I was just tipped off that the folks over at ZapRoot just produced a new video in which two of my posts play a semi-leading role. Called “5 Green Obama Dreams” the punchy piece includes a section on Green Gadgets and beginning roughly at the 3 minute mark, features two posts I wrote for CleanTechnica; one on the hi-res renewable energy resource maps from 3TIER, and one about the Husqvarna solar-powered lawnmower. Big ups to ViroPop and ZapRoot for all the love in another one of their entertaining videos. Watch it:

As of writing, the Tri-State Generation and Transmission homepage has a total of eight wind turbines on it; a curious number considering it is eight more than they have on their entire grid. This seems an oddity considering the tremendous wind energy resource within their sprawling service territory. But this is most likely about to change, as Colorado’s co-ops are now required to come up with 10% of their energy from renewable sources.

It is unfortunate that Tri-State has resisted developing their excellent wind resource for so long. Now that there is a real danger of another lapse in federal renewable energy tax credits, wind energy developers will not exactly be lining up at Tri-State’s Westminster, Colorado headquarters.

Tri-State Generation and Transmission provides power to 44 co-ops spread across 250,000 square miles of Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming and New Mexico. Tri-State is itself a co-op (sort of). Maybe a better way of looking at the organization is that it is a co-op of co-ops; Tri-State is owned by the 44 co-ops it serves. And this institutional structure is not exactly conducive to change.

The folks over at desmogblog have put together a very cool cartographic mash-up of the coal industry’s front group, Americans For Balanced Energy Choices’, massive public relations campaign. The interactive Google Map is designed to highlight the nationwide campaign that has become an omnipresent part of this campaign season, as can be attested by the numerous presidential debates the organization has underwritten (debates which included nary a mention of global warming or climate change).

Emily Murgatroyd refers to the mash-up as a sort of ‘geo-blog,’

“Designed to keep track of the PR, advertising and lobbying efforts being undertaken by “Americans for Balanced Energy Choices,” (ABEC) as they spend a reported $40 million on behalf of the coal industry to sell the virtues of “clean coal” in the run-up to the 2008 Presidential election.

The map is a work in progress and users are invited to add in their own ABEC stories and sitings. It should be interesting to see what the map ends up looking like.

This very interesting cartographic tool from L’Observatoire des Medias below creates flash cartograms that distorts the size of a particular size of a country based upon how much attention it received from various media outlets.

Fascinating stuff.