BlocPower is a Brooklyn-based start-up that has “greened” more than 1,200 buildings in New York City and has similar projects in two dozen other cities. It uses a lease-to-own platform, offering landlords and homeowners green heating and cooling systems, electric appliances and solar panels. It installs the equipment and manages its upkeep. Landlords make monthly payments that cover those costs and offer returns to investors.
The company reports it has reduced building energy costs by 30% to 50% and reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 40% to 70% in current projects. It says it can reduce U.S. greenhouse gases up to 25% in 10 years and recapture up to 30% of the millions of dollars in wasted energy spent.
Early in February, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries announced that they will build the world’s first ship for transporting carbon dioxide solely from carbon-capture facilities. The demonstration ship, which will be able to haul 1,450 cubic meters of liquefied CO2, is scheduled to be operational by late 2023.
The Japanese shipbuilding giant joins a list of ambitious projects that plan to ship CO2 from the power plants and factories where it’s emitted to sites where the gas can be used or permanently stored. By providing a cost-effective option to transport the greenhouse gas, CO2 shipping could provide an impetus for large-scale deployment of carbon-capture utilization and storage (CCUS).
We were at the Sun n Fun Airshow in Lakeland, FL yesterday. The last mile to the parking lot took us 90 minutes, the grounds were soft from days of rain and sure enough we got stuck in the parking lot mud till help arrived 90 minutes later. So, I was arranging for our tickets when the Thunderbirds show had already started. With my back to them, I was left shaking like a leaf by the loudest sound I have ever heard. So was Margaret 30 feet away and everyone else around us.
The Thunderbirds had flown directly over us in their F-16s. They can technically reach speeds of Mach 2 though in airshows they stay below Mach 1. But it sure felt like a sonic boom had hit us. And Major Schlichting, in her first year as a Thunderbird is the right wing pilot in the diamond foursome formation. It's precision flying - she is often only 18-inches from the lead jet. 2 other solos make up the aerobatic team of 6.
Two weeks ago, I had the chance to see the US Navy’s Blue Angels in their F-18 Super Hornets - see my write up here. Each has their fans. Navy v Air Force. Super Hornet v Fighting Falcon. My wife likes the Thunderbirds jet livery more.
This video is a nice compilation of both the Thunderbirds and the Blue Angels. Mercifully, they rarely fly together – imagine those roars if they were to try to out-hotdog each other.
Quaise Energy, a geothermal energy company born from MIT, has set its sights on harnessing the unlimited renewable energy that exists beneath the earth’s surface. To do so, Quaise plans on drilling holes at least twice as deep as the deepest holes ever created (i.e. Russia’s Kola Superdeep Borehole and Qatar’s Al Shaheen oil well, each of which sit at about 7.5 miles deep), which, according to CEO Carlos Araque, would generate power “at a scale far greater than wind and solar.”.
Occidental Petroleum Corp., the shale giant backed by Warren Buffett, plans to build 70 carbon capture facilities around the world by 2035 that will each remove as much as 1 million tons per year of the greenhouse gas directly from the atmosphere.
Quidnet's innovative GPS energy storage technology pumps water underground and stores it between impermeable rock layers. The rock performs like a natural spring and holds the water under pressure. When the project is called upon to supply electricity, the pressurized water is released to power a hydroelectric turbine that generates emission-free electricity. The entire process is closed loop to conserve water resources.
The technology is a form of pumped hydro storage, which currently provides over 90 percent of the world's energy storage capacity, but deployable in a wide and diverse swath of geographies previously considered unsuitable for pumped hydro development. This unique approach to energy storage offers a new, cost-effective, highly scalable tool that is key to unlocking the global clean energy future.
The company, formally East Japan Railway, will begin safety testing on the two-car Hybari train in late March. Plans are to start commercial service in 2030.
Hybari runs off hydrogen fuel cells and batteries. Hydrogen is supplied from tanks to a fuel cell system, and a chemical reaction with oxygen in the air generates electricity. The batteries store energy generated when the brakes are applied.
Scientists have produced a map showing where the world's major food crops should be grown to maximize yield and minimize environmental impact. This would capture large amounts of carbon, increase biodiversity, and cut agricultural use of freshwater to zero.
The reimagined world map of agriculture includes large new farming areas for many major crops around the cornbelt in the mid-western US, and below the Sahara desert. Huge areas of farmland in Europe and India would be restored to natural habitat.
The redesign—assuming high-input, mechanized farming—would cut the carbon impact of global croplands by 71%, by allowing land to revert to its natural, forested state. This is the equivalent of capturing twenty years' worth of our current net CO2 emissions. Trees capture carbon as they grow, and also enable more carbon to be captured by the soil than when crops are grown in it.
I had a chance last weekend to go to the Airfest at the storied MacDill Airforce Base just a few miles from where we live. I walked through the belly of a C-5 Galaxy and a C-17 Globemaster. Looked inside a Blackhawk helicopter. Stood under the 8 engines of a B-52 Stratofortress. Saw a F-22 Raptor stealth fighter and an E-3 Sentry AWACS radar plane fly by. A demo by a C-130J Super Hercules. See my Instagram post for 10 photos from the visit.
But the highlight of the day was the US Navy’s Blue Angels.
Since 1946, the Blue Angels have performed for nearly 500 million fans. Since 2020, they have flown the F/A-18 Super Hornet E/F. During their demonstration, the Blues fly six aircraft split into the Diamond Formation (Blue Angels 1 through 4) and the Lead and Opposing Solos (Blue Angels 5 and 6). Most of the show alternates between maneuvers performed by the Diamond and those performed by the Solos.
There were 6 Angels in the show including
Captain Brian Kesselring, Flight Leader and Commanding Officer
Lt. Christopher Kapuschansky (right wing)
Lt. Scott Goossens,(left wing)
Major Frank Zastoupil (slot)
Lieutenant Commander Cary Rickoff (lead Solo)
Lieutenant Commander Julius Bratton (Solo)
Check out their bios here and those of Blue Angels 7 and 8 -Lieutenant Griffin Stangel who narrated the show and Lieutenant Katlin Forster, the event coordinator
They did several maneuvers including the Fleur de Lis where the pilots fly over center point, where they separate and do a 360-degree roll with the diamond shape reconnecting through a loop. Others included the Barrel Roll Break, the Diamond Dirty Loop and the Fortus.
My phone battery died just as the Blue Angels show started. Logan Sears who was with his family next to me in the stands came to the rescue. He kindly sent me half an hour of footage. I have edited in down to 6 minutes of thrilling maneuvers below.
Unbelievably, next weekend the US Air Force’s Thunderbirds in their F-16 Fighting Falcons are coming to a show in Lakeland, a short drive from us.
Try and catch one or both of these acrobatic teams in person if they are ever at a show near you. Quite a thrill to watch and hear their thunder up close.
Britain says the Russian Ministry of Defense has confirmed the use in Ukraine of the TOS-1A weapon system, which uses thermobaric rockets.
Thermobaric weapons, sometimes called "vacuum bombs," basically suck in oxygen from the surrounding air to generate a more high-temperature explosion than conventional bombs.
Though not illegal, their usage is controversial because they are much more devastating than conventional explosives of a similar size, and have a devastating impact on anyone caught in their blast radius.
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