New Vrindaban Bloggers

By James Montgomery, News Editor, Photovoltaics World

New Hampshire, USA — Researchers at MIT and Germany’s RWTH Aachen U. have devised a new way to set up a concentrated solar power (CSP) project that both increases the system’s efficiency and reduces the land footprint — all thanks to inspiration from Mother Nature.

Here is an active Facebook Group for oxen enthusiasts.  Seems like a good place to discuss oxen.

http://www.facebook.com/groups/AllThingsOxen/

By KEVIN BEGOS
Associated Press

PITTSBURGH – The huge, belching smokestacks of electric power plants have long symbolized air pollution woes. But a shift is under way: More and more electric plants around the nation are being fueled by natural gas, which is far cleaner than coal, the traditional fuel.

The most optimistic projections describe an abundant domestic energy source that will create enormous numbers of jobs and lead to cleaner skies.

Nationwide, the electricity generated by gas-fired plants has risen by more than 50 percent over the last decade, while coal-fired generation has declined slightly. The gas plants generated about 600 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2000 and 981 billion hours in 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency.

During the same period coal generation declined from 1,966 billion hours to 1,850 billion hours, while hydroelectric and nuclear generation stayed about the same. The figures include electricity use by consumers and industry.

Nationwide, EIA said natural gas use for power generation rose 7 percent between 2009 and 2010. That’s about 515 billion cubic feet. The biggest jumps were in the Southeast, with use rising 24 percent in North Carolina, 18 percent in Virginia and 15 percent in South Carolina.

“Most of the people I know in the electric power industry are building natural gas” plants, said Jay Apt, a professor of technology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. That’s because of low prices over the last few years and the relatively low cost of building such plants, compared with coal-fired or nuclear.

But Apt cautions that the trend could stall because the basics of supply and demand mean that if too many plants embrace cheap gas, it won’t stay cheap.

“The surest route to $6 or $8 gas is for everybody to plan on $4 gas,” Apt said, and if prices do rise, coal will again be the most cost-effective fuel. Natural gas is priced per million BTU.

Apt noted that there was a “huge building boom” in natural gas plants from the late 1990s to 2004, because utilities thought they would get rich from the combination of cheap fuel and plants that were highly efficient and relatively cheap to build. There were predictions that prices would stay low over the long term, too.

But natural gas prices spiked, and the new gas-fired plants around the nation stayed idle much of the time. That trend was also driven by another irony: The gas-fired plants are easier to start and stop compared with coal or nuclear, so many utilities used them just for peak electric demand periods.

Still, history may not repeat itself because of the huge surge in supply from Marcellus Shale gas drilling. Vast gas deposits that previously couldn’t be extracted economically are now being tapped using new technologies. Instead of drilling straight down, companies can drill horizontally and follow seams of gas for a mile or more deep underground. Then the drillers use hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” to free the gas from the relatively dense shale rock.

That’s led to environmental concerns from some residents, scientists and regulators who feel there are too many unknowns in the process, along with an undisputed boom in production that’s brought great wealth to some landowners, and a surge of jobs.

Some companies clearly believe the switch to natural gas plants makes long-term sense.

Sunbury Generation LP in central Pennsylvania plans to close five of its six coal-fired generators and replace them with two natural gas-fired turbines by 2015, the Daily Item reported last month.

But some companies are deciding not to switch fuels.

The owners of the Homer City Generating Station in western Pennsylvania, the state’s second-largest coal plant, plan to add $700 million in pollution control equipment to keep the 40-year-old plant running and in compliance with clean air laws.

Natural gas-fired power plants are “orders of magnitude cleaner” than coal plants, said Jan Jarrett, president of the PennFuture environmental group.

Jarrett said PennFuture wants coal-fired units retired and replaced by gas-fired, at least for the short term.

“There’s no way that we can scale up wind and solar to meet the demands over the near future,” she said. “Gas itself is a much cleaner burning fuel that can help clean up our air.”

But Apt sees a slow, moderate shift.

“My sense is you’ll get small changes here,” he said, since the current low natural gas prices are attracting market demand from around the world.

There are already federal permits for 3 trillion cubic feet per year of natural gas exports, Apt said.

