Ten Best Green Jobs for the Next Decade | Fast Company

Ten Best Green Jobs for the Next Decade | Fast Company.

This is from about a year ago; it’s interesting to see how things look with another year of the economic recovery having passed.

• Farmer
• Forester
• Solar Power Installer
• Energy Efficient Builder
• Wind Turbine Fabricator
• Conservation Biologist
• Green MBA and Entrepreneur
• Recycler
• Sustainability Systems Developer
• Urban Planner

Includes some good links including ones to institutes and associations involved in educating people for the above occupations and supporting the growth of the industries in which the above occupations work.

Science Business: What Happened to Biotech? — HBS Working Knowledge

Science Business: What Happened to Biotech? — HBS Working Knowledge.

This article is from 2006, but I thought it was interesting as it addressed how the biotech space has adopted some business models that really don’t fit. For one, I am interested in this topic because it seems that the biofuels industry is struggling to find models that work.

EnergyEvolutions presents AlgaeLab in Hollywood a Success!

Yesterday, EnergyEvolutions hosted Aaron Wolf Baum, PhD, in North Hollywood, California, where he delivered one of his workshops to Southern California for the first time. He delivered a very comprehensive overview of all things algae, both for food and biofuels, including detailed instructions and how-to on growing spirulina at home.

Below, you can see Aaron demonstrating his home spirulina growing kit and the audience learning how easy it is to make spirulina for your own healthy food growth at home. All you need is sun, water, and his kit, and you’re ready to go!

More info at AlgaeLab.org

DSIRE: DSIRE Home

DSIRE: DSIRE Home.

This has information on the Renewable Portfolio Standard goals and initiatives by state, as well as efficiency initiatives, by state.

One of the best first places to check out what states are doing with respect to setting goals for electricity generation from renewable sources, and how they are planning to meet those goals.

Each state is going about their program in very different ways. Some leave the energy source open while some specify certain percentages of various kinds of sources, such as Minnesota’s requirement of wind and an allowance of 1% for solar.

US Top Scientists: Global Warming Is So Urgent, Coal And Oil Should Be More Expensive // current

Coal and oil are so relatively inexpensive that they do not encourage their responsible use in light of global warming, scientists from the National Academy of Sciences are proclaiming more boldly than ever before.

“We really need to get started right away. It’s not opinion, it’s what the science tells you,” said academy panel vice chairman Robert Fri, who was acting Environmental Protection Agency chief under President Richard Nixon. “The country needs both a prompt and a sustained commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

As well, the journal Nature just published a study that indicates that since 1993 the oceans have absorbed much more energy than previously thought, the equivalent of 2 billion Hiroshima bombs.

—Kalib Kersh

US Top Scientists: Global Warming Is So Urgent, Coal And Oil Should Be More Expensive // current

“Next-Generation Biofuels: Near-Term Challenges and Implications for Agriculture, Amber Waves, June 2010”

USDA’s Amber Waves, June 2010, reflects some insights of what’s on the minds of people inside the agency’s Economic Research Service.

Highlights:

• How are companies getting past the large up-front costs
• How to deal with limited access to low-cost biomass
• Remaining financially viable during the pre-commercial phase

“Next-Generation Biofuels: Near-Term Challenges and Implications for Agriculture, Amber Waves, June 2010”

In a previous release by the Economic Research Service branch of the USDA, Next-Generation Biofuels: Near-Term Challenges and Implications for Agriculture, May 2010, the short-term viability of the renewable fuels sector is discussed:

Near-term sector challenges include reducing high capital and production costs, acquiring financial resources for precommercial development, developing new biomass supply arrangements, many of which will be with U.S. farmers, and overcoming the constraints of ethanol’s current 10-percent blending limit with gasoline.

That report is a must-read, a treasure trove of information and perspectives on the biofuels industry. One notable table lists all anticipated advanced biofuels production capacity for the next several years.

— Kalib Kersh

Key Elements of a Massively Scalable Startup

Key Elements of a Massively Scalable Startup

VC backed startups generally aspire to valuations in the hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, but very few really consider all of the elements they’ll need to make it happen. After analyzing several startups I’ve worked with that have reached or are approaching these valuations I’ve boiled it down to four interdependent commonalities that always seem to exist. While they are easy to describe, they are of course very difficult to achieve. Still your best chance of achieving them is to know what they are.

via Key Elements of a Massively Scalable Startup.

Virgin Green Fund Looks to Back Mature Start-Ups – NYTimes.com

In Backing Clean Energy Start-Ups, Fund Looks for Longer Resumes – NYTimes.com

Global Temperature Record

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record has a bunch of info on global temperatures over history. My eyes have almost glazed over, so I’m not gonna try to start summarizing it all.

A few key pics from that:

Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png

- This data comes from NASA. you know…, those folks who faked the moon landing. can they be trusted?
- Zero is the average global temp from 1960-1990.
- It seems to show that before 1940, temps were on average cooler than they are, now, and that the last few years (since ~1978) things have been warming up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
- This is a summary of a bunch of different scare-mongering scientists’ data that covers the last 2000 years.
-looks like 1000 years ago, there was also a warm period.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
- this shows data over the last 12,000 years
- looks like a spiralgraph.
- ah, look at the pretty squiggles!
- about 4 to 8,000 years ago, it seems to have been a lot warmer, but then, it cooled off, and now, it may or may not be warming up.

az confuzzled as evar. but polar ice caps melting is kinda scary, which I’ve heard about from multiple sources. if humans have something to do with it, maybe we can do something about it. If the climate change effect is real, things are going to get hectic, and I don’t know that we can really change our course, fast enough.

Global warming or not, polluting the water, polluting the air, polluting the earth has its consequences, and Leave No Trace seems like the way to go.

Slashdot News Story | Lifecycle Energy Costs of LED, CFL Bulbs Calculated

Slashdot News Story | Lifecycle Energy Costs of LED, CFL Bulbs Calculated.