While other parts of the world are busy actually building national Ultra High Voltage (UHV) transmission infrastructure the US continues to do noting more substantial than litigate. A UHV super grid would be able to move renewable energy from where it is abundant to where people live and work, and do so at an economic cost. This kind of national electric energy infrastructure would enable solar, wind, hydro and geothermal generated electric power to reach market. It is a critical piece of the kind of future energy infrastructure we will need in order to continue to prosper. John goes into a lot of detail and provides numerous links to examples and more in depth reading on this very important subject.
Biomimicry has probably been practiced by humans for as long as we have been walking the earth. In our current cultural context, Janine Benyus, has popularized this design philosophy and coined the term biomimicry, helping to generate a new wave of interest in this design approach. Biomimicry seeks to mimic the evolved design solutions arrived at by nature and adapt them to and incorporate them into the design of structures and products. It uses nature as a model to inspire design solutions; it uses nature as a measure of elegance and rightness of a design; and it seeks to promote the notion of nature as mentor that we may learn from, rather than as an inert object to exploit.