“Will we export that bounty, and if we do, will that drive up U.S. prices,” he said. Natural gas sells for about $8 in Europe and $14 in Japan, but less than $4 here.

“They’re not going to tear down the coal plants, because they’ve seen this movie before,” Apt said of electric companies. “They will mothball those plants and start up the coal plants again” if natural gas prices rise.

“According to smrti regulation, the cow is the mother and the bull the father of the human being. The cow is the mother because just as one sucks the breast of one’s mother, human society takes cow’s milk.

“Similarly, the bull is the father of human society because the father earns for the children just as the bull tills the ground to produce food grains. Human society will kill its spirit of life by killing the father and the mother.”

Srimad Bhagvatam 3.2.29

Image Gallery Image by Flickr user: US Army Africa / Creative Commons

The Marines of India Company harbored grave doubts about the experimental solar-power gear they were ordered to tote from their beachside base at Camp Pendleton to the grimmest, toughest war zone of Afghanistan. They were more interested in armor to protect them while they patrolled the “Fish Tank,” a booby trap–laden settlement next to their base, than in thin-film photovoltaics that might protect the planet from their carbon bootprint.

After all, India Company encountered up to 15 roadside bombs a day, and individual platoon casualty rates had run as high as 25 percent killed or wounded. In a place where a single false step could cost your legs, or worse, tree hugging didn’t seem like much of a survival skill

“I was a skeptic,” Gunnery Sergeant Willy Carrion says, in comments passed on from Afghanistan by military officials. “As Marines, we do not always like change. I expected [the solar gear] to be a burden.”

But then they put it to the test. The portable solar generators and battery packs that powered the Marines’ lights, radios, and computers day and night ran quietly, coolly, and cleanly, unlike the loud, jet fuel–sucking generators they normally used. Camp Jackson, India Company’s forward operating base, went from a noisy, easy target for insurgents roaming the night to a silent, stealthy, safer outpost.

The 20 to 25 gallons of fuel it previously took to power a platoon each day suddenly lasted more than a week—which meant fewer fuel convoys, with their notoriously high casualty rates; fewer encounters with roadside improvised explosive devices; and fewer Marines assigned to convoy duty instead of their primary mission.

Portable solar chargers allowed Marine patrols to spend weeks away from their Camp Jackson stronghold in the Taliban-infested Sangin district of Helmand Province without lugging extra batteries for their radios and other devices. This is no small matter: A modern infantry soldier may have to carry five pounds of batteries a day in the field. The heavy load displaces ammunition and demands regular replenishment missions that are as dangerous as fuel convoys.

Fold-up solar chargers eliminated all that, according to First Lieutenant Josef Patterson, an India Company platoon commander. One set of batteries for each device lasted three weeks. “If I do not have a radio, I’m lost,” Patterson explains. “So that was huge. I’m completely sold.”

India Company is now the greenest fighting unit in the U.S. military. Its battle-tested package of solar gadgets—collectively dubbed the ExFOB (Experimental Forward Operating Base)—has been a hit with the troops on the ground. Most of the fuel consumed in a combat zone powers electric generators, not vehicles, which makes solar a perfect alternative. The best evidence of this: Other units are clamoring for the same gear. India Company has become the model for a leaner, meaner, lower-carbon fighting force…

Reprinted from here

When I sailed to Kiniwata, an island in the Pacific, I took along a notebook. After I got back it was filled with descriptions of flora and fauna, native customs and costume. But the only note that still interests me is the one that says: “Johnny Lingo gave eight cows to Sarita’s father.” And I don’t need to have it in writing. I’m reminded of it every time I see a woman belittling her husband or a wife withering under her husband’s scorn. I want to say to them, “You should know why Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for his wife.”

Johnny Lingo wasn’t exactly his name. But that’s what Shenkin, the manager of the guest house on Kiniwata, called him. Shenkin was from Chicago and had a habit of Americanizing the names of the islanders. But Johnny was mentioned by many people in many connections. If I wanted to spend a few days on the neighboring island of Nurabandi, Johnny Lingo would put me up. If I wanted to fish he could show me where the biting was best. If it was pearls I sought, he would bring the best buys. The people of Kiniwata all spoke highly of Johnny Lingo. Yet when they spoke they smiled, and the smiles were slightly mocking.

