A newly opened solar power energy and storage plant in Spain.

By John Aziz | May 21, 2013

SolidarityEconomy.net via The Week.

The total solar energy hitting Earth each year is equivalent to 12.2 trillion watt-hours. That's over 20,000 times more than the total energy all of humanity consumes each year.

And yet photovoltaic solar panels, the instruments that convert solar radiation into electricity, produce only 0.7 percent of the energy the world uses.

So what gives?

For one, cost: The U.S. Department of Energy estimates an average cost of $156.90 per megawatt-hour for solar, while conventional coal costs an average of $99.60 per MW/h, nuclear costs an average of $112.70 per MW/h, and various forms of natural gas cost between $65.50 and $132 per MW/h. So from an economic standpoint, solar is still uncompetitive.

And from a technical standpoint, solar is still tough to store. "A major conundrum with solar panels has always been how to keep the lights on when the sun isn't shining," says Christoph Steitz and Stephen Jewkes at Reuters.

But thanks to huge advances, solar's cost and technology problems are increasingly closer to being solved.

(Bloomberg & New Energy Finance)

The percentage of light turned into electricity by a photovoltaic cell has increased from 8 percent in the first Cadmium-Telluride cells in the mid-1970s to up to 44 percent in the most efficient cells today, with some new designs theoretically having up to 51 percent efficiency. That means you get a lot more bang for your buck. And manufacturing costs have plunged as more companies have entered the market, particularly in China. Prices have fallen from around $4 per watt in 2008 to just $0.75 per watt last year to just $0.58 per watt today.

If the trend stays on track for another eight to 10 years, solar generated electricity in the U.S. will descend to a level of $120 per MW/h — competitive with coal and nuclear — by 2020, or even 2015 for the sunniest parts of America. If prices continue to fall over the next 20 years, solar costs will be half that of coal (and have the added benefits of zero carbon emissions, zero mining costs, and zero scarcity).

Scientists have made huge advances in thermal storage as well, finding vastly more efficient ways to store solar energy. (In one example, solar energy is captured and then stored in beds of packed rocks.)

Lower costs and better storage capacity would mean cheap, decentralized, plentiful, sustainable energy production — and massive relief to global markets that have been squeezed in recent years by the rising cost of fossil fuel extraction, a burden passed on to the consumer. All else being equal, falling energy prices mean more disposable income to save and invest, or to spend.

The prospect of widespread falling energy costs could be a basis for a period of strong economic growth. It could help us replace our dependence on foreign oil with a robust, decentralized electric grid, where energy is generated closer to the point of use. This would mean a sustainable energy supercycle — and new growth in other industries that benefit from falling energy costs.

Indeed, a solar boom could prove wrong those who claim that humanity has over-extended itself and that the era of growth is over.

John Aziz is an economics writer. He is an analyst at Pieria and writes a daily blog on finance, geopolitics, and economics.

High up in Havana: The roof with Cubasolar's experimental solar applications

Posted by Joanna at Organic Vision

SolidarityEconomy.net

March 19, 2013 - Some days after our arrival in Havana, we got a call from Bruno Henriquez, one of the founders of Cubasolar, a non-government organisation founded in 1994 that promotes renewable energies, installs solar systems, performs research and publishes newsletters among others.

For instance, Cubasolar has electrified more than 1900 primary schools as well as a large number of medicals facilities and community centers throughout rural Cuba with solar photovoltaic panels. There is much more to come as each year Cubasolar receives between 1000 EUR and 1 million EUR of foreign investment to further develop its solar power!

We had contacted Cubasolar to learn more about Cuba´s strategy towards renewable energy and ongoing projects. Bruno offered to show us the experimental solar applications the organization had set up on a rooftop in Havana. By the way: If you ever try to meet somebody in Cuba, you have to know that the telephone is the communication channel number one in this country.

At the houses we stayed (Cuba has a dense network of bed& breakfast type family hostels called “casas particulares”), the telephone rang every five minutes!!! Hardly anybody communicates via email, what is probably largely due to the fact that internet access is only available for around 6-10 CUC per hour (around 4-8 EUR) in the business centres of large hotels and some state-run telecommunication offices. Moreover, the internet in Cuba is painfully slow.

Luis showing us one of the solar lamps that has been distributed to rural schools in Cuba

We met Bruno the next day. An astrophysician by training, he later specialized in environmental physics. To our surprise he did not only speak perfect English but also French! During the taxi ride he told us that Havana has hardly any bioclimatic buildings or solar installations as electricity is cheap and environmental consciousness is not very developed among Cubans. Cubasolar´s founder, Dr. Luis Berriz, welcomed us in his house located at the highest point in Havana. On his rooftop he showed us his impressive array of solar equipment: A solar dryer he constructed with some PhD students (in which he dries the spirulina algue that grow on the roof), two solar heaters and a photovoltaic panel (from China).

“From the point of view of practical existence, solar radiation could fully supply the world’s energy needs indefinitely. The Cuban territory alone receives solar radiation with an energy value greater than 1 800 times the oil we consume“, Luis explained us.

He adds: “You know that solar energy is the primary source of wind, water, biochemistry, solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, etc. That’s why we raise the following formula:  Solar Energy + Technology = Energy Independence

If fossil fuels and nuclear energy sources have been of capitalism and imperialism, because with them they have dominated the world, renewable sources of energy will be those of socialism, which belong to everyone.”

For those who share this vision,  Cubasolar will organize an international workshop in April 2012.

The SKWID system, which harnesses power from both the wind and the tide, is scheduled to be tested in Japan

By Ben Coxworth

SolidarityEconomy.net via CBS News

May 17, 2013 - There are already a wide variety of renewable energy systems that harness the power of the wind, along with some that generate power via the flow of ocean currents. According to Japanese engineering firm MODEC (Mitsui Ocean Development & Engineering Co.), however, its soon-to-be-tested SKWID system will be the first one to do both.

SKWID stands for Savonius Keel and Wind Turbine Darrieus. This is appropriate, as it’s an anchored floating platform that contains both a Savonius tidal turbine below the waterline, and a Darrieus vertical-axis wind turbine up in the air. The two are connected by a central gearbox/generator, allowing the SKWID to generate power from the currents, the wind, or both. Additionally, the rotation of the tidal turbine can be used to help get the wind turbine spinning, when breezes are light and it needs a bit of extra inertia.

The design of the Darrieus turbine is such that it can spin to the left or to the right, so it works regardless of the wind direction.

