by Chris Goodall via The Guardian

Myth 1: solar power is too expensive to be of much use

In reality, today’s bulky and expensive solar panels capture only 10% or so of the sun’s energy, but rapid innovation in the US means that the next generation of panels will be much thinner, capture far more of the energy in the sun’s light and cost a fraction of what they do today. They may not even be made of silicon. First Solar, the largest manufacturer of thin panels, claims that its products will generate electricity in sunny countries as cheaply as large power stations by 2012.

Other companies are investigating even more efficient ways of capturing the sun’s energy, for example the use of long parabolic mirrors to focus light on to a thin tube carrying a liquid, which gets hot enough to drive a steam turbine and generate electricity. Spanish and German companies are installing large-scale solar power plants of this type in North Africa, Spain and the south-west of America; on hot summer afternoons in California, solar power stations are probably already financially competitive with coal. Europe, meanwhile, could get most of its electricity from plants in the Sahara desert. We would need new long-distance power transmission but the technology for providing this is advancing fast, and the countries of North Africa would get a valuable new source of income.

Myth 2: wind power is too unreliable

Actually, during some periods earlier this year the wind provided almost 40% of Spanish power. Parts of northern Germany generate more electricity from wind than they actually need. Northern Scotland, blessed with some of the best wind speeds in Europe, could easily generate 10% or even 15% of the UK’s electricity needs at a cost that would comfortably match today’s fossil fuel prices.

The intermittency of wind power does mean that we would need to run our electricity grids in a very different way. To provide the most reliable electricity, Europe needs to build better connections between regions and countries; those generating a surplus of wind energy should be able to export it easily to places where the air is still. The UK must invest in transmission cables, probably offshore, that bring Scottish wind-generated electricity to the power-hungry south-east and then continue on to Holland and France. The electricity distribution system must be Europe-wide if we are to get the maximum security of supply.

We will also need to invest in energy storage. At the moment we do this by
pumping water uphill at times of surplus and letting it flow back down the mountain when power is scarce. Other countries are talking of developing “smart grids” that provide users with incentives to consume less electricity when wind speeds are low. Wind power is financially viable today in many countries, and it will become cheaper as turbines continue to grow in size, and manufacturers drive down costs. Some projections see more than 30% of the world’s electricity eventually coming from the wind. Turbine manufacture and installation are also set to become major sources of employment, with one trade body predicting that the sector will generate 2m jobs worldwide by 2020.

Myth 3: marine energy is a dead-end

The thin channel of water between the north-east tip of Scotland and Orkney contains some of the most concentrated tidal power in the world. The energy from the peak flows may well be greater than the electricity needs of London. Similarly, the waves off the Atlantic coasts of Spain and Portugal are strong, consistent and able to provide a substantial fraction of the region’s power. Designing and building machines that can survive the harsh conditions of fast-flowing ocean waters has been challenging and the past decades have seen repeated disappointments here and abroad. This year we have seen the installation of the first tidal turbine to be successfully connected to the UK electricity grid in Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland, and the first group of large-scale wave power generators 5km off the coast of Portugal, constructed by a Scottish company.

But even though the UK shares with Canada, South Africa and parts of South America some of the best marine energy resources in the world, financial support has been trifling. The London opera houses have had more taxpayer money than the British marine power industry over the past few years. Danish support for wind power helped that country establish worldwide leadership in the building of turbines; the UK could do the same with wave and tidal power.

Myth 4: nuclear power is cheaper than other low-carbon sources of electricity

If we believe that the world energy and environmental crises are as severe as is said, nuclear power stations must be considered as a possible option. But although the disposal of waste and the proliferation of nuclear weapons are profoundly important issues, the most severe problem may be the high and unpredictable cost of nuclear plants.

The new nuclear power station on the island of Olkiluoto in western Finland is a clear example. Electricity production was originally supposed to start this year, but the latest news is that the power station will not start generating until 2012. The impact on the cost of the project has been dramatic. When the contracts were signed, the plant was supposed to cost €3bn (£2.5bn). The final cost is likely to be more than twice this figure and the construction process is fast turning into a nightmare. A second new plant in Normandy appears to be experiencing similar problems. In the US, power companies are backing away from nuclear because of fears over uncontrollable costs.

Unless we can find a new way to build nuclear power stations, it looks as though CO2 capture at coal-fired plants will be a cheaper way of producing low-carbon electricity. A sustained research effort around the world might also mean that cost-effective carbon capture is available before the next generation of nuclear plants is ready, and that it will be possible to fit carbon-capture equipment on existing coal-fired power stations. Finding a way to roll out CO2 capture is the single most important research challenge the world faces today. The current leader, the Swedish power company Vattenfall, is using an innovative technology that burns the coal in pure oxygen rather than air, producing pure carbon dioxide from its chimneys, rather than expensively separating the CO2 from other exhaust gases. It hopes to be operating huge coal-fired power stations with minimal CO2 emissions by 2020.

