Published on October 6th, 2008
In case you missed the news, the $700B bailout included tax credits for renewable energy industries. So what are the greenest bits of the bill and what does it mean for renewable energy companies? Also, where is all that glorious cash coming from?
Renewable Energy Tax Credits:
- Solar energy gets an 8-year extension on existing 30% tax credits for residential and commercial solar installations.
Published on October 1st, 2008
A team of researchers have developed a color-coded bacteria that will make it much easier to detect oil-spills and other forms of environmental pollution.
During a recent sea expedition the team successfully used the bacteria, which contains a protein that glows blue when viewed though a simple light-detecting device, to detect oil.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags:
bacteria,
buoys,
color,
color-coded,
colour,
colour-coded,
environment,
environmental pollution,
finding,
incident,
Lausanne,
light emitting,
locating,
oil,
oil-spill,
pollution,
pollution-finding,
pollution-locating,
pollution-spotting,
Professor Jan Van der Meer,
protein,
reporter protein,
research,
researchers,
scientists,
sea,
seawater,
spill,
spotting,
Switzerland,
University of Lausanne,
water
Published on September 30th, 2008
Climate science is a little bit like me and books: I can never get enough of them, and appreciate lots and lots of them. For climate science though, it’s a case of getting more and more data, from as many possible sources as humanly possible.
And now, thanks to Virgin Galactic, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will be getting a bit more data to continue their never ending quest to understand planet Earth.
Read the rest of this entry »
Published on September 29th, 2008
Scientists from the University of Calgary in Canada have created a method to efficiently capture carbon dioxide directly from the air around us. The device, which is built on near-commercial technology, was built by Uof C climate change scientists David Keith and his team.
“At first thought, capturing CO2 from the air where it’s at a concentration of 0.04 per cent seems absurd, when we are just starting to do cost-effective capture at power plants where CO2 produced is at a concentration of more than 10 per cent,” says Keith, Canada Research Chair in Energy and Environment.
“But the thermodynamics suggests that air capture might only be a bit harder than capturing CO2 from power plants. We are trying to turn that theory into engineering reality.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Published on September 25th, 2008
I have written about Hyperion Power Generation (HPG) several times before, and some people may think I am getting repetitive. The story, however, continues to fascinate me because the leaders of the company are thinking more like biotech or traditional computer/communications tech startup companies than traditional nuclear suppliers.
Several weeks ago, I had the opportunity to talk with John (Grizz) Deal for The Atomic Show Podcast. We had a very interesting chat, but I did not get into the business aspects of the development as much as a more recent interview conducted by Techrockies after watching a Hyperion presentation at the Venture Capital in the Rockies Fall Conference.
Read the rest of this entry »
Published on September 22nd, 2008
Trees: they’re good for more than just shade, harboring wildlife, and carbon storage. A new sensor system developed by Voltree Power uses the energy produced by trees to wirelessly transmit signals with information about forest fires.
Read the rest of this entry »
Published on September 22nd, 2008
On September 7 a robotic Prius took a cruise around San Francisco. The “Pribot” maneuvered through city and highway traffic along a 40 mile course. The only mash-up? A scrape at the Bay Bridge exit. I welcome our new vehicular overlords.
In all seriousness, if this technology were to become affordable, would you buy in? How much trust are you willing to invest in a robot, no matter how stylish? Lesser versions of this kind of technology already exist in luxury Nissan, Volvo and Lexus models. They alert a driver if the vehicle begins to drift out of its lane or even automatically make corrections. So why not take the leap and let your car tackle the morning commute? Who really wants to go through rush hour? Turns out, not the inventor. Read the rest of this entry »
Published on September 17th, 2008
If you miss the treehouses of your childhood, you may just have a new excuse to own one relatively soon. Researchers from have Tel Aviv University and MIT have built a prototype treehouse that can process waste and reduce carbon emissions— so you can feel even more justified in reliving your youth.
Read the rest of this entry »
Published on September 17th, 2008
In a time before powerful and technologically advanced computers, and possibly still to this day with all that equipment, a trained ‘pilot’ was given the reins of any vessel that attempted to pass through the Port Phillip Heads, into Port Phillip Bay, in Melbourne, Australia. The reason was because of the powerful rip tide that connects Port Phillip Bay to Bass Strait.
Now Singapore company Atlantis Power Resources is looking at that very same rip as a possible location for water turbines that could feasibly power up to a thousand homes.
Read the rest of this entry »
Published on September 17th, 2008
One of the biggest roadblocks to a future of renewable energy production is the ability to store such generated electricity. The current networks of power supply and storage simply have no chance of being able to provide necessary storage capacities for renewable sources such as solar and wind, given the propensity for spikes in generated electricity.
However engineers and scientists at The University of Texas at Austin have made a breakthrough in the development of a new carbon-based material that they believe might allow for at least a doubling of current electricity storage capabilities. The new structure is called grapheme, and measures in at one atom thick.
Read the rest of this entry »
