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It's Cozier Together in Portland
Here's a neat idea from Portland: Sunnyside Neighborhood Energy. It's a district thermal-energy plan being shopped around by some folks who think they've solved several problems at once.
The problem? The neighborhood's old elementary school with oil-fueled boilers from 1917. Also, that climate thing that Al Gore keeps going on about. Plus, low income families often struggle to pay their utility bills.
The solution?
SunNE, would be centered at Sunnyside Environmental School, where a central plant would replace the school's 1917 oil-burning boiler with a solar-powered geothermal heat pump. The plant would then connect to a network of underground pipes circulating through the surrounding 38 blocks. The system wouldn't supply electricity to the neighborhood but would supplant the electricity and natural gas used to power hot water heaters and air conditioners.
Okay, I'm in love.
Clean Coal Reality-Check
I'm not sure if "funny" is the right word here -- maybe something more like "tragic" -- but here's a good new website that clears up the fiction of clean coal: Thisisreality.org. It's worth checking out if you have the stomach for killing the same canary again and again. You'll see what I mean.
As I am fond of saying, clean coal is like a unicorn: it may be a groovy fantasy but it just doesn't exist. So everyone should shut up about its "promise." (That goes for you too, Obama.) The only people who have any business promoting clean coal are the coal lobbyists themselves -- and then only because their job descriptions include a line about "hastening the demise of the planet."
Anyway, go check out the website. It's better with the sound on.
