Another in a series of miniprofiles of sustainability-minded people who are working to reduce humankind’s footprint on the planet. They're "mini" not only because they're short, but because all the questions are 10 words or less, and the answers are requested to match. (Please, no counting.)

I have a story on the state of green building in Greater Boston in the current issue of GreenSource magazine, commissioned on the occasion of GreenBuild, the US Green Building Council's national convention. As many as 30,000 builders, developers, architects and other green partisans are expected at the Convention and Exposition Center next Wednesday through Friday (Nov. 19-21).

Writing at offgrid.com, Nick Rosen discusses micro-nuclear plants, which, the story says, could power 20,000 homes for 10 years or more.

The devices, said to be only a few feet across, would be buried well underground, have no moving parts, and be powered by low-energy uranium that would be difficult to enrich into nuclear weapons. All the steam, to run turbines, and waste would be contained underground.

The idea was developed at Los Alamos. Hyperion Power, which has leased the technology, says its first unit will be installed in 2013. The devices will go for about $25 million each.

On the NYT's Greenbiz blog, an entry says that pro-nuclear interests are trying to rebrand the industry, in part by seeking ways to make the plants more good looking.

I kid you not.

So let's take a poll. How many of you would be more pro nuclear if it was painted green? Never mind all that poisonous-for-practically-ever waste, or the massive subsidies that would be needed to build the plants. You just want them to look nicer.

The anecdote comes from Newsweek, via gristmill.com.

Another in a series of miniprofiles of sustainability-minded people who are working to reduce humankind’s footprint on the planet. To recap, they're "mini" not only because they're short, but because all the questions are 10 words or less, and the answers are requested to match. Please, no counting.

AMY BAUMAN, Somerville
Owner, greenGoat

GreenGoat helps contractors and architects pare building-material waste, in part by repurposing what previously would have been discarded. “If we need to write specification language, we do that. If they need a waste management plan, we do that. And if the building owners need us to help them get the downstream vendors right, we do that too,” Bauman says

OK, so now we have the guy we wanted in the White House. So what is the outlook for clean tech?

Martin Lamonica, green-tech writer at CNet, surveys the landscape. I am always informed by Martin's writing.

[added] Greenbiz.com covers some of the same ground, but also looks at how voters reacted to clean-energy referenda nationwide.

Dave Beard, major domo at boston.com who maintains an interest in green matters, turned to Ian Bowles, Mass. secretary for energy and the environment, for five suggestions to the president-elect. Good idea, and good ideas. Check them out here.

The headline is far more portentous than this post warrants, for if you combine the faint ripples of my scribblings with the mildness of the substance, there's not much to "reveal." But I decided nevertheless that, before the election, I didn't want to write anything that could in the slightest way be construed as negative.

I ended up working for the Obama campaign three times. I wrote about the first time previously, so I won't detail it here. But in short, it was not rewarding or uplifting in the slightest, and I had to content myself with the knowledge that I was there for a cause, not for entertainment, and that if that's what they wanted me to do, then that was what was needed.

Of course talk radio is dominated by boneheads, but a guy I heard on WEEI sports talk last week — by no means a troglodyte and almost eloquent in a townie kind of way— is still holding space in my head.

His topic was Question 3 on the Mass. ballot, which would (will) ban dog racing in the state. My position is, there is no intellectually or morally justified position in support of that moldering business, and I regret I can cast only one vote to put it out of the dogs' misery.

"Let's get this straight," he said, with as much certainty as I have on the opposite side. "There's humans, and there's everything else. They're here for us to do with as we wish. Period." (Note: I was driving, so the quotes are accurate only in their sense, but not word for word.)