• China is investing billions of dollars in Brazil, partly to gain political influence in Latin America. (WashPost)
• 152 people are dead in a plane crash in Pakistan. (AP)
• The New Yorker has a great article on Moscow’s car traffic. An excerpt is at this link, but to read the whole thing, you have to read a print copy. (New Yorker)
• The NTSB is faulting track circuit failures and a lax safety outlook for the deadly 2009 Washington, D.C. Metro crash. (WashPost)
• A new architectural exhibit showcases plans of transforming Berlin which were never implemented. (Der Spiegel)
• Algae could be used as an alternative fuel source. (NYT)
• Utility companies are coming up with batteries to balance out wind-power’s unpredictable nature. (NYT)
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Image: Flickr
Tags: Alternative Energy, Brazil
Reading the Times article on the need to balance wind power loads with batteries, I can’t help but think that, once again, we have an energy source that in theory sounds great, wind is free right?, but in practice has unexpected costs and problems. Even after considering the direct cost of adding the batteries, there is the question of environmental impact. Batteries after all are relatively short lived components that require, for higher performance batteries, fairly exotic materials. Disposal, which also doesn’t factor into initial costs but must be considered due to their short life, is still, as far as I know, a big problem. It almost seems that sticking with oil and gas is better – at least we’ve gone through the learning curve here and understand the true costs of using these energy sources. That or conservation.