The tidal turbine spins in just one direction, but it does so irrespective of the direction of the current. It is reportedly able to harness even the weakest of currents, and is not affected by marine growth on its half-cyclinder-shaped buckets/blades. Additionally, because it spins no faster than the current, it is claimed to be safe for marine life.

The SKWID shouldn’t be too likely to tip over in rough seas, as the deck-level-mounted generator and below-deck-mounted tidal turbine help keep its center of gravity low. Additionally, the ring-shaped deck (which is the source of flotation) is joined to the central structure via flexible rubber mounts, allowing it to rock back and forth with the waves while the turbines and associated machinery remain stable and upright.

According to a report on Japan’s NHK News (relayed by America’s CBS News), one of the SKWIDs is due to be installed and tested off the coast of Japan, sometime this fall (Northern Hemisphere). The wind turbine should sit 47 meters (154 feet) above sea level, with the tidal turbine having a diameter of 15 meters (49 feet). Together, they may be able to generate enough power to provide for approximately 300 households.

Source: MODEC via CBS News

 By Zachary Shahan

SolidarityEconomy.net via CleanTechnica.com

Scotland may not be as large as Germany or Australia or the US, but it certainly deserves a bit more attention when it comes to its clean energy leadership.

Scotland already gets over 30% renewable electricity — about 33% today according to the interviewee in the first video below; 39% of total electricity demand in 2012, according to the Scottish government. It has a 2020 target of 100% renewable electricity. And it also has an ambitious overall renewable energy target.

Notably, Scotland has some wonderful renewable energy resources — especially wind and tidal resources. But come on, who doesn’t have wonderful renewable energy resources? From sunshine to wind to geothermal to less popular types of renewable energy, countries around the world have clean, renewable resources they can tap to generate their own energy.

Check out these two videos below from Fully Charged for more on Scotland’s rockstar clean energy leadership (h/t NewEnergyNews):

Here are some more stories from our team on Scotland’s clean energy leadership:

1. No Coal, No Nuclear, Only Renewable Energy For Scotland By 2030?
2. World’s Largest Tidal Turbine, in Scotland
3. Wind Turbine Big Enough To Land A Helicopter On? Scotland Has It Covered
4. Scotland Opens World’s Largest Marine Energy Park
5. Biggest Offshore Wind Farm in the World Planned in Scotland
6. Europe’s Biggest Wind Farm Starts Producing Electricity (in Scotland)
7. Huge Scotland Wind Farm Given Green Light (on Shetland Islands)
8. Scotland Plans World’s Largest Underwater Tidal Turbine Project
9. Floating Wind Turbines In Scotland Get £15 Million
10. Scotland Well On Track To Reach 500 MW Community Renewable Energy Goal
11. Scottish Electricity Generation Plan Underway
12. Scotland Could Get 50% Of Its Power From Renewable Sources By 2015, Says First Minister Alex Salmond
13. Scotland Announces Drastic Decarbonization By 2030

Zachary Shahan (2289 Posts)

If you couldn't guess, I spend most of my time on CleanTechnica and Planetsave. I'm the director/editor of both sites and am a little obsessed with them and the topics they cover. You can also find my work on Scientific American, Reuters, Change.org, most of the sites in the Important Media network, & many other places. For more, or to connect, go to: zacharyshahan.com

By Prabhat Patnaik

At first sight no two persons could have been more dissimilar.  One was a Cambridge don, with more than one foot in the British government; a supporter of the Liberal Party, staunchly opposed to the Bolshevik Revolution; an aesthete and a member of the Bloomsbury Group; a life peer in imperial Britain, and a solid, if sensitive, member of the British establishment.  The other was a Russian revolutionary, spending years in exile in acute penury, immersed in bitter conflicts among the émigrés, until suddenly confronted with a revolutionary uprising whose strivings and possibilities he comprehended with such clarity that he came to lead it, facing a civil war, a typhus epidemic, and an assassination attempt that ultimately claimed his life.

The secure tranquillity of the life of the one contrasted sharply with the tempestuous violence that continuously haunted the life of the other.  What could these two have in common?

For a start each felt a deep intellectual respect for the other, despite their political differences.  In his report to the second congress of the Communist International, having called John Maynard Keynes “a British bourgeois pacifist”, “a petit bourgeois philistine” and “an implacable enemy of Bolshevism”, V.I. Lenin went on to base his entire thesis about why conditions were ripe for a world revolution on Keynes’s analysis in The Economic Consequences of the Peace.  He even paid Keynes the compliment that “nobody had written about the condition of capitalism better than Keynes”.  Keynes, on his part, not only referred in several places to Lenin’s “brilliance”, but, in this same book, said apropos of inflation: “Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency; . . . Lenin was certainly right.”

But mutual intellectual respect among bitter adversaries is neither unusual nor particularly remarkable.  What is really common to both these thinkers is their belief that the hegemony of finance in the period of maturity of capitalism had brought about a denouement where it became impossible for the system to go on as before.  Of course each had his own understanding of why finance had made capitalism impossible, and each had his own reading of where to go from there.  But the belief that a sheer continuity of the existing order was no longer possible was common to both.

Keynes saw the hegemony of finance as saddling capitalism with such extraordinarily high levels of unemployment that people, he feared, would not for long tolerate such an inhumane system.  Under this hegemony, speculation was no longer a mere bubble on a steady stream of enterprise, but became a torrent that buffeted enterprise around. 

This became particularly so after the prop that had sustained 19th-century capitalism, namely the pushing of the frontier, had reached its limits.  Not only did employment get determined largely by the whims and caprices of speculators, but in the absence of this prop would remain much higher than before, of which the Great Depression was a manifestation.  He wanted the system to become more humane in order to survive the challenge of socialism.  And this it could do by ensuring, through systematic State intervention in demand management, that the level of employment was made independent of the whims and caprices of financial speculators.

Lenin by contrast saw finance capital as striving everywhere for domination and for the acquisition of “economic territory” at the expense of rivals.  Hence the rivalry between different “national” finance capitals (belonging to big “nations”), each backed by “its” State, would henceforth take the form of bloody inter-imperialist wars, of which the First World War was a manifestation.  Escape from this predicament was possible only by overthrowing the entire system of finance-dominated capitalism and by ushering in socialism.

