Free Republic

If U.S. lawmakers have their way, the lights may soon go out on Thomas Edison's greatest invention -- the incandescent light bulb. The 19th-century inventor brought illumination to the world's fingertips, but according to Congress, his invention isn't efficient enough for an age anxious about energy supplies. "Only 10% of the power used by today's incandescent bulbs is emitted as light, while the other 90% is released as heat," Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., said when she introduced her legislation to ban standard light bulbs. To eliminate this waste, Harman has proposed legislation that would effectively eliminate incandescent light bulbs from...

Oil giant BP is expected to announce today the construction of a second, clean-burning power plant, this time in the United States, a BP executive told an Anchorage audience this week. BP and some partners moved forward last year with a similar but smaller plant in Scotland. In all, BP plans to spend $8 billion to build a total of 10 plants worldwide that generate "carbon-free" power, the executive said. Charles Christopher, BP's CO2 program manager, spoke Wednesday at the Alaska Forum on the Environment about the oil company's efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and make money doing it. BP...

The Grinch stole Christmas, at least in one Edison church. Someone stole close to $8,000 in cash and checks from the collection basket at The Church of the Guardian Angels just after a crowded Christmas Eve Mass Saturday afternoon, according to police and church officials. "I don't know how someone does this and lives with their own conscience," Monsignor James Moran said yesterday. "We do have programs for the poor and needy." The large, brown wicker basket, lined with a white cloth and filled with donations, had been placed on the altar during the service and was left there while...

FALLUJAH, Iraq (Dec. 9, 2005) -- One year after the city was secured by Coalition Forces as part of a major counter-insurgency offensive, parts of Fallujah are still in disrepair. Bullet holes in buildings, piles of rubble and the smell of burning trash permeates the air throughout the city. Despite the unpleasant living conditions, children roam the streets here playing with their new friends, the U.S. Marines. A group of laughing kids surrounds one Marine in the street. The Marine, Lance Cpl. Felipe SantosMesquita, a squad automatic weapon gunner with 2nd Squad, 3rd Platoon, Company E, 2nd Battalion, 6th Marine...

SAN FRANCISCO - Citing the need for jobs, the state Public Utilities Commission decided Thursday to let PG&E and Southern California Edison offer 25 percent electricity rate discounts to persuade employers to stay or expand in California or move here. Job losses are "a hidden tax on every Californian," said PUC member Susan Kennedy, who sponsored the discount proposal aimed especially at light manufacturers, steel and plastic makers, food processors and cement producers.The panel voted unanimously to overturn an administrative law judge's decision that termed the discounts "an attractive lure that will draw free riders" and cause a multimillion-dollar revenue...

ROSEMEAD, CA, USA -- A Stirling engine is commonly referred to as an "external combustion engine" in contrast to the "internal combustion engines" found in most vehicles. Combine a Stirling engine with solar as the source of heat, and you have a highly efficient means of converting solar power into usable energy. That is what Stirling Energy Systems has been perfecting for the past 20 years. On Aug. 8, 2005, President Bush toured the DOE's National Solar Thermal Test Facility at the Sandia National Laboratories complex, situated on Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M., where he signed the energy...

CHESTER, Pa. (AP) - A veteran principal and school administrator has been suspended while officials investigate allegations that she helped students cheat on tests. Jayne Gibbs was placed on a paid leave Thursday after eighth graders at Edward E. Parry Edison Junior Academy said she had given them answers to questions on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment test, said Wayne Emsley, Chester Upland School District assessment director. Gibbs is an administrator with the for-profit education company Edison Schools, which has run most of Chester Upland's schools for the last several years but recently announced it was severing its relationship...

As someone who sat on the energy crisis task force for one of the state's largest utilities, I believe Doug Gamble ["Let's hope feds lay into Lay," California Focus, July 20] fails to understand that the political responses to the California energy crisis of 2000-02 were comprised of governmental gambling schemes much worse than Enron's legal gaming of the system. Enron charged less on average for electricity than most of the municipally owned utilities in the Pacific West during the crisis. Enron committed accounting and securities fraud that was not uncovered by regulators but by investors who learned Enron was...

Week of May 29, 2004; Vol. 165, No. 22 , p. 339 Groovy Pictures: Extracting sound from images of old audio recordings Peter Weiss Songs and words preserved on antique vinyl records and wax cylinders become more precious with each passing day. They also grow increasingly fragile and are especially vulnerable to damage if played. Now, researchers using optical-scanning equipment have made exquisitely detailed maps of the grooves of such recordings. By simulating how a stylus moves along those contours, the team has reproduced the encoded sounds with high fidelity. Libraries with collections of old recordings "don't want to queue...