Myth 5: electric cars are slow and ugly

We tend to think that electric cars are all like the G Wiz vehicle, with a limited range, poor acceleration and an unprepossessing appearance. Actually, we are already very close to developing electric cars that match the performance of petrol vehicles. The Tesla electric sports car, sold in America but designed by Lotus in Norfolk, amazes all those who experience its awesome acceleration. With a price tag of more than $100,000, late 2008 probably wasn’t a good time to launch a luxury electric car, but the Tesla has demonstrated to everybody that electric cars can be exciting and desirable. The crucial advance in electric car technology has been in batteries: the latest lithium batteries - similar to the ones in your laptop - can provide large amounts of power for acceleration and a long enough range for almost all journeys.

Batteries still need to become cheaper and quicker to charge, but the UK’s largest manufacturer of electric vehicles says that advances are happening faster than ever before. Its urban delivery van has a range of over 100 miles, accelerates to 70mph and has running costs of just over 1p per mile. The cost of the diesel equivalent is probably 20 times as much. Denmark and Israel have committed to develop the full infrastructure for a switch to an all-electric car fleet. Danish cars will be powered by the spare electricity from the copious resources of wind power; the Israelis will provide solar power harvested from the desert.

Myth 6: biofuels are always destructive to the environment

Making some of our motor fuel from food has been an almost unmitigated disaster. It has caused hunger and increased the rate of forest loss, as farmers have sought extra land on which to grow their crops. However the failure of the first generation of biofuels should not mean that we should reject the use of biological materials forever. Within a few years we will be able to turn agricultural wastes into liquid fuels by splitting cellulose, the most abundant molecule in plants and trees, into simple hydrocarbons. Chemists have struggled to find a way of breaking down this tough compound cheaply, but huge amounts of new capital have flowed into US companies that are working on making a petrol substitute from low-value agricultural wastes. In the lead is Range Fuels, a business funded by the venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, which is now building its first commercial cellulose cracking plant in Georgia using waste wood from managed forests as its feedstock.

We shouldn’t be under any illusion that making petrol from cellulose is a solution to all the problems of the first generation of biofuels. Although cellulose is abundant, our voracious needs for liquid fuel mean we will have to devote a significant fraction of the world’s land to growing the grasses and wood we need for cellulose refineries. Managing cellulose production so that it doesn’t reduce the amount of food produced is one of the most important issues we face.

Myth 7: climate change means we need more organic agriculture

The uncomfortable reality is that we already struggle to feed six billion people. Population numbers will rise to more than nine billion by 2050. Although food production is increasing slowly, the growth rate in agricultural productivity is likely to decline below population increases within a few years. The richer half of the world’s population will also be eating more meat. Since animals need large amounts of land for every unit of meat they produce, this further threatens food production for the poor. So we need to ensure that as much food as possible is produced on the limited resources of good farmland. Most studies show that yields under organic cultivation are little more than half what can be achieved elsewhere. Unless this figure can be hugely improved, the implication is clear: the world cannot feed its people and produce huge amounts of cellulose for fuels if large acreages are converted to organic cultivation.

Myth 8: zero carbon homes are the best way of dealing with greenhouse gas emissions from buildings

Buildings are responsible for about half the world’s emissions; domestic housing is the most important single source of greenhouse gases. The UK’s insistence that all new homes are “zero carbon” by 2016 sounds like a good idea, but there are two problems. In most countries, only about 1% of the housing stock is newly built each year. Tighter building regulations have no effect on the remaining 99%. Second, making a building genuinely zero carbon is extremely expensive. The few prototype UK homes that have recently reached this standard have cost twice as much as conventional houses.

Just focusing on new homes and demanding that housebuilders meet extremely high targets is not the right way to cut emissions. Instead, we should take a lesson from Germany. A mixture of subsidies, cheap loans and exhortation is succeeding in getting hundreds of thousands of older properties eco-renovated each year to very impressive standards and at reasonable cost. German renovators are learning lessons from the PassivHaus movement, which has focused not on reducing carbon emissions to zero, but on using painstaking methods to cut emissions to 10 or 20% of conventional levels, at a manageable cost, in both renovations and new homes. The PassivHaus pioneers have focused on improving insulation, providing far better air-tightness and warming incoming air in winter, with the hotter stale air extracted from the house. Careful attention to detail in both design and building work has produced unexpectedly large cuts in total energy use. The small extra price paid by householders is easily outweighed by the savings in electricity and gas. Rather than demanding totally carbon-neutral housing, the UK should push a massive programme of eco-renovation and cost-effective techniques for new construction.

Myth 9: the most efficient power stations are big

Large, modern gas-fired power stations can turn about 60% of the energy in fuel into electricity. The rest is lost as waste heat.

Even though 5-10% of the electricity will be lost in transmission to the user, efficiency has still been far better than small-scale local generation of power. This is changing fast.