“Get Johnny Lingo to help you find what you want and let him do the bargaining,” advised Shenkin. “Johnny knows how to make a deal.”

“Johnny Lingo! A boy seated nearby hooted the name and rocked with laughter.
“What goes on?” I demanded. “everybody tells me to get in touch with Johnny Lingo and then breaks up. Let me in on the joke.”

“Oh, the people like to laugh,” Shenkin said, shruggingly. “Johnny’s the brightest, the strongest young man in the islands, And for his age, the richest.”

“But if he’s all you say, what is there to laugh about?”

“Only one thing. Five months ago, at fall festival, Johnny came to Kiniwata and found himself a wife. He paid her father eight cows!

I knew enough about island customs to be impressed. Two or three cows would buy a fair-to-middling wife, four or five a highly satisfactory one. “Good Lord!” I said, “Eight cows! She must have beauty that takes your breath away.” “She’s not ugly,” he conceded, and smiled a little. “But the kindest could only call Sarita plain. Sam Karoo, her father, was afraid she’d be left on his hands.”

“But then he got eight cows for her? Isn’t that extraordinary?”

“Never been paid before.”“Yet you call Johnny’s wife plain?”

“I said it would be kindness to call her plain. She was skinny. She walked with her shoulders hunched and her head ducked. She was scared of her own shadow.”

“Well,” I said, “I guess there’s just no accounting for love.”

“True enough,” agreed the man. “And that’s why the villagers grin when they talk about Johnny. They get special satisfaction from the fact that the sharpest trader in the islands was bested by dull old Sam Karoo.”

“But how?”

“No one knows and everyone wonders. All the cousins were urging Sam to ask for three cows and hold out for two until he was sure Johnny’d pay only one. Then Johnny came to Sam Karoo and said, ‘Father of Sarita, I offer eight cows for your daughter.’”

“Eight cows,” I murmured. “I’d like to meet this Johnny Lingo.”

And I wanted fish. I wanted pearls. So the next afternoon I beached my boat at Nurabandi. And I noticed as I asked directions to Johnny’s house that his name brought no sly smile to the lips of his fellow Nurabandians. And when I met the slim, serious young man, when he welcomed me with grace to his home, I was glad that from his own people he had respect unmingled with mockery. We sat in his house and talked. Then he asked, “You come here from Kiniwata?”

“Yes.”

“They speak of me on that island?”

“They say there’s nothing I might want they you can’t help me get.”

He smiled gently. “My wife is from Kiniwata.”

“Yes, I know.”

“They speak of her?”

“A little.”

“What do they say?”

“Why, just…” The question caught me off balance. “They told me you were married at festival time.”

“Nothing more?” The curve of his eyebrows told me he knew there had to be more.

“They also say the marriage settlement was eight cows.” I paused. “They wonder why.”

“They ask that?” His eyes lightened with pleasure. “Everyone in Kiniwata knows about the eight cows?” I nodded.

“And in Nurabandi everyone knows it too.” His chest expanded with satisfaction.

“Always and forever, when they speak of marriage settlements, it will be remembered that Johnny Lingo paid eight cows for Sarita.”So that’s the answer, I thought: vanity.

And then I saw her. I watched her enter the room to place flowers on the table. She stood still a moment to smile at the young man beside me. Then she went swiftly out again. She was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. The lift of her shoulders, the tilt of her chin the sparkle of her eyes all spelled a pride to which no one could deny her the right. I turned back to Johnny Lingo and found him looking at me. “You admire her?” he murmured.

“She…she’s glorious. But she’s not Sarita from Kiniwata,” I said.

“There’s only one Sarita. Perhaps she does not look the way they say she looked in Kiniwata.”

“She doesn’t. I heard she was homely. They all make fun of you because you let yourself be cheated by Sam Karoo.”

“You think eight cows were too many?” A smile slid over his lips.

“No. But how can she be so different?”

