Traditionally, if you are in a water-poor region that has access to desalination technology and seawater, you were in luck. Israeli cleantechnology company ROTEC has developed a reverse osmosis system designed to remove salts from brackish groundwater. In other words, nowhere near the sea.
Waste uranium can apparently be recovered very cheaply from the polluted runoff from uranium mining using E. Coli and a phosphate storage molecule found in seeds, British researchers have found. They used the common bacteria with a chemical parallel of what is already found in agricultural waste: inositol phosphate.
Inositol phosphate is insoluble, so it forms a precipitate on the bacteria. The E. Coli then broke down the precipitate; releasing the phosphate molecules which then attached to uranium molecules to form uranium phosphate, which can then be harvested to recover the uranium.
What they have developed is a way for one contaminant to clean up another.
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A new water dispensing technology created by UK designer Oliver Craig could change the way that European shoppers and commuters drink water, and it’s a technology that could help eliminate water bottle waste that’s cluttering international landfills greatly due to increased convenience. Read the rest of this entry »
A breakthrough discovery from Sandia National Laboratories could help keep a lid on the rising cost of chemical water treatment and make clean drinking water more affordable in “water challenged” areas of the world. Working with researchers at the University of California, the Sandia team substituted one atom in aluminum oxide, a common chemical used to coagulate impurities in water. The new compound promises a more sustainable way to decontaminate wastewater as well as purify drinking water. Next step: Sandia has partnered with the award-winning water technology company Kemira to bring the new compound into commercial production.
High-tech membranes are catching on as a lower cost, non-chemical and more sustainable water treatment process, but there’s a catch: they can quickly foul with dirt and other particles. Enter NanoBrane, a nanotechnology company with a patent-pending breakthrough in membrane properties that prevents fouling. That makes the treatment process run more efficiently and reduces the downtime needed to service the membranes, potentially reducing operating expenses by up to 20%.
The biggest commodities boom of the 20th century was a bust for water and wastewater utilities, which found themselves locked in a battle with manufacturers for vital water treatment chemicals over the past five years. Competition for more chemicals to grow biofuel crops didn’t help, either. Prices for some chemicals almost tripled between 2003 and 2008 as utilities scrambled to find scarce supplies. Though the global recession helped to ease the price and supply issues, the next boom cycle could bring things to a boiling point. Fortunately, more sustainable non-chemical water treatment methods are on the horizon and could play a role in stabilizing the situation over the long run.
Wegmans Food Markets is the recipient of a $1 million grant from the Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority (PEDA) to install material handling equipment powered by hydrogen fuel cells at its Retail Service Center in Pottsville, Pa.
With the flick of a switch, the first ever commercial-scale hydrokinetic power plant in the U.S. officially commenced operation in the Mississippi River yesterday. The hydrokinetic turbines, manufactured by Hydro Green Energy LLC, are located below an existing hydropower plant at Hastings, Minnesota. The initial turbine has a capacity of 100KW. When fully operational, the new facility will have a capacity of 250KW, adding more than 5.7% of sustainable energy generation without the need to expand the existing dam or build a new one.
In recent posts on Planetsave and EcoWorldy about moratoria on soya and cattle products related to Amazon destruction, it was mentioned that McDonald’s is helping to save the Amazon. With the company also delving into green building, progressive energy saving software, and charging stations for electric vehicles, is McDonald’s a green company?
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This post was written by Paul O’Callaghan, founding CEO of the Clean Tech consultancy, O2 Environmental Inc. and lecturer on Sustainable Energy at the BC Institute of Technology.
There was much furore recently surrounding the story ‘Joule Biotech comes out of stealth with sun-powered biofuel’.
The premise is that the technology can take solar energy and use it to convert carbon dioxide directly into fuel. A one stop-shop to soak up carbon dioxide and produce a biofuel.
Having dug into it a little, the conclusion I came to is that it’s not as radical as it sounds. It is basically directed photosynthesis: same principle as oil from algae, or biofuels. The overall efficiencies are likely to be 10 times lower than that from solar PV processes, but, in terms of where biofuels are heading, it is on the right track.
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