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Category: Industry

Parent for wind, solar…etc.

Ruling ourselves: The deliberate evolution of global cooperation and governance

April 11, 2018April 12, 2018 Robert Bailey Leave a comment

Vision of Earth is proud to announce that we have been selected as a semi-finalist for the New Shape Prize from the Global Challenges Foundation. We’ve made our submission open to the public.

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Harvest and Hunger: Brainstorming the future of the world food system

November 9, 2012November 9, 2012 Ben Harack 1 Comment

Harvest and Hunger The Saskatchewan Council for International Cooperation is hosting an event in Saskatoon on November 10th called Harvest and Hunger. The event sets out to answer three questions: Who controls the world’s food? Who has power in the global food system? Who doesn’t? What are people doing – both in Saskatchewan and around […]

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Opportunities and perils of natural gas usage on the road to renewables

August 10, 2011February 23, 2016 Ben Harack 2 Comments

Our increasing reliance on natural gas brings with it both opportunities and dangers during the shift towards renewable energy. This issue deals with some major issues regarding natural gas deployment in industry, power generation, food production, and heating.

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Capitalism’s Labour Transitions – An Argument for Social Welfare

March 7, 2011April 18, 2019 Ben Harack 2 Comments

Capitalist labour transitions are a heavy burden on the working class and society in general, but they are also one of the cornerstones of progress. We can solve this problem in an economically practical as well as morally and socially desirable through the creation of a strong social welfare system.

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A renewed look at 2010, a sustainable vision for 2011

February 16, 2011February 23, 2016 Ben Harack 3 Comments

Here we review major renewable energy topics from 2010 and then turn towards analyzing energy issues for 2011 and beyond.

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Demand side management to help build a renewable power grid

December 8, 2010June 10, 2016 Ben Harack 2 Comments

Demand side management helps make our power grid more cost-effective and aids in the transition towards renewable energy. It can also be considered as a very green policy on its own, as it reduces the amount of power we need to produce, and thus our impact on the environment.

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Power system performance metrics

November 26, 2010July 23, 2019 Ben Harack 3 Comments

Everything has its price. Every form of power production has costs in dollars, time, land, materials, pollutants, greenhouse gas emissions, and human deaths. We look at the most important factors for analyzing the feasibility of a proposed power project. Considering only some of these factors will lead to an incomplete picture of power system costs.

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Fusion fast ignition systems

November 20, 2010February 23, 2016 Ben Harack 1 Comment

Fusion ‘fast ignition’ systems are some intriguing new possibilities for fusion development. They may make it possible for humanity to achieve functional fusion reactors in a few decades.

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Laser implosion fusion reactors

November 18, 2010February 23, 2016 Ben Harack 2 Comments

Laser implosion fusion is a proposed method for creating nuclear fusion power plants. It is showing some great promise, being the most likely candidate for the first fusion method to reach net energy gain. Exciting new developments may make fusion power a reality in the coming decades.

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Feed-in tariffs: A fitting policy for renewable energy

November 16, 2010February 23, 2016 Ben Harack 5 Comments

Here we talk about what a feed in tariff is and how it works. We also conduct an overview of how effective feed in tariffs have been at stimulating the renewable energy industry around the world.

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Interview with wind power guru Paul Gipe

November 15, 2010February 23, 2016 Ben Harack 2 Comments

Wind power expert Paul Gipe advocates that we deliberately create our green energy future rather than wait around for it to happen. He says that we should aim to democratize our energy production for a more prosperous future.

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How do we turn nuclear fusion energy into electricity?

November 12, 2010February 23, 2016 Ben Harack 11 Comments

How do we turn fusion power into electricity? There are two main methods. We can use heat engines like steam turbines or we can use a very new system called ‘direct conversion’ which has some interesting properties.

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The basic realities of fusion reactor design

November 11, 2010February 23, 2016 Ben Harack 4 Comments

Issues and difficulties with creating a physical system for nuclear fusion. To succeed, we must face temperatures that vaporize all known materials and other requirements that make this the most difficult technological endeavor of our age.

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Fusion fuel cycles: What they are and how they work

November 10, 2010February 23, 2016 Ben Harack 8 Comments

There are a number of different fuels that can be used for creating fusion power. Here we look at the useful ones and look at their advantages and disadvantages. Different fuel cycles require very different implementations.

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How can renewables deliver dispatchable power on demand?

November 9, 2010February 23, 2016 Ben Harack 21 Comments

What does dispatchable mean? Why is it important? How do we currently do this? Can renewable energy fulfill this role? What other tricks can we use?

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Helpful tools for understanding nuclear fusion

November 8, 2010February 23, 2016 Ben Harack 7 Comments

These are the concepts I found to be very useful during my fusion research. Here we define ignition state, Lawson criterion, fusion performance parameter, and energy gain factor Q.

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The science behind fusion power

November 7, 2010February 23, 2016 Ben Harack 5 Comments

In order to understand nuclear fusion at a deep level, you must have a strong grasp of a number of areas of physics. I have collected here some resources for learning these skills. The general areas are electromagnetism, nuclear physics, thermodynamics, and plasma physics.

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How can we create power from nuclear fusion?

November 6, 2010February 23, 2016 Ben Harack 16 Comments

Achieving sustained nuclear fusion for power production is incredibly challenging. Scientists have been working on this problem for decades. This piece is an overview of the basic concepts and technologies needed for nuclear fusion power. One could also view this as a tutorial, or a crash-course, in fusion power.

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Land use of coal vs wind: Still room for debate

November 1, 2010February 23, 2016 Ben Harack 4 Comments

Land usage for power systems is a common comparison metric. We demonstrate here that the comparison cannot be conducted meaningfully on such simplistic grounds. Additional factors must be taken into consideration.

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The regulatory battle over coal fly ash heats up

October 29, 2010February 23, 2016 Ben Harack 2 Comments

The coal industry has had a history of lobbying against a hazardous waste label for fly ash. Fly ash is toxic enough that the EPA mandated decades ago that it be captured and stored rather than emitted into the atmosphere.

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