29th July, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
This Austin Chronicle story reports that “[b]ased on the most up-to-date data, the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) study projects an “extreme” risk of water shortages by 2050 in Travis County. Texas emerged as one of 14 states at the most severe risk of additional water shortages and problems caused by climate change.”
The article continues, “Greg Meszaros, director of Austin Water, suggested a good response to the climate-change study is to take the utility’s 3C Challenge to commit to a 10% reduction in water use (with some help from the city’s water-use calculator at www.waterwiseaustin.org). “Conservation needs to be an everyday value, not just something you do during a drought,” he said. “We need that culture change.”
check out the whole article for more details
29th July, 2010 - Posted by carsi - No Comments
KUT has a story today on electric charging stations for cars, which will become important in November when Chevrolet starts selling its all-electric vehicle, the Volt, in Austin (for $41k). The car will be able to go about 40 miles on one charge, but it also has a generator to run on gas if needed. Still, some people are worried that consumers will get “range anxiety,” or a feeling of nervousness about having enough charge to get to their destinations. As of now, there is only one public charging station in Austin at the Whole Foods on 6th and Lamar, but the City is planning to add 100 more stations in the next two years. Right now, it’d take about eight hours to fully charge a car at that station, but that will be cut to three hours in the future.
Many people are also worried that, if the Volt takes off, all this charging will drain the electric grid, but some say there is enough power in clean energy to meet the demand. For example, wind power from East Texas is highest at night, when most people are expected to be charging their vehicles. Additionally, Austin Energy is working on incentives to promote charging at non-peak times. It should be interesting to see if the public is ready to purchase an all-electric vehicle and if the city is ready to support the accompanying electricity demand.
The Chevrolet Volt
photo credit
29th July, 2010 - Posted by katherine - No Comments
Here’s an update on my recent gardening success:
- Tomatoes are finally starting to do well and produce more. Right now I count 17 little green tomatoes – still probably not enough to can my own pasta sauce like I planned, but maybe in the fall they will continue to do well.
- Of my 7 okra plants, one is doing really well and getting very large. I’ve never seen an okra plant before so I don’t know how tall it will get before it starts producing fruit.
- Our chili plant is doing really well and our little jalapeño plant is also doing well.
- And I have some butternut squash starting- hopefully they will do better than my summer squash.
