Monthly Archives: March 2010
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 … Continue Reading
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 … Continue Reading
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 … Continue Reading
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 … Continue Reading
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 … Continue Reading
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 … Continue Reading
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 … Continue Reading
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 … Continue Reading
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 … Continue Reading
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. … 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