New types of tiny combined heat and power plants are able to turn about half the energy in fuel into electricity, almost matching the efficiency of huge generators. These are now small enough to be easily installed in ordinary homes. Not only will they generate electricity but the surplus heat can be used to heat the house, meaning that all the energy in gas is productively used. Some types of air conditioning can even use the heat to power their chillers in summer.

We think that microgeneration means wind turbines or solar panels on the roof, but efficient combined heat and power plants are a far better prospect for the UK and elsewhere. Within a few years, we will see these small power plants, perhaps using cellulose-based renewable fuels and not just gas, in many buildings. Korea is leading the way by heavily subsidising the early installation of fuel cells at office buildings and other large electricity users.

Myth 10: all proposed solutions to climate change need to be hi-tech

The advanced economies are obsessed with finding hi-tech solutions to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Many of these are expensive and may create as many problems as they solve. Nuclear power is a good example. But it may be cheaper and more effective to look for simple solutions that reduce emissions, or even extract existing carbon dioxide from the air. There are many viable proposals to do this cheaply around the world, which also often help feed the world’s poorest people. One outstanding example is to use a substance known as biochar to sequester carbon and increase food yields at the same time.

Biochar is an astonishing idea. Burning agricultural wastes in the absence of air leaves a charcoal composed of almost pure carbon, which can then be crushed and dug into the soil. Biochar is extremely stable and the carbon will stay in the soil unchanged for hundreds of years. The original agricultural wastes had captured CO2 from the air through the photosynthesis process; biochar is a low-tech way of sequestering carbon, effectively for ever. As importantly, biochar improves fertility in a wide variety of tropical soils. Beneficial micro-organisms seem to crowd into the pores of the small pieces of crushed charcoal. A network of practical engineers around the tropical world is developing the simple stoves needed to make the charcoal. A few million dollars of support would allow their research to benefit hundreds of millions of small farmers at the same time as extracting large quantities of CO2 from the atmosphere.

Change doesn’t occur without informed leadership. Here are 15 green initiatives NewWays recommends to the incoming administration.

1. 
   Green industry Stock Exchange. A changing economy requires broad investment into new organizations. (startups:greensx)

2. 
   Create an American Carbon Trading Exchange.

3. 
   Translate Green technological innovation for specific business sectors. We now wade in hundreds of new Green innovations for businesses. A sector by sector account for how these energy and resource saving technologies can upgrade different industries is greatly needed. Here’s a low-grade example of this type of analysis for the Hospitality Industry. Carrot Mob is another form of this consultation: they went to businesses promising to deliver customers in exchange for Greening their stores.

4. 
   CO2 sequestering Incentivies the adoption of limited CO2 producing concrete production to decrease the high levels of CO2 release in the production of concrete.

5. 
   Design an American VW BUG for the 21st century. Fund the design and manufacturing of a single car that can be plugged in, run on solar power or run on bio-fuels, which the government uses and which is available to purchase to the general public
   -or-
   Fund a government owned car manufacturer that will pull together Green technology to produce hibride vehicles that run of multiple renewable energy sources.

6. Make public transportation free to all. Today, transit riders only pay 10% of the total operational costs of public transportation organizations. Increasing the use of mass transit promotes Green commutes and brings community members closer together.
7. 
   Container ShippingRevisit trade policy and address large-distance (3,000+ mile) perishable food transportation
8. Ban the use of genetically modified food products entirely and restrict the mass use of antibiotics on livestock (and restrict the corporate trademark of food DNA).
9. 
10. 
    Ban the use of archaic forms of shipping and packing materials such as Styrofoam, un-recycled plastics and cellophane.
11. 

    Mountaintop Removal

    Ban the use of Mountaintop Removal Coal acquisition methods and the use of the term “clean coal”.

12. 

    Bottled Water

    Create a Federal Clean Water fund which minimally taxes all bottle water companies and uses these funds to help redesign and improve the drinking water of cities and towns across the nation.

13. 
    Undue the Bush’s administrations wide-spread attack on environmental issues including reducing standards for arsenic in drinking water, pulled out of the Kyoto treaty on global warming, the “roadless rule” for logging, to name a few.
14. 

    Solar Power

    Build a consolidated national Solar Power plant plan in which state and federal funds work to build a 100 mile solar power plant, which will fulfil the nations power needs while utilizing overdue renewable energy technologies. Initially, a mile long solar power plant should be constructed, and the option to renew and factorially upgrade the capacity of the plant should be given each year.

15. 
    Nominate Hank Green of EcoGeek head of the Department of Transportation or Department of Energy. His leadership in promoting and highlighting new energy and transportation technology and innovation makes him a leading candidate to facilitate the kind of infrastructural change that the US economy and country deserves.

by Rachel Nowak via thenewscientist

When it comes to repairing damage done to the Earth’s climate there’s no shortage of ideas, ranging from schemes to put “sunshades” in orbit to burying the offending carbon dioxide underground.

