Hungry for hemp
The United States Drug Enforcement Administration recently abandoned, without comment, its three-year effort to ban commercial foods made from or containing nonpsychoactive industrial hemp seed and hemp oil.
Renewable Energy
Thermodynamics of the Corn-Ethanol Biofuel cycle
Journal paper quantifying the degree of
non-renewability of a major biofuel: ethanol produced from industrially-grown corn. Extensive work seriously challenging the right of this process to renewable status, on net energy, soil depletion, and government subidy-dependence grounds.
Worldwide capacity of solar thermal energy greatly underestimated
The International Energy Agency’s Solar Heating and Cooling Programme and major solar thermal trade associations have published new statistics on the use of solar thermal energy. The new data – expressed for the first time in GWth, rather than in square meters of installed collector area – shows the global installed capacity to be 70 GWth (70.000 MWth).
Sustainable Energy From Vegetable Oil
An excellent practical guide to the techniques of using vegetable oil as a transportation fuel which acknowledges also some of this approach’s large scale limitations.
Project Cooking Up Stoves For The Poor
The World Food Program has commissioned Aprovecho to build fuel-efficient, low-polluting cooking stoves fashioned from the very tin cans in which food aid is delivered.
Silicon Valley players seek breakthroughs in alternative-power technology
An increase of investment capital is boosting scientific research into alternative energy technologies in Silicon Valley.
New plastic can better convert solar energy
Researchers at the University of Toronto have invented an infrared-sensitive material that’s five times more efficient at turning the sun’s power into electrical energy than current methods.
A little village in the sun
Here is a bright little village in Andhra Pradesh that is all solar and smoke-free — the first of its kind in the country.
National Security to Lead Renewable Energy Deployment
And the one mantra rising above the conference chatter that might create enough political muscle to kick-off that shift [to renewables] can be summed up in two words: National Security.
Power From the Oceans
Wind energy industries are growing, and as we look for alternative power sources, the growth potential is through the roof. Two industry watchers take a look at generating energy from wind and wave action and the potential to alter the energy landscape.
Challenges For The Hydrogen Economy
If the fuel cell is to become the modern steam engine, basic research must provide breakthroughs in understanding, materials, and design to make a hydrogen−based energy system a vibrant and competitive force.
Peak Oil – Peak Technology
As the energy crisis intensifies, a myriad of technical solutions are being proposed. Governments, corporations and scientists are not offering new creative solutions, not because they are failing to make strong efforts, but because energy itself is a very mature industry.
