Subsidy envy? If only the US would let the free market reign....not!

In a ridiculous pandering to US super consumptive tastes, the Times (you may need to login to see this) had a front page article this last Sunday, titled "Fuel Subsidies Overseas Take Toll on US" --- President Bush has been complaining about the subsidy of fuel prices driving up the cost of oil. Huh?

Let's see. The US suffers up to $50 Billion dollars of losses due to traffic congestion....because we won't install tolls on the roads? WTF? How about US subsidies for Corn, Cotton, and a ridiculous tariff on ethanol produced with Brazilian cane sugar? What about the ground-rocketing (e.g. falling like a stone) US dollar?

Darn those pesky nations subsidizing fuel use! (oh, wait, see the image below, which shows a map with countries scaled for fuel use. Feeling a little bloated USA? thanks to www.worldmapper.org for this excellent visualization)

not your daddy's satellite dish

Folks at Infinia are banking on a different type of concentrated solar power: using a dish and a Stirling engine.

I want my MTV!

The windows box of concentrating solar power?

The folks over at Sopogy have some pretty interesting tech...a small scale CSP (Concentrating Solar Power) product that produces anywhere from 250kW and up (they're modular).

Yes, it is what it looks like ... a variant of the magnifying glass you may have used to start fires, burn up ant hills and generally play around like an 8 year old boy with...

From their website:

"It’s a trough with a reflective coating that focuses sunlight onto a pipe that carries an oil. That heated liquid goes through an organic Rankine cycle engine to convert it into electricity."

Furious!

tougher than a texas two-step

these guys are having fun!

Land of Bjork...

Nathan Myhrvold (yes that one) had a great write up of geothermal energy in Iceland. It turns out the famous "Blue Lagoon" of Iceland is really just good marketing. Who knew? Check out his blog here. (you may need to register with the New York Times)

Keeping up with the Blones'

Warning...this is a decidedly un-energy related post!

Ah, so tough to keep up with the flow of information. Who knew that Greg Bear or Neal Stephenson would have such a great vision of what it would mean to be plugged in 24/7. Twitter, Google Reader, Facebook, and LinkedIn --- how many friend requests did *you* get today? In a nation at war, with serious problems on our hands, why is it that we're all gaga over seeing how the 6 degrees of separation work out for us?

That being said, keeping up with the Blog-o-sphere of insta-punditry can be a hoot! I've been using Google Reader (see sidebar at right) and pontificating on my own. I think the best part is that they borrowed from Vim keybindings a la gmail, and the best mailer of all time, mutt.