Researchers from the Beijing-based Chinese National Research Institute for Family Planning have reported a method for male contraception that they say is effective, reversible and without serious short-term side effects.

In the testing conducted with nine other research centers around China, 1,045 healthy fertile males were injected monthly with 500 milligrams of a formulation of testosterone undecanoate in tea seed oil during a course of 30 months. During the 24-month study period, only 1.1 men per 100 experienced contraceptive failure.

After the hormone treatment, the participants’ sperm count returned to normal levels. The tested men experienced mild side effects including weight gain and acne.

"For couples who cannot or prefer not to use only female-oriented contraception, options have been limited to vasectomy, condoms, and withdrawal," said Yi-Qun Gu, a professor with the National Research Institute for Family Planning’s research department. "Our study shows a male hormonal contraceptive regimen may be a potential, novel, and workable alternative."
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Engineers at Princeton University, led by Professor Michael McAlpine, have developed a power-generating rubber film which could harness natural body movements such as breathing and walking, to power pacemakers, mobile phones and other electronic devices. For example, shoes made of the material could harvest the pounding of walking and running to power mobile electrical devices.

The material is composed of ceramic nanoribbons embedded into silicone rubber sheets. The nanoribbons are made of lead zirconate titanate, a ceramic material that generates an electrical voltage when pressure is applied to it  The silicone sheets, with embedded nanoribbons,  generate electricity when flexed and are highly efficient at converting mechanical energy to electrical energy.

Because the silicone is biocompatible (it is already used for cosmetic implants and medical devices), it can be implanted in the body to power medical devices. Placed against the lungs, sheets of the material could use breathing motions to power pacemakers, obviating the current need for surgical replacement of the batteries to power the devices.

As well as generating electricity when it is flexed, the material flexes when electrical current is applied to it. This opens the door to other kinds of applications, such as use for microsurgical devices.

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Ice Energy, a  Colorado company, has signed a contract with the Southern California Public Power Authority to deploy rooftop units that use electricity at night to make ice. The ice is then used to cool buildings during the day.

The system effectively stores electricity made at night when demand and cost is low and uses it to reduce electricity demand on hot afternoons, when demand is at its peak.

Initially, 53 megawatts of storage will be installed on rooftops in the power authority’s service territory. The Los Angeles Department of Power and Water is the biggest user.

Christopher Hickman, a vice president of Ice Energy, said that his product would replace gas generators that might run only 5 percent of the hours in a year.

According to Bill D. Carnahan, the executive director of the Southern California Public Power Authority “The total 24-hour efficiency improvement is 8 percent”.

The ice storage units cost about $US2,000 per kilowatt of capacity.

(Based on sources including the New York Times)

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American garbage-disposal giant, Waste Management, has partnered with InEnTec, an Oregon-based company, to begin commercializing
a plasma-gasification process which converts garbage into energy.

Plasma gasification technology has been in development and pilot testing for decades. Major pilot plants, capable of processing 1,000 tonnes or more of garbage daily, are under development in Florida, Louisiana and California.

In theory, the process is simple. Torches pass an electric current through a gas (often ordinary air) in a chamber to create a superheated plasma with a temperature above 7,000 degrees Celsius. The plasma’s tremendous heat dissociates the molecular bonds of any garbage placed inside the chamber, converting organic compounds into syngas (a combination of carbon monoxide and hydrogen) and trapping everything else in an inert vitreous solid, called slag. The syngas can be used as fuel in a turbine to generate electricity. It can also be used to create ethanol, methanol and biodiesel. The slag can be processed into materials suitable for use in construction.

In practice, gasification has been unable to compete economically with traditional municipal waste processing. But the cost has been coming down, while energy prices have been going up.

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The world’s largest tidal power station is to be constructed off the west coast of South Korea at Incheon.

GS Engineering and Construction has signed a memorandum of understanding with Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power to begin construction next year with a view to completion around 2017.

The power station will have a capacity of 1.32 gigawatts - 3.4 times greater than the capacity of the Rance Tidal Power Station in France which is currently the world’s largest tidal power station. The facility will provide 4.5% of South Korea’s demand for household energy.

Incheon is a city of 2,500,000 close to Soeul. It  has the second biggest tide differences in the world, next to the Bay of Fundy in Canada.

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DIME, a company based in the United Arab Emirates, has begun selling a hydrophobic sand for creating an artificial water table which, the company claims, could revolutionize farming in the Middle East and other sandy desert areas.

Hydrophobic sand has an extremely thin layer of nanoparticles on each grain which causes it to repel water. In DIME’s case, the nanoparticles are of a substance called "SP-HFS 1609" for which it has obtained an exclusive licence from a German company.

A type of hydrophobic sand was sold as a toy in the 1980s;

In regions with sandy soil, water is leeched away deep underground and salt rises to the top. DIME proposes laying hydrophobic sand below the topsoil.. When crops are grown in the soil above, less water is needed because it isn’t sucked deep underground. At the same time, salt is prevented from flowing up into the topsoil. DIME claims that water use could be cut by as much as 35%.

Update (28 January 2010):
We have received several comments from M Russ of GEREMCO claiming to represent the patent holders and that DIME has illegally used their "know how". GreenBiz Cafe is interested in the potential of the technology, not in legal disputes about patent rights, and will not be publishing comments on this matter.

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Leading members of the corporate community, including IBM, Sony, Nolia and Pitney-Bowes, have come together in a first-of-its-kind effort to help the environment, unleashing dozens of innovative, environmentally responsible patents to the public domain. The pledged portfolio, dubbed the "Eco-Patent Commons", is available on a dedicated, public website, www.wbcsd.org/web/epc, hosted by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Examples of the environmental benefits expected for pledged patents include:

• Energy conservation or improved energy or fuel efficiency
• Pollution prevention (source reduction, waste reduction)
• Use of environmentally preferable materials or substances
• Water or materials use reduction
• Increased recycling opportunity.

Availability of these patents will encourage researchers, entrepreneurs and companies of all sizes in any industry to create, apply and further develop their consumer or industrial products, processes and services in a way that will help to protect and respect the environment.

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British company, Riversimple, has shown its Mk 1 "network electric" car. The car is a hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicle about the size of a Smart Car.

The car features unique technologies that enable it to run on a 6kW fuel cell, with a fuel consumption equivalent to 0.008 litres per kilometre with greenhouse gas emissions at 30g per kilometre - less than a third of that from the most efficient petrol-engine cars  (and ten times better than that if the hydrogen comes from renewable resources). It has a range of 320 kilometres and a top speed of 80 kilometres per hour

If that’s not revolutionary enough, Riversimple has a unique business model:

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In an interview with Time magazine, Christophe de Margerie, CEO of the French oil giant Total, has commented that "what will happen very soon is that oil supplies will not cover demand. That won’t mean there is no oil. There are oil reserves, but you will need to invest billions and billions to get it."

In 2007, Mr de Margerie, told a London conference of oil executives that the industry would be unlikely to be able to produce more than 100 million barrels of oil a day and would not be able to produce the 120 million barrels a day which the International Energy Agency says will be needed by 2030.  Mr de Margerie now says that producing even 90 millioin barrels a day is "optimistic".

Even present levels of production require the company to operate in difficult conditioins. For example, Total’s operations in Burma and on the Canadian tar sands and its plans to begin gas production in Iran have sparked strong protest. Last year the company opened a gas pipeline in Yemen. Total employees in Yemen can’t leave the capital and travel with armed escorts.

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