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Submission + - New York City to cut emissions 90% by 2050? (urbangreencouncil.org)

Submitted by jscheib
jscheib writes: According to Will Oremus in Slate, a study released today finds that "New York City could slash its emissions by a whopping 90 percent by 2050 without any radical new technologies, without cutting back on creature comforts, and maybe even without breaking its budget." The key elements are insulating buildings to cut energy needs, converting to (mostly) electric equipment, and then using carbon-free electricity to supply the small amount of energy still needed. Oremus notes that including energy savings "would reduce the net price tag to something more like $20 billion. The cleanup from Hurricane Sandy, meanwhile, is estimated to cost $50 billion.

The full report is here.
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Dad Delivers Baby Using Wiki 249

Posted by samzenpus from the 9cm-edited dept.
sonamchauhan writes "A Londoner helped his wife deliver their baby by Googling 'how to deliver a baby' on his mobile phone. From the article: 'Today proud Mr Smith said: "The midwife had checked Emma earlier in the day but contractions started up again at about 8pm so we called the midwife to come back. But then everything happened so quickly I realized Emma was going to give birth. I wasn't sure what I was going to do so I just looked up the instructions on the internet using my BlackBerry."'"
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Jetman Attempts Intercontinental Flight 140

Posted by samzenpus from the a-jetwing-and-a-prayer dept.
Last year we ran the story of Yves Rossy and his DIY jetwings. Yves spent $190,000 and countless hours building a set of jet-powered wings which he used to cross the English Channel. Rossy's next goal is to cross the Strait of Gibraltar, from Tangier in Morocco and Tarifa on the southwestern tip of Spain. From the article: "Using a four-cylinder jet pack and carbon fibre wings spanning over 8ft, he will jump out of a plane at 6,500 ft and cruise at 130 mph until he reaches the Spanish coast, when he will parachute to earth." Update 18:57 GMT: mytrip writes: "Yves Rossy took off from Tangiers but five minutes into an expected 15-minute flight he was obliged to ditch into the wind-swept waters."

Comment Their CO2 claims don't make sense to me (Score 2, Interesting) 419

by jscheib (#29803931) Attached to: Ultracapacitor Bus Recharges At Each Stop

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas:

Fuel name CO2 emitted (lbs/106 Btu)
Fuel oil 161
Coal (bituminous) 205
Coal (subbituminous) 213
Coal (lignite) 215
Coal (anthracite) 227

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_combustion_engine#Energy_efficiency:
"most engines retain an average efficiency of about 18%-20%"

From http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_energy_efficiency_of_an_average_coal_powered_plant:
"According to Hans-Dieter Schilling (Energie-Fakten), the average efficiency of all coal power stations in the world currently stand at around 31%"

Mashing those numbers around a bit I get around 900lbs of CO2 per usable MMBTU from diesel (fuel oil, close enough for these rough numbers), vs 700lbs of CO2 per usable MMBTU from coal based electricity. That's not even 1/3 less, far from the 2/3 less they are claiming.

There are extraction/transmission/conversion losses in both cases that could be factored in, but it's hard to see how it could change their math by a factor of two.

Am I missing something obvious?

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