Author: Tina Casey

Scientists in Spain and Germany are working on a new material that could set the refrigeration industry back 80 years – in a good way, that is.  As reported by Science Daily, instead of fluorinated gasses the new material is a solid, like the familiar old blocks of ice from a bygone era only in a high tech form for the sustainable new millenium.

The push to find alternatives to fluorinated gasses (HFCs) is urgent, because they have been identified as a group of particularly powerful and long lasting greenhouse gasses that contribute to global warming.  Mechanical refrigeration will enter more households as the world’s population grows and more regions adopt modern technology, so the potential market for a non-polluting alternative to HFC’s is enormous.

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Tulane University has just won a $3 million grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration to build RiverSphere, a renewable energy center that will focus on developing new hydrokinetic turbines.  The project includes floating barge facilities that will be available to private technology companies for testing prototype hydrokinetic turbines in the slow moving currents of the Mississippi.

Hydrokinetic turbines are emerging as a more sustainable way to draw power from water, compared to conventional hydropower which involves building dams to create intense water pressure.  Hydrokinetic turbines can operate on the available current in natural waterways as well as canals and other manmade streams, and they can be tethered in place with minimal disruption of the surrounding environment.

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Researchers at Michigan Technological University are on to a simple, low cost solution to the complicated problem of keeping antibiotics out of water supplies.  In a study of vetiver grass grown in antibiotic-laden water, they found that 95.5% of the drugs were removed from the water and taken into the plant tissue.

Vetiver grass is sturdy, spiky grass native to India that is well known for its use in erosion control.  Vetiver grass is also used in perfumes and in handicrafts for local economic development projects.  In a somewhat ironic twist given its aromatic properties, vetiver grass is also an up-and-comer in the growing field of phytoremediation, in which plants and wetlands are used to remove contaminants from wastewater and stormwater.

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Pig manure is one step away from a transformation of metamorphic proportions.  The lowly waste product, notorious for its impact on the environment and on human olfactory nerves, is on the verge of becoming an important alternative to petroleum now that scientists at the University of Illinois have developed a process for converting raw pig manure to crude oil.  With further development, the process may even yield biodiesel.

If successful commercially, the process would help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants from pig farms and many other types of livestock operations.  In particular, it could help protect drinking water supplies in livestock farming areas.

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America’s national pastime is leading the way on climate action by adopting a comprehensive conservation and greenhouse gas-reducing program, including a public outreach component at National League and American League ballparks this summer.  The new sustainability drive involves all 30 Major League Baseball teams from coast to coast, in partnership with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

One main feature of the program is a multi-year environmental data collection drive for Major League Baseball operations that will include energy use, waste generation and disposal (including recycling), water use, and paper goods — quite a lot of effort by a legendary American industry to get in front of a global issue that our own U.S. Chamber of Commerce refuses to address.

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A new airship from E-Green Technologies/21st Century Airships sports the crackerjack name Bullet 580 along with a “radically different” design according to E-Green Chairman and CEO Michael Lawson. The innovations allow for more efficient performance and a larger cargo capacity, all with more energy efficiency relative to conventional aircraft. The Bullet 580 is 235 feet long and can carry a payload of up to 1,000 pounds.

Designed to carry communications, surveying, monitoring and and navigation equipment for civilian and military uses (including weapons platforms), the Bullet cruises at up to 35 knots and can reach a top speed of 70 knots. More than a dozen prototypes have been tested and the first full scale Bullet is due to be inflated next month, with test flights slated to begin in the summer.

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Researchers at Stanford University have engineered an ultrasharp nanoscale electrode made of gold that can be used to harvest a small electric current from individual algae cells.  In experiments so far, the algae cells survive the intrusion, which could mean that larger electric currents could someday be drawn from entire algae colonies.

Algae have been emerging as the biofuel heroes of a sustainable future and the Stanford development could bring it to a new level, by bypassing the carbon footprint of harvesting plants and processing liquid biofuels.

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By now the name Don Blankenship is practically a household word all across the U.S. following the death of 29 miners at a Massey Energy coal mine, but Blankenship — the company’s CEO — has been well known in West Virgina and throughout Appalachia for some time now.  Perhaps equally well known is an apparent pal of his, former  state Supreme Court judge Elliot Maynard.  While on the bench, Maynard hooked up with Blankenship on an overseas vacation and voted to reverse a $50 million jury award against Massey.  When the relationship came to light in 2008, it helped spike Maynard’s re-election.

