While some baby boomers are acquiring second homes, others seem to have resurrected a hippie fantasy of living with the bare minimum of possessions and going where the spirit moves us. To do extreme downsizing, you’ve got to emulate Mother Hubbard. Your cupboards have to be virtually bare.
This is not mere de-cluttering. Extreme downsizing is, like old age, not for sissies. You start by realizing that if you lived in an apartment, you wouldn’t need all that lawn and garden equipment. Then it occurs to you that in a warm climate you wouldn’t need seasonal wardrobes.
Next, you become aware that you never actually look at the pictures on the walls or the collectibles set out so artfully on the tops of the cupboards. You have proof of this when you realize that the collectibles, which require climbing a ladder to be viewed properly, have grown furry edges. How could you not have noticed?
Research can be done so quickly and efficiently online that you no longer even need a dictionary, or for that matter, a phone book. Those wall-to-wall bookshelves can be replaced by a single hand-held electronic reader. There comes a day when things you used to treasure seem less important than the time it takes to look after them.
Aevia — Consider the Source

In Australia, Aurora Algae opened its demonstration facility in Karratha, Western Australia, where the Company’s algae-based biomass is being harvested for products in the nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, aquaculture and renewable energy markets.
“This would not have been possible with a U.S.-based production facility,” said Greg Bafalis, CEO of Aurora Algae, “where we believe the climatic conditions are not economically viable to produce large-scale, cost-competitive algae products.” The company’s open-pond production method, and proprietary pale green cultivar algae strains, utilize dry, arid climates with large amounts of CO2 and seawater as feed stocks.
Aevia — Consider the Source

With projects like Sapphire Energy’s drive to put a huge algae-fuel production facility in the Mexican desert, you’re seeing the first building blocks of world-scale capability for these fuels.
Margaret McCormick, the co-founder and CEO of Seattle-based Matrix Genetics said, “I think that microorganisms can solve most of the problems of the world. If you go back, it was alcohol or it was cheese. There’s so much potential that can be harnessed out of these microorganisms and the DNA that’s in them, and we can look at them to solve all kinds of problems.”
McCormick said the latest phase of alternative fuels work is not purely driven by an economic need to reduce spending on oil, but is also by the need to address climate change and national security issues.
Aevia — Consider the Source

Oil and gas industry executives testified on ending tax breaks for the largest multinational oil and gas companies. Senate Democrats and the Obama administration had proposed ending $21 billion in subsidies for oil companies as a budget deficit reduction measure. The executives said the plan would do little to reduce gas prices and hurt their exploration efforts.

In the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, 20 collegiate teams design and build energy-efficient houses powered exclusively by the sun. These teams spend almost two years creating houses to compete in the 10 contests of the Solar Decathlon. The winning team produces a house that:

• Is affordable, attractive, and easy to live in
• Maintains comfortable and healthy indoor environmental conditions
• Supplies energy to household appliances for cooking, cleaning, and entertainment
• Provides adequate hot water
• Produces as much or more energy than it consumes.

The  Solar Decathlon challenges the collegiate teams to design, build, and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive. The winner of the competition is the team that best blends affordability, consumer appeal, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency.
The first Solar Decathlon was held in 2002; the competition has since occurred biennially in 2005, 2007, and 2009. The next event will take place at the National Mall’s West Potomac Park in Washington, D.C., Sept. 23–Oct. 2, 2011. Open to the public free of charge, visitors can tour the houses, gather ideas to use in their own homes, and learn how energy-saving features can help them save money today.
Ascension University — Source Material

ST. GALLEN, Switzerland (MarketWatch) — BP PLC’s (BP.LN) plans to invest $1.5 billion in biofuels in 2011 but won’t do so at the expense of food security in the countries where it does invest, Chief Executive Robert Dudley said Friday.
“It is our policy…We will not invest in biofuel, in corn-based ethanol, on lands used for food, it will be in the Brazilian grasslands” which are used specifically for fuel crops, Dudley told an audience at a business conference here.
Ascension University — Source Material

Journey to Forever has established an online biofuels library with a wide variety of books and articles available at no charge.
Consider the Source: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library.html

And a Mohammedan mosque near the Ganges River has this inscription on the gateway, “Jesus, on whom be peace, has said, this world is only a bridge, ye are to pass over it, but not build your permanent dwelling-places upon it.”   —John A. Scott (1936)

OSLO Feb 3 (Reuters) – Norwegian solar energy firm REC  said on Thursday it is building a 24-megawatt plant in Italy.
Construction of the facility in Lazio has already begun and would use 100,000 REC solar modules.
“The plant will produce around 37 million kilowatt-hours, equal to the energy consumption of around 14,000 families,” the company said in a statement.
Consider the Source: http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFLDE71212Y20110203

LS9’s bugs are single-cell organisms, each a fraction of a billionth the size of an ant. They start out as industrial yeast or nonpathogenic strains of E. coli, but LS9 modifies them by custom-de-signing their DNA.
Using genetically modified bugs for fermentation is essentially the same as using natural bacteria to produce ethanol, although the energy-intensive final process of distillation is virtually eliminated because the bugs excrete a substance that is almost pump-ready.
The closest that LS9 has come to mass production is a 1,000-litre fermenting machine, which looks like a large stainless-steel jar, next to a wardrobe-sized computer connected by a tangle of cables and tubes. It has not yet been plugged in. The machine produces the equivalent of one barrel a week and takes up 40 sq ft of floor space.
AEVIA Reveals the Source