“Do you ever think,” he asked, “what it must mean to a woman to know that her husband has settled on the lowest price for which she can be bought? And then later, when the women talk, they boast of what their husbands paid for them. One says four cows, another maybe six. How does she feel, the woman who was sold for one or two?” This could not happen to my Sarita.”

“Then you did this just to make your wife happy?”

“I wanted Sarita to be happy, yes. But I wanted more than that. You say she is different This is true. Many things can change a woman. Things that happen inside, things that happen outside. But the thing that matters most is what she thinks about herself. In Kiniwata, Sarita believed she was worth nothing. Now she knows she is worth more than any other woman in the islands.”

“Then you wanted -”

“I wanted to marry Sarita. I loved her and no other woman.”

“But —” I was close to understanding.

“But,” he finished softly, “I wanted an eight-cow wife.”

By Steve Leone, Associate Editor, RenewableEnergyWorld.com

New Hampshire, USA — The “Oracle of Omaha,” who made his fortune by betting on technologies that appear underpriced, is now putting his money into solar.

From Susan Korsnick

From Krishna Valley in Hungary:

Dear Members (Gosh’s note: and Well Wishers)

Please accept my humble obeisances, all glories to Srila Prabhupada.

Please find below the explanation and link to an on-line petition on behalf of the Hungarian yatra. It is self explanatory.

We are planning a protest outside parliament December 13th–cows and all–to hand over this petition.

If you could forward the text below to your temple leaders with a few encouraging words and ask your leaders to send the text out to their data bases with their own few words of support, we could well collect our target of 100,000 plus names. Thank you for your help.

The picture below says to the speaker of parliament: “Sir! Where can we graze here?” (No need to send the picture with the petition.  It was for your interest.)

Your servant
Sivarama Swami

Our Petition!

http://www.peticiok.com/krisna

Dear Devotees. The new “Church Law” in Hungary will take away ISKCON Hungary’s church status as of January 1st requiring us to reapply for the same next year.

However the government has not provided any legal stipulation for the society’s continued ownership of Krsna Valley’s lands in the interim period until we are again re-registered.

In short we risk losing Krsna Valley with no pasture for our cows or land to grow our food. I therefore request that you sign the online Petition —link below— and forward this message to as many people as possible, who
would also petition against this injustice.

Thank you.
Sivarama Swami.

http://www.peticiok.com/krisna

Eco village news  from Hungary

by Hannah Velton

News that cows have best friends comes as no surprise to those of us who have worked with them – and their mood swings

Let’s be friends … a curious, calm cow. Photograph: David Moir/Reuters

Who would think that beneath that calm exterior there is a boiling mass of emotions? I’m not talking about Wimbledon champions here, but cows. Yes, cows; those creatures that we eat, and take milk from, but rarely think about. According to new research by scientists at Northampton University, cows have “best friends” and get stressed when separated.

In his book The Cow, the former butcher and poet Beat Sterchi invented an adjective to describe the way that cows stand placidly – “cowpeaceably”. If you watch cows lying down in a field they will normally be ruminating (chewing on regurgitated grass), staring blankly into space and looking totally at peace. This state of total calmness makes the cow appear withdrawn and “otherworldly”. This is perhaps why we assume there is nothing much going on between a cow’s ears.

But we cow lovers have always known that cows have emotional depth. DH Lawrence wrote brilliantly about his relationship with Susan, a black cow that he milked every morning in 1924-5 on his ranch in Taos, New Mexico. He comments on her “cowy oblivion”, her “cow inertia”, her “cowy passivity” and her “cowy peace” and he wonders where she goes to in her trances. But he believes, quite rightly, that there is always “a certain untouched chaos in her”, which is never far away. Some days, he writes, she is “fractious, tiresome, and a faggot”. This is because she will deliberately do things to annoy him, such as swinging her tail in his face during milking: “So sometimes she swings it, just on purpose: and looks at me out of the black corner of her great, pure-black eye, when I yell at her.”

