Energy musings of Newburyport and beyond

I shot this photo last summer in a north Jerusalem neighborhood while visiting my cousins.

Note the rooftop infrastructure. Israeli law requires every household to erect on their roof two photovoltaic panels and a water heater. Companies compete for installation and service.

I can't put a number to how many years and how many dollars, let alone how many millions of carbon dioxide emissions, the United States trails Israel.

It's no surprise the American media never shows these images. Sadly, because of the preponderance of suicide bombing explosions and missile attacks, most American citizens can't appreciate life in Israel &mdash which is no different than life in the States.

As proof, how many of my photos would typically be seen in the U.S. mainsteam media?

Over on Port Reporter Unlimited, Gillian Swart asks why Flint, and not Newburyport, is taking the lead on a public-private partnership with a Swedish firm to create a biogenic fuel.

If the United States falling behind other industrialized nations isn't an eyesore, how's Massachusetts falling behind California, Oregon, Texas, Florida, and North Carolina in R&D ingenuity? There's a reason why the first desalinization plant that can convert human urine into water opened in California.

Clearly, Michigan is more forward-thinking than Massachusetts in these terms.

But all is not lost. Massachusetts is taking the national lead on life science design and development (biotechnology, pharmacology, and medical devices), not to mention higher education, plastics manufacturing, the so-called creative cluster, and more.

Governor Deval Patrick is no Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Mayor John Moak is no Mayor Gavin Newsom.

Newsom, San Francisco's mayor, recently met with Israeli startup Project Better Place to replace CO2 cars with electric cars. In Israel, the group is working with Renault-Nissan in a quest to replace every Israeli car with an electric one.

Here's a video of Newsom in Israel:


In the coming weeks, if everything goes according to plan, Newburyport will purchase its first electric vehicle, in the form of a emissions-free dump truck, for DPW operations intended solely for travel on downtown vehicular and pedestrian ways, parks, and the boardwalk for collection of recycled material.

This material is currently collected by diesel emission trucks.

Stay tuned.