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How A Biofuel Dream Called Jatropha Came Crashing Down : The Salt. Mobile machine can make biofuel for military and humanitarian operations. A diagram of the process utilized by the Endurance Bioenergy Reactor Researchers at the U.S.

Mobile machine can make biofuel for military and humanitarian operations

Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) have created a device called the Endurance Bioenergy Reactor (EBR) that can produce bioenergy on location, using waste from kitchens and latrines. The fuel can go directly into engines and generators without any need for refining, avoiding the complications of distribution and supply chains associated with fuel production. The researchers say the EBR can produce 25 to 50 gallons (94.6 to 189.2 liters) of biofuel a day from waste streams or processed cellulosic materials.

The EBR is based on an engineered photosynthetic bacterium, an organism that divides itself quickly. Because of its inherent mobility, the system would be ideal for military settings, humanitarian activities in emergency zones, native peoples' villages, and in any other remote setting. Turbine to Harness the Tides to Generate Power. Nanosheet catalyst brings a hydrogen economy one step closer to reality. Harnessing the power of hydrogen gas presents one of the most promising options available for obtaining a large-scale sustainable energy solution.

Nanosheet catalyst brings a hydrogen economy one step closer to reality

However, there are numerous and significant challenges present in the production of pure hydrogen, one of the most prominent of which is the high costs associated with the use of rare and expensive chemical elements such as platinum. The passive housing revolution. Infrared photo which shows heat radiation from the walls of a passive house (right) and a typical house (left).

The passive housing revolution

More radiation gives higher temperatures. (Illustration: Passivhaus Institut) Despite a projected increase in Norway's population to seven million by 2050, it will be possible to drastically reduce the country's energy consumption compared to current levels, claims Stefan Pauliuk at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Analysing the industry, transport and housing sectors, his doctoral thesis uses complex calculations to compute the state of energy consumption and emissions by 2050 under different scenarios. Doubts Increasing about Germany's Switch to Renewable Energy. Chancellor Angela Merkel outlined a grand vision for an energy revolution a year ago, shortly after her government had decided to shut down all nuclear reactors by 2022 in a spectacular about-face following the Fukushima accident. Germany was to put itself at the forefront of the fight against global warming by radically expanding the use of renewable energy to 35 percent of total power consumption by 2020, rising to 80 percent by 2050.

Currently, it represents 20 percent of the country's energy mix. But now two ministers, Environment Minister Peter Altmaier and Economy Minister Philipp Rösler, have cast doubt whether the targets are reachable and said their priority is to make sure that electricity prices don't rise too much. "If we still want to manage that somehow it will take huge efforts," he told Bild am Sonntag newspaper. Cost-effective solar power module could also serve as an eco-friendly furnace. Borrowing technology from sophisticated telescope mirrors as well as high-efficiency solar cells used for space exploration, a group of students and researchers at the University of Arizona is putting the final touches on a novel power plant that promises to generate renewable energy twice as efficiently as standard solar panel technology with highly competitive costs and a very small environmental impact.

Cost-effective solar power module could also serve as an eco-friendly furnace

Curved mirrors in solar power plants usually concentrate the sun's rays along a water pipe, heating the water into steam that is then fed to power-generating turbines. But rather than distributing the power over the area of a water pipe, researchers at the University of Arizona are working on focusing as much as possible of the sun's captured energy onto a precise point in space. The target is a small glass ball that is only five inches in diameter. Each module features two highly reflective, curved, 10 by 10 feet (3 x 3 m) glass mirrors mounted on a steel structure.

Austrian Family Lives Without Plastic. Try to imagine living without plastic for just a single day.

Austrian Family Lives Without Plastic

No computer, no mobile phone, no car and certainly no pre-packaged food. Modern life, marked by the ubiquity of plastic, makes avoiding the synthetic substance a nearly impossible undertaking. Can We Survive the New Golden Age of Oil? - By Steve LeVine. For more photos of new energy powers, click here.

