Technology
An Aluminum Battery
We live in a battery-centric world. We depend on them for the ubiquitous devices we use every day: cell phones, tablets, notebook computers and lately, smart watches. Increasingly, we use them to power electric cars as well.
Green Roofs In France
France is becoming increasingly serious about environmentalism. That country recently passed new legislation mandating that all new commercial construction projects must incorporate either green roofs or solar panels. Solar panels are increasingly familiar to us on rooftops but to date green roofs have primarily been a European phenomenon.
Growing Wind Power
The global wind power industry had a banner year in 2014, installing more than 50 GW of new capacity. To put this in perspective, the total amount of wind power capacity in the world ten years ago was only 60 GW.
Why Volcanoes Are Not Driving Climate Change
Once in a while, one will hear the argument that volcanoes are to blame for rising carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. There are several reasons why this can’t be the case.
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Cooling Cities With Electric Cars
We have previously talked about the urban heat island effect. Crowded metropolitan areas are significantly warmer than surrounding rural areas as a result of human activities. Among other things, cities fill up with cars idling in traffic and cars not only produce greenhouse gas emissions, their internal combustion engines also produce a lot of heat.
A New Catalyst for Producing Hydrogen
We have spoken before about the prospects for using hydrogen as a clean auto fuel as well as an energy storage medium. Most hydrogen is produced using the steam methane reforming process, which requires natural gas, uses lots of energy, and produces carbon dioxide as a waste product. Hydrogen made this way is not really a green fuel.
Animals And Earthquakes
There has long been the notion that animals can somehow sense that an earthquake is imminent. The observation is that animals suddenly withdraw and go silent before a quake. While there is plenty of anecdotal evidence for this phenomenon, there has been little solid proof; that is, until recently.
Perennial Rice
Rice is the most economically important crop in the world. It supplies humanity with about a quarter of its calories. Domesticated rice is a short-lived plant that generally dies off after it produces seeds. Rice paddies have to be cleared of vegetation and plowed each year and are highly vulnerable to soil and nutrient loss through erosion, soil compaction and decline in organic matter.
Zero Emission Buses
Most of the news about electric vehicles relates to passenger cars. We hear about Teslas, Leafs, and hydrogen-powered Toyotas all the time. But there is also an expanding fleet of electric and fuel cell buses starting to appear on urban streets in several countries, including the U.S. and China.
Are Weed Killers Killing Us?
The U.S.-based agrochemical giant Monsanto finds itself at the forefront of another controversy. Monsanto, which dominates the agriculture market with its genetically modified seeds and herbicides, has drawn unwanted scrutiny after a new report linked one of its most popular herbicides to potential health hazards.
Seeing Smog And Seeking Solutions
Technology is changing the way we ‘see’ air pollution. Advances in environmental sensors, computing power, and visualization software are allowing researchers to monitor and display air quality in many of America’s cities 24 hours a day, in real-time. This is giving clean air advocates unprecedented access to pollution hotspots.
Trash Into Treasure
In one of the world’s most impressive reclamation projects, Israel’s largest landfill dump has been turned into a 2,000-acre ecological park three times the size of New York’s Central Park.
Better Carbon Capture
Finding an efficient and cost-effective way to capture the carbon dioxide generated by the use of fossil fuels would be a dramatic game-changer in the fight against climate change. We have often heard about clean coal – coal that doesn’t release lots of carbon dioxide when it is burned – but we haven’t really seen it. Our supplies of coal, natural gas, and these days, even oil are plentiful. We just haven’t figured out how to use these things without damaging the environment.
Eiffel Tower Wind Power
The recent retrofit of the Eiffel Tower – the first in 30 years – included the installation of two custom-designed wind turbines. The 17-foot vertical-axis turbines look more like modern sculptures and are painted to blend in with the rest of the structure. Viewed from a distance, it would be very difficult to spot the additions to the 126-year-old Parisian landmark.
GMO Apples
In February, the first genetically engineered apples were approved for planting and sale in the US by the Department of Agriculture. Two varieties, known as the Arctic Granny and Arctic Golden received the approval. They are genetically engineered to resist browning.
Too Much Solar Power
California has been experiencing an unprecedented boom in solar energy in recent years. The state’s major utilities now get 6% of their power from solar installations and on top of that, nearly a quarter million homes have solar panels on their roofs. All of this clean energy is surely a good thing, but it also presents a unique problem.
The World’s Largest Solar Plant
Recently, the world’s largest solar power plant has opened in the town of Desert Center, California. Known as Desert Sunlight, the project can produce up to 550 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 160,000 average California homes.
A Floating Wind Turbine
Wind technology generally faces two challenging facts: the wind is much more powerful higher up in the air and good locations for wind turbines are often far away from where electricity is needed.
Deep Green