The turn of events was such that the ideas of both these thinkers were tried out in practice, a fate denied to most and another element that is common to both.  Keynes’s proposal for State intervention in demand management in capitalist economies had few takers in the beginning, a fact that allowed the Great Depression to persist outside of the fascist countries right until the eve of the war when military preparations against the threat of fascism finally pulled up levels of employment and activity.  But in the post-war period, with the balance of class strength shifting in favour of the working class across the advanced capitalist world, of which the emergence of social democracy was a manifestation, State intervention in demand management got institutionalized, producing the so-called “Golden Age of capitalism”.  And as regards Lenin, the response generated by his call for the overthrow of capitalism, the Bolshevik Revolution and the formation of the Communist International, the struggle of the Soviet Union against fascism, its contribution to post-war decolonization and the spread of socialism, constitute together the epic saga of the 20th century.

But, again by an irony that unites both these thinkers, the historical experiments unleashed by them, despite remarkable early promise, could not reach successful fruition.  The process of globalization of finance made the nation state that was supposed to override the whims and caprices of finance, subservient precisely to these very whims and caprices for fear of capital flight; as a result we have the current bizarre spectacle of capitalist countries enacting one after another ‘austerity measures’ in the midst of a recession, which will only accentuate the recession.  Keynes would be turning in his grave at this absurd course of events.  Likewise, the Soviet Union founded under Lenin’s leadership no longer exists; communist parties, barring a few, have dwindled into insignificance; the socialist credentials of China and Vietnam are barely visible and have to be established by the committed few through elaborate theoretical and statistical exercises; and a question mark hovers over the fate of Cuba, buffeted by imperialism.  Those who invoke either Keynes or Lenin today are few and far between.

Does this mean then that the projects of both Keynes and Lenin are equally passé?  The answer is no, and this constitutes the big contrast between the two.  Because Lenin’s project was grand, nothing short of bringing about a wholly new world order, the like of which mankind had only dreamt of but never seen, and that too against the bitterest possible opposition from the propertied classes, he was acutely aware of the prospects of the failure of his particular experiment.  In fact, after Soviet power had lasted three months, he had remarked gleefully: “We have lasted longer than the Paris Commune!”  Because of the grandeur of his project the possibility of the failure of his particular experiment was anticipated by Lenin.  But not so with Keynes.

Since his objective was to defend the system of private property against socialism, he not only expected no systematic opposition from the propertied classes, but even attributed whatever opposition he actually encountered from them to mere intellectual failure on their part.  After all, if demand management by the State increased the level of activity and employment in the economy, then that would benefit both the workers (through larger employment) and the capitalists (through larger profits).  So the predicament of late capitalism was one from which, if one had the correct intellectual comprehension, one could improve everybody’s condition.  What Keynes did not see is that State intervention in capitalism is something which sets off a dialectic of its own that ultimately subverts the domination of capital over labour.  Not that Great Depression-levels of mass unemployment are necessary for capitalism but the elimination of such levels of mass unemployment through State intervention undermines the social legitimacy of the system.  The setback to Lenin’s project would not have surprised Lenin; the setback to Keynes’s would have surprised Keynes.  Lenin’s project will be revived, but not Keynes’s, except as a staging post in the march towards Lenin’s goal.

- Prabhat Patnaik is a Marxist economist in India

MidAmerican's wind energy project is $1.9 billion windfall for Iowa

By William Petroski, Perry Beeman

SolidarityEconomy.net via Des Moines Register, May 12, 2013

MidAmerican Energy Co.’s $1.9 billion investment in wind energy in Iowa will help hold down customers’ electric bills, make the state more attractive to looking for greener energy, and create good jobs, state and utility leaders said Wednesday.

The MidAmerican Energy project, owned by Warren Buffet, becomes the biggest single economic investment ever in the state, said Gov. Terry Branstad. “We’ve made that announcement a few times lately,” he said.

Over the past year, the companies taking the lead have switched off: First, Orascom Construction Industries said it would build a $1.4 billion fertilizer plant in eastern Iowa, then CF Industries said it would invest $1.7 billion in its fertilizer plant near Sioux City. And then Orascom recently said it would boost its investment to $1.8 billion. Unlike those projects, this one will receive no state incentives.

MidAmerican Energy, a utility serving 714,000 customers in Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and South Dakota, said the project would create 460 over two years and 48 permanent jobs, primarily workers needed to maintain the 656 the utility will build through 2015.

The permanent jobs will create $2.4 million annually in pay for workers, MidAmerican said. The construction workers will take home $30 million, said Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds. “That’s over 500 Iowa residents who will bring home a paycheck to provide for their families,” she said.

The project will add 1,050 megawatts of wind generation, pushing the utility’s total to 3,335 megawatts of energy. As a result, MidAmerican expects that about 40 percent of its power to Iowa customers will come from wind.

“That is marvelous news,” said Harold Prior, executive director of the Iowa Wind Energy Association. “MidAmerican is one of the top utilities in the country as far as embracing wind energy.”

William Fehrman, Mid­American Energy Co.’s chief executive, said the project would hold down power costs for consumers. “The reality is that you’re avoiding any kind of increase,” Fehrman said.

The company said the project would “be built at no net cost to the company’s customers.” The added wind generation is expected to cut consumer rates by $3.3 million in 2015 and grows to $10 million annually by 2017, the company said. “This is real money back in the pockets of Iowans,” Reynolds said.

Branstad and Fehrman said green energy has been critical to attracting companies like Facebook, the social networking giant that last month announced it would build a $300 million data center in Altoona (Iowa). State leaders expect Facebook to push its investment to nearly $1 billion over six years.

Facebook has pledged to get 25 percent of its energy from renewable resources by 2015. Ferhman said renewable energy was critical during negotiations with the California company. Facebook even explored the possibility of owning its own wind farm, state leaders have said.

“This sends a larger message to the nation that Iowa is cutting edge, Iowa is innovative,” Reynolds said.

Prior, the wind association leader, agreed the move could attract new development. And the project will keep Iowa on track to generate 10,000 megawatts of wind power by 2020, and will help support jobs at turbine-component businesses and blade manufacturers, he said.

The company’s new investment pushes Mid­American Energy’s investment in wind to about $6 billion. Fehrman said the company has purchased turbine blades from Siemens Energy in Fort Madison and towers from Trinity Structural Towers in Newton. Fehrman said a new turbine costs about $2 million.

The company has already erected 1,267 wind turbines, many in western and north-central Iowa. The company declined to say where the new wind farms would be located. “If you look at a good wind map, you’ll probably get a good feel about where we’ll be targeting,” Fehrman said, adding that location decisions will be made in a couple of months.

MidAmerican is not seeking state assistance for the project, but it will receive federal wind production tax credits.

Ferhman said the one-year extension of the tax credits helped the project. “Without that, the environment for doing projects of this magnitude and this size would not be possible,” he said during a news conference at the Capitol.

