Alex Reid

I may not agree with everything that anyone says.

I like to keep my politics loose and my morals solid.

However I have a weak spot for Jello Biafra, specifically because his “don’t hate the media, become the media” mantra was the source of many of my successes, so I give him my audience.

If you listen to the end, you’ll find me agreeing with him.

Run policy like politics.

Commuters who pass through Stockholm’s Central Station may not know that they are heating a building across the street.

This BBC video shows that Jernhusen, a real estate company in Stockholm, has found a way to channel body heat from people to heat another building. This is done by using heating exchangers to convert the Station’s trapped body heat into hot water and then pump that water to an office building next door, providing an environmentally-friendly and cost effective heating.

The engineers say that this process can reduce a building’s energy costs by up to 25 percent.

Amusingly called the Bloom Box, this fuel-cell component is promised to boost power – not bass – independent of the central grid (where you get your electricity from). Think of it as “cold-fusion-in-a-box” as it’s literally a stack of ceramic plates separated by cheap metal alloy plates.

A small stack of these plates are said to power a small home, depending on the energy demand of course. Bloom Energy founder K.R. Sridhar calls the invention the “plug-and-play future of electricity”.

The ‘box’ inhales methane, other hydrocarbons and oxygen. The box of plates are heated up to 1,000′C.  Filter dead air out. Result is electricity!

After 8 years of planning, Willy Wonka opened the doors to 60 Minutes to show the world they mean business. The only complaints so far by pundits (not users) have been cost, size and ROI, which were the same complaints about computers 50 years ago. In new markets, of course everything starts off as expensive.

The Green Party of Canada leader Elizabeth May is choo-chooing across Canada with their Green Train.

No doubt, the Greens learned their lesson from David Suzuki who was criticized when he made a similar tour across Canada in a diesel bus last year. Of course those same conservative-extremist pundits will still attack those concerned about pollution for doing anything else than living in trees, and they’ll rightly point out that a train creates just the same amount of pollution a bus creates. But the Greens are smart to point out it uses less than a plane uses, subtlety hinting at the Liberal Party’s gaffe last month.

Using the train is quite brilliant. Not only is it cheaper than flying, it’s symbolic and historically relevant. Journalists and photographers on board not only have unfettered access to May (you can’t wander freely on a plane) but the trip lends May great visuals and backdrops as the train makes it way across Canada’s beautiful vistas and stopping in small towns to greet the people whom most politicians fly over.

Furthermore the Greens are using the train tour to highlight their call for $1 billion upgrades to Canada’s rail system which ties into their urban transportation strategy.

The first federal politician to use the whistle-stop train tour as a campaign strategy was former prime minister Wilfrid Laurier in the 1900 election. Since then Diefenbaker and Trudeau used this strategy much to their favour.

May arrives in Winnipeg on Tuesday and should arrive in her Central Nova riding on Friday. Polls have the Greens sitting at 10%, more than twice their draw last election.