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Archive for the ‘Technology’ category

The Key to a Battery-Powered House

August 4th, 2009

house-battery-470-0709 Imagine a life where you would never have to deal with PG&E ever again. Sounds good, right? Soon it can actually become reality.

Without a way to store their power, no number of solar panels will free a home from the electrical grid. Until now. Researchers at Utah-based Ceramatec have developed a new battery that can be scaled up to store 20 kilowatt-hours—enough to power an average home for most of a day.

An easy sell for solar users, but it could also allow the grid to stockpile energy during less expensive off-peak hours. The new battery runs on sodium-sulfur—a composition that typically operates at greater than 600 F.

“Sodium-sulfur is more energetic than lead-acid, so if you can somehow get it to a lower temperature, it would be valuable for residential use,” Ralph Brodd, an independent energy conversion consultant, says. Ceramatec’s new battery runs at less than 200 F.

Ceramatec says that batteries will be ready for market testing in 2011, and will sell for about $2000.

Dubai Gives Liftoff to New Ecosystem

July 31st, 2009

farm00 Only Dubai, a city that has practically sprung up overnight with some of the world’s most jaw-droppingly creative architecture, would construct an ecosystem reaching into the clouds.

Since the Metropolis has a severe lack of natural resources, the country hired Italian architects from Studiomobile to conceive a Seawater Vertical Farm that draws exclusively upon natural resources to create a sustainable source of food, for a cleaner, greener, and more self-efficient Dubai.

Envisioned as a spire that branches off into soaring sky-gardens, the design uses seawater to create an ecosystem conducive to growing crops amid the clouds.

Powered exclusively by saltwater, the new structure would allow Dubai to significantly cut down on food imports, reducing the region’s oil dependency and greenhouse gas emissions by decrease their reliance on transportation.

Based upon the design of Seawater Greenhouses in Oman and the Gran Canarias, Studiomobile’s ‘Seawater Vertical Farm’ utilizes seawater to cool and humidify the air that ventilates multiple greenhouses, while sunlight distills the saltwater into fresh water to provide life for thousands of plants.

Venture Funding for Cleantech on the Rebound

July 8th, 2009

The San Jose Mercury News reports: After two sharp quarterly declines, worldwide venture funding for clean technologies rebounded in the second quarter of 2009 amid rising confidence — particularly in Silicon Valley and throughout California.

From April to June, venture investments in clean tech totaled $1.2 billion across 94 companies, according to preliminary results released Wednesday by The Cleantech Group, a San Francisco research and strategy firm, and Deloitte & Touche.

Urine: Fuel of the Future?

July 8th, 2009

urine-1
The Royal Society of Chemistry reports that US researchers have developed an efficient way of producing hydrogen from urine – a feat that could not only fuel the cars of the future, but could also help clean up municipal wastewater.

Using hydrogen to power cars has become an increasingly attractive transportation fuel, as the only emission produced is water – but a major stumbling block is the lack of a cheap, renewable source of the fuel. Gerardine Botte of Ohio University may now have found the answer, using an electrolytic approach to produce hydrogen from urine – the most abundant waste on Earth – at a fraction of the cost of producing hydrogen from water.

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Posted in Alternative Energy, Clean Tech, Innovation, Technology

Tags: cleantech fuel future Neil Vineberg ohio university shambhu urine vineberg communications wastewater

Empire State Building Gets An Energy Efficiency Retrofit

July 3rd, 2009

photo_lg_newyork_cty What once was the world’s tallest building, the Empire State Building is undergoing a $500 million eco-friendly makeover that will cut energy consumption nearly 40% in the next three years. The famous New York City landmark is the test case for a new process of analyzing and retrofitting existing structures for environmental sustainability, which will provide a replicable model for similar projects around the world.

The program is being spearheaded by former President Bill Clinton’s Clinton Climate Initiative, as well as the Rocky Mountain Institute, Johnson Controls Inc. and Jones Lang LaSalle.

“In this distressed economic climate, there is a tremendous opportunity for cities and building owners to retrofit existing buildings to save money and save energy,” Mr. Clinton said today.

On the outside, the building will get 6,500 windows refurbished into triple-glazed insulated modules, dramatically improving summer and winter efficiency. On the inside, the 78 year-old building is getting upgraded lighting, lighting controls and lighting design; upgraded or overhauled furnaces, chillers, and air-handlers. There will also be an emphasis put on demand-side management systems, allowing tenants to use their energy efficiently.

“Commercial and residential buildings account for the majority of the total carbon footprint of cities around the world – over 70 percent in New York City,” said Anthony E. Malkin of building owner, Empire State Building Company. “Most new buildings are built with the environment in mind, but the real key to substantial progress is reducing existing building energy consumption and carbon footprint.”

Turning “Wastelands” into Energy

July 3rd, 2009

280502 Montana S The United States Interior Department has found a use for 670,000 acres of previously considered worthless sunny deserts and wind-swept plains: solar energy production.