The company expects to pay landowners $3.2 million annually for the rights to use their land for the turbines, and to generate more than $360 million in additional property tax revenues over the next 30 years.

“This is a tremendous deal for farmers and the tax base of these rural counties,” Branstad said.

Nathaniel Baer, who follows energy issues for the nonprofit Iowa Environmental Council, said MidAmerican’s announcement is encouraging, but there is room for far more wind energy in Iowa than the utility proposed. He added that he hopes MidAmerican will make it easier for Iowans to install their own wind turbines in the utility’s territory, by paying more for the power.

“I think it is a welcome development for wind energy, the Iowa environment and the economy,” Baer said of MidAmerican’s wind-energy expansion plans.

Senate Minority Leader Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, said he felt everything about MidAmerican’s announcement was positive for Iowa’s economy and for future job growth. “This is home-grown energy coming from right here in Iowa. It is renewable, it is clean, and that is all a good thing for Iowans,” he said.

The utility’s project will boost Iowa’s overall wind generation, from all sources, to 6,000 megawatts from 5,000 megawatts currently, Baer said.

The U.S. Department of Energy has estimated that Iowa would have to boost its production significantly to help the nation meet environmental groups’ goal to have the country produce 20 percent of its power from wind by 2030.

Baer said Congress should extend the production tax credit long-term to help make that happen.

MidAmerican Energy began building wind projects in 2004. The expansion needs approval by the Iowa Utilities Board, officials said.

MidAmerican Energy is No. 1 nationally for ownership of wind generation capacity among rate-regulated utilities.

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There are many points of interest pertaining to the development of Marxist philosophy in contemporary China. This paper will focus on the following areas and problems: the debate about the criterion of truth; Marxist philosophical textbook reform; the inquiry into the human agent and subjectivity; Marxism and Confucianism; Deng Xiaoping’s theory; and the socialist market economic system. Let’s start with the debate about the criterion of truth, for this is the historical starting-point of contemporary Marxist philosophy in China.

1. The Debate about the Criterion of Truth

Academically, the real development of Marxist philosophy in contemporary China started in 1978. In that year, China’s intellectual life witnessed a great event. People in every walk of life were engaged in a debate: What is the criterion of truth?

Initially, the debate was related to the political struggle and the ideological debates within the Chinese Communist Party. Chairman Mao Zedong died in 1976, and the Cultural Revolution was officially declared to be ended. However, in ideology nothing seems to change much. The Chair of the Communist Party at that time was handpicked by Mao. As a way to maintain his position, he insisted on the doctrine of the “two whatevers”: (1) whatever policy decisions Mao had made must be firmly upheld; (2) whatever instructions Mao had given must be followed unswervingly. Hence, for the opposite faction, led by Deng Xiaoping (who was purged by Mao in 1975) to come back to power, it was necessary to break these “two whatevers.”

On May 11, 1978, a prominent Chinese newspaper, the Guangming Daily, published an article entitled “Practice Is the Only Criterion for Judging the Truth,” signed by “the Special Commentator.” The article argued that for all forms of knowledge, including Marxism, the nature of their truth must be judged and proved by practice. All scientific knowledge, including Marxism, should be amenable to revision, supplementation, and development in practice, in accordance with the specific conditions under which it is to be applied. This paper was widely echoed and provoked lively discussions throughout China. These led to a consensus that it is practice, not Mao’s words, that can tell us what is right and what is wrong. The immediate consequence of this great debate was that the advocates of the “two whatevers” lost their power, and Deng Xiaoping regained his power and started the Chinese economic reform. In contrast to the “two whatevers,” Deng’s motto is, “It does not matter whether a cat is black or white; as long as it can catch mice, it is a good cat.”

However, the debate has had a far-reaching influence on Chinese social science, in particular, on the study of Marxism itself. Since the Communist party came to power in 1949, Marxism, and its Chinese representative, Mao Zedong’s thought, has been regarded as the absolute and as a completed truth system. The only role philosophers could play¾and were required to play¾was to prove the rightness or truth of Marxism and Mao’s theory. Only political leaders, actually only Mao himself, could establish new truth and develop Marxism. Just as philosophy was the handmaiden of theology in the medieval West, so in China philosophy became the servant of Mao’s politics. Any question or criticism put to Marxism and Mao’s theory was regarded as a political challenge. For Mao, the most important thing that Marxist philosophy can teach is its theory of class struggle and the theory of proletarian dictatorship. Mao’s philosophy actually became a kind of “Struggle Philosophy.”

Now the debate about the criterion of truth and the establishment of practice as that criterion broke this myth of Marxism and of Mao’s theory. Marxism became a subject that could be reflected upon, examined, renewed, and developed. The truth-criterion discussion of 1978 was indeed a movement of enlightenment, a movement of thought liberation. It paved the way for contemporary China’s economic development, and it also paved the way for any possible new contributions to Marxism. It used to be the case that one could only “insist” on Marxism; now we could “develop” Marxism, and many now believed that only by developing Marxist philosophy could one really insist on it. It used to be the case that academic philosophy was always subordinate to the leaders’ thought and did not have any independent status. Since 1978, however, philosophical research has won a relatively independent academic position.

2. Reform of the Philosophical Textbook

The immediate effect of these developments for Chinese Marxism was the publication of new editions of the Marxist textbook. One would think that a new edition of a textbook is a matter of pedagogy, of the teaching of philosophy, rather than a matter of philosophical development, or development in philosophical thought. This is not the case in China, however.  For, generally speaking, it is only the Marxism embodied in the textbook that is regarded as the orthodox Marxism, the “true” Marxism that should be learned. A change in the textbook means therefore a change of attitude towards Marxism. To a great extent, the changes of the textbook mirror the situation of Marxist philosophical research.  To get a new edition of the Marxist textbook published, what is essential is not the approval of the referees, but that of the government. Now the situation has changed significantly, yet the reform and reconstruction of the official textbook is still regarded as an important aspect of the progress of Marxist philosophy.

Until 1978, the main textbook of Marxist philosophy in China was Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism (edited by Ai Siqi, the former leader of the Party School of the Communist Party). Its contents and structure were basically transplanted and transferred from the textbook of Marxist philosophy in the former Soviet Union, and it was deeply influenced by Stalinist dogmatism. Though political relations between the Soviet Union and China were broken in the early 1960s, this type of official philosophical textbook had remained unchanged.

Since 1978, Chinese philosophers have introduced important modifications or re-formulations to different aspects and levels of Marxist philosophy.

