Category «Energy»

The Smart Grid: Status and Outlook

CRS report via FAS – The Smart Grid: Status and Outlook. Richard J. Campbell, Specialist in Energy Policy. April 10, 2018. “The electrical grid in the United States comprises all of the power plants generating electricity, together with the transmission and distribution lines and systems that bring power to end-use customers. The “grid” also connects …

Subjects: Congress, Energy, Government Documents

The World’s Wilderness: Going, Going and Soon Gone?

Outside: Recent studies have arrived at the same blunt conclusion: the world’s last, big wildlands are disappearing at an alarming rate. Is there anything to be done? ““We are running out of wilderness,” James Watson, director of the science and research initiative at the Wildlife Conservation Society, told fellow scientists last summer at the International …

Subjects: Climate Change, Congress, Energy, Environmental Law

Study – Taste test gauges how recycled wastewater performs against bottled and tap water

EurekAlert: “Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, recently published a study of recycled wastewater that did not focus on its safety-which has long been established-but rather its taste. After years of drought, the notion of drinking recycled wastewater has gained momentum in California. Thoughts turned to all the water being discarded–to supplementing “conventional” groundwater …

Subjects: Energy, Environmental Law, Health Care

Cyberattacks Put Russian Fingers on the Switch at Power Plant

“New computer screenshots released by the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday made clear that Russian state hackers had the foothold they would have needed to manipulate or shut down power plants.” Nicole Perlroth and David Sanger in the NYT: Cyberattacks Put Russian Fingers on the Switch at Power Plants. “The Trump administration accused Russia …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Defense, Energy, Environmental Law, Government Documents

Urban Heat: Can White Roofs Help Cool World’s Warming Cities?

Yale Environment 360: “Summers in the city can be extremely hot — several degrees hotter than in the surrounding countryside. But recent research indicates that it may not have to be that way. The systematic replacement of dark surfaces with white could lower heat wave maximum temperatures by 2 degrees Celsius or more. And with …

Subjects: Climate Change, Energy, Environmental Law, Housing

Manhattan Tree Map: A Data Through Design exhibit

Data Driven Journalism: “On January 9th of 2017, the official Twitter account of MillionTreesNYC (@MillionTreesNYC) announced that they had reached the initiative’s ambitious goal to plant and care for one million new trees across the City’s five boroughs. Starting in April of 2007 as a joint venture between the city’s Parks Department, private organizations, residents, …

Subjects: E-Government, Energy, Environmental Law, Knowledge Management

Emails – Oil Was Central in Decision to Shrink Bears Ears Monument

The New York Times: “Even before President Trump officially opened his high-profile review last spring of federal lands protected as national monuments, the Department of Interior was focused on the potential for oil and gas exploration at a protected Utah site, internal agency documents show. The debate started as early as March 2017, when an …

Subjects: E-Mail, Economy, Energy, Environmental Law, Freedom of Information, Government Documents