But ideas won’t be enough, so there is an urgent need to rank those proposals to work out which should undergo rigorous testing, argues Philip Boyd of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in Dunedin, New Zealand.

“The ideas for how to change our climate keep getting pumped out. They get lots of column inches,” says Boyd. “My concern is that we will reach a tipping point, people will ask what are we doing about it, and none of the schemes will have been tested.”

Boyd proposes that an international body such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change prioritise the schemes according to possible risks involved, how quickly they could be got of the ground, their cost, and how efficiently they would change the climate.

Climate scientist Martin Manning of the University of Victoria in Wellington agrees that a systematic ranking is needed, in part because there is little communication between research communities working on different approaches.

“If warming is to be kept at 2 degrees or so, which is what most governments are endorsing, we have to take every technology on hand, we can’t be too fussy and we will make mistakes,” he says.

Herculean task

Any assessment should be broadened to include other techniques besides geo-engineering, such as using plants for sequestration, says Manning, who worked for the IPCC during the last assessment.

Some schemes could quickly be dismissed, but testing even one of the feasible schemes will still be a herculean task.

“We have only started to realise how complicated and interconnected Earth systems are, and scale up will be difficult,” Boyd says.

For example, the Pinatubo volcanic eruption inspired the proposal to inject sulphur particles in to the atmosphere to alter the Earth’s albedo so that sunlight is reflected back into space. But closer scrutiny of the eruption revealed that sulphur particles alone can not account for the fall in temperatures and other changes in climate that followed the eruption.

Schemes that rely on biological mechanisms – for example seeding oceans with iron to stimulate algae that would suck up carbon dioxide – will be the most prone to unknown side effects, says Boyd. “You probably never want to work with animals, children or biological systems.”

Risk management

The schemes that will be least prone to unexpected side effects – but potentially among the most costly – would be those based on well understood principles of physics and chemistry, such as “wind scrubbing”, in which chemicals are used to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Boyd ranks geochemical schemes, such as transforming the carbon in carbon dioxide into bicarbonate ions that would be dissolved in the ocean as in between the two when it comes to risks of unexpected side effects.

Boyd acknowledges that there are other risks inherent in testing mitigation schemes. “You risk letting people of the hook in terms of reducing emissions,” he says. “On the other hand purposely manipulating the environment on such a huge scale is a frightening concept, and it could push people to take action.”

via ScienceDaily (Sep. 26, 2008) —

With the high cost of gasoline and diesel fuel impacting costs for automobiles, trucks, buses and the overall economy, a Temple University physics professor has developed a simple device which could dramatically improve fuel efficiency as much as 20 percent.

According to Rongjia Tao, Chair of Temple’s Physics Department, the small device consists of an electrically charged tube that can be attached to the fuel line of a car’s engine near the fuel injector. With the use of a power supply from the vehicle’s battery, the device creates an electric field that thins fuel, or reduces its viscosity, so that smaller droplets are injected into the engine. That leads to more efficient and cleaner combustion than a standard fuel injector, he says.

Six months of road testing in a diesel-powered Mercedes-Benz automobile showed that the device increased highway fuel from 32 miles per gallon to 38 mpg, a 20 percent boost, and a 12-15 percent gain in city driving.

The results of the laboratory and road tests verifying that this simple device can boost gas mileage.

“We expect the device will have wide applications on all types of internal combustion engines, present ones and future ones,” Tao wrote in the study published in Energy & Fuels.

Further improvements in the device could lead to even better mileage, he suggests, and cited engines powered by gasoline, biodiesel, and kerosene as having potential use of the device.

Temple has applied for a patent on this technology, which has been licensed to California-based Save The World Air, Inc., an environmentally conscientious enterprise focused on the design, development, and commercialization of revolutionary technologies targeted at reducing emissions from internal combustion engines.

According to Joe Dell, Vice President of Marketing for STWA, the company is currently working with a trucking company near Reading, Pa., to test the device on diesel-powered trucks, where he estimates it could increase fuel efficiency as much as 6-12 percent.

Dell predicts this type of increased fuel efficiency could save tens of billions of dollars in the trucking industry and have a major impact on the economy through the lowering of costs to deliver goods and services.

“Temple University is very excited about the translation of this new important technology from the research laboratory to the marketplace,” said Larry F. Lemanski, Senior Vice President for Research and Strategic Initiatives at Temple. “This discovery promises to significantly improve fuel efficiency in all types of internal combustion engine powered vehicles and at the same time will have far-reaching effects in reducing pollution of our environment.”

by Mariella Moon via PC Magazine

The X Prize Foundation, the same organization behind the Automotive X Prize and Google Lunar X Prize projects, has recently launched a YouTube search for people’s “crazy green ideas.” Called the Energy and Environment X PRIZE, it’s on a much smaller scale compared to the other two contests above worth $10 million and $30 million respectively. With a $25,000 prize at stake, contestants are required to film 2 minutes of video footage answering the main question, “What’s your crazy green idea?”Entries, accepted until October 31, 2008, should be posted on YouTube’s channel for the contest. The three most viable ideas will be chosen November 15 after which, voting will be opened to the masses for two weeks. Each entry, by the bye, will have to tackle three points:

1. What is the Grand Challenge or world-wide problem that you are trying to solve?
2. What is the specific prize idea (goal, rules, judging criteria)?
3. How will this prize lead to benefits for humanity?