First, breaking away from the constraint of the traditional textbook, they returned to the original works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Many concepts have been redefined, such as matter, consciousness, existence, spirit, static, motion, ideals, struggle, social existence, social consciousness, knowledge, truth, practice. Various basic views and positions were re-evaluated, such as, “the basic problem of philosophy,”  “the challenge of epistemological skepticism,” “the relationship between dialectics and metaphysics,” “the relationship between materialism and idealism,” “the basic contradictions in human society,” “epistemological methods,” and so on. Some Marxist theories were abandoned, whereas others were re-formulated.

Second, many new concepts and views, mainly derived from Western philosophy and/or sciences, were introduced into the Marxist philosophic textbook, including concepts such as: subject and subjectivity, object and objectivity, medium, element, structure, function, information, feedback, control, social system, social organism, purpose, emotion, will, cognitive model, thinking world, value, evaluation, and so on; and views such as:  “the idealist way and the practical way of human understanding of the World”; “the interactive law between subject and object”; “the farsightedness, selection, and creativity of human cognition”; “subjective principle and the system principle in cognition”; “the unity of truth and value”, “the concrete and historical unity among Truth, Good, and Beauty.” Some new research methods were transplanted, and applied to Marxist philosophical research, for example, the methods of genetic theory, atomic analysis, constructive explanation, and functional analysis.

Third, many new domains have been explored, and many new branches have been introduced and developed, for example, axiology, theory of practice, philosophical methodology, philosophical anthropology, the theory of social organisms, the theory of social control, the genetic theory of cognition, the theory of cognitive evolution, philosophy of man, philosophy of science, philosophy of humanities and social science, scientific epistemology, social epistemology, philosophy of daily life, feminist philosophy, philosophy of environment and ecology, and so on.

These philosophical achievements provided the new foundation to the textbook reform and reconstruction of Marxism in China. There are many textbooks with different outlooks. I would like to mention briefly the following four that are the most influential.

a. Dialectic Materialism and Historical Materialism, editor-in-chief, Xiao Qian, a professor at the People’s University of China. The book maintains the main structure of Ai Siqi’s textbook but thoroughly absorbs the new achievements of the sciences. It includes sub-divisions such as materialism, dialectics, and epistemology, theory of society and history, and methodology. It is the most influential textbook of Marxist philosophy in China. The problem of this book is that some of the new contents of the philosophy could not find their suitable place in the old system.

b. The Basic Principles of Marxist Philosophy, chief editor, Gao Qinghai, a professor at Jilin University. It is based on the historical development of Western philosophy and of Marxist philosophy. The major strength of the book lies in its attempt to locate the historical sources of the main philosophical concepts and its emphasis on understanding Marxist philosophy historically. The problem of this book is its difficulty in distinguishing the content of Marxist philosophy from that of Western philosophy. The other problem is that it is too historical, and somewhat weak in the construction of philosophical arguments.

c. Professor Huang Danshen, of Beijing University, tries to compile a system of Marxist philosophy according to his understanding of Lenin’s Philosophical Notebooks. The structure of his textbook system is based on 36 pairs of concepts. Since Lenin’s philosophical notebooks are his reading notes on Hegel’s Logic, Huang’s plan carries the obvious influence of Hegel’s philosophy. The other problem of his system is that 36 pairs of concepts are not enough to include all aspects of philosophy.

d. Professor Xia Zhentao of the People’s University of China, and Ouyang Kang [the present author], a professor at Wuhan University, have created another new system of Marxist philosophy according to their understanding to Karl Marx’s “Practical Materialism.” We understand that the major characteristic of Marxist philosophy is its emphasis on “practice.” This is also the basic point of difference between Marxist and non-Marxist philosophy. It is a fact that Karl Marx never called his philosophy dialectical materialism or historical materialism; instead he referred to it as “Practical Materialism” in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844). His most famous sentence was the one that appeared on his tombstone: “Philosophers only explain the world, but the problem is to change it.” Based on Marx’s ideas, we developed a comprehensive understanding of the concept of “practice” and redefined the nature of Marxist philosophy as a kind of Dialectical, Historical, Humanistic, and Practical Materialism. Marxist philosophy is a philosophy of the relationship between Man and the World. The highest function of Marxist philosophy is to help people to recognize, to understand, to evaluate, to control, to develop, and to deal with this relationship more rationally and more efficiently. The new outlook of Marxist philosophy will be a kind of new Subjective-Methodological system.

At the present time, the reform and the reconstruction of the textbook of Marxist philosophy is still going on. We believe that further developments of Marxist philosophy in China should be individualized and personalized, rather than following a unified pattern. Different Marxist philosophers should be encouraged to develop their own philosophical systems based on their own understanding of Marxist philosophy, and they should use their special research methodology.          

3. Exploring the Human Agent and Subjectivity

In the past, human beings had little standing in Chinese Marxist philosophy. Even when the notion of man was mentioned occasionally, it mainly referred to the collective, group, class and nation, but not to the individual. This has been criticized as “stressing nature but forgetting man” – i.e., stressing the collective man but forgetting the individual person. Now it is agreed that the individual human being should be the main topic of Marxist philosophy.

With the publication of Marx’s newly discovered  Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts,* Chinese philosophers have become more interested in the problems of humanism and alienation. Some claim that the individual human being should be the starting point of Marxist philosophy. Others think that problems of the individual human being should be the highest target, the primary task, the central subject-matter and the final destination of Marxist philosophy. Still others suggest that humanism can be included in Marxism if it is defined as a basis for ethical consideration. The discussion, however, suffered a setback in the anti-liberalism movement of 1984.

Another related topic is subjectivity. Both subject and object are new concepts of Chinese Marxist philosophy that did not appear in the old philosophical textbook. In the 1980s, discussion of this issue was not limited to Marxist philosophy, but was also found in the literatures of critical theory, ethics, aesthetics, and so on. Why were Chinese intellectuals so interested in the problems of subject, subjectivity, and the subjective principle? The answer is that in discussing subjectivity, the central philosophical position of the individual human being could be established. There are many different positions in the inquiry into subjectivity. Some argue against it on the ground that to emphasize subjectivity would lead to the denial of cognitive objectivity. Others, on the other hand, push the subjective principle to the extreme of advocating an absolute free will. My M.A. thesis is entitled “On Subjective Ability,” and I have published many papers on this topic. I believe that the subjective movement in contemporary Chinese philosophy was actually a thought liberation movement.

In May 1997, Professor Huang Danshen of Beijing University organized a National Association of the Philosophy of Man, which held its first conference in Beijing. The Philosophy of Man has become a very hot topic in China today. One strong feature is to connect this topic with the new outlook of Marxist philosophy. Some claim that the Philosophy of Man is the hallmark of contemporary Marxist philosophy. Others think that the Philosophy of Man is only a part of Marxist philosophy. Nevertheless, the efforts to establish the Philosophy of Man have stimulated much philosophical research and have greatly extended the development of Marxist philosophy in China.