Now Maynard is now vying to be the Republican nominee for Congress in a West Virginia district deep in coal country.   Is he still thisclose to Blankenship?  Zachary Roth over at Talking Points Memo has the story with a link to Maynard’s Facebook campaign page, which sports a March 26 press release.  In it Maynard announces that he’s invited a celebrity to visit a coal mine in West Virginia.  The money quote:  “We would love to have Sarah showcase modern mining as a clean, safe and cheap way to produce energy.”

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Working with the social investment group FEMSA, the government of Chiapas, Mexico is introducing sustainable disinfection technology to 175 local water systems, in support of the United Nations’ Millenium Development Goals partnership to reduce extreme poverty, hunger and disease.  The new systems will be installed by MIOX Corp., a water treatment company that specializes in producing disinfection chemicals on site from salt, water and electricity rather than going the conventional route of trucking in supplies of chlorine.

By ditching chlorine shipments, the MIOX system significantly reduces the carbon footprint of transportation and  fuel consumption.  As for an overall improvement in sustainability, a few tweaks in the system could make an enormous difference.

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Teeny tiny particles could provide an answer to a massive problem: how to provide enough potable water to sustain the global population of human beings.  Researchers at the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science at UCLA have come up with one solution, a membrane made of  a specially engineered nanoscale material that can purify water with far greater energy efficiency than current technology.

Not that we really could drink our way out of climate change and rising sea levels, but a more energy efficient way to desalinate seawater could enable the world’s population to use the oceans as a source of potable water on a far greater scale than is currently done.

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For all the excitement over low cost solar power, much of it is still in the development stage backed by government resources and has yet to prove that it can compete on the market with cheap fossil fuels.   However some private investors are starting to bet on low cost solar in a big way.  Among them is tech specialist Len Batterson, whose startup  NextGen Solar is kicking into gear.

NextGen Solar will use nanoscale solar “paint” technology developed by Argonne National Laboratory, with the goal of lowering production costs while increasing efficiency compared to thin-film photovoltaic materials. (more…)

Ecollaboration sounds like a Disney World installation but it’s serious business for the U.S. Army.  The Army’s Tank, Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center (TARDEC) plans to have one of the biggest displays at next week’s SAE International 2010 World Congress, which will focus on collaborative  automotive technologies that address sustainability issues, under the umbrella of the Ecollaboration theme.

SAE International is a professional organization that develops global standards for all types of motorized vehicles and the U.S. military has the largest fleet of vehicles in the world.  Given the military’s increasing focus on climate change as an emerging threat to U.S. security, its enthusiastic participation in this SAE showcase is likely to influence future trends.

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In their ever expanding drive to create a more sustainable military, the various branches of the U.S. armed forces have entered some interesting new territories, from wastewater recycling to weed-powered jet planes (okay so biofuel powered jet planes).  Now the U.S. Army Research Office has upped the ante with funding for a new technology that could drastically reduce the energy consumed by ceramics manufacturing.

At first glance the Army’s interest in ceramics may seem somewhat off base but in addition to its usefulness in the manufacture of coffee mugs, ceramic material plays a significant role in military equipment such as ceramic body armor and heat shields, as well as numerous other uses including insulators and spark plugs.

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When it comes to the future of computing, why not skip the middleman?  That’s the basic idea behind Skinput, a technology that skips the whole notion of using manufactured touchpads or keyboards to interface with electronic devices.  What could be more simple, elegant and sustainable than using your own skin, which you already have, which lasts a lifetime, and which you will never leave behind in a taxi?  Skinput was developed by a team headed by Carnegie Mellon University student Chris Harrison, as a way to enable people to manipulate ever-smaller electronic devices.

Though new technologies are bringing us closer to molecular-sized computers, the size of touchpads and keyboards is still somewhat limited by the size of the average human finger.  Freed from that equation, electronic devices like phones and MP3 players could shrink down to truly microscopic sizes – and that could have some important implications for e-waste, energy efficiency and the sustainable future of electronics.

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President Obama’s new health care reforms will help millions more people in the U.S. get access to modern medical care and preventive health services, just like every other country in the developed world.  All things being equal, that would lead to a rapid surge in greenhouse gas emissions attributed to the health care industry, which is already notorious for its resource-gobbling ways.  However, things never are actually equal.

