Author Archives: Tina Casey


About Tina Casey

Tina Casey specializes in military and corporate sustainability, advanced technology, emerging materials, biofuels, and water and wastewater issues. Tina’s articles are reposted frequently on Reuters, Scientific American, and many other sites. You can also follow her on Twitter @TinaMCasey and Google+.

Honk If You Love Muons: 3,200 Mile Trip Planned For Muon G-2 Storage Ring

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Muon g-2 storage ring travels to Illinois

A gigantic set of steel and aluminum rings 50 feet across, the electromagnet at the heart of the Muon g-2 storage ring, will soon make a 3,200-mile trip from Brookhaven National Laboratory to Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. This high-tech loaner will be used to study muons, particles that burst into existence and flame out again before you can say yolo. What Is A Muon? If the last science class you took described a vacuum as … Read More

Army Steamrolls $7 Billion In Renewable Energy Projects, Sequester Or No Sequester

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army to get $7 billion in renewable energy

The U.S. Army has just launched the first in a series of renewable energy contracts that will eventually total $7 billion by the end of this year, using power purchase agreements along with a standard procurement tool that is expected to crush any obstacles that are put in its path. That includes the notorious budget sequester as well as any objections from the anti-renewable energy crowd in Congress, which has already used the budget as … Read More

Who’s Afraid Of The Big, Bad Production Tax Credit For Wind Power?

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GE announces new brilliant wind turbine

The U.S. wind industry is soaring now that last year’s uncertainty over renewal of the federal production tax credit for wind power is ancient history. A last-minute shift in Congress resulted in renewal of the credit on January 1st, and leading wind turbine manufacturer GE has just credited the credit with boosting its U.S. sales to the impressive 1 gigawatt (GW) mark in the past four months alone. The announcement came as a new GE … Read More

Hi-Tech Spit And Polish Improves Solar Cell Efficiency

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Argonne researchers find key to solar cell efficiency

Along with the well-known enemies of solar cell efficiency such as dust and pollen, a known unknown recently popped up when researchers began to realize that traces of residue left over from the manufacturing process can reduce the efficiency of solar cells, long before they are exposed to the harsh realities of the outdoor environment. Well, it looks like we can take the “unknown” out of the equation, as researchers from Argonne National Laboratory have … Read More

Air Force Biofuel Program Gets A Lift From Coke

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air force jet biofuel test for Virent

Now here’s an odd pairing for you: none other than the Coca-Cola company is a strategic partner behind a Wisconsin biofuel company called Virent, which has just announced that the Air Force will be testing one of the first batches of jet biofuel from its newly operative demonstration facility in Madison. This development is noteworthy because it produces drop-in replacements for petroleum fuels from a cocktail of different feedstocks, rather than relying on a single … Read More

“Saran Wrap” Thermoelectric Breakthrough Converts Leftovers To Electricity

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U Mich researchers achieve thermoelectric breakthrough

Researchers at the University of Michigan have just announced a new breakthrough for making a class of relatively cheap thermoelectric materials that are as lightweight and tough as your favorite kitchen wrap. When wrapped around a hot object or a piece of motorized equipment, thermoelectric materials convert waste heat to electricity, and they can also be used to provide a cooling effect without the need for chemical refrigerants. While the new materials would still not … Read More

Wisconsin Wins Coal Battle, Loses Energy War

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Wisconsin coal dependency

Despite its abundant wind resources, Wisconsin has been clinging with affection to coal for electrical power generation, but it looks like the bloom is off the rose. A new report identifies Wisconsin’s coal dependency as a significant drag on the state’s economy, and urges a greater effort to diversify into renewable energy sources. File that one away under “o” for oopsies, since it was just a couple of years ago that Republican legislators in Wisconsin … Read More

US Navy Trains Laser Weapon On Research Critics

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Navy uses laser gun in defense of scientific research

For years now, the US Navy has been raising alarms over the impact of continued petroleum dependency on national security, and now it looks like the oil-soaked chickens have come home to roost. According to an article last week by the Office of Naval Research, the Navy’s new laser weapons system (LaWS) makes a stem-to-stern overhaul of the way that warships deploy energy a matter of top priority. Quite simply, LaWS and other new systems … Read More

Reshuffling Our Top 5 Micro Wind Turbines

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JLM's Zefr could make top 5 micro wind turbine list

One of the most popular micro wind turbine companies around, Southwest Windpower, began to scale back operations last year and has apparently closed its doors, which means that our list of Top 5 Micro Wind Turbines is overdue for a re-do. As a preliminary step, let’s take a look at JLM Energy, Inc., an all-around renewable energy company that has figured out a way to piggyback its Zefr micro wind turbine arrays onto Southwest’s poles, … Read More