4. Marxist Philosophy and Confucianism

How should Marxist philosophy deal with its relationship to the traditional Chinese value system?           

The controversy between traditionalism and anti-traditionalism has been hot in modern China for many decades. Since the New Cultural Movement of May 4, 1919, anti-traditionalism was the main trend. To some, revolution means rejecting traditional Chinese culture, especially Confucianism. Mao Zedong was deeply influenced by traditional Chinese culture in his early years. But one of the most important aims of his Cultural Revolution was to get rid of Confucianism, and even of all traditional Chinese culture. Traditional Chinese culture is regarded as an obstacle to China’s modernization. Others looked down upon Chinese philosophy, and believed that Chinese philosophy was not mature, and that it lacked logic. They admired only Western civilization and philosophy. Meanwhile, the more traditionally-minded scholars insisted that Chinese culture and philosophy should be the mainstream in China. Now the problem is whether it is possible to combine Marxist philosophy with traditional Chinese culture. Can Marxist philosophy be developed without learning from Chinese culture and philosophy? How can Marxist philosophy become intrinsic to contemporary Chinese culture? How can Marxist philosophy find its foundation and roots in Chinese soil?Almost all Chinese philosophers now realize the necessity of combining Marxist philosophy and traditional Chinese philosophy. Integrating Chinese philosophy and culture into Marxist philosophy is the necessary way to develop Marxist philosophy in China. It is also the necessary way to discover and recognize the contemporary meaning of traditional Chinese culture and philosophy.  There are many positive elements in traditional Chinese culture and philosophy that may be profitably absorbed into Marxist philosophy. Here we briefly list some of them:           

The idea of the unity of Man and Heaven (Nature)
Now our entire world is deeply involved in the ecological controversy surrounding the relationship between Man and Nature. The sharp opposition between man and nature has been characteristic of much traditional Western culture and philosophy, and Marxism itself is a product of that tradition. To find possible ways to achieve a harmony of man and nature has from the beginning been a basic theme in traditional Chinese philosophy. Chinese philosophers insisted that nature is to be regarded not as the slave of man but as the equal partner in human life and in the formation of humanity. Man should stay on good terms with nature. Human beings should respect and protect nature. To protect nature is to protect the necessary environment of human life. Traditional Chinese philosophy is full of ecological insights and anticipations.  The same ecological concerns can be found in Karl Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts.   
The outlook and method of the Mean (Zhong Yong).
The Mean, also called “the Impartiality” or “the Doctrine of the Mean,” is the Middle Way.  Epistemologically, the method of the Mean seeks to master the object in a complete and rounded way by avoiding any kind of extreme, excess, and partiality. In the context of social life, the Middle Way prescribes that each human being should form his own judgment regardless of the opinions of others. 

Harmony among peoples
Chinese philosophy emphasizes peace and harmony among peoples and condemns irrational and unnecessary conflicts and unjust wars. Chinese philosophers insisted that human beings should respect and help each other. And their harmonious relationship is to be based on the common understanding of virtues. Rulers should treat their people as they treat their children. To show respect to the old and to protect youth were regarded as the basic virtues in ancient China. Traditional Chinese virtues, such as diligence and filial piety, have their contemporary meanings in today’s human life and should become the intrinsic content of Marxist ethics.

Recently there have been heated discussions on Asian Values in the East and also in the West.. It is generally agreed that Confucianism is the main core of Asian values, which include in particular “Family Values.”   Many Chinese philosophers believe that the teachings of traditional Chinese philosophy could still be applicable to human life today.  They retain their relevance in contemporary world culture.
5. Deng Xiaoping Theory

Deng Xiaoping theory is regarded as the new stage and new outlook of Marxist philosophy in contemporary China. It is the guiding ideology in building Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. Deng’s thought has been intensively studied.

I think that the most important contributions of Deng Xiaoping theory lie in the liberation of the human spirit in contemporary China. The core and key point of Deng’s theory is “emancipating the mind” and “seeking truth from facts.”  Seeking truth from facts is the quintessence of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. Deng emphasized this in 1978 and used it to counter the “two whatevers,” thus opening up a new area for China. It was called the first Spirit Liberation Movement in China.  After the political incidents in 1989, there were some arguments about where China should go, especially whether China should continue its reform and open policy. Deng stressed the emancipation of the mind in his trip to South China in 1992. This affirmation cleared up many important misconceptions about Socialism, and advanced the reform to a new stage. This was called the second Spirit Liberation Movement, which initiated the socialist market system in China. After Deng’s death, there have been some debates regarding his theory and practice. Secretary-General Jiang Zemin and the central committee of CPC stressed these two aspects again in its 15th National Congress in September 1997. This was regarded as the third Spirit Liberation in today’s China.

Deng Xiaoping’s other important contribution to Marxist philosophy is to establish a new criterion for socialist theories. He claimed that the fundamental questions we should ask about socialism are what socialism is and how to build it. He raised three fundamental criteria for judging a proposal or a policy: whether it is favorable for promoting growth of the productive forces in a socialist society, whether it is favorable for increasing the overall strength of the socialist state, and whether it is favorable for raising the people’s living standards. The criteria were called the “three favorables.”  By these three value criteria, people could actually evaluate all social policy and social administration and could judge between right and wrong and between good and bad.

Deng Xiaoping theory is a system with rich contents. He has greatly contributed to the contemporary development of China. His philosophical ideas give us enlightenment although they do not complete the development of Marxist philosophy in China. Deng’s theory itself should be developed in time.

6. Marxism and Chinese Socialist Market System

One special and current problem facing Chinese Marxist philosophers is how Marxist philosophy answers the challenges of constructing a socialist market economic system in China. In the past 20 years, the economic system in China has been changed from the central planning system via planned commercial system to a socialist free market system. The economy has developed rapidly. The new market system has thrown all traditional disciplines, such as philosophy, literature, and history into turmoil. As everyone knows, Marxism in China had a privileged political position in the planning of the social system. Now Marxist philosophical research has become a kind of academic research. The authority of Marxist philosophy can only be based on its content and function, depending on whether it is recognized by society. Marxist philosophers stand on the same level as other scholars. It is not only a kind of challenge but also a fair competition. This situation forces and stimulates Marxist philosophers in China to do their work better than ever. It is the motivating force underlying the development of Marxist philosophy as an academic discipline.