Can We Survive the New Golden Age of Oil? - By Steve LeVine

Just months after an enormous discovery of natural gas off the coast of Israel, a local company has reported another potentially big strike -- an estimated 1.4 billion barrels of oil, in addition to more natural gas. The company, Israel Opportunity Energy Resources, says it will start drilling by the end of the year. All of a sudden, Israel has found itself a focus of the world's hydrocarbon interest. Energy experts are tittering about a prodigious new golden age of oil and gas in the Eastern Mediterranean, where Israel and Cyprus could become substantial oil and natural gas exporters, in addition to some other surprising places including French Guiana, Kenya, North Dakota, and Somalia.

How Communities Can Invest in Solar Power - Environment. For many years, solar customers paid for their panels in the same way they might pay for a TV: upfront or in installments.

How Communities Can Invest in Solar Power - Environment

But as the solar industry has grown, new opportunities for financing solar projects have emerging. Some draw lessons and inspiration from microfinance and peer-to-peer lending, making small-scale solar available to families and community organizations, like schools and nonprofits, that could not afford the purchase on their own. Green energy will cut healthcare costs. What impact does changing from one energy system to another have on the national healthcare budget?

Green energy will cut healthcare costs

Scientists have found the answer using mathematical models that calculate how air pollution spreads. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Stephan Mosel) Air pollution is an indirect cost to society as it is a source of asthma and heart and lung diseases. The Centre for Energy, Environment and Health (CEEH), a multi-disciplinary research centre in Denmark, has developed a new mathematical model that makes it possible to include healthcare costs in the overall costs of different energy systems. The new model shows that an energy system with sustainable energy sources is cheaper than previously thought when all costs are included. Germany Sets New Solar Record By Meeting Nearly Half of Country's Weekend Power Demand. Germany fed a whopping 22 gigawatts of solar power per hour into the national grid last weekend, setting a new record by meeting nearly half of the country’s weekend power demand.

Germany Sets New Solar Record By Meeting Nearly Half of Country's Weekend Power Demand

After the Fukushima disaster, Japan opted to shut down all of its nuclear power stations and Germany followed suit after considerable public pressure. This seems to have paved the way for greater investment in solar energy projects. The Renewable Energy Industry (IWR) in Muenster announced that Saturday’s solar energy generation met nearly 50 percent of the nation’s midday electricity needs AND was equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity! California start-up inks FEMA deal to provide disaster relief solar villages. Following five years of research and development, California start-up and provider of disaster relief technology Green Horizon has begun shipping a solar-powered services hub capable of providing electricity and clean water to disaster-hit communities.

California start-up inks FEMA deal to provide disaster relief solar villages

Combined with its QuickHab and SFH40 rapid-assembly prefabricated homes, Green Horizon has come up with a trio of rapid-response technologies that the company hopes will transform our responses to natural disasters by providing, essentially, rapid-assembly solar powered villages. View all San Francisco builder James Pope was compelled to develop a practical relief shelter following Hurricane Katrina, when thousands of trailers provided to victims by FEMA were found to emit formaldehyde fumes.

Five years after setting up Green Horizon, the result is the QuickHab prefabricated home designed for simple and rapid transport and construction. Magnetic fridge cuts electricity bill in half. The MagCool prototype as it looks now. Inside the cylinder are cases containing the magnetocaloric substance gadolium. When the cylinder rotates, the cases are moved past a permanent magnet. The substance is magnetised and demagnetised during rotation. Meanwhile, a water flow that passes through the cases ensures that the heated and cooled water is distributed on each side of the device.

The term 'refrigerator magnets' has been given a completely new meaning. Stable dye-sensitized solar cell may provide cheaper alternative to silicon. A new, stable dye-sensitized solar cell developed at Northwestern University promises to be a cheaper alternative to silicon cells (Photo: Martin L) Solar power is up there as the quintessential clean energy and there’s a race worldwide to develop better solar cells to overcome current challenges related to cell efficiency, manufacturing costs, durability and materials, among other things.

