Drill down just a few miles into the earth’s crust, and the temperature will rise substantially. This heat comes from three sources: emissions from radioactive minerals, the compressive force of gravity, and to a lesser extent, solar energy absorbed at the earth’s surface. Although such energy is not truly renewable (radioactive elements do eventually decay to energy-flat states), within any reasonable estimate of mankind’s tenancy on this planet, geothermal power is essentially limitless.
There are several techniques for transducing this energy from underground heat to in-the-grid electricity. One of these, a technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), is currently being tested by Sausalito-based Altarock Energy only 20 beeline miles from my home in Northern California. … Continue Reading »
An intelligent, worldly woman is leaning over her laptop late at night, paying almost no attention to the conversations behind her. She is startled out of her browsing by her sister’s voice.
She spins away from her laptop and demands, “What’s going on with Golda Meir?”
Three adults stare at her as if she’s grown a second head. Meir’s been dead for 31 years.
She persists, “Golda Meir. What’s the news?”
After several whats and huhs, she finally learns that her sister, bored with the non-stop, pan-media banality of Michael Jackson’s death reportage, had inquired about the latest Supreme Court nominee.
You read it here first: (Sonia) SOTO MAYOR will be the next prime minister of Israel.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton forcefully rejected yesterday Israeli claims that the Bush administration had secretly agreed to expanding Jewish settlements on the West Bank, deepening the impasse between the two countries.
Treswick was a big cat, a bad cat. He was, his owners averred, tres wicked.
It was 1967. I was a first-year graduate student living in Peabody Terrace, the married students’ housing, a walking bridge across the river from Harvard Business School. These were tall, narrow buildings, four units to a floor, all sharing a long narrow balcony that looked east over the Charles River toward Boston. We had the uppermost balcony, a twentieth-floor apartment. When the weather was warm, all four apartments might be open to the balcony, on which rested only two heavy chairs, the frequent strong winds making predictable patio furniture a hazard to ground dwellers.
Treswick lived two apartments away and often walked the parapets, pacing the railing, three feet down on one side, 200 on the other. One evening, … Continue Reading »
The NASA space shuttle Atlantis and the Hubble Space Telescope, seen in silhouette during a solar transit at 12:17 p.m. EDT, Wednesday, May 13, 2009, from west of Vero Beach, Florida. The two space craft were at an altitude of 600 km above the earth. It took only 0.8 seconds for them to cross the solar disc.
I begin this letter with an intimate salutation, taking a cue from the letter I received from you today, addressed to me and my wife (Stephen and Ann).
I, a Bank of America retiree, was intrigued by the outside of the bright red envelope that contained your letter. “Welcome to Bank of America/Look inside for your new opportunities” it said. At first I thought it had something to do… Continue Reading »
Yesterday, the Avon Books division of HarperCollins Publishers released a short promo video for Julia Quinn’s soon-to-be-released novel, What Happens in London. The promo is so professionally done, I would probably have commented on it even if best-selling novelist Quinn (her last book hit #1 on The New York Times list) were not my daughter.
Ms. Quinn wrote the script. The young actress is Talia Gottlieb, a college senior who grew up in Kenya, the child of international aid workers. Ms. Gottlieb, who auditioned for the part at Ms. Quinn’s suggestion, beat out the other performers based upon her obvious-to-all-who-watch talents…not because she happens to be Ms. Quinn’s second cousin, once removed and my first cousin, twice removed. (Confusing, huh? For a consanguinity chart, click here.)
For more about the how and who of the promo, click here.
Blood, Frogs, Gnats, Death to Livestock, Pestilence, Boils, Hail, Locusts, Darkness, Slaying of the Firstborn…and now H1N1 swine flu?
Is this the return of the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 during which about 50 million people died?
Assess swine flu this way: according to the Center for Disease Control each year in the United States, on average, 5% to 20% of the population get the flu; more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu-related complications; and about 36,000 people die from flu-related causes. That’s 100 deaths each day. So far one U.S. death has been recorded from swine flu. And research indicates the H1N1 strain is no more virulent than the typical yearly flu. … Continue Reading »
In his 1905 book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, German economist and sociologist Max Weber theorized that capitalism’s ascendancy owed much to Protestantism’s emphasis on hard work and worldly success. Whether or not Weber was actually right, the term he coined, “Protestant ethic,” has, to many, become accepted as part of our shared American definition.
Drill down just a few miles into the earth’s crust, and the temperature will rise substantially. This heat comes from three sources: emissions from radioactive minerals, the compressive force of gravity, and to a lesser extent, solar energy absorbed at the earth’s surface. Although such energy is not truly renewable (radioactive elements do eventually decay to energy-flat states), within any reasonable estimate of mankind’s tenancy on this planet, geothermal power is essentially limitless.
