Author Archive

Ryan M. Jacobs

The energy company GreatPoint has figured out a way to transform coal into a clean natural gas, and the operation is less costly than drilling for it. The company’s researchers refined a catalytic process developed in the 1970s that also captures the harmful carbon dioxide emissions. The resulting product, called “bluegas,” can flow through pipelines and can be used for all the same applications as the drilled form. The Chicago-based firm plans to expand within the United States and in China.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-07-05/business/ct-biz-0705-small-biz-minding-20100705_1_natural-gas-bluegas-peabody-energy
http://www.greatpointenergy.com/

The pioneering green car company Tesla Motors recently went public with its stock priced higher than expected. This indicates investors’ increasing interest in the company’s sleek, cost-efficient electric cars. Powering up the Tesla Roadster costs only $0.02 per mile, while the average gasoline-powered vehicle costs about $0.15 per mile. Tesla drivers can reduce their carbon footprint while also saving about $1,300 annually on fuel.
http://www.teslamotors.com/goelectric

Adura Technologies has developed a new wireless light-monitoring system which allows business owners to switch off or dim office lights remotely. The network assigns an IP address to each sensor, so that owners can turn on specific lights instead of wasting energy by powering whole floors. The technology cuts lighting costs by 40 to 70 percent.

http://www.aduratech.com/system/alps2.php

After two years of experimentation with “between-row” cover grasses, researchers at Iowa State University have concluded that environmentally sound agricultural practices will not slow corn production. The team successfully extracted 95 percent of field stover, a crop residue that can be used to generate biofuels, while increasing the total corn yield by more than 1,000 kilograms of corn grain per hectare. Removal of stover is generally associated with water runoff and depletion of soil, which both slow production. But perennial sod, which was planted and kept on the field year round, trapped the organic matter that is usually lost during and after the removal process. With only a minor change to the current cropping system, farmers can increase efficiency and contribute to the future of biofuels.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100615151124.htm

A MIT-led team of researchers recently came up with a green airplane design that uses 70 percent less fuel than conventional airliners. The engineers of the180-passenger D “double bubble” scrapped the established single fuselage cylinder in favor of two partial cylinders connected by a bubble-like cross-section. They also placed the engines at the rear of the plane instead of on the wings. This configuration takes advantage of Boundary Layer Ingestion, a technique that allows the slower moving air in the wake of the fuselage to save fuel while creating the same amount of thrust. While the presented version was highly conceptual, the team also designed another D-series plane that could actually be built with aluminum and current jet technology and would still use half the fuel of a current aircraft.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100517162834.htm

Controlled fires are often used by forest rangers to reduce the chances of dangerous wildfires. However, new research shows that these prescribed burns can also serve an environmental benefit. According to a study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, an expansive system of controlled burns produces significantly less carbon dioxide emissions than wildfires of equal size. Using satellite observations and computer modeling, the scientists discovered that widespread prescribed burns can reduce fire emissions of carbon dioxide in the Western U.S. by an average of 18 to 25 percent and by as much as 60 percent in particular forest ecosystems.

The scientists used a model that estimated carbon dioxide emissions from wildfires in 11 Western states from 2001 to 2008 based on the mass of vegetation burned. They compared that to the amount of emissions that would have been released if those forests had been exposed to comprehensive controlled burns. The results showed that carbon emissions for the specific states were reduced by an annual average of 14 million metric tons.

Uncontainable wildfires often destroy bigger trees that serve as repositories for large amounts of carbon, while controlled burns target underbrush and small trees, which store significantly less carbon. By eliminating fire-prone underbrush, the controlled burns keep the larger trees’ carbon secured in the forest and out of the atmosphere. Prescribed fires can help offset the significant amount of carbon dioxide released by other sources such as factories and motor vehicles. “While it can be costly to set controlled fires, there is also a cost in leaving forests vulnerable to larger fires,” Christine Wiedinmyer, the lead author of the study, said.

http://www2.ucar.edu/news/prescribed-burns-may-help-reduce-us-carbon-footprint

EU Wind Turbines May Gain Edge on Natural Gas Plants – For the third year in a row, new wind power units in the European Union have produced the same amount of electricity as newly built natural gas plants. New wind installations produced 10 gigawatts last year, while new natural gas plants produced only 7. 2010 is expected to bring in an additional 10 gigawatts of wind power capacity, which would boost the annual total to about 85 gigawatts. Gas is still the leading electricity generator with 119 gigawatts, but as wind power continues its rapid expansion this may change.

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/new-wind-power-is-neck-and-neck-with-gas/

Trapping Nuclear Waste – Northwestern University researchers have recently developed a new synthetic material that soaks up the elusive radioactive ion cesium. The material, composed from layers of a gallium, sulfur and antimony compound, traps the hazardous ion while ignoring other harmless ions like sodium that are also found in liquid nuclear waste. Until this point, cesium removal has been incredibly difficult because nuclear waste has much higher concentrations of sodium ions than cesium ions (with ratios as great as 1,000-to-1). The material may mean big things for the future of nuclear waste remediation.
http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2010/01/flytrap.html

The Nano Solution – MIT researchers have created a tenfold increase in the power capacity of lithium-ion batteries by using carbon nanotubes, which have a high surface area for lithium reactions. If their new design is produced on a mass scale, it could expand the market for electric vehicles. The researchers have already paired up with an undisclosed company to make the technology public.

http://e360.yale.edu/content/digest.msp?id=2470
http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/25634/?ref=rss

The Power of the Sun – Albuquerque recently teamed up with the innovative energy provider CleanSwitch to host the nation’s first solar powered farmers’ market. The company’s “solar roller,” a four-module unit which generates about one kilowatt of electricity, powered everything from the ATM machines to the live band. The city hopes that farmers’ markets across the nation will begin to use similar equipment.

http://cleanswitch.com/

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/food-health/albuquerque-launches-nations-first-solar-powered-farmers-market-will-other-cities-follow.html