If you have a “green idea” bubbling in your head, now is the time to voice it out. Check out the Energy and Environment X PRIZE and submit your entries here.

via stumbleupon

San Francisco - Web giant Google unveiled a new national energy plan for the US Wednesday that it said would largely wean the country of fossil fuels by 2030.

The 4.4-trillion-dollar plan was developed by Google’s philanthropic arm Google.org, which predicted that the county would reap net savings of 1 trillion dollars over the idea’s 22-year term.

The plan called “Clean Energy 2030″ was unveiled in an online posting by Jeffery Greenblatt, Google.org’s climate and energy- technology manager. It is based on halting the generation of electricity from coal and oil by 2030 and instead relying on power from wind, nuclear and geothermal sources.

It also entails cutting oil use for cars by 40 per cent. It calls for heavy investments in transmission capacity for wind and solar power in the Great Plains and desert Southwest to help cut 88 per cent of fossil fuel use and 95 per cent of carbon-dioxide emissions by 2030.

In addition, the plan calls for tapping geothermal energy as key technologies mature during the next few years.

Specifically, the plan calls for the replacement of all coal- and oil-fired electricity generation with national gas and renewable electricity, including 380 gigawatts of wind power, 250 gigawatts of solar power and 80 gigawatts of geothermal power.

Other elements of the plan include reducing energy use by 33 per cent via energy-efficiency measures, boosting sales of plug-in hybrid vehicles to 90 per cent of new car sales in 2030, increasing the average fuel efficiency of conventional vehicles from 31 miles per gallon to 45 miles per gallon in 2030, and turning over the country’s current fleet of vehicles more quickly so that cars are driven only 13 years, instead of an average of 19 years today.

“With a new administration and Congress - and multiple energy- related imperatives - this is an opportune, perhaps unprecedented, moment to move from plan to action,” Greenblatt said. “We see a huge opportunity for the nation to confront our energy challenges. In the process we will stimulate investment, create jobs, empower consumers and, by the way, help address climate change.”

Designers begin by asking questions

Stay focused on the larger picture and have some fun at the same time.  Download a TED inspired desktop wigit that asks you daily questions about big ideas.

Created in conjunction with the 2008 TED conference, this widget supports questions that are important to IDEO and to the extended TED community.  This year, in keeping with the 2008 TED conference theme, IDEO posed a series of questions to TED attendees. Broad-ranging and widely relevant, these queries represent themes that inspire and inform our work at IDEO.

Download the widget to your desktop to see a new question every day, or to contribute your own.

The world could eliminate fossil fuel use by 2090, saving $18 trillion in future fuel costs and creating a $360 billion industry that provides half of the world’s electricity, the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC) and environmental group Greenpeace said on Monday.

The 210-page study [pdf] is one of few reports – even by lobby groups – to look in detail at how energy use would have to be overhauled to meet the toughest scenarios for curbing greenhouse gases outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“Renewable energy could provide all global energy needs by 2090,” according to the study, entitled “Energy (R)evolution.” EREC represents renewable energy industries and trade and research associations in Europe.

A more radical scenario could eliminate coal use by 2050 if new power generation plants shifted quickly to renewables.

Solar power, biomass such as biofuels or wood, geothermal energy and wind could be the leading energies by 2090 in a shift from fossil fuels blamed by the IPCC for stoking global warming.

The total energy investments until 2030, the main period studied, would come to $14.7 trillion, according to the study. By contrast, the International Energy Agency (IEA), which advises rich nations, foresees energy investments of just $11.3 trillion to 2030, with a bigger stress on fossil fuels and nuclear power.

Rajendra Pachauri, head of the IPCC, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with ex-US Vice President Al Gore, called Monday’s study “comprehensive and rigorous.”

Dangerous change

“Even those who may not agree with the analysis presented would, perhaps, benefit from a deep study of the underlying assumptions,” Pachauri wrote in a foreword to the report.

EREC and Greenpeace said a big energy shift was needed to avoid “dangerous” climate change, defined by the European Union and many environmental groups as a temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius since before the Industrial Revolution.

The report urged measures such as a phase-out of subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear energy, “cap and trade” systems for greenhouse gas emissions, legally binging targets for renewable energies and tough efficiency standards for buildings and vehicles.

by New Scientist staff via newscientist

A report said renewable energy markets were booming with turnover almost doubling in 2007 from 2006 to more than $70 billion. It said renewables could more than double their share of world energy supplies to 30% by 2030 and reach 50% by 2050.

