Battle for New York!!!

New York City police using pepper spray and batons violently confronted a crowd of demonstrators and journalists who had converged near barricades at the entrance to Wall Street on Wednesday night, as part of ongoing protests in the United States' financial capital over wealth inequality and a host of other grievances.

Police State USA emerges on Liberty Street!!!!

The police made scores of arrests on Saturday as hundreds of people, many of whom had been encamped in the financial district as part of a lengthy protest, marched north to Union Square. As darkness fell, large numbers of officers were deployed on streets near the encampment in Zuccotti Park, at Broadway and Liberty Street, where hundreds more people had gathered.



Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said in a statement, “There were approximately 80 arrests, mainly for disorderly conduct by individuals who blocked vehicular and pedestrian traffic, but also for resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration and, in one instance, for assault on a police officer.”

Protest organizers estimated that about 85 people were arrested and that about five were struck with pepper spray. Among those was Chelsea Elliott, 25, who said that she was sprayed after shouting “Why are you doing that?” as an officer arrested a protester at East 12th Street.


“I was on the ground sobbing and couldn’t breathe,” she said. The continuing protests, against a financial system that participants say favors the rich and powerful over ordinary citizens, started last Saturday and were coordinated by a New York group called the General Assembly.


Many of those taking part have slept in Zuccotti Park, which is private, using it as a base. In the early afternoon hundreds of people left the park and moved north toward Union Square. Witnesses said that for much of the route, protesters spilled from sidewalks onto streets and added that the police used long orange nets at Fifth Avenue and 14th Street in an apparent attempt to block the march from proceeding.


Many marchers, however, detoured and entered Union Square before eventually turning south again. Video showed a confusing scene as protesters went south on University Place, where motor vehicles run north.


At 12th Street the orange nets again were used, this time to box in protesters between University Place and Fifth Avenue. About 3 p.m., more than two dozen people sat, handcuffed, on the sidewalk.


Nearby, two other protesters standing handcuffed on Fifth Avenue told a reporter that they had both been arrested on sidewalks and were not aware of having broken any law.


“They put up orange nets and tried to kettle us and we started running and they started tackling random people and handcuffing them,” said Kelly Brannon, 27, of Ridgewood, Queens. “They were herding us like cattle.”


Next to her, David Smith, from Maine, said that he had been chanting “Let them go” as people were handcuffed, and was then arrested by a senior officer who told him that he was being charged with obstructing governmental administration.

After his arrest, one protester posted a Twitter message about his experiences from a bus taking him downtown.
@DustinSlaughter there’s 50+ of us arrested in a caravan, netted & maced by police after standing on sidewalk where they told us to

Sat Sep 24 20:12:15 via Twitter for iPhone
JRL
NONVIOLENCE
PulseOfProtest

Many demonstrators made their way back down to Zuccotti Park, where they were joined by new arrivals. “Right now we are more determined than ever that what we are doing is necessary and correct,” said Patrick Bruner, a spokesman for the protesters.


New rules posted in the park on Saturday seemed aimed at the protesters. In addition to bicycle riding, camping gear and sleeping bags were now also banned.

Let the epitaph of the human race not read “they died of thirst surrounded by water they could not see”

Most of the drinking water in Keene, N.H., flows from two reservoirs at an elevation several hundred feet above the city’s water treatment plant. It arrives there at a high pressure that needs to be reduced nearly tenfold for treatment. In February, Keene began using that excess water pressure to spin two turbines plugged into the pipe by a New York City startup called Rentricity, using small generators to make electricity from water pressure that was previously dissipated by a mechanical valve. “What we’re really trying to do is recover energy that’s just not being tapped into and use it to make [utilities] more efficient,” says Rentricity founder Frank Zammataro.


The 53-year-old former Merrill Lynch technology executive is one of dozens of entrepreneurs trying to capture so-called hydrokinetic power from moving water in rivers, oceans, or, in Rentricity’s case, pipes. Such projects are distinct from traditional hydroelectric power because they tap into existing flows, rather than dam rivers. Joe Sweet, a researcher at the Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation who co-authored a report on hydrokinetics last year, says the industry is young and “it hasn’t been really settled what’s going to be the best commercially applied technology.” Zammataro says the economics of Rentricity’s projects are more appealing than other types of clean energy because they can count on consistent and predictable water flows. The equipment has a 40-year life span, and energy savings will cover the cost in three to 16 years, depending on the size of the installation and the clean energy incentives in place, he adds.

Rentricity posted a small profit on revenue of almost $500,000 in 2010, Zammataro says. The 10-employee company doesn’t develop any unique technology. Instead, he says, Rentricity uses off-the-shelf equipment such as pumps that can run in reverse to keep project costs low. The generator in Keene can create about 62 kilowatts of electricity at peak flow, about the same amount of energy needed to power roughly 50 homes. It cost the city about $500,000, about half of which was paid for by a federal clean-energy grant under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, according to Kürt Blomquist, Keene’s public works director. The energy savings will pay for the city’s investment in eight to 11 years, he says.

In addition to the Keene site, Rentricity has a 30-kilowatt installation in western Pennsylvania and three more projects in development. The largest, a 325-kilowatt installation at a water transfer station in Palos Verdes, Calif., is scheduled to start operating later this year. Zammataro says the company can harvest energy anywhere a water system needs to reduce pressure, including in pipelines beneath the streets, at transfer stations, or at treatment plants for clean or waste water. The electricity can power the water system’s needs or be delivered back to the grid.

By targeting pipelines rather than natural water bodies, Rentricity avoids much of the red tape that other hydrokinetic companies encounter. No fish swim through the water pipes it taps, though Zammataro says he still has to get projects approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

His biggest hurdle is convincing wary water managers that his systems won’t interfere with their operations. Zammataro has testified twice before the New York City Council, recently joining executives from three other energy startups on June 20, to urge the city to evaluate the energy potential of its water system.

Zammataro understands why water utilities hesitate. “This is a conservative lot for all the right reasons,” he says. Still, vast water systems like New York’s, mostly powered by gravity pulling water from sources upstate, represent tremendous opportunity for hydrokinetic outfits. Keene’s water treatment plant processes 6 million gallons a day at peak times. New York’s water, Zammataro estimates, might provide up to 1 percent of the city’s energy needs: “Over 1 billion gallons of water a day flow through this city,” he says.