Seven of the world’s ten largest ocean dead zones - totalling 100,000 square kilometres - are in the Baltic Sea.

The more saline (and therefore denser) water remains on the bottom of the Sea, isolating it from surface waters and the atmosphere. This leads to decreased oxygen concentrations within the zone. As a result mainly bacteria (algae) grow in it, digesting organic material and releasing hydrogen sulfide.

Now a team of researchers at the University of Gothenburg, led by Anders Stigebrandt, a professor of earth sciences, is proposing to install hundreds, and possibly thousands, of wind-driven pumps to pipe oxygen-rich water to the depths of the sea. The researchers believe that this could help keep the water column well-aerated, which, in turn, would prevent the formation of dead zones.

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Fake Christmas trees may well be more convenient than real ones and they certainly last longer - but, considering that we throw away real trees after a couple of weeks but re-use fake ones, how do they compare in their impact on the environment?

A Canadian company called Ellipsos has released a study of the environmental impact of Christmas trees.The study found that the real Christmas trees which most people buy are about 15 years old. They are grown in a nursery and then on a plantation within a relatively short distance of where they are eventually sold. They are thrown away after a single use. The net effect is the production of an average of 3.1 kilograms of greenhouse gas.

Fake trees, on the other hand, are transported a long distance (often from China) and are used for an average of six Christmases. The net effect is the production of an average of 8.1 kilograms of greenhouse gases. Manufacturing fake trees also consumes a lot of oil and water and their disposal can release dioxins into the environment.

So, real Christmas trees are much better - or,at least, less bad - for the environment.

 (The picture is "Charlie Brown Christmas Tree Shopping" by Kit via Flickr)

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A revolutionary new power source, claimed to easily outperform all conventional engines, is to be demonstrated worldwide next week.

The technology, developed by K Kringle Inc, is claimed to be able to power a vehicle at 5,800 kilometres per second for a period of up to 24 hours. This would allow the vehicle to visit every home in the world within a single day. The main shortcoming of the technology is the long period of time needed for recharging - currently, recharging the vehicle takes a full 12 months.

A spokesman for the developers also mentioned concerns about the long-term viability of the company’s only manufacturing facility which, being located at the North Pole, is in danger of sinking if global warming melts the polar ice cap.

The company has also been criticised for its practice of keeping an extensive and secret client database. Civil liberty campaigners claim that the company has amassed information on all of the children in the world. A company spokesman said that, while it did have a very large database of delivery addresses, the only information that it kept on individuals was an single field indicating "naughty" or "nice".

Critics have argued that even this is a gross violation of civil liberties and that, at the very least, the company should be subject to freedom of information laws requiring it to advise its clients of their status and allowing them to challenge their classification if they wish to do so.

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The New York Department of Transportation has contracted a lighting design group, the Office of Visual Interaction, to trial LED street lighting. If the trial is successful, the city intends to replace all of its 300,000 street lights

The contract includes the complete redesign of lamp posts - with the new ones having dedicated channels to hang signs, traffic controls and accessories.

Each of the new lights will have up to 100 LEDs with different configurations for roadways, footpaths and parks.

The LED lamps are expected to reduce electricityconsumption by about a third and to last twice as long as the current sodium lamps. The new lights are expected to pay for themselves in two to three years.

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Think Global, the innovative Norwegian electric car company, has temporarily halted production of its City urban runabout and laid off half its workforce as it considers a sale to survive the credit crisis. Think CEO Richard Canny said “We have started an emergency shutdown to protect our capital and our brand. We’ll need a new and stronger partner, whether that is a 25% owner or a majority owner or someone who buys the company.” The Norwegian government said that it would not make an equity investment in the automaker but is considering Think’s request to guarantee up to $29 million in short-term loans.

General Motors has announced that it is suspending work on the Flint Engine Plant that will make the Chevy Volt’s 1.4-liter engine. Despite this, GM says that this won’t delay the Volt and that it will appear in showrooms at the end of 2010 as promised

Renault has announced that its electric car will not be exported to Israel and other countries until 2011 - a year later than originally predicted by Project Better Place, which is currently building a battery charging infrastructure ahead of the arrival of the cars.

