Tag: energy

“Japanese breakthrough will make wind power cheaper than nuclear”

mothernaturenetwork:

Japanese breakthrough will make wind power cheaper than nuclear
A surprising aerodynamic innovation in wind turbine design called the ‘wind lens’ could triple the output of a typical wind turbine, making it less costly than nuclear power.

Great news! But keep in mind, this is still just a render. IT’S NOT ACTUALLY IN PRODUCTION, which means it’s hard to make those kinds of statements.  I can make a model say whatever I want, it doesn’t mean the system can actually produce that.  The last thing our industry needs is more unfulfilled promises.  Just look at the $500 million mistake of Solyndra…

(Source: http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/blogs/japanese-breakthrough-will-make-wind-power-cheaper-than-nuclea)

How the city hurts your brain – Boston Globe

fluffynotes:

The reason such seemingly trivial mental tasks leave us depleted is that they exploit one of the crucial weak spots of the brain. A city is so overstuffed with stimuli that we need to constantly redirect our attention so that we aren’t distracted by irrelevant things, like a flashing neon sign or the cellphone conversation of a nearby passenger on the bus. This sort of controlled perception — we are telling the mind what to pay attention to — takes energy and effort. The mind is like a powerful supercomputer, but the act of paying attention consumes much of its processing power.

http://www.boston.com/

Interesting. Is this another call to simple, rural living?