<p>Federal authorities in New Jersey and three other states charged members of an animal rights organization yesterday with domestic terrorism after a probe into what they said has been a surge in crimes by militant activists fighting to stop product testing on animals.</p>

LAS VEGAS - It may be too early to write the obituary for the experiment of using private companies to run public schools. After years of questions about the effectiveness of their teaching methods and the recent humiliation of watching the value of their stock plummet, Edison Schools Inc. enjoyed a much-needed public relations boost last week when a surge in test scores for their Las Vegas students showed that private management of some public schools could be beneficial. Edison, a New York-based education management company, is in the third year of a $30-million, five-year contract to manage six elementary...

<p>Shaun Chichester says he was just expressing his outrage when he wore a "Whaq Iraq" T-shirt to J.P. Stevens High School in Edison last spring.</p> <p>But when school officials asked him to remove the shirt, he really got mad.</p> <p>Chichester, then a sophomore, removed the shirt without incident but vowed to change the school district's dress code, saying it violated his First Amendment rights to free speech. He petitioned school authorities shortly after the March 21 incident, asking them to adopt rules "reflecting students' free speech rights."</p>

Florida's state pension fund is investing $174-million in a controversial for-profit school management company. Through one of its money managers, Liberty Partners, the pension fund has agreed to buy out the shareholders of Edison Schools Inc., taking the New York company private. In effect, the fund that provides for the retirement pensions of Florida teachers and other public employees will own a company that has played a leading role in privatizing school management. Liberty's buyout was announced in July, but it was not until this week that the Wall Street Journal reported that the pension fund was the source of...

Keep The Lights On Two things all of us should learn from the big blackout: (1) We are addicted to electricity and cannot function without it. (2) Politicians have neglected America's infrastructure, which — like everything else — ages, wears out or gets outgrown. When Thomas Alva Edison invented the electric light bulb, the primary use of electricity was to provide illumination. My mother remembered the first time she ever saw an electric light bulb. She looked at it with awe and wonder. If illumination were still the only use we made of electricity, then power losses would be a...

<p>EDISON, NJ -- Hundreds of workers filed out the Electrolux Home Products gates onto Route 27 under gray skies Thursday afternoon on their final day of work at the plant.</p> <p>About 800 workers lost their jobs over the past two days, as production ended at the air-conditioner factory. Since last year, 1,500 jobs have been cut, with 80 employees remaining until the plant closes later this year, the company said.</p>

<p>The utility and its opponent square off before the state Supreme Court today over bailout and refunds.</p> <p>Southern California Edison attorneys go before the California Supreme Court today to defend the utility's ratepayer-financed bailout.</p> <p>A consumer group, The Utility Reform Network, is shooting for a court victory that could lead to refunds worth billions of dollars for consumers and raise anew the specter of bankruptcy for Edison.</p>

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California, armed with what it calls hard, new evidence of rampant power market manipulation, handed federal regulators on Monday the names of about 60 energy companies it alleges were behind the state's 2000-2001 energy crisis. Loretta Lynch, a member of the California Public Utilities Commission, told Reuters a 1,000-page final report on the crisis filed Monday at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission names "almost 60 companies that participated in gaming our energy market." The crisis, triggered by a badly flawed attempt to open the electric industry to competition, cost California billions of dollars, bankrupted the state's...

<p>We have the War Against Poverty, the War Against Drugs and the War Against Terrorism. Needless to say, we're losing all of them. I say let's make a war that we can win. My proposal? The War Against Stupidity.</p> <p>Now you might think this would be the most difficult of all wars to win, but as a schoolteacher, I have hope. I'm fortunate to work in a school where the teachers think—they read books, they write poems, essays, songs and stories, they discuss current affairs and even timeless questions. They think about how they think and they think about how to help children to think. And the results are impressive. The children do think and they show promise of growing into adults who will continue to think.</p>

<p>BREA – An electricity-generating plant in the Olinda Alpha landfill in Brea is sitting idle because the plant's owner has been unable to find a buyer for the power.</p> <p>The 2.5-megawatt plant, built a year ago at a cost of $3.5 million, burns methane gas produced by decomposing garbage in the landfill. An older 5-megawatt plant in the same landfill continues to sell power to Southern California Edison under a long-term contract. Both plants are owned by Ridgewood Renewable Power LLC of New Jersey.</p>