The creek tumbles down misty canyons of the coast range, winding its way to the sea. It passes through mossy corridors of maple and cedar, roaring over boulders, sliding across down timber, then pouring into green pools that are smooth as glass. My wife and I were exploring an area where an old campground formerly [...]

The present underfunded situation of education in Oregon can be traced to Ballot Measure 5 that was passed in 1990. For review, passage of Measure 5 shifted the primary funding of education from property tax to state income tax. Let’s look briefly at Oregon’s tax structure to gain perspective…

If you’re in the Baby Boomer generation and not outraged about the state of Social Security, then you’re not paying attention. First, let’s define the Boomer years, a period of post-WWII prosperity beginning in 1946 and extending to about 1957. People born during this period may have experienced the 1967 ‘Summer of Love’ and the [...]

For every star in the sky, there is a fusion reactor producing energy, a process little understood until Albert Einstein’s brilliance revealed the relationship between mass and energy. To release the energy locked in the atom, fission or fusion can be used. The heavy atoms of uranium are split in fission reactors, which presently supply [...]

Scotch Broom was introduced to the U.S. in the 1800s as an ornamental shrub from Europe, where in its native habitat insects keep it in check. This fast-growing species has spread along the east coast and throughout the Pacific Northwest, invading rangeland and hillsides. Gorse is a spiny plant also native to Europe, where it [...]

Wind power generating capacity has increased at a rapid rate across the U.S., with Oregon wind farms presently able to produce over 700 mega-Watts. Efficiently integrating this power source with peak load demands is a problem because of the uncertain nature of the wind. To smooth out the energy produced and match available power to [...]

Oregon’s power distribution network, with its switching, conversions, input and output, is a circuit design that must adapt to the lean energy scenario predicted by Peak Oil; an idea induced by the sight of high-voltage transmission lines across the canyon as I crested a ridgeline above the Detroit Reservoir. Electricity remains the prevalent medium for [...]

On the issue of Oregon’s energy future, it is apparent that once again we are being called on to lead the nation in a search for answers. What the northwest has to offer is abundant hydroelectric power, but the harvest of this potential energy must be adapted to minimize the impact to aquatic ecosystems. More [...]