Interview with Neil Fromer, Executive Director, Caltech Resnick Sustainability Institute
We have researchers here developing systems that should be able to convert more than 40% of the incoming sunlight to electricity (current panels are ~20% efficient). We are also working with research groups that can generate fuels and chemicals directly form sunlight, or from biomass, hopefully at an efficiency and cost that will replace conventional fossil fuel materials.
Can We Save Energy with Vehicle Tires?
Tires may seem to be an unlikely eco-product. But, according to a new market report from Smithers Rapra, the global market for "green tires" will reach $70.6 billion by 2017 or 28% of the total tire market.
In The Midst Of Toxic Oil Spill, Vancouver Announces It Will Go 100 Percent Renewable
There’s some mixed news coming out of Vancouver, Canada this week. On the one hand, the city announced at an international sustainability summit that it would commit to using 100 percent renewable energy to power its electricity, transportation, heating and air conditioning within 20 years. On the other hand, Vancouver is also dealing with a fuel spill in the waters of English Bay that is washing up on beaches and threatening wildlife.
On March 26, Vancouver’s city council voted unanimously to approve Mayor Gregor Robertson motion calling for a long-term commitment to deriving all of the city’s energy from renewable sources. At the ICLEI World Congress 2015 this week in Seoul, South Korea, the city went a step further, committing to reaching that goal of 100 percent renewable electricity, transportation, heating and air conditioning by 2030 or 2035.
Right now, Vancouver gets 32 percent of its energy — that includes electricity, transportation, heating, and cooling — from renewable sources, so the goal is ambitious, but not impossible. According to the Guardian, Vancouver could get all of its electricity from renewables within a few years, but transportation, heating, and cooling may prove more difficult.
As California Faces Record Drought Levels, Wind Energy Provides A Vital Service
In 2014, wind energy saved 2.5 billion gallons of water in California by displacing water consumption at the state's fossil-fired power plants, playing a valuable role in alleviating the state's record drought. Wind energy's annual water savings work out to around 65 gallons per person in the state - or the equivalent of 20 billion bottles of water, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).
According to AWEA, one of wind energy's most overlooked benefits is that it requires virtually no water to produce electricity while almost all other electricity sources evaporate tremendous amounts of water.
In California - where the state is combating record drought levels - Gov. Jerry Brown recently signed an executive order to reduce household water consumption by 25%, from about 140 gallons per day per household to 105 gallons. Wind energy's water savings are, therefore, equivalent to what would be saved by nearly one week's worth of the required reductions for a typical household.
In 2008, U.S. thermal power plants withdrew 22 trillion to 62 trillion gallons of freshwater from rivers, lakes, streams and aquifers and consumed 1 trillion to 2 trillion gallons. By displacing generation from these conventional power plants, U.S. wind energy currently saves around 35 billion gallons of water per year - the equivalent of 120 gallons per person or 285 billion bottles of water.
Retrofitting Buildings to Improve Energy Efficiency
Making a building more sustainable while completing the retrofit could attract more higher-paying tenants, which would cause a greater appreciation by the time the owners plan to sell. Properties with Energy Star certification have sold for 2-5% more than buildings without such certification.
Osaka - The City of Green Technologies
The Environmental Governance approach of Osaka is exemplary for the developing Asian cities who are trying to balance development and sustainability.
RESEARCHERS DEVELOP NEW APPROACH THAT COMBINES BIOMASS CONVERSION, SOLAR ENERGY CONVERSION
In a study published March 9 in Nature Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison chemistry Professor Kyoung-Shin Choi presents a new approach to combine solar energy conversion and biomass conversion, two important research areas for renewable energy.
For decades, scientists have been working to harness the energy from sunlight to drive chemical reactions to form fuels such as hydrogen, which provide a way to store solar energy for future use. Toward this end, many researchers have been working to develop functional, efficient and economical methods to split water into hydrogen, a clean fuel, and oxygen using photoelectrochemical solar cells (PECs). Although splitting water using an electrochemical cell requires an electrical energy input, a PEC can harness solar energy to drive the water-splitting reaction. A PEC requires a significantly reduced electrical energy input or no electrical energy at all.
In a typical hydrogen-producing PEC, water reduction at the cathode (producing hydrogen) is accompanied by water oxidation at the anode (producing oxygen). Although the purpose of the cell is not the production of oxygen, the anode reaction is necessary to complete the circuit.
Unfortunately, the rate of the water oxidation reaction is very slow, which limits the rate of the overall reaction and the efficiency of the solar-to-hydrogen conversion. Therefore, researchers are currently working to develop more efficient catalysts to facilitate the anode reaction.
Choi, along with postdoctoral researcher Hyun Gil Cha, chose to take a completely new approach to solve this problem. They developed a novel PEC setup with a new anode reaction. This anode reaction requires less energy and is faster than water oxidation while producing an industrially important chemical product. The anode reaction they employed in their study is the oxidation of 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) to 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA). HMF is a key intermediate in biomass conversion that can be derived from cellulose - a type of cheap and abundant plant matter. FDCA is an important molecule for the production of polymers.
Smog Eaters Are Coming To Our Roads
A reflective surface reduces smog by reflecting heat back into the atmosphere. Not only is the smog reduced, but more importantly, energy costs are lowered in big cities.
Amyris-Total Renewable Jet Fuel
Amyris' innovative bioscience technology directly converts plant sugars into hydrocarbon molecules to create the renewable fuel, and the technology enables the operations of the Amyris-Total partnership to deliver the fuel from "field to wing."
Bionic Leaf Uses Bacteria To Convert Solar Energy Into Liquid Fuel
From Science 2.0: Harvesting sunlight is old technology for plants but it's a level of efficiency in solar energy we would love to be within a billion years of - artificial photosynthesis is needed if we want to go beyond the energy density of things like combustion engines.
Solar energy, using electricity from photovoltaic cells to yield hydrogen that can be later used in fuel cells, would be terrific but has technological obstacles. Now scientists have created a system that uses bacteria to convert solar energy into a liquid fuel. Their work integrates an "artificial leaf," which uses a catalyst to make sunlight split water into hydrogen and oxygen, with a bacterium engineered to convert carbon dioxide plus hydrogen into the liquid fuel isopropanol.
Pamela Silver, the Elliott T. and Onie H. Adams Professor of Biochemistry and Systems Biology at HMS and an author of the paper, calls the system a bionic leaf, a nod to the artificial leaf invented by the paper's senior author, Daniel Nocera, the Patterson Rockwood Professor of Energy at Harvard University.
What is helium-3?
Will China Be The First To Mine Lunar Energy?
Harvesting Energy From Heat
In the United States, more than half of the energy we burn each year gets lost as heat instead of being put to use with most of the energy going out the exhaust pipe of a car or out the smokestack of a power plant.
Creating Roads from Waste
The roads constructed using this technology are more durable and economical than the conventional bitumen roads.
The Echogen Power Systems Heat Engine
Waste Heat to Power (WHP) creates electricity by heating a fluid at high pressure, then expanding the fluid through a turbine to power an electric generator.
EPA 111(d) Clean Power Plan Could Increase Energy Efficiency Impacts, Net Benefits, and Total Value
This white paper takes a novel, nationwide approach to estimating an overall impact on emissions and cost. It sheds light on the role that energy efficiency can play as a compliance mechanism.
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