Nature, the respected scientific journal, has a new climate change portal full of free content. A free issue in the Nature Collections series on Energy is available as a PDF.
When relatively exlusive publications try to open themselves to a more general audience, the results can be interesting. In trunks back in North Vancouver, I have hundreds of issues of The Economist where all the images are black and white, and the pages are just columns of text sometimes accented in red. In the previous span where I subscribed to Scientific American they also made a big shift towards the mainstream. I doubt that Nature will undertake such a shift. It is, after all, a peer reviewed scientific journal, but it will be interesting to see whether their attempts to promote the visibility of some scientific data and analysis will shift the overall journalistic picture of climate change at all.
Harper proposes less rigid climate-change plan
BILL CURRY
Globe and Mail Update
September 24, 2007 at 11:21 AM EDT
NEW YORK — A new international climate change pact should call for the world’s greenhouse-gas emissions to be slashed in half by 2050, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Monday.
Speaking for the first time at the United Nations on the issue of climate change, Mr. Harper also signalled his desire for a less-rigid arrangement than the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
Climate breakthrough needed, Ban tells UN summit
CHARLES J. HANLEY
Associated Press
September 24, 2007 at 10:25 AM EDT
UNITED NATIONS — United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says a breakthrough is needed at climate summit in New York, going on Monday.
This may interest you:
New Low Cost Solar Panels Ready for Mass Production
Colorado’s State Univ.’s panels will cost less than $1 per watt.
Compiled By Adrienne Selko
Sept. 10, 2007 — Colorado State University’s method for manufacturing low-cost, high-efficiency solar panels is nearing mass production. AVA Solar Inc. will start production by the end of next year on the technology developed by mechanical engineering Professor W.S. Sampath at Colorado State. The new 200-megawatt factory is expected to employ up to 500 people. Based on the average household usage, 200 megawatts will power 40,000 U.S. homes.
Sampath has developed a continuous, automated manufacturing process for solar panels using glass coating with a cadmium telluride thin film instead of the standard high-cost crystalline silicon.
The continuous manufacturing process is critical.
Solar power and climate change
See also:
Solar cells come down to earth
Sep 4th 2003
From The Economist print edition
Solar cells are still ten times too expensive for use in housing. Recently developed nanorod composites could change that
Solar cells go organic
Jun 20th 2002
From The Economist print edition
Although they are not particularly efficient, plastic solar cells that are flexible enough to be sprayed on roofs or printed on clothes look like being remarkably cheap