Maryland Green Power Co

Big Oil’s Great Land Grab (Reprinted From Sierra Club)

Did you know that oil companies are already sitting on 68 million acres of leases that they aren’t even drilling? Which kind of makes you wonder: Why are Big Oil and its allies suddenly desperate to get their hands on the last few places that are still protected — our natural treasures, wildlife refuges, and pristine coastlines? They wouldn’t use the concerns caused by high gas prices as an excuse to grab it ALL, would they?

Click here to see the map!

Big Oil and its allies would like you to think that more drilling will ease your pain at the pump, but that’s not the truth.

The bottom line is this: More oil drilling will not lower gas prices or create energy independence – it will only make the world’s richest oil companies richer.

Check out our map showing how much of our country Big Oil already has.

Average Americans are being squeezed by high energy prices, and the oil companies are taking advantage to push their long-term drilling agenda. They have been spreading a map full of lies though the Internet.

Help us counter their propaganda — pass this map and the truth along to your friends and ask them to pass it along too.

Sincerely,

Greg Haegele
Director of Conservation

Wind Turbine of the Future?

This inventor’s webpage has a great synopsis of why this technology beats single rotor wind turbines in power output, especially at low wind speeds, so we won’t rehash the arguments here.

I invite our readers to read about this innovative idea at the inventor’s site:

http://www.speakerfactory.net/wind_old.htm

I’ll just pose some questions here in the hope that what remains of my skepticism can be banished:

1) Since the flexible axis bends under the weight of the rotors, rotation of such axis would cause the direction of torque caused by downward pressure on the pivot point to continuously change. Would this accelerate a stress fracture and eventually cause the axis to snap? It will be interesting to observe the longevity of the multi-rotor design, especially as the technology is scaled up to produce greater power output, thus increasing rotor size, and/or number of rotors mounted on a single axis.

2) The long arms of the axis rotate to automatically position the rotors correctly into the wind. This huge circumference of rotation produces a footprint much larger than a single rotor wind turbine would create. With a multi-megawatt single rotor wind turbine, the next turbine can be placed a relatively shorter distance away. To scale the multi-rotor wind turbine to match the megawatt output of the single rotor design would make that circumference even larger. The question is, if in a given plot of land the maximum density of wind turbines of either design were to be installed, which design would achieve the largest power output per square-unit of land utilized? In other words, which design conserves the most land?

Finally, I pose an observation in the form of a question requiring further empirical study: Since the wind flux of this turbine is smaller, that is, the rotors pierce a smaller cross-section of the wind field, would you think that this technology can potentially cause less harm to migrating birds that the current wind turbine with its long blades? In other words, a bird has a better chance of flying around this apparatus? (Not that I am that worried about birds getting caught in the old design, since wind turbines probably cause less destruction of life per unit of power output than a coal-burning power plant does, and yes, I mean people, whose number of deaths caused by respiratory problems is increasing. Of course, there are those in the green movement who value animal life more than human life, but don’t count me among them. A small number of birds is a worthy sacrifice for the good otherwise being achieved. If you don’t agree, go ahead and flame me!)

We would welcome the designers’ thoughts on this subject, as these questions were meant not to criticize what might be a breakthrough design, but to spark more discussion and even offer the designers an opportunity to further present the advantages of their invention.

I hope that this concept, or another one like it, helps the United States take the lead in renewable energy. It seems that we are late to start solving a problem, but we excel when we take it seriously. I hope we can congratulate these people someday soon.

Cell Phone Radiation Popping Pop Corn!

You might have seen the video making its way around the internet of a group of people putting 3 or 4 cell phones down on a table around a kernel or two of pop corn. Then, they place calls to the cell phones and within seconds, the pop corn pops!

I have even noticed some people sincerely alarmed that cell phones are capable of popping pop corn.

But before you decide not to take your hibachi grill to the next tailgate party in lieu of your cell phones, do a little test: Repeat the experiment you saw in the video, but substitute a thermometer or even your finger for the kernel or corn. Did the thermometer temperature rise? Did you finger get singed? Try it with 3,4 or even a dozen cell phones and see what happens.

The reason I am confident that you won’t yell in pain and flame me in the comments section is that the Federal Communications Commission will not allow private communications to exceed even a few watts. Look at your wireless router as an example. You might be able to find an internet hack to reprogram the firmware so that it will output (illegally) a little over 15 watts of transmission power, but not more.

Your cell phone uses significantly less power than your wireless router. If you don’t believe me, remove your cell phone battery and connect it to a flashlight bulb. Watch how long the bulb will operate before draining the battery. Also, feel the heat from the lightbulb – is it enough to cook popcorn?

Your microwave oven takes about 5 minutes to pop popcorn, but its power output is typically over 1,000 watts. So, although the frequencies of the microwave oven and your cell phone might be uncomfortably close, there is a huge difference in power output.

Nevertheless, the people who created that cell-phone hoax video might have been trying to make another point: the frequency of the electromagnetic waves that your cell phone emits are close to those of your microwave oven. Microwave ovens work on the principle of the oven’s electromagnetic waves vibrating water molecules at high frequency. This motion creates heat, and probably some damage to your food’s structure too. Water molecules are not the only ones that vibrate, but this depends on a complicated explanation of harmonic resonance which we will not discuss here.

Cell phones probably also create those vibrations in nearby matter: Your ear, skin, and possibly even your brain. Ionizing radiation has been known to alter DNA molecules, and thereby might cause mutations, some of which might develop into cancer.

Since I consistently use 2000 – 3000 airtime minutes on my
T-Mobile Android Phone on a regular basis, I searched for a method to decrease the radiation exposure just to be safe.

I bought a bluetooth headset, but the headset also exposes one’s head and body to radiation, although at a different frequency, but that still did not leave me confident of my safety.

The best solution I could find was the Phone Lab’s Dock and Talk cell phone docking station. This device is great for home or office use because it connects your cell phone to a standard home or office telephone, allowing you to place your cell phone at a safe distance away while you talk over a wire-connected phone line. This also improves your ability to use features like free weekend and nighttime minutes, or to listen to calls over a speaker-phone:

Oh, and by the way, watch this for our conclusion…

If you know any knuckleheads who still believe that a cell phone can pop popcorn, then share this link with them by hitting the FB LIKE button up top, or the TWEET THIS button below.