Energy Program Going Green? 12 Ways to Reduce Your Impact on the Food, Water and Energy Nexus When going green, consider these actions which can help ease tensions within the food/water/energy nexus. Power Plants Kill Fish - Animation Many older thermoelectric power plants require tremendous amounts of water for cooling. Freeing the Grid: Foundations for the New Energy Economy In a new video produced by Brainvise for the Vote Solar Initiative, renewable energy policies that let you spin your electric meter backwards are explained in a simple, engaging manner through sharp animation. Water and Energy It takes a significant amount of water to create energy, and a significant amount of energy to move and treat water. All Pain, No Gain: New York Power Plants Kill Fish Even When Not in Use Many New York power plants are withdrawing cooling water - and injuring or killing aquatic life - even when they are not generating any electricity. Bloomberg to Cuomo: We Can Frack Safely
DLA History - About the Scholarly Communications Project and the Digital Library and Archives, University Libraries, Virginia Tech How A New Rhubarb-Based Battery Could Massively Increase Renewable Energy Use By Jeff Spross "How A New Rhubarb-Based Battery Could Massively Increase Renewable Energy Use" A group of Harvard scientists recently hit on a new form of battery that could massively expand the potential for renewable energy use. To explain: most of the batteries found in our cars, laptops, smartphones and whatnot rely on chemical solids. This comes with several advantages. Enter the Harvard team. The reason this could such a big deal for renewable energy is that, right now, renewable sources like solar and wind are mostly dependent on when the sun shines and when the wind blows to generate their power. But the scalability of the Harvard team’s flow battery means small versions could be built to service either an individual homeowner who has a rooftop solar array, or large versions for a utility’s entire wind farm. So far, the Harvard team has successfully run a small version of their battery through about one hundred cycles, while maintaining over 99 percent of the charge capacity.
Repower America | Environment America With more wind and solar, we can move to 100% clean energy Too much of our energy comes from coal, oil and other dirty sources that wreak havoc on our environment. We are surrounded by clean energy options — the power of the sun, the movement of wind and waves, the heat of the earth, even the energy leaking from drafty windows in our homes and businesses. By using energy more efficiently and tapping our vast renewable energy resources, we can move to 100% clean energy that doesn’t pollute and never runs out. Efficient buildings will spur energy savings America’s homes are like cars that only get 10 miles to the gallon. Millions of Americans are already weather-stripping doors and windows, insulating attics and making their homes more energy efficient and thus healthier, more comfortable and less costly to heat and cool.
Researchers Develop a Cheap Battery to Power Your House—and It’s Organic Here’s a dirty little secret about the batteries we increasingly rely on to power our emissions-free cars and store clean, green energy from the sun and wind: They contain metals that must be mined and can contaminate groundwater if they end up in landfills. But an eco-friendly alternative could be coming soon. Researchers at the University of Southern California have developed a first-of-its-kind battery that replaces metal catalysts with quinone—an organic molecule that stores and transfers energy and can be found in fungi, bacteria, and even our bodies. The scientists predict such a battery will be 10 times cheaper to make and will last five times longer than a lithium-ion battery. A race is under way to develop battery technology to store electricity from wind farms and solar power plants, the growth of which has been exponential in recent years. The problem: Existing battery technology is expensive. Here’s how their technology—a variant of a redox flow battery—works.
Green Book - Environmental Justice Book