The projections are far more optimistic for renewables than the IEA, which foresees just 13% of energy from renewables in 2030 with fossil fuels staying dominant.

Sven Teske, Greenpeace’s leading author of the report, said the recommendations would involve big job-creating investments that could help counter the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.

“The current unstable market situation is a strong argument for our energy evolution concept,” said. He said investments would be repaid by savings in fuel costs.

“We had a ‘dot.com bubble’ and a ‘finance bubble’ - but I’m confident that we will not have a renewables bubble - as the need for energy is real - and growing especially in developing nations,” he said.

via PhysOrg.com

The findings have just been reported in Water Research, a professional journal, by researchers in the College of Engineering at Oregon State University.

Studies suggest that this approach could reduce the amount of energy needed to produce hydrogen by as much as 75 percent, compared with hydrogen production by water electrolysis. More work needs to be done to reduce the cost for electrode materials and more advances in efficiency are possible, experts say.

“In the laboratory we’re already quite close to the Department of Energy hydrogen cost goal of $2 to $3 per gasoline gallon equivalent, or GGE,” said Hong Liu, an OSU assistant professor of biological and ecological engineering. “And with some additional research it should be possible to scale these systems up to levels needed for commercial use.”

But that’s not even the best news, Liu said.

While it’s producing significant amounts of hydrogen from sewage, this system also cleans the water. Conceptually, treatment plants could be developed that take in sewage on one end and send clean water and hydrogen fuel out the other. Their production potential may only be limited by the amount of raw waste they have available – and sewage in the future may no longer be a waste disposal problem but rather a valued commodity, another important component of the nation’s sustainable energy equation.

Other forms of biowaste could also be used, scientists say. The use of woody biomass is possible. The large amounts of waste from food processing factories would be a good candidate, as well as agricultural waste such as the huge amounts of manure produced in cattle, hog, and other livestock operations. In that context, it may be quite possible to make a silk purse out of a sow’s rear.

All of this was achieved through fundamental research on “microbial electrolysis cells,” or MECs, that use a new “membrane free” approach that costs less and is significantly more efficient than existing approaches.

“The removal of membrane not only can simplify the construction, operation and maintenance of MECs, but it also can decrease the internal resistance, thus increase the hydrogen production rate,” the researchers said in their report.

In these systems, naturally occurring microorganisms from sewage attach to the surface of an anode and degrade the waste in the sewage, in a device that is something like a battery. The waste decomposes, eventually leaving protons that migrate to the cathode, combine with electrons and generate hydrogen.

These systems can be adapted to generate electricity directly or used to produce hydrogen, which in turn can be used to produce electricity from hydrogen fuel cells – an existing and widely proven technology.

“Hydrogen has often been thought of as the ideal fuel to run fuel-cell powered automobiles,” Liu said. “Hydrogen fuel cells are about 60 percent efficient, roughly double that of a gasoline internal combustion engine. And there is no air pollution; the only byproduct from operation of the fuel cell is water.”

One of the biggest steps still needed to make this type of fuel cell vehicle a reality is solving hydrogen production issues – and the new technology developed in Liu’s laboratory might produce hydrogen at a cost close to the DOE goal. Those cost figures do not include the potential savings of billions of dollars spent in treating the nation’s wastewater, which further increase the economical viability of the technology.

“Another interesting application of this approach might be in developing countries or remote areas,” Liu said. “Often these places have few or no waste treatment plants, and no practical way in a remote location to produce electricity. Small systems used there might solve both problems.

“There’s no doubt this could help contribute to a more sustainable future,” Liu said. “We could clean up our sewage and produce fuel at the same time. That’s very promising.”

by Ariel Schwartz via cleartechnica

A recent partnership between the steel industry and UK university researchers has led to the development of a unique photovoltaic paint that can be applied to steel.

The paint is made up of dye and electrolytes that can be applied as a paste to steel sheets. Four layers of paint are applied to each sheet. When light hits the solar cells, excited molecules release an electron into an electron collector and circuit (nanocrystalline titanium dioxide). Finally, the electrons move back into the dye.

Photovoltaic paint has a number of advantages over traditional solar cells. It doesn’t have the material limitations of silicon solar cells, so it theoretically provides many terawatts of electricity at a low cost. Additionally, the paint can absorb light across the visible spectrum— so even cloudy days will reap lots of energy.

According to steel company Corus Colours, the solar cells can achieve a power conversion efficiency of 11 percent.

Production of solar paint will begin soon— a lab built to develop the new technology is starting work on October 30 in North Wales. Ultimately, researchers at the PV Accelerator Laboratory in North Wales hope to develop a way to apply solar paint to steel at 30 to 40 square meters per second.

I only wonder if solar paint will be available for purchase to consumers in the future— if so, it could easily lead to a do-it-yourself solar revolution.

