Monthly Archives: January 2011
According to a new study by Stanford researcher Mark Jacobson and Mark Delucchi, of the University of California-Davis, by 2030 all new energy generation could come from wind, water and solar, and by 2050, all pre-existing energy production could be converted to renewables, using only technology that is already available and at a similar cost to using fossil fuels. Their plan calls for using wind, water and solar energy to generate power, with wind and solar power contributing 90 percent of the needed energy. Geothermal and hydroelectric sources would each contribute about 4 percent with the remaining 2 percent from wave … Continue Reading
A report produced by Dr Julian Allwood and colleagues at the University of Cambridge has analysed buildings, vehicles and industry around the world to determine how much energy would be saved if "best practice" efficiency changes wre applied to them. They found that 73 per cent of global energy use could be saved by introducing such changes. The changes to homes and buildings would range from using saucepan lids when cooking and reducing the set temperature of washing machines and dishwashers to triple-glazing windows, eliminating hot-water tanks and installing 300-millimetre-thick cavity wall insulation. In transportation, the key change would be to … Continue Reading
Until now, it had been thought that melting ice could form a slippy layer at the bottonm of the Greenland ice sheet causing it to slide rapidly into the sea. Now, a study by Professor Andrew Shepherd of the University of Leeds, has shown that this is not happening. Professor Shepherd’s team used satellite imagery to track the progress of the west Greenland ice sheet each summer, over five years. They found that, above a certain threshold, the slipping begins to slow. On-the-ground studies and work done on alpine glaciers suggests that higher volumes of meltwater actually forms channels under … Continue Reading
Gizmag has reported that UK-based Cella Energy has developed a synthetic fuel that could lead to $US1.50 per gallon petrol replacement. The technology, developed at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford, is based on complex hydrides, The development team was led by Professor Stephen Bennington in collaboration with scientists from University College London and Oxford University. Gizmag quotes Stephen Voller, CEO of Cella Energy, as saying “We have developed new micro-beads that can be used in an existing gasoline or petrol vehicle to replace oil-based fuels, Early indications are that the micro-beads can be used in existing vehicles without engine … Continue Reading
base jumping platforms:
Researchers at the California Institute of Technology have developed a promising new technology that concentrates solar energy and uses it to efficiently convert carbon dioxide and water into fuels using a common compound, cerium oxide (or "ceria"), which is used in self-cleaning ovens. In an oven, ceria catalyzes reactions that decompose food. It does this by "exhaling" oxygen from its crystalline framework at very high temperatures and then "inhaling" oxygen back in at lower temperatures. The researchers built a prototype reactor that has a cavity with a quartz window and that can absorb concentrated sunlight. At the heart of the … Continue Reading
North Carolina-based Li-ion Motors has announced the first all-American made electric car. The company says that the Inizio will have a top speed of up to 170 mph (275 kilometres per hour) and will accelerate from 0 to 60 mph (96 kilometres per hour) in 3.4 seconds – beating the Tesla Roadster’s 3.7 secounds. In comparison, Ferrari’s latest street racer, the 599 GTO will do 0 to 100 kilometres per hour in 3.32 seconds. But to save that fraction of a tenth of a second, you will have to pay $US461,000 for the Ferrari compared to $US139,000 for the Inizio. … Continue Reading
It is estimated that only about 12 percent of plastic sent to depots actually gets recycled. Because of problems such as glued-on paper labels and different types of plastic combined in one product, the rest goes to the landfill or is burnt. Scientists at the University of Warwick have now devised a system that could recycle 100% of household plastic. The Warwick system uses pyrolysis within a fluidized bed reactor. Pyrolysis is the use of heat in the absence of oxygen for the decomposition of materials, while fluidized bed reactors pass a gas or liquid through solid granular material at … Continue Reading
Why does this volume of ink need this much packaging? This is a HP 564 Colour Ink Value Pack (which HP promotes as "avoiding wastage") and a HP 564 Black Ink Value Pack, which contains the same ink as one HP 564XL cartridge but in three cartridges with three times the packaging plus a large bubble pack. The Value Pack with three cartridges is $45; the single high capacity cartridge is $52.
NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the UK Met Office Hadley Centre and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center have all reported that 2010 was the warmest year (equally with 2005) since global records were begun in 1880. This is NASA‘s updated graph of global temperatures from 1880 to 2010.
Videos
Renewables News- Dysol Aiming to Print Storage with Solar CellsAustralia's Dyesol Limited has acquired an equity stake in Printed Power Pte Ltd, a spinoff company of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Printed Power is focussing on integrating dye solar cell technology with printed storage and power management systems to … Continue Reading → […]
- CSIRO Printer Makes 10m of Solar Cells a MinuteCSIRO researchers have built a gigantic printer that spits out solar cells at a rate of about ten metres a minute. The printer system uses existing technology to embed polymer solar cells (also known as organic solar cells) in thin … Continue Reading → […]
- 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 → […]
- Dysol Aiming to Print Storage with Solar Cells
