Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Every day natural gas flares around the world burn off 10 billion cubic feet of energy–the equivalent of 1.7 million barrels of oil. A tiny R&D company in Tulsa, Oklahoma called Syntroleum Corp. claims it has refined a gas-to-liquids process to the point that it’s now cheap and safe, and can be used in the field to produce more easily transported fuels.
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.
An increase of investment capital is boosting scientific research into alternative energy technologies in Silicon Valley.
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.
The tsunami may have been an act of nature, but further environmental catastrophes caused by humans will be much worse.
By reducing greenhouse emissions and ratcheting up new climate-friendly technologies, US companies can create jobs and launch an era of economic growth akin to the start-up phase of the Internet.
The fleet of hybrid buses that General Motors
promised would save Seattle more than 750,000 gallons of fuel a year
will actually save less than half that amount, according to the
fleet operator, and although G.M. said the hybrid buses would show a
fuel economy improvement of up to 60 percent, the savings around the
country appear to be in the range of 10 percent to 20 percent,
transit managers say.
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.
The grid and the problems it faces. “If the electric power grid is to meet 21st−century demands, society will need to invest in extensive modernization,” say the authors.
The gap between the present state of the art in hydrogen production, storage, and use and that needed for a competitive hydrogen economy is too wide to bridge in incremental advances. It will take fundamental breakthroughs of the kind that come only from basic research.
In a new review of cold fusion – the claim that energy can be generated by running electrical current through water – the US Department of Energy released a report yesterday that says the evidence remains inconclusive, echoing a similar report 15 years ago.
Researchers at a government nuclear laboratory and a ceramics company in Salt Lake City say they have found a way to produce pure hydrogen with far less energy than other methods, raising the possibility of using nuclear power to indirectly wean the transportation system from its dependence on oil.