The socialist market economy, as a part of Chinese Marxism, is both a heritage and a development of Marxist economics. In our prior understanding of Marxism, socialism is the opposite of capitalism. The basic nature of capitalism is private ownership, free market economic system, and wealth distribution according to the ownership of capital. As the opposite of capitalism, the basic nature of socialism lies in the public ownership of capital, planned economic system, and wealth distribution according to work. The former Soviet Union, some Eastern European countries, and China had tried for many years to follow these criteria for socialism, and the consequence is not good at all. This situation led the Chinese Communist Party to re-think and re-understand Marx and Engels, especially the ideas of their later years. If one inquires more deeply into why they contrasted socialism with capitalism, one will discover that in their understanding, the highest goal of socialism is to create the higher productive forces, to get rid of social inequality, to destroy poverty, and to make all social groups richer. Socialism is thus a more advanced system than capitalism. But these ideas are not easy to actualize. Each country has to find its own effective and possible way according to its own history and reality. Only when your socialist theory succeeds can it be proved to be true socialism, and only then can your practice be accepted and followed by your people. Otherwise socialism will have no reason and no power to attract the people. Here we should insist that practice is the only criterion to judge the truth of socialism and of Marxism.

The Chinese socialist market economic system is based on following arguments.           

1). Marxist socialism is not a kind of dogma but an active and practical movement. The highest goal of socialism is to develop productive forces in the most effective way. The basic doctrine of socialism is to enrich all members of society. To meet its goals, the development models of socialism in the world are not universal and unique but variable and multiple. In different countries, socialism requires different models and different ways. This is a necessary way to realize and to develop socialist theory.

2). The market, as an economic form, is neutral in relation to political and ideological systems. The market system does not belong only to capitalism but can also be used by socialism. Today’s world is basically a global market economic system. Any individual country should consciously join in the world market system if they want to become a member of international society rather than being isolated. This also applies to China.

3). It is impossible to complete the transition from capitalism to communism in one step. There are some middle stages between them. Socialism is a middle stage in the transitional process. It should contain the characteristics of these two societies.

4). The Socialist free market system with Chinese Characteristics is a new development of Chinese Marxism. On the one hand, it insists that the highest aims of socialism are to develop the productive forces and to enrich people’s lives to the greatest extent. On the other hand, it fits with the down-to-earth situation of contemporary China.

5). It has been proven through many years’ unsuccessful practice in China before 1978 that the pure central planning economic system was a way neither to develop productive forces nor to raise the people’s living standard. The fastest continuous economic development in China since 1978, especially since 1992, has strongly proved the benefits of the socialist market system.

Reference

Ai Siqi ed.: Dialectic Materialism and Historical Materialism, People’s Press, Beijing, 1970.

The Special Commentator: “Practice Is the Only Criterion for Judging the Truth”, Guang-ming Daily, May 11, 1978.

Gao Qinghai: The Basic Principles of Marxist Philosophy, Jilin Press, Changchun 1989.

Xiaoqian etc. ed. The Basic Principles of Marxist Philosophy, The Chinese People’s University Press, Beijing, 1992.
Ouyang Kang: An Introduction to Social Epistemology, China Social Science Press, Beijing, 1990.

Ouyang Kang: The Methodology of Philosophy Research, Wuhan University Press, Wuhan, 1998.

Ouyang Kang: From the Discussion of Truth Criterion to the Construction of the New Morphology of Marxist Philosophy, TIANJING SOCIAL SCIENCES, 1998(6)

The author: Prof. Dr. Ouyang Kang, Dean of the School of Humanities, Head of the Department of Philosophy, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei 430072, P. R. China, Tel/Fax +86-27-87882755 , Email: kouyang@whu.edu.cn.

*[Ed. note: Although Marx’s 1844 manuscripts were first published in 1932 (in Berlin), it was not until 1979 that they were published in China.]

Smart power: Andrew Brown, an engineer at Florida Power & Light, monitors equipment in one of the utility’s smart grid diagnostic centers.

With Florida Project, the Smart Grid Has Arrived

Smart grid technology has been implemented in many places, but Florida’s new deployment is the first full-scale system.

By Kevin Bullis

SolidarityEconomy.net via MIT Technology Review

Why It Matters

May 2, 2013 - Conventional power grids can’t handle big storms or large-scale renewable energy.

The first comprehensive and large scale smart grid is now operating. The $800 million project, built in Florida, has made power outages shorter and less frequent, and helped some customers save money, according to the utility that operates it.

Smart grids should be far more resilient than conventional grids, which is important for surviving storms, and make it easier to install more intermittent sources of energy like solar power (see “China Tests a Small Smart Electric Grid” and “On the Smart Grid, a Watt Saved Is a Watt Earned”). The Recovery Act of 2009 gave a vital boost to the development of smart grid technology, and the Florida grid was built with $200 million from the U.S. Department of Energy made available through the Recovery Act.

Dozens of utilities are building smart grids—or at least installing some smart grid components, but no one had put together all of the pieces at a large scale. Florida Power & Light’s project incorporates a wide variety of devices for monitoring and controlling every aspect of the grid, not just, say, smart meters in people’s homes.

“What is different is the breadth of what FPL’s done,” says Eric Dresselhuys, executive vice president of global development at Silver Spring Networks, a company that’s setting up smart grids around the world, and installed the network infrastructure for Florida Power & Light (see “Headed into an IPO, Smart Grid Company Struggles for Profit”).

Many utilities are installing smart meters—Pacific Gas & Electric in California has installed twice as many as FPL, for example. But while these are important, the flexibility and resilience that the smart grid promises depends on networking those together with thousands of sensors at key points in the grid— substations, transformers, local distribution lines, and high voltage transmission lines. (A project in Houston is similar in scope, but involves half as many customers, and covers somewhat less of the grid.)

In FPL’s system, devices at all of these places are networked—data jumps from device to device until it reaches a router that sends it back to the utility—and that makes it possible to sense problems before they cause an outage, and to limit the extent and duration of outages that still occur (see “The Challenges of Big Data on the Smart Grid”). The project involved 4.5 million smart meters and over 10,000 other devices on the grid.

The project was completed just last week, so data about the impact of the whole system isn’t available yet. But parts of the smart grid have been operating for a year or more, and there are examples of improved operation. Customers can track their energy usage by the hour using a website that organizes data from smart meters. This helped one customer identify a problem with his air conditioner, says Bryan Olnick, vice president of smart grid solutions at Florida Power & Light, when he saw a jump in electricity consumption compared to the previous year in similar weather.

