around Capitol Hill.

As for the price, the current estimate is 10-20% more than hybrids. There's also some interesting discussion about how these cars could be integrated with large-scale renewables to help balance the power grid.

From the calcars.org press release:

On May 18, CEOs of the Big Three automakers came to Washington DC to meet with Congressional leaders and discuss the industry's woes. We saw an opportunity to introduce Congress to a solution using existing technology that can make a big dent in our oil dependence and also help Detroit back to prosperity -- should it choose to take the opportunity. After a whirlwind fundraising campaign CalCars flew in one of its plug-in Priuses from California, and the journey began. This was the first time plug-in hybrids were seen in public in our nation's capitol.

[via BioConversion Blog]

History of energy

On the10th of june (a very nice date :D) there is an international symposium at the Leiden University with the theme: Energy and Innovation in World-Historical Perspective. The practical info you can find on this site: www.energyhistory.nl. It looks very nice.

Wealth from Waste

From 1939... IE is so retro

A short excerpt:

SYNTHETIC CHEMISTRY: WEALTH FROM WASTE

This is the first of a series of articles on the romance of synthetic chemistry in which science has solved the mystery for turning waste into wealth.

“Don’t throw that away!” This is the battle cry of the great synthetic chemical industry which makes everything from hair-brush handles to T.N.T. from stuff that was once just waste. If you want to buy some perfume, the odds are that the bottle will contain odors extracted from coal tar, once a nightmare to factories who paid people to get rid of it.

[via Modern Mechanix]