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Building materials giant Johns Manville, a Berkshire Hathaway company once best known for its asbestos shingles, has just announced that it is entering the solar roof market in a big way. The company will buy thin film solar laminates made by Michigan-based United Solar Ovonic, a subsidiary of Energy Conversion Devices. United Solar has already [...]
Y-Carbon, a company founded by scientists at Drexel University and Georgia Tech, is looking to bring new green jobs to old factory regions with a low-cost process for manufacturing nanoporous carbon. The process can be adjusted, or tuned, to produce a material with precisely sized pores. Nanoporous carbon has an enlarged surface area which makes [...]
The world is awash in a glut of crude glycerin, a major byproduct of biodiesel manufacture. The big question is what to do with it all. In the U.S. alone, about 340,000 tons of unrefined glycerin came into the market in 2007. Over half of that came from biodiesel, and those numbers are bound to [...]
The Seattle-based company Hydrovolts, Inc. has discovered an economical way to tap waterways for hydroelectricity. Rather than damming mighty rivers or installing turbines in unpredictable oceans, Hydrovolts has aimed its sights on a much smaller target: placid canals and other managed-flow water courses. Even at low flows, a predictable and reliable current is more than [...]
Bruce Foods, maker of legendary “Original” Louisiana Hot Sauce, is leading all other hot sauces into a more sustainable future. The company has nearly completed an expansion of its food processing plant in Wilson, North Carolina that includes a major methane capture installation. The Wilson plant, one of four owned by the Tex-Mex specialist, produces [...]
David Schiraldi has seen the future and it is clay. The Case Western Reserve University professor and his research team are developing a clay aerogel that transforms common clay into a super lightweight material that could be used as insulating or packing foams, magnets, conductors, and yes, even high tech kitty litter that weighs only [...]
DARPA, the U.S. military’s chief high-tech office, is looking for a few good photovoltaics. Not just any garden variety solar panels, mind you. The agency is soliciting proposals for Low-Cost Lightweight Portable Photovoltaics (PoP) that can stand up to battle conditions and environmental extremes while delivering high power conversion efficiency. Think backpacks with built-in solar [...]
More than fifty years after the electrical industry launched the “Medallion Homes” campaign to push U.S. homeowners into an all-electric future, General Electric is taking it to the next level. The appliance giant has announced that by 2015 it will have developed a complete all-electric net zero home appliance management system that includes enough solar [...]
