There are two reasons to buy a hybrid: better gas mileage and environmental concerns.
Mother Earth may hope for the latter, but the overwhelming reason most drivers want to buy a gas-electric hybrid is to use less gas, especially with prices at the pump staying above $4 a gallon. For the most part, hybrids will carry you farther and use less fuel than their gas-only counterparts. But they do cost more.
Building Design shows a power-generating “wind dam†designed by architects Chetwoods that uses a giant spinnaker sail slung between mountains to funnel wind into a turbine.
ScienceDaily (Nov. 13, 2007) — Scientists at the University of Virginia have discovered a new class of hydrogen storage materials that could make the storage and transportation of energy much more efficient — and affordable — through higher-performing hydrogen fuel cells.
CHICAGO (AFP) - US researchers have developed a method of producing hydrogen gas from biodegradable organic material, potentially providing an abundant source of this clean-burning fuel, according to a study released Monday.
What Treehugger and Hugg need.
ScienceDaily (Nov. 8, 2007) — Taking a page from Nature herself, a team of researchers developed a method to enhance removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and place it in the Earth's oceans for storage.
Why are not more projects like this happening? Maybe with storm water run off or something?
The Soviet Union once powered lighthouses on its Arctic coast using radioactive batteries, leaving its successors the problem of disposing of the nuclear waste. Now a cleaner technology is being harnessed to power lighthouses in remote places: fuel cells.
As anyone who has ever been seasick knows, there's a lot of energy in ocean waves. Many proposals have been made to turn that sloshing motion into useable electricity, but most of these projects are stuck on dry land
Climate change models, no matter how powerful, can never give a precise prediction of how greenhouse gases will warm the Earth, according to a new study.
The result will provide ammunition to those who argue not enough is known about global warming to warrant taking action.
ScienceDaily (Oct. 24, 2007) — The catastrophic fires that are sweeping Southern California are consistent with what climate change models have been predicting for years, experts say, and they may be just a prelude to many more such events in the future -- as vegetation grows heavier than usual and then ignites during prolonged drought periods.
ScienceDaily (Oct. 22, 2007) — Consumption of energy and many other critical resources is consistently breaking records, disrupting the climate and undermining life on the planet, according to the latest Worldwatch Institute report, Vital Signs 2007-2008.
ScienceDaily (Oct. 22, 2007) — The world has a narrow window of opportunity to save coral reefs from the destruction caused by extreme climate change, according to a unanimous statement issued today by leading Australian scientists. The call for action is the outcome of a National Forum on Coral Reef Futures, held at the Australian Academy of Sciences, in Canberra.
There's always a chance that climate science has got things wrong, a fact which is illustrated by the IPCC's confidence intervals - which tend to be large - and error bars. (The IPCC says, for instance, there is "at least a 9 in 10 chance" that human activities are causing changes in our global climate.) Given that chance - how lucky do you feel?
With the gift-giving season almost upon us and increasing concerns about the environmental effects of all those deliveries and pickups, it is timely that researchers should turn their attention to the so-called Traveling Salesman Problem. Writing in a forthcoming issue of the Inderscience publication the International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, researchers suggest a new approach to cutting journey times of courier services everywhere.
The utility American Electric Power (AEP) deployed this huge sodium-sulfur battery as part of a demonstration project in Charleston, WV. The battery provides 1.2 megawatts of power for up to seven hours, easing the strain on an overloaded substation. Trouble-free operation since installation last year convinced AEP that such energy-storage technology is ready for active duty.
No wonder environmentalists get bad names.
As Texas’ electric grid operator prepares to add power lines for carrying future wind-generated energy, an electrical engineer at The University of Texas at Austin is developing improved methods for determining the extent to which power from a wind farm can displace a conventional power plant, and how best to regulate varying wind power.
