Published on August 31st, 2010
In a sign of things to come for corporate activism, The Gap, Timberland, Levi Strauss and Walgreens have just joined Whole Foods and Bed, Bath and Beyond in a boycott of petroleum products sourced from the notorious Alberta Tar Sands. As reported by Bob Weber of The Canadian Press, Federal Express has also adopted a policy that appears to lead toward joining the boycott.
The move comes just as scientists from the University of Alberta released a report on the mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium, and nine other toxins from tar sands operations found in the Athabasca River system. In the meantime, environmentalists in the U.S. are raising the alarm over tar sands-related damage in Montana, where new road construction is planned in order to accommodate trucks hauling massive pieces of equipment to the Alberta tar sands.
Published on August 31st, 2010
In a last-minute race to the finish-line, the CEC has approved a staggering 2,800 MW (or 3 GW) of solar projects this month in California.
Among them are Tessera Solar’s 709 MW Imperial Valley Solar project in Imperial County (scaled down from 750 MW, by BLM request) and NextEra Energy’s 250 MW Beacon Solar Energy Project, the first large-scale solar-thermal power projects permitted in California in two decades.
During the same time, only one 760 MW fossil plant was approved: Mirant Corp.’s 760-MW Marsh Landing Generating Station.
This ratio of clean energy approvals to dirty energy approvals reverses the pattern over the last ten years. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on August 30th, 2010
Solar industry powerhouse Sunpower Corp. is busy creating new green jobs in the renewable energy sector, the latest endeavor being a group of contracts for a minimum of 20 megawatts in new solar installations for the U.S. Navy, Air Force, General Services Administration and National Renewable Energy Laboratory. All together, SunPower estimates that the construction work will create about 1,000 new green jobs in the local communities where the installations are located, in addition to saving taxpayers money by helping to shift the U.S. military into a more stable, low risk form of energy.
The new projects also illustrate how the Obama administration has stepped up the pace of solar installations at government facilities. SunPower has been installing solar arrays at U.S. government facilities since 1999, for a total of 20 megawatts to date. That’s equal to the minimum amount of solar capacity that will be installed under the new contracts.
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Published on August 30th, 2010
Following close on the heels of the U.S. Army, which just activated its first wind power project at the Tooele Army Depot in Utah, the U.S. Coast Guard is diving into wind power, too. The new turbine has been installed at the Coast Guard’s Southwest Harbor Base in Maine.
The new turbine is only rated at 2.4 kilowatts, but in this case, size doesn’t matter. What really matters is that the U.S. military has historically been very cautious about adopting wind power partly due to concerns over radio interference, but now with two branches of the armed services getting their feet wet, perhaps a tipping point is near and more clean, renewable wind power is in store across the Department of Defense.
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Published on August 30th, 2010
Scientists from Saint Louis University in Missouri are reporting the development of a new class of biobased fuel cells, which could replace disposable batteries and their toxic components. The new biofuel cells could be used to power small electronic devices such as laptops and cell phones, and could be charged by sugar from common sources such as soda pop and vegetable oil.
Conventional batteries, even when rechargeable, have become an enormous logistical issue, not only for consumers but also in terms of providing portable power for military purposes and dealing with supply and disposal issues, especially at remote bases. The U.S. military has already begun to develop biobased fuel cells, so chances are that the consumer market won’t be far behind.
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Published on August 30th, 2010
Are electric cars less catastrophic for our future climate than gasoline cars? Well, duh. But, here’s another study carefully poring over the evidence and showing it to be the case. At least for Europe.
A team of Empa scientists made a detailed life cycle assessment of the current state of the art lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries used in electric vehicles, and published it in the scientific journal “Environmental Science & Technology.”
Comparing not just the energy sources of gasoline-powered versus electric-powered cars, but also comparing an exhaustively detailed full life-cycle analysis of every step to make a battery versus a combustion engine: what did the researchers find?
The EV is the cleaner way to go. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on August 30th, 2010
The increasing desertification of the planet due to climate change is a serious threat to future humans, so technology that can create water in deserts is arguably one of the more critical technologies that we need to master.
Wacky ideas that purport to solve serious climate issues are a dime a dozen, but ones that have actually proven themselves – by actually working in the real world – are welcome news.
At two years into successful operation on the largely arid Arabian peninsula, the “fog catcher” is such a concept. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on August 29th, 2010
A team of scientists from Australia and Germany has discovered what could be a new, previously unknown form of chlorophyll. As we all know chlorophyll is the green-pigmented substance that plants and certain forms of bacteria use to convert sunlight into energy. This new form appears to be a kind of “scavenger” that harvests part of the light spectrum that other forms of chlorophyll don’t absorb.
The discovery is significant because it could help push forward the development of new strains of algae that can use a larger part of the light spectrum to produce biofuel oils, which in turn would help to make renewable biofuel production cheaper and more competitive with fossil fuels.
Published on August 29th, 2010
Dry water might sound like an oxymoron but the concept is pretty straightforward: encapsulate microdrops of water in silica (otherwise known as common sand) to form a substance that looks like powdered sugar, then sit back and watch the fun. Though it was first discovered in 1968, the unique properties of dry water are only recently being recognized as an important tool for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Scientists in at the University of Hull in the U.K. rediscovered dry water in 2006, and a team at the University of Liverpool is developing dry water to absorb and store gases including carbon dioxide and methane. While the team appears to be focusing on transporting natural gas from remote drilling areas, the technology might also be applied to the growing use of renewable biogas installations at farms and landfills.
Published on August 28th, 2010
The petroleum-based adhesives used to make plywood and many other wood products have a nasty habit of leaching toxic formaldehyde fumes, but all that is on the way out. Scientists from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory are working on a new class of soy-based wood adhesive that uses a substance found in soy milk and tofu.
Soy-based wood adhesives that perform as well as their petroleum-based cousins are already inching their way into the market, but the USDA scientists have a more ambitious goal: to develop soy-based glues that are even stronger than conventional glues.