Photo credit: Corus Colours

Written by Andrew Williams via cleantechnica

An Australian scientist has developed a new method of manufacturing solar cells using nothing more than some nail polish remover, a pizza oven and a standard inkjet printer.

The iJET technique is so easy and cheap to carry out that it could revolutionize access to solar technology in the developing world.

In a recent radio interview (audio), Nicole Kuepper, a 23 year-old PhD student at the University of New South Wales, explained the process.

Firstly, she takes a standard silicon solar cell and sprays it with a substance similar to nail polish. Then, she inkjet prints something like nail polish remover onto the wafer in a set pattern in the same way that you’d print a normal photo. This enables the creation of high-resolution patterns on the cell at a very low cost. The cell is then metallized with an aluminum spray and baked at a very low temperature of around 550 fahrenheit in “something like a pizza oven.”

Kuepper went on to explain how solar cells are currently manufactured using expensive “high-tech, high-cleanliness equipment,” too costly for many countries in the developing world, adding, “we’re trying to do away with all of that so that so we can ensure that these solar cells can actually be manufactured in a developing country’s environment that you might find in say Ghana or Laos for example.”

Image Credit - Mulad via flickr.com on a Creative Commons license

Now here’s something we can Digg.  Google is thinking like NewWays in our quest to put people to work developing new ideas to help the world.  “Project 10¹⁰⁰ is a call for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible.” 

How It Works:

1. Send Google your idea by October 20th.
Simply fill out the submission form giving us the gist of your idea. You can supplement your proposal with a 30-second video.

2. Voting on ideas begins on January 27th.
We’ll post a selection of one hundred ideas and ask you, the public, to choose twenty semi-finalists. Then an advisory board will select up to five final ideas. Send me a reminder to vote.

3.Google will help bring these ideas to life.
Google is committing $10 million to implement these projects, and our goal is to help as many people as possible. So remember, money may provide a jumpstart, but the idea is the thing.

Here’s the FAQ from Google:

Why this project?

Never in history have so many people had so much information, so many tools at their disposal, so many ways of making good ideas come to life. Yet at the same time, so many people, of all walks of life, could use so much help, in both little ways and big.

In the midst of this, new studies are reinforcing the simple wisdom that beyond a certain very basic level of material wealth, the only thing that increases individual happiness over time is helping other people.

In other words, helping helps everybody, helper and helped alike.

The question is: what would help? And help most?

At Google, we don’t believe we have the answers, but we do believe the answers are out there. Maybe in a lab, or a company, or a university — but maybe not.

Maybe the answer that helps somebody is in your head, in something you’ve observed, some notion that you’ve been fiddling with, some small connection you’ve noticed, some old thing you have seen with new eyes.

If you have an idea that you believe would help somebody, we want to hear about it. We’re looking for ideas that help as many people as possible, in any way, and we’re committing the funding to launch them. You can submit your ideas and help vote on ideas from others. Final idea selections will be made by an advisory board.

Good luck, and may those who help the most win.

by Sarah Barush via the Huffingtonpost

The nation’s public transportation systems logged a 5.2 percent jump in ridership in the second quarter, according to industry figures to be released Tuesday, as record-high gas prices pushed people to take millions more trips on buses and rail systems.

Riders made a total of 2.8 billion trips on the nation’s subways, buses, commuter railroads and light-rail systems from April to June, according to the Washington-based American Public Transportation Association. That’s up from 2.7 billion in the same period last year.

By contrast, transit ridership increased 2.1 percent for all of 2007, a more typical growth rate.

The surge in riders is straining many agencies that don’t have the funds to expand service. Many systems are struggling just to maintain the service they already offer because of their own rising fuel costs, according to a survey conducted by the association.

“The irony is that just at a time when Americans need choice, need alternatives to higher-priced gasoline, 35 percent of transit systems are saying they may need to cut service,” association president William W. Millar said. His group is pushing for more federal funding for public transportation.

In the meantime, transit agencies are looking at creative ways to meet the growing demand. In New York City, officials are planning to experiment with seatless subway cars next spring to squeeze in more riders. The cars would have only fold-down seats, all of which would be locked in the up position during rush hour. In Boston, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is using longer trains on the T and increasing the frequency of some bus and rail services.

The soaring demand has been felt in small agencies, too. In Madison, Wis., buses operated by Metro Transit are often too full to stop for waiting passengers. It may take up to 15 minutes for the next bus to arrive, said Colin Conn, the agency’s schedule planner.

Metro Transit tries to fix the problem by running out an extra bus to pick up the overflow _ something it typically has to do dozens of times a day when the University of Wisconsin is in session, Conn said.

The Chicago Transit Authority has reported surging ridership for months, including a 10 percent year-over-year increase in August, but that hasn’t helped its bottom line. On Monday, the agency announced it would cut 80 jobs and make other efforts to trim costs.

