Photosynthesis Fuel Company Gets a Large Investment. Green tea: Joule Energy’s SolarConverter turns carbon dioxide and sunlight into ethanol fuel at a pilot plant in Leander, Texas.
Joule Unlimited, a startup based in Bedford, Massachusetts, has received $70 million to commercialize technology that uses microörganisms to turn sunlight and carbon dioxide into liquid fuel. The company claims that its genetically engineered bacteria will eventually be able to produce ethanol for as little as $1.23 a gallon or diesel fuel for $1.19 a gallon, less than half the current cost of both fossil fuels and existing biofuels. The new funding comes from undisclosed investors and will allow the company to expand from an existing pilot plant to its first small-scale production facility, in Hobbs, New Mexico. Joule Unlimited has designed a device it calls the SolarConverter, in which thin, clear panels circulate brackish water and a nitrogen-based growth medium bubbling with carbon dioxide.
Rare Element on Earth Discovered in Ancient Stars. Light from three ancient stars at the edge of the Milky Way indicates that the stars contain tellurium, a brittle, superconducting element that is rare on Earth.
The cosmic discovery, which also spotted traces of other heavy elements, supports the theory that these elements were synthesized in the rapidly collapsing cores of rare supernovas (stellar explosions). "You can make iron and nickel in any ordinary supernova, anywhere in the universe," said Anna Frebel, an astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technologyand a member of the research team. Tetris Lamp Lights Up When Stacked Instead of Disappearing.