This article says nay.

Wow not only are we using corn crops and such to make ethanol and plastics but we can make other stuff out of plant sugars?

Score one for the largest consumer of global energy.

This is another pointer post but I thought it was interesting. 8 technologies for a green future.

Looks like General Motors is getting back into the clean car game with their serial hybrid car.

Vinod Khosla believes that the road to energy independence starts in a cornfield in Nebraska. Wired has the article here.

So you don't want those unsightly wind turbines, even the ones out at see to pollute your view? MIT has the solution with their "invisible" wind turbines.

Works for me. The more we use alternative ways to produce energy that do not involve producing pollution the better. Birds can survive and migrate around wind turbines. Humans may not survive the planets fighting back against pollution (read: natural selection).

Here is the study mentioned in the previous post from CNW Marketing Research.

This article uses a study to point out that currently hybrids are more costly overall than most non-hybrid SUVs, including the dreaded hummer. Using an example such as a Honda Civic hybrid is $3.238 per mile while the hummer costs $1.949 per mile. It's definitely food for thought. Hopefully as hybrids continue to be developed and changed and costs come down the costs per miles will significantly be reduced.

Here's three more interesting links on energy. This one talks about the myths and realities of ethanol suggesting it may not be all its hyped to be. This other one is sort of a propaganda commercial for using coal but is still interesting as we should definitely diversify our use of any resource for energy. Of course this post wouldn't be complete without a link talking about peak oil.

I have a huge interest in the energy technology sector. Especially with the recent increase in costs for gas and other energy. Here are a couple links to look at if your interested. Hydrogen from Biomass, Crunching the numbers on alternative fuels, The Car of the Future.

So I read this interesting article in Wired magazine, which you can now read online here, about the idea of starting up the growth of nuclear power plants here in the States. The article did a good job of pointing out the problems of carbon emissions due to our reliance on coal plants for a majority of our power and the shortcomings of clean energy from wind, solar, water, etc. I urge those who are interested in at least reading ideas about curbing our reliance on coal and oil, and trying to stop pumping out so much carbon. Obviously we should try to conserve energy but realistically that only delays the inevitable need to find more energy. Clean energy costs more and still does not provide for enough energy reliably, per square mile they take up. I'm all for the US building nuclear power plants again. For more info on nuclear powers pros and cons you can visit these sites: FAQ, Economics of, more, wiki.

For those who don't know, I am not a democrat nor am I a bona-fide liberal. I come across that way because I defend passionately what I see as a concerted attack on the liberal ideals I do have. I am both a liberal and a conservative. I am liberal about some things and I am conservative about some things. Take for example abortion, I conservatively (though not based on any religion), am again abortion after 100 days of conception but liberally I both necessarily cannot tell other people what choices to make nor can I exactly say when it is a fertilized egg turns into a human being (the 100 days is a 'feeling' rather than a real scientifically backed up reason for when to ban abortions). Thus I defer most of the time to the judgment of the woman who is pregnant.

Last month the President of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers, made a speech about the lack of woman in science. During the speech he made some remarks that one of the possibilities were the innate or biological differences between men and woman. It caused an uproar during the speech and since then many people have given their opinion about what he said. I myself had a debate with a friend of mine about the subject. I immediately defended the position that woman are no different than men, however over the course of the discussion I became the realize how naive this position is knowing what I do about biology. Putting aside differences there may or may not be between the male brain and female brain, there are definite differences physically between the average male and female. Puberty for instance starts sooner in females than males and often because of the rise in presence of estrogen brought on by puberty the growth spurt lasts a shorter amount of time in females than males. The potential in muscle mass may be no different between males and females but this is only by force of will, the average male has a greater body mass than the average female. As for the brain, this argument is ages old. While I believe each persons brains is fairly unique and thus hard to generalize many people think there is evidence that males and females do have some tendencies in differences in how they use their brains. more and more">more and more

Really what it comes down to for me is two things. One, it's possible that woman are less prone to liking science than men but that this is not a hard rule and does not mean that woman are worse at science than men. It is also possible that men merely feel woman are this way and have thus made woman feel uncomfortable in science, nurture versus nature. Two, woman and men are equal, their potential is equal, they must be treated equal. The merits of a job must always be with the individuals skill not their sex. Period.