Seven Generational Ruminations

An unrecognized looming crisis is the availability of fresh clean water. Water supply systems are overloaded delivering water to current populations, and in many countries the water simply is not safe. And of course our ancestors also had to deal with unsafe water supplies, it was modern water treatment with all its chemicals that enabled us to have safe clean water available just by twisting the water tap.

The Kindle seems like a pseudo-green technology, in that you can buy books w/o it involving the destruction of trees to make paper and without it involving the oil to drive the book on a truck to your door. It's also an example of the digitization of our cultural assets, a digitization of the lifeblood of our humanity. And it also appears to be an extremely convenient gadget, akin to the iPod but instead of purposed for music the Kindle is purposed for written material.

Nineteen Eighty-Four author: George Orwell asin: 0452284236

1984 asin: B00007KQA3

Kindle: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device asin: B000FI73MA

There are a range of biofuels companies who recently got sales or added investment or larger production facilities.

Hmm, interesting thought raised by Michael Kanellos. Can 'green' technology or business become hip to the extent that people will camp out overnight for a green product launch?

An acre of algae can produce 50 times more oil than an acre of soy, estimates John Sheehan, now vice president of strategy and sustainable development at LiveFuels.

...And to top it off, algae's not a massive food crop at the moment, so you aren't using a valuable food crop to gas cars.

...An NREL paper on algae--along with research from some of the national labs--forms the basis of a lot of the thinking around algae.

The article discusses two businesses, Conergy and Standard Renewable Energy who are offering expertise to help businesses and homeowners through the confusing terrain of alternative or renewable energy technologies. Rather than a business or homeowner becoming an expert in the technology, they would rely on a company who's developed that expertise to do the work.

A long list of articles published by CNET News about green technology.

There is a lot of new investment and research and product development in clean energy technology in Silicon Valley.

Cleantech Venture Network, an industry trade group, estimates that clean energy investment in Silicon Valley topped $500 million last year, including not just venture capital but also corporate and some debt financing.

A compendium listing of articles published on CNET NEWS about green technology

Greenpeace has launched a campaign to snip at Apple's clean image. greenmyapple.org explains how Apple's computers and gadgets are full of poisonous stuff. Probably they are but I think that's largely true of electronics gadgets in general. Why are they focusing this on Apple? Maybe it's because of the image Apple projects that isn't quite met by reality?