Archive for the 'Energy' Category
Indian Biogas Digester
February 28th, 2008Outstanding! I’d like to order one. Via: Fortune: Sintex Industries, a plastics and textiles manufacturer in Gujarat, India, is betting it can find profit in human waste. Its new biogas digester turns human excrement, cow dung, or kitchen garbage into fuel that can be used for cooking or generating electricity, simultaneously addressing two of India’s […]
New Propulsion System for Boats Ditches the Diesel
February 28th, 2008Via: Popular Science: This month, 69-year-old Japanese sailor Ken-ichi Horie will attempt to captain the world’s most advanced wave-powered boat 4,350 miles from Hawaii to Japan. If all goes as planned, he’ll set the first Guinness world record for the longest distance traveled by a wave-powered boat and, along the way, show off the greenest […]
Nanoparticles Used to Boost Hydrogen Production
February 28th, 2008Not holding my breath on this one, but I’ll keep an eye on it anyway. Via: eeTimes: The hydrogen economy is getting a shot in the arm from a start-up that says its nanoparticle coatings could make hydrogen easy to produce at home from distilled water, and ultimately bring the cost of hydrogen fuel cells […]
Loss of Wind Causes Texas Power Grid Emergency
February 28th, 2008In other words, this is the second major anomalous power outage in less than a day. (See: South Florida incident.) Via: Reuters: A drop in wind generation late on Tuesday, coupled with colder weather, triggered an electric emergency that caused the Texas grid operator to cut service to some large customers, the grid agency said […]
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion
February 25th, 2008This is a similar concept to what these Alaskans have done. If you have a big temperature differential, there’s potential for electricity generation (even if the overall conversion efficiency is very low). Via: Telegraph: The French inventor Georges Claude is largely forgotten today; if he is remembered at all, it is as the creator of […]
1973: Souped Down 1959 Opel T-1 Got 376.59 Miles Per Gallon
February 25th, 2008If a more practical car was, say, 75% less efficient than the car below, it would get 94.15 miles per gallon. But, hey, this is 2008, what do you expect!? Via: Treehugger: Could you believe that the car above made the 1975 Guiness World Record book? Its claim to fame is getting an amazing 376.59 […]
Oil Giants Are Poised to Move Into Basra
February 25th, 2008Democracy. Via: Guardian: Western oil giants are poised to enter southern Iraq to tap the country’s vast reserves, despite the ongoing threat of violence, according to Gordon Brown’s business emissary to the country. Michael Wareing, who heads the new Basra Development Commission, acknowledged that there would be concerns among Iraqis about multinationals exploiting natural resources. […]
Canada: Apocalyptic Oil Sand Operations
February 25th, 2008As bad as this seems, it’s just a preview of things to come. I could be wrong, but my guess is that asymmetric operations against the energy companies—inside G8 states—will begin if the insane decision is made to go with nuclear power to provide the heat necessary to recover the oil from these deposits. There […]
U.S. Department of Energy and Partners Test Enhanced Geothermal Systems Technologies
February 24th, 2008Hmm. DOE is allocating a whopping $1.6 million to this project. (Sarcasm.) The cost of that crashed B-2 boondoggle bomber represents the funding equivalent of doing the geothermal research described below 750 times over. Oh well, as oil production declines, there will still lots of it to be sold at over $100 per barrel. In […]
New World Record for Solar-to-Grid Conversion Efficiency
February 23rd, 2008Vis: PhysOrg: On a perfect New Mexico winter day — with the sky almost 10 percent brighter than usual — Sandia National Laboratories and Stirling Energy Systems (SES) set a new solar-to-grid system conversion efficiency record by achieving a 31.25 percent net efficiency rate. The old 1984 record of 29.4 percent was toppled Jan. 31 […]