To anyone who works, or has worked, with cows, it comes as no surprise that cows are capable of friendships. Within any herd there is a pecking order that results in cows coming into the milking parlour every time in more or less the same position in the queue. At the dairy farm I worked on as an agricultural student we had “Devilish Delilah”, “Crafty Caroline” and “Pain-In-The-Arse Mary-Rose” – all of which were nicknamed because of their annoying or aggressive antics at milking time or feeding time. Dominant cows will push their way to the front of the queue, bully and intimidate more sensitive souls, and dictate when and where the group will move around their pasture. No submissive cow would want to be their “best friend”.

Certain cows will always be the ring leaders when trouble occurs – bulldozing fences until they give way is often found out by accident, but then pursued with great joy by the felons. And woe betide anyone who gets in the way of a protective mother and her calf; she’ll knock you for six and reverse over you for good measure.

But there are also the gentler cows who always appreciate a scratch behind the ear as you go past and the cows that Temple Grandin, the animal scientist, would describe as “curiously afraid”. These cows, and most do exhibit this behaviour, will be curious of any new thing but terrified of it at the same time. The braver ones will come forward to investigate first, but will stand at such a distance that their necks and tongues will be stretched out as far as possible so they don’t have to be too close. They will snort, sniff and try to lick the novelty until they decide after about 15 minutes that they are bored and will wander off. There’s a lot going on between those hairy ears.

From my driveway I can see three forsythia bushes.  They are splits from one that used to be too close that I transplanted when we first moved into this house.  I placed them so when you top the hill driving in a car  and start coming down there are square in the middle of the view.  They are enjoying the mild November weather and have some sporadic blooms on them.

I see an odd dandelion in bloom here and there also.  Just a reminder that the yet unmanifest winter won’t last forever.

I planted a mix of radishes and Austrian winter peas for a ground cover.  Here it is in full glory, edible leaves still vibrant as of today.

I was too lax calibrating the seed when I planted it, just grabbing a few handfuls and tossing them out, and badly overseeded it. Which meant that the radishes crowded out the winter peas. You can see some peas if you look closely but they survived not thrived.

The plus side is the radishes also crowded out the winter weeds so that is a good thing but next year I need to measure the bed, then weigh out the seed so I get closer to the recommended rate.

With rye or oats I just toss them out and do want it a little thick because it is for green manure and not harvest, but those radish seeds are exponentially smaller than the cereal grains so I blew it going the Zen route of grab and go with the flow.

Here is a picture of the same mix planted outside the fence.

It grew pretty well for the first two months it was planted, August and September, but once October arrived I could see the tops grazed off from 18″ (46 cm) high by about a third. In the past two weeks it has been grazed to the ground.

Not only did I lose the surface green biomass (the roots will still provide a lot) but the deer have done a lot of structural damage with their hooves in effect working the clay soil while it is wet.

In net I may have been better off to not plant this mix where the deer can access it. They bother rye but not to this extent.

I have two plots outside the fence I rotate potatoes in. The problem with rye is that it has to be dealt with in the spring before you can plant potatoes. The Groundbreaker mix winter kills and  mulches the winter garden bed but is not in the way for early spring turning under.

When you turn a cover crop under, it ties up all the available soil nitrogen for a couple of weeks in the early stages of decomposition. All that plus becomes available after two weeks, but it isn’t the best to have that delay when you are dodging wet soils and trying to get in an early potato crop.

Next year I will try oats for the potato beds.  They come on in the fall but winter kill so they are out of the way in the spring.

From Asahiart’s Blog

By Michael Gorton, CEO and chairman, Principal Solar

Here’s a breath of fresh air for the future of electric vehicles (EVs): Cities across the country have been given the green light to install more solar-powered charging stations that promise to energize the demand for electric and hybrid vehicles while reducing pollution on the supply side.

Corporate planners and municipalities must play an instrumental role in bringing EV to the mainstream. Otherwise, “range anxiety” will remain the Achilles’ heel of electric cars.

Also read: Solar, storage, and EVs: a powerful trifecta

Hundreds of these solar-powered recharging stations have sprouted up across the nation, giving juice to the “green revolution” and building upon awareness that the sun is a versatile and efficient renewable energy resource — here today, here to stay.

The US federal government has already doled out several hundred million dollars to at least nine cities so that they can install free charging stations designed to keep electric vehicles on the road and influence tepid public purchasing attitudes.

