Monthly Archives: July 2008
The first shipment of "green energy" wine has arrived in Dublin Port from France. Fair Wind Wine Ltd used a sailing ship to transport exclusive French wines on traditional wine routes from Languedoc to Ireland. The company plans to expand its sailing ship service to Britain, Denmark and Canada, Wherever possible within France, the wine is transported on traditional canal boats. "By transporting the wine by ship instead of using trucks, you are talking about cutting the carbon emissions by a factor of five," Frederic Albert, President of Fair Wind Wine, the group of wine makers behind the ships, said. … Continue Reading
The apparent reluctance of the major motorcycle manufacturers to risk their existing markets by innovating is hurting their sales – Japanese motorcycle production was down by 44.1% in May compared to last year – and has opened the way for small, innovative manufacturers, using components readily available from China and elsewhere, to capture market share. In the United States, the Zero X Electric Motorcycle has been in production since April. An entirely new design, its 300-plus component parts were engineered from the ground up, sourced from manufacturers around the world and assembled in the Santa Cruz in Northern California. … Continue Reading
Worldwide, there are already more than 7,000 desalination plants filtering salt from seawater. The majority of these desalination plants use polyamide membranes to separate the salt from seawater. But seawater harbours a variety of organisms that can form a thick film over the membranes and clog the filter. So, the desalination plants use chlorine to disinfect incoming water before it is sent through membranes. The problem is that chlorine destroys the membranes. So the desalination industry adds another step – the seawater is treated with chlorine to kill the organisms, dechorinated so it won’t harm the membranes, then re-chorinated before … Continue Reading
University of Georgia researchers have developed a new technology that promises to dramatically increase the yield of ethanol from readily available non-food crops, including the waste from corn and sugarcane harvests, weeds such as bermudagrass, switchgrass and napiergrass and even garden waste. The new technology features a fast, mild, acid-free pretreatment process that increases the amount of simple sugars released from inexpensive biomass for conversion to ethanol by at least 10 times. Currently, woody biomass requires soaking under high pressure and temperatures in expensive, environmentally aggressive alkalis or acids before it is subjected to enzymes that digest it, producing simple … Continue Reading
At our GreenBiz Café meeting on 28th July 2008, industry expert Zaidee Jackson, talked about how printing affects our carbon footprint and why choosing a green printer makes a difference.
Energy efficiency and flexible lighting applications have long been the promise of organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). The technology hasn’t lived up to its promise, however, because in typical OLEDs, most light is trapped inside the bulb and only 20 percent of the light generated is released. Researchers at the University of Michigan and Princeton University have designed an OLED that boosts illumination by 60 percent using a combination of an organic grid working in tandem with small micro lenses that guide the trapped light out of the device. In OLEDs, white light is generated by using electricity to send … Continue Reading
The Beijing Olympic Village is now home to one of the world’s first photovoltaic/thermal hybrid building systems. Mounted on the roof of one of the central buildings, which will be a service centre for athletes during the Olympics, the system produces both electricity and heat energy from the same surface area, generating 200-300 per cent more energy than a conventional photovoltaic system. It combines air heating technology with photovoltaics to create a total energy solution in which the payback period is reduced and the CO2 displacement is maximized. The panels also act as a racking system to the photovoltaic modules; … Continue Reading
Shell Oil is funding a feasibility study into adding lime to seawater as a cost-effective way to fight global warming by sequestering large amounts of carbon dioxide in the world’s oceans. Adding lime to seawater increases its alkalinity, thereby increasing the ocean’s capacity to absorb CO2. The process actually generates CO2 emissions but, according to Tim Kruger, a consultant with Corven, the company running the trial, it sequesters twice as much as it produces, making the process ‘carbon negative’. Corven believes that the process will be cost-effective if it is carried out in an area which is rich in limestone … Continue Reading
Bulky and obtrusive rack-mounted solar panels may soon be a thing of the past. Solar panel makers are scrambling to come up with neater and cleaner products that will overcome the aesthetic objections of home owners to traditional solar panels. Solar panels are being built into different kinds of roof tiles, being hidden in walls and lining the tops of patio awnings. American manufacturer, SunPower Corp is making solar panels designed to replace with both standard roof tiles and curved, Spanish-style clay tiles. Half of SunCorp’s products are being sold in Europe. Integrated solar tiles on houses in England
Researchers at Purdue University in Indiana have reported that they have succeeded in overcoming a major obstacle in the production of low-cost LEDs. LEDs are far more efficient and have a much longer life than traditional incandescent lights. However, current LEDs are also much more expensive to produce. One of the major factors in the cost of production is the need to use sapphire as the substrate for blue LEDS and, consequently, for the blue component of white solid state lighting. The Purdue researchers have solved this problem by developing a technique to create LEDs on low-cost, metal-coated silicon wafers. … Continue Reading
Videos
Renewables News- New Aussie Technology to Clean Polluted WaterScientists from Deakin University, together with French colleagues, say that they have manufactured a lightweight and reusable material that can absorb up to 33 times its weight in a wide range of spilt oils, chemical solvents and dyes, while repelling … Continue Reading → […]
- Aussie Researchers Make Efficient Solar Cells from Low-grade SiliconResearchers at the University of New South Wales have found a way to make very high efficiency solar cells out of cheap, low-grade silicon. It has been known for several decades that hydrogen atoms can be introduced into the atomic … Continue Reading → […]
- First Aussie “Hot Rocks” Power Plant Begins ProducingThe first power plant in Australia to produce electricity using an enhanced geothermal ("hot rocks") system has begun producing electricity in the far north-east of South Australia. The one-megawatt Habanero pilot plant near outback Innamincka is operated by Geodynamics. Geodynamics … Continue Reading → […]
- New Aussie Technology to Clean Polluted Water
