CleanTechnica

Asian Development Bank has approved a loan of $135 million to facilitate the construction of an Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle power plant. Although the power plant will be using coal as the primary fuel it air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the plant will be lower than the conventional coal-fired power plants.

An Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle power plant converts coal into gas through the process of gasification. Once the coal has been converted in synthetic natural gas or syngas, the resulting mixture of gases, mainly comprising of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, is filtered to remove particulate matter. The filtered gas is then ignited using highly compressed air. The flue gases resulting from the combustion of the gas mixture is fed into a gas turbine which is connected to a generator which produced electricity. Read the rest of this entry »

Energy efficiency may not have the glamor of solar power or wind power, but it’s also a critical and immediate solution to cutting pollution.

Today, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced $19.2 million in funding for energy efficiency programs through the San Francisco Energy Watch program and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

In the announcement, Newsom highlighted the creation of new local jobs through the programs and outlined the total energy and financial savings from the San Francisco’s energy efficiency work on city buildings during the last 6 years.

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Columbia University has received a federal grant of $2.8 million to develop energy efficiency computer chips using magnetic materials.

Magnetic materials are set to play a big role in a more energy efficient future for the information technology sector.  Last month the U.S. Department of Energy announced $47 million in grants for new IT energy efficiency projects, and a big chunk of that – $2.8 million – will go to the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University (SEAS) to develop new computer chips using nano-scaled magnetic materials.

Columbia will be working with partners IBM and Cornell University on the project, which is funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). It’s a compelling example of the ripple effect that government investment in research can have, as the increased efficiencies are expected to yield significant bottom line savings for established IT players and startups alike.  Private industry is chipping in a cool $70 million in matching funds for the overall DOE program.

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Like some tantalizing cursed treasure, boron nitride nanotubes have been tempting researchers with their promise of high heat tolerance, which makes them excellent candidates for components in the next generation of microscopic-scale high efficiency electronics.  But for years the tiny nanofibers, which are similar to carbon nanotubes, have lead researchers down one blind alley after another.

The fact is that boron nanotubes are much harder to produce than carbon nanotubes.   They won’t catch on until that obstacle is overcome – and it seems that a team of researchers at Michigan Technological University has done just that.  Working with the same instrumentation used for carbon nanotubes, the team has developed a way to grow virtual “Persian carpets” of boron nitride nanotubes in the lab, paving the way for their commercial use.

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Nike has been one green company lately — in the last year, it has pushed for a strong clean energy and climate bill in Congress on its own and in concert with others and it has helped to reduce deforestation of the Amazon. Now, Nike has also just reported that it reduced its own carbon footprint last year while still growing economically. In fact, it has tremendously reduced greenhouse gas pollution over the last decade and 2009 just kept the ball rolling.

On top of all of that, Nike announced today that along with nine other organizations — Yahoo!, Best Buy, Creative Commons, IDEO, Mountain Equipment Co-op, nGenera, Outdoor Industry Association, salesforce.com, and 2degrees — Nike will “collaborate and share intellectual property (IP) which can lead to new sustainability business models and innovation.” This “Web-based marketplace” — GreenXchange (GX) — was announced at a CEO breakfast at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this morning.

If this all has you feeling warm inside, read on.

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Anecdotal evidence suggests that cheese and biogas go together like – aw heck, let’s cut the cheese jokes and get straight to the point.  The Holmes Cheese Co. is installing a wastewater treatment system at its Millersburg, Ohio factory that will double as a sustainable biogas recovery plant, thus joining a growing number of cheeseries that are generating their own sustainable energy to power equipment.

The new system is a proprietary process called the Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket.  It was developed by Biothane, a subsidiary of leading wastewater treatment company Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies.  As an added bonus, N.A. Water Systems (another Veolia subsidiary) is installing high-tech filtration and treatment equipment that will enable the effluent from Holmes Cheese to meet strict water quality limits for phosphorus.

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Apple has filed for two patents using powerline networking and the HomePlug standard so that users can manage the energy consumption of their home electronics.

While other companies–Google and Microsoft–are focusing on a whole-home solution, Apple’s patent focuses on the consumption by gadgets and computers. The device would make every power outlet in your home a conduit for audio, video and data. Goodbye wifi dead-spots! Any device could have access to high speed internet.

A hardware device would control the amount of power used by the various electronics within a household. Using the HomePlug Powerline Alliance’s communications protocol, devices would share data over a building’s existing wiring. Outlets and junction boxes would also have power-enabled data ports.

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Scientists working at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven Laboratory are all abuzz over a new bit of evidence that could help the U.S. save a good chunk of the energy that is currently lost through power transmission lines.  The DOE estimates that the nation’s antiquated transmission and distribution systems together were losing about 9.5% as of 2001, and things haven’t gotten any better since then.

The Brookhaven breakthrough involved evidence that electronic liquid crystal states can exist within a high temperature superconductor.  In practical terms, that means that it may be practical to develop power lines that lose no power at all.  There’s a long way to go before the rubber hits the road on this one, though.  The next step is to see if the material maintains its capabilities in real conditions that can be applied to the Smart Grid of the future.

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This is one I haven’t seen floating around yet. Personal carbon credits.

A new website helps you to cash-in on reducing your carbon emissions through home solar panels, wind turbines, more energy efficiency, etc. And it is up and running.

You reduce your home energy usage, report it to them, and get money back on PayPal.

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Wastewater treatment plants are vast expanses of bubbling tanks that sprawl around the outskirts (and sometimes the inskirts) of cities and towns.  All that acreage can be put to another use and one solar energy company, SunPower Corp. is pointing the way.  The company recently completed work on a one-megawatt solar power system at the West Riverside Wastewater Treatment Plant in Corona, California.

The new solar power system will generate about 25 percent of the plant’s energy needs, and that’s significant in terms of a more energy efficient and  sustainable future.  Wastewater treatment plants are packed with industrial-sized aerators, pumps, and other energy-gobbling machines, so getting them off the conventional energy grid would be a major step forward.

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