One of the latest developments in the sector comes from Northwestern University where researchers have developed a stable dye-sensitized solar cell that may one day prove cheaper than silicon-based cells. The new cell design is a variation on the Grätzel cell (named after the Swiss chemist Michel Grätzel), a type of dye-sensitized solar cell that replaces silicon with the semiconductor titanium oxide, which is more abundant, cheaper and less toxic, further improving solar energy’s green credentials. Details about the new solar cell were published in the journal Nature this week. Chemical reaction eats up CO2 to produce energy ... and other useful stuff. Transmission electron microscopy image of carbon nitride created by the reaction of carbon dioxide and Li3N While there are plenty of ways to make carbon-based products from CO2, these methods usually require a lot of energy because the CO2 molecules are so stable.

If the energy comes from the burning of fossil fuels, then the net result will be more CO2 entering the atmosphere. Now a material scientist at Michigan Technological University has discovered a chemical reaction that not only soaks up CO2, but also produces useful chemicals along with significant amounts of energy. Professor Yun Hang Hu and his research team developed a heat-releasing reaction between CO2 and lithium nitride (Li3N) - a compound that is the only stable alkali metal nitride and is made by reacting lithium with nitrogen at room temperature.

Reacting lithium nitride with carbon dioxide resulted in amorphous carbon nitride (C3N4), a semiconductor, and lithium cyanamide (Li2CN2), a precursor to fertilizers. KAIST develops low-cost, large-area piezoelectric nanogenerator. Researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have created a new piezoelectric nanogenerator that promises to overcome the restrictions found in previous attempts to build a simple, low-cost, large scale self-powered energy system. Supervolcano Drilling Plan Gets Go-Ahead. Wind-prospecting balloon could seek out locations for turbines. U.S. Army tests renewable energy systems for soldiers in the field. In a bid to mitigate the risks associated with fuel transportation and to make soldiers’ work less technically complex, U.S. military scientists have started to test microgrids that would provide clean energy to soldiers in the field.

Secrets of the first practical artificial leaf. With all this natural gas, who needs oil? With All This Natural Gas, Who Needs Oil? Turns water into oxygen at the speed of photosynthesis. Researchers generate liquid fuel using electricity. The Myth of Peak Oil. Floating wind turbines to produce low cost renewable energy. Altaeros Energies have created a floating wind turbine that produces low cost, renewable energy. 'In the Realms of the Unknown': North Sea Gas Leak Enters Day 4. Carbon nanotube solar cells point to possible transparent solar window future. Sander van der Leeuw on resilience in the Roman Empire, prehistoric Australia, and ecology. Sonoluminescence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - StumbleUpon. 3D solar cells could be integrated into solar roof tiles. Germany Embarks on Historic Alternative Energy Push. Better Hydrogen Storage Process Unveiled. The new oil reality - Energy. Seattle Gets the People’s View on L.E.D. Streetlights.

Report Shows Drop In U.S. Oil Imports : The Two-Way. Obama Fights Gas Prices By 'Reconstituting' Oil Speculation Task Force. Solar energy-harvesting “nanotrees” could produce hydrogen fuel on a mass scale. Can Fuel be Created from Human Fat? Deepwater Oil Drilling Returns to Gulf and Grows as Blast Fades. Fracking. Obama Calls for an End to Subsidies for Oil and Gas Companies. Oil Over Troubled Waters. One Year Later, 'Inside Japan's Nuclear Meltdown' Putting 1 million tonnes of CO2 a mile under Illinois.

Versatile Wind Harvester breaks from traditional turbine design. Russian scientists find ancient polar lake - Europe. EarthAtNight.jpg (800×800) Indigenous People on Climate Change. Nitrogen Pollution Likely to Increase Under Climate Change. Feature: Small modular nuclear reactors - the future of energy? Tegris: Thermoplastic composite takes on carbon fiber. New material claimed to store more energy and cost less money than batteries. Saul Griffith: Climate Change Recalculated. Inventor Saul Griffith learns the limits of technology. Climate change and air travel: Slash emissions, fly by zeppelin.