Albin Czernichowski, a professor at the University of Orleans in France has developed a small, low-tech, inexpensive device called a "GlidArc reactor" that produces super-clean fuels from waste materials, such as a biodiesel fuel that releases ten times less air pollution than conventional diesel.

The reactors, about the size of a refrigerator, are custom designed to clean dirty gases produced by a low-tech gasification of locally available wastes, biomass, or other resources. For example, corn farmers could use the leaves and stalks left in the field after harvest (called "corn stover") as the raw material or waste cooking oil from restaurants could be used as the raw material in urban areas. They can also be used to convert glycerol, which is a major byproduct of biofuel production and is expensive to refine, into carbon monoxide and hydrogen for use as a fuel.

According to Professor Czernichowski, the GlidArc reactors are low-tech and low cost. "Almost all the parts could be bought at your local hardware or home supply store. We use common ‘plumber’ piping and connections, for instance, and ordinary home insulation. Instead of sophisticated ceramics, we use the kind of heat-resistant concrete that might go into a home fireplace. You could build one in a few days for about $10,000."

The reactors get their name from the use of a gliding arc of electricity to that produces a plasma inside the reactor. The plasma allows chemical reactions to occur at dramatically reduced temperatures. Gases from heating biomass or glycerol become clean and chemically active, and this allows for the transformation of those materials into clean fuels.

About 1 billion car tyres are made each year and each one takes around 25 litres of oil to make. The oil is used to manufacture isoprene.

Researchers at the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company and the biotechnology company, Genencor, are developing a way of making bio-isoprene from plant waste products like sugar cane, corn and switchgrass, using genetically modified bacteria that converts the sugars contained in the plants to bio-isoprene.

According to Richard J. LaDuca, Genencor’s senior director, the resulting tyres should perform at least as well and last just as long as oil-based tyres. The new tyres could be on the market within about five years.

An international meeting on climate finance has approved plans to mobilise US$40 billion for country-led low-carbon growth. The Clean Technology Fund endorsed investment plans for Colombia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine, bringing the number of plans in place around the world to 13. Donors to the Fund, which is managed by the World Bank, are the United States, Britain, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway and Japan.

The Clean Technology Fund’s finance is intended to leverage local investment in low carbon technologies. For example, following the Fund’s endorsement ot a $US5.6 billion investment in concentrating solar power for Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia, Morocco has announced plans for a $US9 billion solar energy project which will supply 38% of the country’s electricity by 2020.

The Moroccan project consists of five power generation sites to produce 2,000 megawatts of electricity, with a combined surface area of 10,000 hectares.

Indonesia is using Clean Technology Fund money as part of the funding for its plan to double its geothermal energy production capacity.
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Toshiba is in talks Terrapower, a company backed by Bill Gates, to jointly develop traveling wave nuclear reactors which are designed to use depleted uranium as fuel and could run for 60 years or more without refueling. (See http://www.greenbizcafe.com/?p=881 for a description of travelling wave reactors.)

Toshiba owns the Westinghouse Electric Company whose technology is the basis for about half of the world’s commercial nuclear reactors.

Toshiba is already developing its own mini nuclear reactors designed to operate continuously for 30 years and believes that 80 percent of the technologies used in the reactor under development can be applied to traveling-wave reactors.

Toshiba anticipates that commercialisation of traveling wave reactors could take about ten years.

A traveling-wave reactor is a kind of nuclear reactor that can convert fertile material into nuclear fuel as it runs. Travelling wave reactors differ from other kinds of  reactors in their ability to use little or no enriched uranium; instead they burn fuel made from depleted uranium, spent fuel removed from light-water reactors, natural uranium, thorium, or some combination of these materials.

They are called "travelling wave" because fission does not take place in the entire reactor core but in a localized zone that advances through the core over time.

Unlike other reactors, travelling wave reactors can be fueled at the time of construction with enough depleted uranium to produce full power for 60 years or more. Depleted uranium, which is produced as a waste byproduct of the enrichment process, is widely available as a feedstock. Stockpiles in the United States alone currently contain approximately 700,000 tonnes of depleted uranium. It has been estimated that these stockpiles represent an energy resource equivalent to $100 trillion worth of electricity.

No traveling wave reactor has yet been constructed but, in 2006, TerraPower LLC, a company whose principal owner is Bill Gates, was established  to model and commercialize a practical travelling wave reactor. TerraPower has developed designs for low- to medium-power (300 megawatt) and large power (1000 megawatt) reactors.

