Major Utility Firm: Smart Meters Are “Irrational” And “Security Risk”
Activist Post According to Halt MA Smart Meters, Massachusetts’ largest electric utility NSTAR has submitted scathing comments to the Department of Public Utilities (DPU) regarding its proposed mandate (to the utility, not the customer – there is no legal mandate for individual utility customers to accept “smart” meters on private property anywhere in the US […]
This Oct. 26, 2010 photograph provided by Joule Unlimited shows the company’s ethanol and diesel production testing facility in Leander, Texas, where arrays of bacteria gather sunlight and carbon dioxide and convert them to fuel. (AP Photo/Joule Unlimited, Felicia Spagnoli) NO SALESCAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — A Massachusetts biotech company is claiming it can produce renewable diesel fuel using the same ingredients that make grass grow.
Joule Unlimited in Cambridge says it has invented a genetically-engineered cyanobacterium that simply secretes the diesel — or ethanol — at remarkable rates.
The organisms live in water and take in sunlight and carbon dioxide. They then produce and directly secrete ethanol or hydrocarbons — the basis of various fuels, such as diesel — as a byproduct of photosynthesis.
Other methods for making fuel from solar energy use “biomass,” such as corn or algae. Joule says its technology is far less expensive.
Joule claims its work can change the world, but skeptics say the company may have trouble efficiently collecting the fuel they produce and also must demonstrate their technology on a broad scale.
Wmasslocal 