2012 May 14

Deal Reached To End Palestinian Prisoner Hunger Strikes

Following on reports late last night and early this morning, Israel made concessions aimed at ending hunger strikes by Palestinian prisoners in an Egyptian-mediated deal. The agreement won approval today from key hunger-striking prisoners, some of whom are detained indefinitely without charge.

Earlier today, before the prisoners accepted the deal, the New York Times reported on the concessions made by Israel to the hunger-striking prisoners:

Israel had accepted three of the prisoners’ main demands: to restrict the military courts’ ability to extend the terms of some 300 inmates being held without charge or trial under what is known as administrative detention; to end the solitary confinement of 17 prisoners who have been kept in isolation; and to permit family visits for prisoners in the West Bank who come from Gaza.

Prisoner Khader Adnan sparked the mass protest of around 1,600 prisoners after he refused food and was released 66 days later. Last week, the Israeli HIgh Court rejected appeals from two prisoners who went even longer and are reportedly in danger of death.

The hunger strikes stoked fear in Israel because of protests in their support; prisoner deaths could inflame this movement. CNN’s Christiane Amanpour covered the hunger strikes and other non-violent pro-Palestinian activism on her CNN show last week:

Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch called on Israel to end detentions without charges, a practice some Israeli figures have admitted is often unnecessary.

Nissan to Follow LEAF with 3 New Electric Cars Models

Nissan has made a big bet on electric cars. They are not just making a couple thousand units to get favorable PR and meet quotas in places like California. They have invested billions to make hundreds of thousands of EVs.

The Ostrich-Like Approach to Energy of NBC’s Apocalypse Drama ‘Revolution’

There’s something deeply craven about the energy politics of at least the ads for Revolution, the splashy J.J. Abrams apocalypse show that NBC is adding to its schedule this fall. I’ve always been skeptical of the idea of a world where “all forms of energy mysteriously cease to exist,” even as I tend to think hitting the reset button on civilization is interesting. But there’s something particularly cowardly about the approach the show appears to be taking to that amorphous premise: this is a show about energy politics that doesn’t seem to have the courage to even mention that electricity is generated by other things, among them coal, natural gas, and oil.

Seriously, this is a show that says things like “We used electricity for everything. Even to grown food and pump water. But after the blackout, nothing worked. Not even car engines or jet turbines. Hell, even batteries. All of it. Gone forever.” Except that absent some mysterious magical thing or scientific nonsense Abrams and Eric Kripke, his co-creator dream up for introduction at some point, electricity doesn’t have an on-off switch: it’s generated by many different methods. Messing with the grid that distributes electricity is not the same thing as removing our capacity to ever generate and distribute more of is. We don’t use electricity to make airplanes stay up, we use jet fuel—20.2 billion gallons of it annually as of 2009. And while hybrid electric cars are on the market, those too rely on internal combustion engines, which in turn are powered by fossil fuels.

I’m fully aware, of course, that most television is based on junk science. But the reason this is particularly disappointing is that Kripke and Abrams are setting up a scenario here that undermines precisely what science fiction has the potential to do: reckon with what we’ve done to ourselves and posit solutions, be they scientific or societal. A magic shutdown scenario, rather than a situation where we’ve run out of fossil fuels, doesn’t require us to grapple with what we’ve done to ourselves—there are no contractions of services, no resource hoarding, no slow adaptation and competition between classes or nations. The blame can and probably will be placed on some sort of mysterious cabal rather than our collective inability to radically change our energy use. And the solution will be in the form of hidden knowledge possessed by an equally small and brilliant cabal, rather than major, painful, realignments in the way we live our lives and innovation that changes it. Setting up its central conceit this way, Revolution is a fantasy of an energy crisis where no one is to blame, in the same way that Tony Stark’s building-powering arc reactor (a great discussion of the relevant zoning issues is available here) is a fantasy that an alternative to fossil fuels is just around the corner.

But at least The Avengers argues that green energy innovation is sexy (as will, apparently, Marion Cotillard in The Dark Knight). That’s much more attractive than a fantasy in which an energy crisis happens to us as innocent victims, rather than an acknowledgement that we happened to the world’s energy reserves.

Toyota Launches Pixis Epoch Minivehicle in Japan (70 MPG US for <$10K)

Toyota has just launched the Pixis Epoch in Japan. It's a front-wheel drive minivehicle with a starting price of ¥795,000, which converts to under $10,000.

Coal Use in United States Drops to 36% of Electricity Generation

Why? Natural gas use is rising.

Maxwell Technologies (MXWL): Buy or Steal?

Confusion reigned following Maxwell Technologies' (NASD:MXWL) earnings call Thursday night. What would be the impact of the company's reduced sales growth guidance on the stocks value?

Lord Smith Supports Fracking

Anti-fracking campaigners have reacted to  Environment Agency (EA) chairman Lord Smith qualified support for the controversial method of shale gas extraction, known as hydraulic fracturing or fracking in the UK.

In a keynote speech, Lord Smith said that he believed that if drilling can be carried out at a “reasonable cost” that the development of shale gas would be “highly attractive for our energy needs”, but would require a major programme of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) for gas-fired power generation.

In April, the DECC published an independent report looking at how risks associated with fracking could be mitigated as it considers how shale gas can be part of the UK’s energy mix and support its transition to a low carbon economy.

CBI director for business environment policy Rhian Kelly said the group supports the use of shale gas in the UK – provided safety standards are met, and said it could “unlock significant new infrastructure investments, help meet our carbon reduction goals and create many new jobs around the UK.”

Lord Smith conceded that while fracking could potentially boost the UK’s energy security, that the environmental impacts remains unclear.
He said: “It won’t always be easy. There will sometimes be occasions where, in seeking one environmental objective, we risk upsetting another.

Lord Smith added that while he believes gas is less polluting than coal that a drive to boost fracking could result in another “dash for gas”, therefore leaving the UK with a number of gas-fired power stations.

However, he argued that provided the careful use of the drilling technology and “rigorous” monitoring and inspection that shale gas could be a “truly useful part of our energy mix in the years to come”.

Lord Smith also voiced his support for renewables generation, such as wave and tidal and nuclear energy as alternatives to coal.

Allen & York specialise in sustainability jobs; within the environment, energy services and renewable energy.  Current job opportunities include:

Offshore Wind: Making an American Industry, Part 2

In the choppy seas of American offshore wind development, calm waters are often followed by stormy skies. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Mid-Atlantic waters off Delaware, Maryland and Virginia. All three states have made some strides in the growing industry, but the path has been anything but clear.