Toyota has stopped construction of a US Prius manufacturing plant and Tesla has laid off staff.

But meanwhile in China - the world’s first mass produced plug-in hybrid has gone on sale. The BYD F3 Dual Mode began selling this week with a $AU 32,000 price tag. The car is being aimed initially at the Chinese government agencies and other corporate entities.

The F3 has a range of about 100 kilometres on a full charge. It takes 7 hours to fully charge from a standard power point but can be half charged in just 10 minutes. It has a 1 litre petrol engine which recharges the batteries when the charge runs low.

The BYD F3

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A tidal turbine near the mouth of Strangford Lough in Northern Ireland has begun producing electricity at full capacity for the first time.

The SeaGen system is generating 1.2MW, the highest level of power produced by a tidal system anywhere in the world, and is claimed to be the first truly commercial ocean tidal system to achieve full production.

Martin Wright, managing director of SeaGen developers, Marine Current Turbines, said "There are no other tidal turbines of truly commercial scale; all the competitive systems so far tested at sea are quite small, most being less than 10% the rotor area of SeaGen."

The system works like an "underwater windmill" but with twin 16 metre rotors driven by tidal currents rather than the wind.

Another British company, Lunar Energy, is constructing the world’s largest tidal power plant - a giant 300-turbine field in the Wando Hoenggan Water Way off the South Korean coast. The plant will provide 300MW of renewable energy by 2015. An installation of a 1MW pilot plant is expected by March 2009.

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A Dutch company, Spranq, has come up with a novel and free way of slashing printer ink costs - by developing a font with holes in it.

The creators of the "Ecofont" took their inspiration from the holes in Dutch cheese and aim to cut down on the amount of ink used when printing documents by using a font with holes.

The Ecofont is based on the Open Source font Vera Sans and is free to use. It is similar to Verdana and works best at 9 or 10 points - at larger sizes, the holes become visible. The Ecofont can be used on either a PC or a Mac.

Click here to download the Ecofont.

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Dave Rutledge, chair of the California Institute of Technology’s Engineering and Applied Sciences Division, has produced a new calculation of the world’s coal reserves which is much lower than previous estimates.

According to Professor Rutledge’s model, the total amount of available coal, including all of the coal already mined, is only 662 billion tonnes. In contrast, the World Energy Council’s current estimate, based on government figures, is that there is 850 billion tonnes of coal still in the ground still available to be mined.

If the new figures are correct, burning all of the available coal and all other fossil fuels would increase atmospheric CO2 to 460 parts per million - just enough to raise temperatures by 2 degrees celsius. Click here to read the rest of this entry.

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Isreali engineers are about to begin testing a stretch of road containing piezoelectric crystals that produce electricity when squeezed, enabling them to harvest some of the energy which vehicles lose to the environment during their journeys.

The system is expected to produce up to 400 kilowatts from a 1 kilometre stretch of dual carriageway. The technology is also applicable to airport runways and rail systems. The harvested energy can be transferred back to the grid, or used for specific road infrastructure purposes, such as lighting or signage.

In addition to being able to produce its own power, the system can deliver real-time data on the weight, frequency and speed of passing vehicles as well as the spacing between vehicles. As such, the embedding of piezoelectric generators to create "smart roads" could eventually become an integral part of traffic management systems.

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Mercedes-Benz has developed a modular design that can accommodate a gas-electric, battery electric or hydrogen fuel-cell drivetrain in a compact five-seater it calls Concept BlueZero.

Mercedes says BlueZero allows it to easily embrace "electromobility" in three ways:

• the E-Cell - a battery electric vehicle with a range of about 200 kilometres;
• the E-Cell Plus - a range-extended electric vehicle that uses a small petrol engine to recharge the battery when it runs low and
• the F-Cell - a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle with a range of about 400 kilometres.

The three cars are identical in size and design and share components. The design puts the battery pack and other components under the floor, which Mercedes says creates plenty of room inside while giving the cars a low center of gravity, agile handing and excellent crash safety.

The fuel-cell version will be available "on a small scale" next year with the electric versions becoming available in 2010.

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