South Australia is short on fresh water. North Australia’s got plenty. Rather than build a pipeline or indulge in large scale watershed engineering, Dr. Ian Edmonds proposes filling giant plastic bags with northern water and letting them float south in the East Australian current. There’s your roughneck of the twenty-first century: rather than drilling for oil, he’s heaving water bags out of the ocean. [treehugger]
All posts by Jeremy Lyon
Booktour.com Launches
Chris Anderson’s latest project is now live. BookTour.com is:
…a free online service that connects authors and potential audiences of all sorts, from book groups to civic organizations, from bookstores to corporate events. Authors create their own page (biography, books, tour dates and availability) and any group looking for speakers can find them and contact them directly to arrange for an appearance.
Supernova Online
It seems like every day I learn about some new, uberbrainy conference that I can’t afford to attend and aren’t smart enough to speak at, the most recent being Supernova. Supernova is all about “how decentralization and pervasive connectivity are changing our world.” Mitigating my frustration is the fact that many of these conferences are now publishing their proceedings online (to name two biggies: TED and SXSW). Supernova’s got video too. Don’t miss Clay Shirky, always a healthy dash of common sense for our collective moments of irrational exuberance. [oreilly radar]
Plug In Hybrids For Autopia
Ford Motor Company and the power company Southern California Edison are teaming up to develop plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. What’s the big deal about plug-in hybrids? It turns out that demand for power drops at night, when plug-in vehicles are most likely to be charging. Most electric grids already have enough excess capacity at night to handle a fleet of plug-ins, which means that shifting to plug-in hybrids can cause an immediate reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, especially as utility companies shift to renewable energy sources. This is one of Lester Brown’s favorite ways of saving the world, as described in Plan B 2.0. (One of the most optimistic assessments of humanity’s potential I’ve read.) [engadget]
Jay Lake’s New Novel
Past Futurismic contributor Jay Lake has just published “Mainspring,” a novel about the gears of the universe, the Archangel Gabriel, and a clockmaker’s apprentice. I haven’t read it yet, but knowing Jay’s penchant for the inventive and his storyteller’s intuition, I’m sure I’ll like it. If you’ve read it, let us know what you think in the comments. [boingboing]