Many of these recharging connections, which look something like streamlined gasoline pumps, have been deployed at highly concentrated areas including shopping malls, motels, and dozens of public places where cars might be parked long enough to get a jolt of needed power.

Private enterprise is also joining forces in collaborative efforts to converge smart technologies with solar energy to put these carports on the map where they might be least expected — from South Bend, IN to Portland, OR.

Automakers couldn’t be any happier. They see solar-powered EV charging stations as an avenue to make owners of conventional automobiles, who may have been reluctant to pay a heftier price for an EV, green with envy now that the potential exists to drive farther without getting stranded and eliminating the cost of gas at the pumps.

By the end of 2012, almost every major automaker, from General Motors to Honda, plans to have a least one electric car on its showroom floor; a far cry from when the highly successful Toyota Prius became the first hybrid — a car that runs on two distinctive sources of power — to penetrate the market in 2006.

As EVs enter the American mainstream in anticipated record numbers, corporate planners and municipalities must play an instrumental role in laying the groundwork to continue the trend toward clean technology within the nation’s transportation infrastructure. Careful consideration and understanding of the deployment and integration of public charging stations should be made with daily commuting and typical driving habits in mind.

Otherwise, “range anxiety” will remain the Achilles’ heel of electric cars. Batteries need to be charged by safe, practical, affordable and easy-to-access renewable energy sources that eliminate concerns related to extended travel.

Americans have further fuel for thought. Natural-gas-powered vehicles are another contender to replace the traditional gasoline-automobile option. Natural gas is an abundant resource that produces significantly lower pollutants than gasoline and it is available virtually everywhere.

Cars powered by natural gas and their electric counterparts both have the advantage of lower air-polluting emissions and reduced operating expenses.

The success of these vehicles comes down to a significant reduction in prices, and an improvement in battery technology for electric vehicles to enter the mainstream.

Viable technologies exist today for alternative-fueled vehicles to become more than a vision, but a reality. What remains to be seen is a conscientious effort on the part of all Americans to educate, legislate, and enthuse one another to energize the transportation infrastructure with clean technologies so that the nation can become independent on foreign oil  — and take a big healthy breath of fresh air.

It is cool but bright and sunny and the auction I was going to go to today I am skipping because there is rain in the forecast for tomorrow and still too many things to do in the garden to  that potential bargains will have to go unrealized.

When you plant a landscape you have to plan for all 4 seasons.  Some earn a place by dramatic spring time flowering but others are inconspicuous during the growing season then earn their spot in the winter.

The ornamental grasses fall into this category.  This morning the sun is shining through the dried seed-heads of some ornamental grasses I planted last year that came into their own this year.  The picture doesn’t do it justice,  my camera can’t capture the effect but with the sun behind the seed-heads they look translucent and shiny.  They are glowing. They will hold up all winter so that is a nice visual interest for the snowy days ahead.

I haven’t bundled up my fig  as it can get quite cold before it needs the protection but I did have to get my fragrant native azaleas covered. The deer nibble on the buds and will wipe them out early in the fall so as fast as the leaves drop I have to cover them.

It is a little trouble but the fragrance next spring is so heady that it is well worth the effort.

“Just like you’ll find on the ground, so many flowers and grasses are coming up. How? By the sunrise, the glance of the sun.

“Where there is no sunshine, there the vegetables do not grow. We have got practical experience. Similar… Therefore the field or the earth is not exploding with the vegetation. It is due to the sunshine. Therefore it is coming out. It is the real cause.

“Similarly, accepting that chunk, the total material energy, it is agitated by the glance of Maha-Visnu. Then it explodes and things are coming out. We can accept that in that way, but not that automatically there was explosion. That is not fact.

“Therefore to the foolish person, the power behind the explosion is not visible. Naham prakasah sarvasya yoga-maya-samavrtah [Bg. 7.25]. Therefore Krsna says that “I am not visible to everyone, they being covered by the curtain of yoga-maya.” Mudhah nabhijanati mam ebhyah param avyayam. Tribhir gunamayir bhavair mohitah.

Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, Adi-lila 1.12 — Mayapur, April 5, 1975