As part of President Obama’s pledge to move away from reliance on fossil fuels and to double renewable energy in three years, the plan has identified 24 solar energy zones spanning six states that could generate nearly 100,000 megawatts of solar electricity.

At the same time, it has become a controversy as environmentalists and politicians, including U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, have decried federal plans to open ecologically sensitive land to development.

“This environmentally sensitive plan will identify appropriate Interior-managed lands that have excellent solar energy potential and limited conflicts with wildlife, other natural resources or land users,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said, hoping to appease doubts about the plan.

The department says the objective is to provide landscape-style planning and zoning for solar projects on Bureau of Land Management lands in the West, allowing a more efficient process for permitting and sitting responsible solar development .

Burning Calories to Create Energy

June 29th, 2009

green-microgym-bike In this current recession, everyone is looking for ways to save money. Adam Boesel, the owner of The Green Microgym in Portland, Or., has found a way to shave operating costs while also giving his clients a workout.

The clever proprietor has doctored up the fitness club’s spin bikes with weed whacker motors and truck alternators so that patrons can create energy to help power the 2,800-foot space.

The opening of The Green Microgym coincides with the announcement of M2E’s kinetic charger, which can generate energy from motion. The kinetic energy system uses the Faraday Principle, which states that the movement of a conductor through a magnetic field produces voltage in the conductor proportional to the speed of the movement. In this case, the conductor is a wire coil.

The system uses a magnet that moves against the coil every time the charger moves, generating a charge that is captured in a capacitor. A logic circuit takes the charge to the built-in Li-Ion cell, where it is stored until use.

Boesel expects patrons to power only a quarter of the gym’s power at first, but after he equips the elliptical trainers with similar motors, he hopes that the energy supply will become entirely self-sufficient.

Read more at CleanTechnica.com here and here.

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Posted in Alternative Energy, Climate Change, Home Energy, Solar, Technology

Tags: adam boesel energy supply faraday principle fitness club generate energy kinetic charger kinetic engery m2e magnetic field motion motor oregon portland power self-sufficient the green microgym truck alternators weed whacker workout

The Power of Geothermal Energy

June 29th, 2009

Everybody knows about Wind and Solar Power as alternative energy, but there is a new kid on the block: Geothermal Power.

When a historic seminary in the heart of Manhattan went searching for a way to cut its energy costs in an environmentally friendly way, it didn’t turn to the heavens for sun or wind power but sought salvation in an unlikely direction for a religious institution. It looked underground.

Tapping the energy stored in the Earth, The General Theological Seminary plans to construct the largest geothermal project on the East Coast; large enough to supply water to heat and cool the seminary’s 275,000 square feet of space.

Currently, geothermal power accounts for only half a percent of the nation’s energy generation, but that is likely to double in the next few years with 103 new plants under construction. The Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that if all the heat trapped up to 2 miles under the U.S. were tapped, it could generate enough electricity to meet all of the country’s power needs for 30,000 years.

Read more in the Chicago Tribune online.

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Posted in Alternative Energy, Climate Change, Geothermal, Technology

Tags: chicago tribune earth energy costs energy generation general theological seminary geothermal power manhattan renewable energy laboratory solar power underground wind power

Google’s Plan for Renewable Energy

June 29th, 2009

Many people think of Google Inc. as just a search company, but now it can add renewable energy investor to its resume. Google is all about changing the world in a positive way, according to CEO Eric Schmidt, who has proposed a plan to help provide the world with renewable energy.

Google plans to put clean energy at the heart of the U.S. energy mix, promoting energy efficiency, a massive renewable-energy push to replace coal, and an accelerated rollout of plug-in cars.

The plan sets a target date of 2030 to get Power Companies and Utilities totally off carbon fuels, currently the most common power source, by calling for heavy increases in wind and solar power, with wind power being the closest thing to a free substitute for coal. Unfortunately, most populated areas are temperate and not very windy, so part of the challenge is finding the correct grid technology to bring energy to customers.

Google plans on investing $3.5 trillion in the project over the next 22 years, but expects to generate a cost basis savings of $4.4 trillion based on the right assumptions and investments.

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Posted in Alternative Energy, Carbon, Clean Tech, Climate Change, Solar, Technology, Wind

Putting the Sahara Desert to Work

June 29th, 2009

csp-ed01 If just 0.3% of the Sahara Desert was used as a concentrating solar plant, it would produce enough clean power to provide all of Europe with clean renewable energy. That is why 20 German companies are gathering next month to discuss plans and investments to carry out a 400 billion-Euro project proposed by the Desertec Foundation, to erect 100 GW of concentrating solar power plants throughout North Africa.

Instead of constructing the entire project in just one location, Desertec plans to scatter the plants throughout several politically stable countries. The power generated would be transported over high-voltage DC lines across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe, where it would supply 15% of the energy demand.

Along with providing clean energy, this project also aims at providing fresh drinking water and farming the desolate desert region by building desalination plants that will use concentrated solar power to provide energy and waste heat to create freshwater from seawater.

Even though the project is still 10-15 years away from breaking ground, several major players are getting involved.