Early research results show that tropical maize, when grown in the Midwest, requires few crop inputs such as nitrogen fertilizer, chiefly because it does not produce any ears. It also is easier for farmers to integrate into their current operations than some other dedicated energy crops because it can be easily rotated with corn or soybeans, and can be planted, cultivated and harvested with the same equipment U.S. farmers already have.
Kyosemi Corporation has developed a highly efficient round solar cell. The Sphelar is a registered trademark of Kyosemi Corp. The advantages of the Sphelar is its unique ability to capture the sun in all directions and utilize indirect and diffuse light. The other feature is in production. It utilizes a method wherein there is little waste of silicon.
Tourists scramble over the melting edge of Greenland’s ice sheet near the town of ¬Kangerlussuaq. The rate at which some glaciers are sliding into the ocean has doubled or more in a decade, outpacing estimates that inform official predictions of sea-level rise.
All of the cute little wind-power devices we've seen rely on turbines. One inventor finally said, "Screw the turbine," and built a wind-powered generator that behaves rather like a badly designed bridge.
Yes, Shawn Frayne's Windbelt was inspired by "Galloping Gertie," the Tacoma Narrows Bridge that collapsed in 1940, whose video is all over the net and occasionally shown on MythBusters.
Wind energy carries the promise of tapping into a free, seemingly endless supply of energy. But those thinking to capture the breeze in their backyard with a personal windmill might be surprised how much the wind actually costs. "Small wind doesn't make economic sense," says Paul Gipe, who has written several books and commentaries on wind energy.
Why not just run to the supermarket instead? Well, I'd taken a challenge from the Lansing Localvores to eat local for the next six days - that means consuming only foods grown, raised or made with products from within 100 miles of where I live.
The Lansing Localvores are a growing group of about 10 Lansing-area residents who are concerned about the environment, what Americans will do when our fuel sources run out and are trying to find ways on a local level to make things better.
The bamboo being used commercially comes from plantations in China. Horticulturalists think that someday it could be grown in the USA. It is an eco-friendly crop typically grown without chemicals and pesticides. It's used commercially for everything from floors to blue jeans.
Permafrost – the perpetually frozen foundation of North America – isn’t so permanent anymore, and scientists are scrambling to understand the pros and cons when terra firma goes soft.
Permafrost serves like a platform underneath vast expanses of northern forests and wetlands that are rooted, literally, in melting permafrost in many northern ecosystems. But rising atmospheric temperatures are accelerating rates of permafrost thaw in northern regions, says MSU researcher Merritt Turetsky.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota have developed a fast way to convert sawdust and waste biomass directly into a mixture of gases that can be burned to generate electricity or made into liquid fuels such as diesel. If the process can be scaled up, it could be a more energy-efficient method for making biofuels by allowing for small, fast reactors located close to biomass sources.
As oil becomes scarce, the world needs new transportation fuels. As new fuel options develop we need means of assessing which are most effective at replacing petroleum. So far many scientists have used a measure called ‘net energy’.
However, Professor Bruce Dale from Michigan State University claims, “Net energy analysis is simple and has great intuitive appeal, but it is also dead wrong and dangerously misleading – net energy must be eliminated from our discourse.†Dale’s perspective is published in the first edition of Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining.
A federal advisory panel on Wednesday found no strong evidence of health hazards from a chemical commonly found in plastics, but left the door open for further investigation.
At issue is a chemical called bisphenol A, which is in products ranging from baby bottles to the coatings inside food cans. Some research links the chemical to reproductive abnormalities and other health problems in animals. That and widespread exposure to the plastic prompted the National Toxicology Program to appoint an expert panel to review the science.
The plan to use trees as a way to suck up and store the extra carbon dioxide emitted into Earth's atmosphere to combat global warming isn't such a hot idea, new research indicates.
Scientists at Duke University bathed plots of North Carolina pine trees in extra carbon dioxide every day for 10 years and found that while the trees grew more tissue, only the trees that received the most water and nutrients stored enough carbon dioxide to offset the effects of global warming.
