Jean Lievens: Tiny Windmill Siphons Renewable Energy to Your Apartment

05 Energy
Jean Lievens
Jean Lievens

Tiny Windmill Siphons Renewable Energy To Your Apartment – PSFK

Dutch company claims to have a wind turbine that is 80% more efficient than existent turbines.

Wind turbines might be an excellent source of renewable energy, but they have yet to become a residential feature due to one thing – the noise.

Click on Image to Enlarge
Click on Image to Enlarge

Thankfully, a Rotterdam-based company called The Archimedes claims to have a solution that is not only quiet, but significantly more efficient that existing wind turbines. Modelled after a Nautilus shell, its inventors claim the Liam F1 Urban Wind Turbine can achieve “80 percent of the maximum that is theoretically feasible.”

The wind turbine draws on formulas, drawings and principles pioneered by the brilliant Greek mathematician, among other things, Archimedes. Current wind turbines require a difference in pressure between the front and the rear side of the rotor blades to work properly, but this creates drag. The Dutch design claims to eliminate this problem, although it has yet to be tested independently. Liam can also change direction so that it is always harvesting the optimum amount of energy.

Read full post with more photographs.

Eagle: Half of Americans Cannot Afford Rent or Mortgage

03 Economy, 06 Family, 07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society
300 Million Talons...
300 Million Talons…

Half of Americans can’t afford their house

Over half of Americans (52%) have had to make at least one major sacrifice in order to cover their rent or mortgage over the last three years, according to the “How Housing Matters Survey,” which was commissioned by the nonprofit John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and carried out by Hart Research Associates. These sacrifices include getting a second job, deferring saving for retirement, cutting back on health care, running up credit card debt, or even moving to a less safe neighborhood or one with worse schools.

Continue reading “Eagle: Half of Americans Cannot Afford Rent or Mortgage”

SchwartzReport: NSA Collects Millions of Facial Images — and Images of Human Interactions — Each Day

07 Other Atrocities, 09 Justice, 10 Transnational Crime, 11 Society, Corruption, Idiocy, Military
Stephan A. Schwartz
Stephan A. Schwartz

And the surveillance state just keeps oozing out across our lives like a toxic smog. It will soon be possible to track any person, almost anywhere. There is already no problem turning on your phone's camera, or microphone. Moving through any public space will result in multiple images, which are keyed to every electronic interaction you have.

Report: NSA Collects Millions of Facial Images Per Day
DANA FORD – CNN

The National Security Agency is reportedly capturing millions of images per day to feed facial recognition programs. Citing top-secret documents obtained by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the New York Times reported the agency ‘s reliance on such technology has grown in recent years.

New software allows the NSA to “exploit the flood of images included in emails, text messages, social media, videoconferences and other communications,” the newspaper said. “The agency intercepts ‘millions of images per day' – including about 55,000 ‘facial recognition quality images' – which translate into ‘tremendous untapped potential,'” the newspaper reported, citing documents from 2011.

Sepp Hasslberger: German Renewable Energy Success Drops European Energy Prices … Again

05 Energy
Sepp Hasslberger
Sepp Hasslberger

The Germans are serious about getting off the fossil fuel addiction. They are showing the world that renewable energy can be done…

Electricity Prices Fall In Europe As German Renewable Energy Increases

For the fifth consecutive month, electricity prices in have decreased in Western Europe, due in part to increased solar and wind generation in Germany.

Germany currently gets about 25 percent of its electricity from renewable energy, and the goal is to increase that number to at least 80 percent by 2050.

German wind and solar output for the first three months of 2014 increased by 40 percent — or 6.5 terawatt-hours — compared with last year, according to the Platts data. Wind power increased 31 percent from the first quarter of 2013, while solar power increased 74 percent from more than a year earlier.

Germany’s combined wind and solar portfolio is more than 70 gigawatts, making them the country’s largest sources of power when measured by installed capacity.

See Also:

Sepp Hasslberger @ Phi Beta Iota

Penguin: Obama and Vets — Neglect & Hyposcricy

07 Health, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Ineptitude, Officers Call
Who, Me?
Who, Me?

Politics at its worst — zero credibility.

Obama: ‘I Will Not Stand For' Misconduct At Veterans Affairs Hospitals

Phi Beta Iota: There is no lack of substantive information about what needs to be done, nor is there a lack of integrity among those who actually believe our veterans should receive the best of which America the Beautiful is capable. What we lack in Washington is the integrity to spend on behalf of the humans in our system instead of the financial system commoditizing and disrespecting our humans.

Republicans for Obama Memorandum to the Campaign (August 2008)

Soldiers: Back in the Day (1980's)

SchwartzReport: Water Denial as War Measure

04 Inter-State Conflict, 05 Civil War, 07 Other Atrocities, 12 Water
Stephan A. Schwartz
Stephan A. Schwartz

That water is destiny is becoming clear to all but the dimmest minds. By the end of this decade we will be seeing water wars.

UN Decries Water as Weapon of War in Military Conflicts
THALIF DEEN – Common Dreams/Reader Supprted News

The United Nations, which is trying to help resolve the widespread shortage of water in the developing world, is faced with a growing new problem: the use of water as a weapon of war in ongoing conflicts.

The most recent examples are largely in the Middle East and Africa, including Iraq, Egypt, Israel (where supplies to the occupied territories have been shut off) and Botswana.

noble gold