The New York Times reports on an experiment using flywheels to convert and store the braking energy of subway trains approaching stations and release it back into the electrical system in a regulated way. The system could save up to 20 million tax payer dollars a year in electricity costs and would help relieve a lot of the heat subways generate. Between Bloomberg’s budget cuts and the sweltering stations in July, this is a beautiful thing.

Found via Slashdot.

“Depleted uranium is created as a by-product of the processes used to convert natural uranium for use as nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons. NATO used ammunition and weaponry made of depleted uranium during its air strikes on Yugoslavia in 1999. Suspicious deaths and illnesses among Europeans exposed to the substance are prompting investigators to examine DU’s health risks. The United States has denied any link between illnesses and exposure to depleted uranium.”

Read Trail of a Bullet, a series of articles from the Christian Science Monitor. Join the call to ban the use of DU.

The 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney were to be the first “Green Games” because of the comprehensive environmental plan included in the city’s successful bid to the International Olympic Committee. The city’s guidelines

“recognise the major environmental issues of global warming, loss of biodiversity, ozone depletion and air and water pollution. They contain commitments in five main areas: energy conservation; pollution avoidance; water conservation; protection of the natural environment, and waste minimisation and management.”

Green Games Watch 2000 has a detailed account of the successes and failures of the event.

“The main green wins include public transport access, solar power applications, good building material selection, recycling of construction waste, progressive tendering policies, energy and water conservation and wetland restoration. The main green losses include the failure of most sponsors to go green, poor quality Olympic merchandising, environmentally destructive refrigerant selection, loss of biodiversity in some projects, failure to clean up contaminated Homebush Bay sediments in time for the Games and the lack of transparency and effective public consultation by the Olympic Coordination Authority and Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games.”

See also two critical articles published in Harper’s and Current Affairs.

“Straw is a viable building alternative, plentiful and inexpensive. Straw-bale buildings boast superinsulated walls, simple construction, low costs, and the conversion of an agricultural byproduct into a valued building material. Properly constructed and maintained, the straw-bale walls, stucco exterior and plaster interior remain water proof, fire resistant, and pest free. Because only limited skill is required, a community house-raising effort can build most of a straw-bale house in a single day. This effort yields a low-cost, elegant, and energy-efficient living space for the owners, a graceful addition to the community, and a desirable boost to local farm income. This booklet offers an in-depth look at one such community house-raising, in addition to a general overview of straw-bale construction.”

Published by the U.S. Department of Energy Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Check this site for lots of straw building resources.

At the airport in New York, two beefy guys stand akimbo in full camoflague gear, semi-automatic weapons casually slung. How very funny to see them decked out in green jungle camouflage against the commercial white interior and cheap gray carpet. In fact, it’s pretty clear the camo gear is not to conceal, but to be unavoidably present. Like the machine guns which may or may not be loaded, it is a loud signifier of military-ness, a show of force, a warning and reminder of the presence of power.

On July 9, a Paris judge ordered Greenpeace to stop using a parody of the Esso logo in its StopEsso campaign in France, pending a full hearing of the case.

“Stephanie Tunmore, Greenpeace climate campaigner said, ‘This court case is just another attempt by Esso to use its money as a means of continuing its dirty business unhindered.’ Esso claimed that the dollar signs Greenpeace has used in place of the “SS” in the logo linked the company to the infamous Nazi “SS” and damaged Esso’s reputation. Appropriately, the French judge Justice Binoche categorically rejected this claim. And although Esso was seeking 80,000 Euro per day if Greenpeace did not comply, the judge reduced this sum to 5,000 Euro per day. The judge also rightly ruled that Greenpeace can continue to use the term ‘StopEsso’.... StopEsso is a coalition of groups, including Greenpeace, campaigning around the world to stop Esso from sabotaging international action to address climate change, such as the Kyoto Protocol.”

Exxon had also asked for Greenpeace to remove all the meta-tags from their site because the StopEsso campaign site was coming up third when you searched for “Esso” on Google. They should have read the FAQ. Because of all the interest in the court case, StopEsso is currently the number one search result.

Warchalking is a graffitti language to indiciate open 802.11b wireless networking. It’s derived from the visual marks used by hobos to communicate about the social landscape. There’s an ongoing battle though, between those who want to share their networks and those who don’t.

“Biodiesel is the name of a clean burning alternative fuel, produced from domestic, renewable resources [like soybeans]. Biodiesel contains no petroleum, but it can be blended at any level with petroleum diesel to create a biodiesel blend. It can be used in compression-ignition (diesel) engines with no major modifications. Biodiesel is simple to use, biodegradable, nontoxic, and essentially free of sulfur and aromatics.”

Biodiesel.org is the official Web site of the U.S. National Biodiesel Board. Lots of good info and resources in PDF format.

“The purpose of this website is to provide information related to the ongoing work of the U.S. House of Representatives in relation to the eXtensible Markup Language (XML). Under the direction of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and the House Committee on Administration, the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House have worked together with the Library of Congress and the Government Printing Office to create Document Type Definition files (DTDs) for use in the creation of legislative documents using XML. As this is an ongoing project, it is important to note that the DTDs presented here have not been finalized, and may change over time.”

“The web is providing a way for women in Iran to talk freely about taboo subjects such as sex and boyfriends. Over the past few months there has been a big jump in the number of Persian weblogs which are providing an insight into a closed society.... ‘I could talk very freely and very frankly about things I could never talk about in any other place, about subjects that are banned,’ said one of the first women to start a blog in Iran.”

From BBC News.