In terms of greenhouse gas emissions and waste reduction the health care industry has already been laying the groundwork for dealing with a potentially huge surge in demand for its services.  That will not only come from Presidents Obama’s new health care reforms.  It will also come from a rise in the population of older (and very older) people in the U.S., and from new energy demands by emerging high tech health care equipment.

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Last week the U.S. Environmental Protection announced new guidelines relating to mountaintop removal coal mine permits, and the coal industry promotion group FACES of Coal was right on the case.  FACES promptly issued a blistering press release lambasting the EPA for attacking the Appalachian economy with “as dangerous and threatening an action as this region has ever seen.”

Now, it’s no surprise that a group like FACES of Coal would come out with both guns blazing, considering its mission to promote the coal mining industry.  But seriously, “dangerous and threatening?”  After all, it’s not like the EPA is proposing to blow up hundreds of mountains and bury thousands of miles of mountain streams right here in the U.S.A. – or is FACES of Coal arguing that Appalachia needs more mountains blown up?  I’m so confused!

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Almost 50 years ago, Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore came up with a little idea called Moore’s Law, which basically says that computer processors roughly double in efficiency every two years due to advances in technology along with affordability.  So how much smaller, faster and cheaper can computers go?  Lots, if graphene, the nanomaterial of the new millennium, has anything to say about that.

Discovered just a few years ago, graphene is only the thickness of one atom but it scores on strength and it can function as a conductor.  One difficulty to overcome, though, is manipulating “raw” graphene on an atomic level to create a useful material.   With support from the National Science Foundation, researchers at the University of South Florida have accomplished a breakthrough of sorts by developing a way to form precise graphene “nanowires” that are just a few atoms across.

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This is a lesson to all weeds: dream big.  Camelina is a scrawny looking plant that also goes by the unflattering moniker “false flax,” yet it may turn out to be the biofuel of choice for U.S. military aircraft.  The U.S. Air Force has just announced the successful flight of an A-10C Thunderbolt II using a blend of half camelina and half conventional jet fuel, and it plans to test the blend on additional aircraft over the next couple of years.  Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy has also set its sights on camelina-based jet fuel.

Weed though it may be, camelina has also been cultivated as an oilseed crop for centuries and therein lies its charm, sustainably speaking.  Camelina been championed by a number of biofuel companies including Sustainable Oils, which has supplied camelina biofuel for both the Air Force and the Navy test runs.  The company may soon have company; Shell (yes, the petroleum company) is set on becoming the biggest of the big-oil companies to use biofuel as a profitability-booster.

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So who knew? The manufacture of cooking oil involves hexane, a solvent that separates the oil from crushed seeds.  Hexane is a volatile organic compound found in gasoline.  Hexane is also a degreaser used in the printing industry.  It dissolves glues, varnishes, and inks.  Aside from the ick factor of having the same compound used to dissolve glues and inks pop up in the production of your bake sale items, hexane is a pollutant that contributes to smog and greenhouse gas emissions.

This is where Queens University of Ontario, Canada comes in.  Researchers there have discovered a new energy efficient way to use the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide to help separate oils from seed and vegetable crops including corn, canola, peanut safflower, sunflower, and soybean.  That’s the sustainable twofer we’re so fond of: a new twist on a conventional process that reduces negative impacts while providing a remedy for additional problems as well.

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It looks like our energy future is at least partly in the hands of cows, now that agribusiness giant Cargill has joined the manure-to-biogas gold rush.  The company has just announced that its second biogas project is up and running at the Bettencourt Dairy B6 Farm in Jerome, Idaho.   Using manure produced by the farm’s 6,000 cows, the biogas project is generating enough renewable methane to make electricity for about 1,100 typical homes.  That’s just the latest installation in a trend that is seeing manure-to-biogas facilities popping up on farms across the United States like mushrooms after a rain.

This is Cargill’s third foray into dairy cow biogas in Idaho.  The venture also boosts the company’s involvement in the global renewable energy market, because it will generate about 28,000 tons of carbon emissions offsets.  It underscores how rapidly the renewable energy sector is growing from small scale experimental roots  into a fully commercialized global market force that is chewing away at the dominance of fossil fuels.

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