Scientists have been working on developing nuclear fusion power generation since the early 1950s. The main problem has always been that more energy has been required to produce the reaction than is produced.

Scientists at the National Ignition Facility in California believe that their latest experiments will overcome the problem.

Their technique uses lasers to concentrate isotopes of hydrogen. The pressures and densities achieved are close to what occurs in the sun. At these densities. mass becomes energy in the form of heat which can be used to drive a turbine.

A demonstration reactor is expected to begin testing later this year and to be in operation within two years. If successful, the scientsist believe that they could have a power plant delivering electricity to the grid within ten years. Electricity produced in this way would be economical, carbon free and effectively limitless.

However, other scientists are more sceptical.
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According to Evan Thornley, chief executive of Better Place Australia, 51 new models of plug-in electric cars are planned to on the world market by 2012.

Mr Thorley believes that the complete conversion to electric cars is inevitable. "We know how the movie ends. Battery prices are going down, petrol prices are going up – that tells you what’s going to happen. It’s just a question of how long that takes," he said. "We think it will take between 20 and 25 years for the entire Australian fleet to transition from petrol to electric because it takes a while for things to transition."

He also believes that there is an enormous opportunity for Australian car makers, with their experience in building large cars, to take a global leadership position in what is potentially the most profitable segment of the electric car market.

Australia will be the third country, after Israel and Denmark, in Better Place’s global rollout, with the first electric charging stations to open in Canberra late next year.

In other recent electric car developments:

• Toyota has shown off a range of hydrogen fuel cell, electric and plug-in hybrid designs. Among the vehicles being presented is the tiny FT-EVII concept electric car, which is set to be launched as a small car in the US market in 2012. The company is also investing heavily in plug-in hybrid technology with the first 600 Prius Plug-in Hybrids already on the road as part of a leasing project.
  
  Toyota’s FTEV

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Researchers led by Jongyoon Han at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a nanotechnology device able to extract salt from seawater, paving the way for small-scale desalination for drought regions and disaster zones.

Conventional desalination works by forcing water through a membrane to remove molecules of salt. This process requires a lot of energy and maintenance of the membrane. As a result, conventional desalination plants are big and expensive.

The new nanotechnology device works by a process called "ion concentration polarisation". A current of charged ions is passed through an ion-selective membrane. This creates a force which moves charged ions and particles in the water away from the membrane. Salt ions and any impurities get pushed to the side. This saltier water is then drawn off, leaving only de-salinated water.

The energy efficiency of the process is comparable to a large-scale desalination plant but small to medium scale, and even battery-power, desalination devices are feasible.

The costs of scaling up the process have not yet been determined but overheads should be lower than in conventional plants because gravity, rather than pumps, can be used to feed the water and because there is less of a problem with membrane fouling.

Scientists at the University of East Anglia, led by Professor Thomas Nann, have reported a breakthrough in the production of hydrogen from water using the energy of sunlight.

Hydrogen is obtained from water by electrolysis. But, because the efficiency of the process is typically only between 20 and 40%, using a solar photovoltaic process to generate the necessary electricity uses more energy than is stored in the hydrogen which is produced.

The East Anglia team have found a way to increase the efficiency of the process to 60% or more, which could make it cost-effective.

They achieved this by using gold electrodes coated with nanoclusters of indium phosphide, which are up to 400 times more likely to absorb incoming photons than current electrodes. The nanoparticle-coated  electrodes are also much more durable than alternatives.

The scientists are now investigating the possibility of using alternative, cheaper materials than gold for the electrodes.

A new study on the likely effect of climate change on tropical cyclones, published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the United States, predicts slightly fewer but much more destructive cyclones.

John McBride, principal research scientist for the Bureau of Meteorology says one of the most consistent findings is that the southern hemisphere is likely to see a drop in the number of cyclones each year. Australia is likely to  see nine cyclones every year instead of the current ten, which will not be very noticeable.

However, the intensify of the cyclones will increase by about 10 percent. In other words, there will be a 10 percent increase in the maximum wind speed. This will make a significant difference because the destructive power of a cyclone is exponentially proportional to its wind speed.

Darwin after Cyclone Tracy
(Image: Billbee via Wikimedia)

(From sources including the ABC)