Category: Uncategorized

EUROPE TO CUT NUCLEAR DEPENDENCY. "The Fukushima disaster led many countries to rethink their view on nuclear energy. Germany plans to abandon it altogether, but French President Francois Hollande also wants to cut nuclear output sharply - by a third in 20 years. It's a big ask in a country that now relies on nuclear for 75% of its electricity."" " http://lnkd.in/dQQwvbu View in LinkedIn

DEFINITIONS OF NATURE AND CULTURE."A more useful method to divide nature and culture is between the “controllable” and the “autonomous.” Next natural phenomena arise from cultural products that have become so complex that we relate to them more as organisms or ecologies."" " http://www.nextnature.net/ View in LinkedIn

CURRENT US ENERGY SOURCES."At present, oil accounts for 40% of total energy consumption in the United States. Coal provides 23% and natural gas provides 22% of our energy. Another 8% comes from nuclear power plants. Renewable energy sources round out the roster, accounting for 7% of consumption – mostly as the result of hydropower investments made in the last century and the use of biomass (organic matter such as wood, municipal waste, and agricultural crops) for energy production."" " http://lnkd.in/dk8RczQ View in LinkedIn

CULTURAL NATURE."Old nature, in the sense of trees, plants, animals, atoms, or climate, is getting increasingly controlled and governed by man. It has turned into a cultural category. At the same time, products of culture, which we used to be in control of man, tend to outgrow us and become autonomous. Our notions of nature and culture seem to be trading places. The ‘natural powers’ shift to another field."" " http://www.nextnature.net/ View in LinkedIn

TRANSPORT: THE BIG ENERGY USER. "Our individual automotive and public-transit choices also have a substantial impact, because transportation takes up 28% of all U.S. energy consumption (and about 70% of all petroleum use). Even the 50% of total U.S. energy consumption that goes to commercial and industrial uses affects every single citizen personally through the cost of goods and services, the quality of manufactured products, the strength of the economy, and the availability of jobs."" " http://lnkd.in/dhaDs9p View in LinkedIn

CULTURALLY EMERGED NATURE. "Next nature is the nature caused by people. That may sound like a contradiction, but it isn’t. Our cultural artifacts have become so intricate and autonomous that they function more like organisms or ecologies than like inanimate things. Next nature is culturally emerged nature."" " http://www.nextnature.net/ View in LinkedIn

INEFFICIENT COAL GENERATED ENERGY. An electric light "contains only about 2% of the energy content of the coal used to produce it. Imagine that the coal needed to illuminate an incandescent light bulb contains 100 units of energy when it enters the power plant. Only two units of that energy eventually light the bulb. The remaining 98 units are lost along the way, primarily as heat." See this helpful infographic of power generation inefficiencies at each step. " " http://lnkd.in/dhaDs9p View in LinkedIn

NEXT NATURE. "This website will radically shift your notion of nature. Our image of nature as static, balanced and harmonic is naive and up for reconsideration. Where technology and nature are traditionally seen as opposed, they now appear to merge or even trade places."" " http://www.nextnature.net/http://lnkd.in/d8-UcdN View in LinkedIn

FOSSILIZED SOLAR POWER. "When sunlight strikes a plant, some of the energy is trapped through photosynthesis and is stored in chemical bonds as the plant grows. We can recover that energy months or years later by burning wood... we use the stored energy in the much more concentrated forms that result when organic matter, after millions of years of geological and chemical activity underground, turns into fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, or natural gas. Either way, we're reclaiming the power of sunlight."" " http://lnkd.in/dhaDs9p View in LinkedIn

NEW ENERGY TECHNOLOGY. The next series of blogs will look at existing human energy sources and their sustainability and see if there are promising biological solutions on the horizon. Clearly, our fossil fuel transportation and economy is finite, and fresh alternatives will be needed. View in LinkedIn