The meters have also cut the duration of power outages. Often power outages are caused by problems within a home, like a tripped circuit breaker. Instead of dispatching a crew to investigate, which could take hours, it is possible to resolve the issue remotely. That happened 42,000 times last year, reducing the duration of outages by about two hours in each case, Olnick says.

The utility also installed sensors that can continually monitor gases produced by transformers to “determine whether the transformer is healthy, is becoming sick, or is about to experience an outage,” says Mark Hura, global smart grid commercial leader at GE, which makes the sensor.

Ordinarily, utilities only check large transformers once every six months or less, he says. The process involves taking an oil sample and sending it to the lab. In one case this year, the new sensor system identified an ailing transformer in time to prevent a power outage that could have affected 45,000 people. Similar devices allowed the utility to identify 400 ailing neighborhood-level transformers before they failed.

Smart grid technology is having an impact elsewhere. After Hurricane Sandy, sensors helped utility workers in some areas restore power faster than in others. One problem smart grids address is nested power outages—when smaller problems are masked by an outage that hits a large area. In a conventional system, after utility workers fix the larger problem, it can take hours for them to realize that a downed line has cut off power to a small area. With the smart grid, utility workers can ping sensors at smart meters or power lines before they leave an area, identifying these smaller outages.

And smart grid devices are helping utilities identify problems that could otherwise go misdiagnosed for years. In Chicago, for example, new voltage monitors indicated that a neighborhood was getting the wrong voltage, a problem that could wear out appliances. The fix took a few minutes.

As more renewable energy is installed, the smart grid will make it easier for utilities to keep the lights on. Without local sensors, it’s difficult for them to know how much power is coming from solar panels—or how much backup they need to have available in case clouds roll in and that power drops.

But whether the nearly $1 billion investment in smart grid infrastructure will pay for itself remains to be seen. The DOE is preparing reports on the impact of the technology to be published this year and next. Smart grid technology is also raising questions about security, since the networks could offer hackers new targets (see “Hacking the Smart Grid”).

Concrete spheres could deliver feasible energy storage for offshore wind turbines

A new system being developed at MIT would store excess energy in concrete spheres on the sea floor

By Darren Quick

SolidarityEconomy.net via MIT

May 1, 2013 - The intermittent nature of wind and solar power generation is one of the biggest challenges facing these renewable energy sources. But this isn’t likely to remain a problem for much longer with everything from flywheels to liquid air systems being developed to provide a cheaper form of energy storage than batteries for times when the wind is blowing or the sun isn’t shining. A new concept out of MIT can now be added to the the list of potential solutions. Aimed specifically at offshore wind turbines, the concept would see energy stored in huge concrete spheres that would sit on the seafloor and also function as anchors for the turbines.

The MIT concept works by using excess energy generated by the wind turbines to pump seawater from a hollow concrete sphere sitting on the seafloor that measures 30 meters (98 ft) in diameter. Then, when the wind dies down and power is needed, a valve is opened to let the water back into the sphere through a turbine that drives a generator to produce electricity.

The MIT researchers say that such a sphere positioned in 400-meter (1,312 ft) deep water could store up to 6 MWh of power, meaning that 1,000 spheres could supply as much power as a nuclear power plant for several hours. They claim this is enough to transform offshore wind turbines into a reliable alternative to conventional on-shore coal or nuclear plants.

Additionally, since the system would be connected to the grid, the spheres could also be used to store energy generated from other sources, such as on-shore wind and solar, or from base load power plants that are most efficient when operating at steady levels. Such a system could reduce the reliance on the generally less efficient peaking power plants that kick in when there is a high electricity demand that base load plants can’t meet.

The spheres with their 3-meter thick concrete walls would weigh thousands of tons each, which would also make them suitable to anchor the wind turbines in place. However, because there is currently no vessel with the capacity to deploy a load of their size and weight, a specially built barge would need to be constructed to tow them out to sea after being cast on land.

This contributes to the preliminary cost estimates of about US$12 million to build and deploy one sphere, with costs gradually declining from there. The team estimates the technology could yield storage costs of around six cents per kilowatt-hour, which is considered viable by the utility industry.

While the team’s analysis indicates the technology would be economically feasible at depths as shallow as 200 m, with costs per megawatt hour of storage dropping as depth increases to 1,500 m before rising again, 750 m is seen as the optimal depth for the spheres. However, Brian Hodder, a researcher at the MIT Energy Initiative, says as costs are reduced over time, the system could become cost-effective in shallower water.

Alexander Slocum, the Pappalardo Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, and his students built a prototype 30-inch (76 cm) diameter sphere in 2011 to demonstrate the feasibility of the system. The team now hopes to scale testing up to a 3-meter sphere and then, if funding becomes available, a 10-meter version that would be tested in an undersea environment.

They estimate an offshore wind farm using the technology could supply an amount of power comparable to the Hoover Dam, while using a similar amount of concrete. The team says that some of the concrete for the spheres could be made using fly ash from existing coal plants to cut the amount of carbon dioxide emissions resulting from production.

The MIT team has filed a patent for the system, which is detailed in a paper published in IEEE Transactions.

Source: MIT

Big & Small House proves less really can mean more

By Adam Williams

SolidarityEconomy.net via Gizmag.org

April 29, 2013

Image Gallery (26 images)

Though a large imposing house may draw admiring glances, it’s also generally expensive, and a waste of resources for a smaller family. Los Angeles-based Big & Small House by Anonymous Architects bucks the trend of sizable LA residences, and instead offers an example of small living at its most practical and appealing.

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In a somewhat similar fashion to the Like A Houseboat residence, Big & Small House sits atop four concrete stilts, reducing the footprint of the building’s foundations to under 20 square-feet (1.85 sq m). This frees at least some of the land beneath the house for potential use, which is a significant gain when working with a site half the size of the usual minimum for an LA home.

The 1,200-sq ft (111 sq-m) building area of Big & Small House follows the asymmetric parallelogram shape of the site. Therefore the interior features unusual geometry, making for a striking home and space-saving opportunities.

In order to turn the modest dimensions of Big & Small House into a veritable Tardis, Anonymous Architects used a few novel tricks, such as folding furniture and the use of partitions instead of sealed walls to impart a feeling of open space.

The single-story (plus loft and adjoining single-car parking garage) home was completed in April, 2012.

Source: Anonymous Architects via Fast Co.Design

About the Author

Adam is a tech and music writer based in North Wales. When not working, you’ll usually find Adam tinkering with old Macintosh computers, reading history books, or exploring the countryside with his dog Finley.   All articles by Adam Williams