I’m sure most of you never heard about this, but French environmentalists began a campaign earlier this year encouraging citizens around the world to switch off their lights for five minutes on February 1 at 7:55 p.m. (GMT), or 1:55 p.m. Toronto time. The event was timed to coincide with a meeting in Paris where the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its latest, and to date most disturbing, climate change report. The hope was that the viral nature of the Internet would get citizens around the globe to participate, and if enough did, it would send a strong message to government leaders about public concern over global warming. Well, just for fun, I asked Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator if they registered any strange changes on the grid during that five-minute period. The answer was: No.

However, they did tell me that there was an impact in France and Spain. By simply turning off the lights, citizens in France reduced power in the country by 800 megawatts, while Spain measured a 1,000-megawatt reduction. Not bad when you consider how little electricity comes from residential lighting.

So what does this say about North America? You could say that culturally, such protests aren’t our style. Then again, given the time zone changes, there’s not a lot of people at home at 1:55 p.m., whereas at 7:55 p.m. in France you can have a bigger impact. So maybe North Americans aren’t apathetic — we just weren’t home.

Kevin Bullis at MIT’s Technology Review has a great update on the potential and progress of developments into algae-based biofuels. A number of ventures are now pursuing the space, which holds great promise at a time when the Bush administration is keen to promote biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels and oil prices are still relatively high — and expected to go higher. “The theoretical potential is clear,” writes Bullis:

Algae can be grown in open ponds or sealed in clear tubes, and it can produce far more oil per acre than soybeans, a source of oil for biodiesel. Algae can also clean up waste by processing nitrogen from wastewater and carbon dioxide from power plants. What’s more, it can be grown on marginal lands useless for ordinary crops, and it can use water from salt aquifers that is not useful for drinking or agriculture.

Though the story, quoting a scientist at the U.S. National Renewable Energy Lab, warns that there’s still a long way to go. “You have to be careful because there’s a lot of hype out there right now.”

Kevin Bullis at MIT’s Technology Review has a great update on the potential and progress of developments into algae-based biofuels. A number of ventures are now pursuing the space, which holds great promise at a time when the Bush administration is keen to promote biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels and oil prices are still relatively high — and expected to go higher. “The theoretical potential is clear,” writes Bullis:

Algae can be grown in open ponds or sealed in clear tubes, and it can produce far more oil per acre than soybeans, a source of oil for biodiesel. Algae can also clean up waste by processing nitrogen from wastewater and carbon dioxide from power plants. What’s more, it can be grown on marginal lands useless for ordinary crops, and it can use water from salt aquifers that is not useful for drinking or agriculture.

Though the story, quoting a scientist at the U.S. National Renewable Energy Lab, warns that there’s still a long way to go. “You have to be careful because there’s a lot of hype out there right now.”