In Washington, where the rail system had its busiest month ever in July, Metro General Manager John Catoe is pushing for bus-only lanes as a way to encourage people to ride buses and relieve pressure on the crowded subway. The idea requires only “paint and a few signs,” but taking away lanes from private vehicles could be politically tricky, Catoe said.

Transit advocates say what is ultimately needed is more federal support. A bill to make $1.7 billion available to transit agencies during the next two years passed the House in June. Millar and other transit advocates are scheduled to testify Tuesday at a Senate committee hearing.

Opponents of increased transit funding point out that even with the ridership gains, the vast majority of people still drive. Ron Utt, of the conservative Heritage Foundation, said transit is “inconsequential in terms of reducing congestion or greenhouse gases” and that people who want to use transit should simply pay more.

Citing the example of a Washington-area commuter rail, Utt said: “If more people want to use that and more people have to stand, I don’t know why that should place a financial burden on people in Iowa.”

Although gas prices have eased since July, transit officials predicted that would do little to stem the growth in ridership.

“A lot of people who have been paying the high gas prices have used their credit cards to pay for it,” said Catoe, of the Washington Metro. “Those bills are coming due.”

by Ariel Schwartz via cleantechnica

North Carolina State University has just been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to create the National Research Center for Future Renewable Energy Delivery Management Systems— in other words, the Internet for energy.

The center will develop technology to transform the United States’ outdated centralized power grid to a “smart” grid that can store and distribute alternative energy from solar panels, wind farms, and more. The center’s plan even allows for community involvement— individual citizens can harvest their own energy and sell it back to power companies.

Over 60 companies have partnered with the university to create the smart grid, and the NSF grant wil bolster the project with $18.5 million.

While research will begin immediately, center headquarters on NC State’s campus won’t open until 2010.

The implications for the proposed smart grid are endless— it could easily speed up development of devices of all sorts that store energy and send it back to the grid. Additionally, it could make the use of plug-in hybrid cars viable on a mass scale. Plug-in’s aren’t feasible for mass usage right now — today’s outdated grid would simply get overwhelmed at peak charging times.

So if NC State’s grid works out, look for the energy industry to be completely revolutionized— maybe not next year, but possibly in the next decade.

The AVRC acknowledges that $10,400 is a hefty price tag for the average driver - AVRC founder and president Richard Dell estimates that it could take 140,000 miles to recover the cost through fuel savings. But the important thing is that they´ve demonstrated that the technology is viable and available right now. “It´s given us more confidence that it´s not a matter of if plug-in vehicles will happen, but when,” said Mike Rowand, Duke Energy´s director of advanced customer technologies.A recent article in North Carolina´s The News & Observer has highlighted a Raleigh-based company, Advanced Vehicle Research Center (AVRC), that has four employees and can retrofit a Prius in about four hours for a cost of $10,400. The AVRC is one of eight US companies authorized to install lithium ion batteries manufactured by 23 Systems, a Massachusetts company.

AVRC´s converted Priuses can get from anywhere between 60 and 100 mpg, depending on driving habits, which roughly doubles the gas mileage of a standard Prius. Advanced Energy, a Raleigh nonprofit research organization and one of AVRC´s customers, has even exceeded 200 mpg in a test under optimal conditions.

The conversion process is relatively uncomplicated. The mechanics remove the spare tire in the trunk, and replace it with a 170-pound lithium ion battery pack, like a much larger version of a cell phone battery. A plug from the back of the bumper can be inserted into a conventional wall outlet, where a full charge lasts about 3.5 hours and costs less than 75 cents.

The modified Prius draws from the new battery first, giving the car a range of about 35 miles on all-electric power, making gasoline optional on short commutes. When the battery is depleted, the Prius runs like a standard hybrid, using its gas engine and regenerative braking to charge its nickel metal hydride battery.

According to the Plug-In Hybrid Coalition of the Carolinas, there are about 150 plug-in hybrids on US roads today. Most of the AVRC´s customers have been corporations with large fleets, but they recently made their first conversion for an individual. Their clients include Progress Energy, Duke Energy, the city of Raleigh, and North Carolina State University´s Advanced Transportation Energy Center. These organizations are tracking and sending data on the cars to the Idaho National Laboratory, a federal research institute that is studying plug-in hybrids.

The plug-in modifications aren´t authorized or endorsed by Toyota, which plans to make its own Prius plug-in commercially available in 2010 in the US. Also in 2010, Chevrolet plans to release the Volt (which runs on the same 23 lithium ion battery used by AVRC), which is expected to be more economical than AVRC´s conversions.

via Frog Design

It is only the young, naive designer who has not felt the guilt of designing for landfills. It is now rare for a client to be disinterested in environmentally conscious design. This shift in thinking both with designers and clients led frog design to create an internal initiative dubbed “frogware” that ultimately helped us to learn about green design by doing it. Following a series of need-finding and ideation sessions, several teams in our studios around the world focused on generating alternative lighting concepts.