Al said:
"Gee thanks TH, for your wonderful censorship. That's 5 comment's I've left now over a period of about a month (on 5 different stories), and NONE g..." [read]
stevejust said:
"I really didn't know it was possible to hate someone more the Bob Novak. But Bob Novak has shown me it is actually possible to hate him more than ..." [read]
Jeremy said:
"I haven't been able to find a route in this city where selecting this option gives a result any different from the avoid highways checkbox. I also ..." [read]
surfndano said:
"Imagine, for a second, that he didn't have enough free flier miles......." [read]
P said:
"I just filled up my Prius today, and a man stopped me and teased me about how Prii don't get the 52-60 advertised. My response: 1)mine does 2)his c..." [read]
Pays to live green said:
"This is going to be a great addition for Google Maps. Hopefully this will encourage people to walk or use bikes more often as they can now find th..." [read]
Infrastructure & Standards for Plug-In Vehicles
While making an infrastructure to charge plug-in vehicles (plug-in hybrids and battery electric cars) is a lot easier than making an infrastructure for hydrogen-powered vehicles (like the Honda FCX Clarity), it still requires some planning and coordination. You don't want each player to create its own standard that isn't compatible with the others, making it impossible for electric car owners to plug in their cars for a charge or to use advanced features.
That's why GM, along with the nonprofit Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and 30+ electric utilities from 37 US states and from Canada have formed a coalition to address these issues.
Google's RechargeIT Invests $2.75 Million
Google's philanthropic arm, via its RechargeIT program, has just bet $2.75 million on two companies trying to make plug-in hybrids and electric cars a reality: Aptera Motors, maker of the three-wheeled two-seater Typ-1 (we wrote about their prototype here), and ActaCell, a spinoff from the University of Texas at Austin that is working on lithium-ion battery technology with "substantially longer cycle life at low cost while maintaining safety". We don't know what share of the $2.75 went to which company, but we know that ActaCell raised a total of $5.8 million in a recent Series A round, including Google's money.
In the ongoing food versus fuel discussion, using waste products from agriculture or municipal waste is often cited as being the solution as to how to produce liquid biofuels without impacting available agricultural land and increasing food prices. Producing liquid biofuels from wood waste is promising from the standpoint of availability, but is more difficult to turn into usable fuel than other products. However, a new breakthrough from China, reported on in New Scientist, offers a potential solution to this problem.
Lignin Broken Down Under Near-Critical Water
In summary, the process developed by Yuan Kou and a team of researchers at Peking University, breaks down the lignin in the wood by breaking carbon-oxygen-carbon bonds using highly heated, highly pressurized water as a solvent. When combined with a catalyst and hydrogen gas, water heated to 250-300°C and pressurized to 7000 kilopascals has been found to reliably break down these C-O-C bonds to be produce alkanes and alcohols needed for biofuels.
Wildfires in Alaska and Canada Had Net Cooling Effect
Proving that climate science can be anything but intuitive, researchers report that large wildfires could have a net cooling effect. Led by Robert Stone, at the University of Colorado in Boulder, the team studied the wildfires that ravaged Alaskan and Canadian wilderness in 2004. The work is credited with creating a better understanding of the impact of particles and smoke in the atmosphere, which has been one factor of uncertainty in climate models.
If I had a nickel for every prospective parent I know who changed their lifestyle for the better when they knew they were expecting I’d be a wealthy man indeed. But they just may be a bit late to the party. No pun intended.
And that’s because a controversial idea, called epigenetics, indicates those late nights in smoke filled rooms, that stress filled entry level job, or that apartment you rented next to that major, pollution-spewing roadway when you were young and broke may just be exacting their toll on the DNA of your child today.
It may seem hard to believe, but the planet's wetlands, which comprise 6% of its land surface area, contain 771 billion tons of carbon dioxide -- 20% of the Earth's carbon supply and roughly the same amount that is currently in the atmosphere. Wetlands include a wide array of different ecosystems, such as marshes, swamps, river deltas and mangroves, and perform a variety of vital ecological functions.
The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) announced today that the USA has overcome Germany as the biggest generator of wind energy electricity in the first half of 2008. This milestone, which was not expected until the end of 2009, comes as a result of the higher average wind speeds in the USA, since Germany is still the leader in installed capacity.
Better, Cheaper LEDs
The incandescent lightbulb that wastes 90% of the electricity as heat is dying, we all know that. But a new breakthrough in solid state lighting might also kill compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) faster than some expected. Scientists at Purdue University have figured out how to manufacture LED solid-state lights on regular metal-coated silicon wafers (more details below). What this means is: much lower costs.
10% Reduction in Total Electricity Use
And since about 1/3 of U.S. electricity is used to produce light, this is major. "If you replaced existing lighting with solid-state lighting, following some reasonable estimates for the penetration of that technology based on economics and other factors, it could reduce the amount of energy we consume for lighting by about one-third. That represents a 10 percent reduction of electricity consumption and a comparable reduction of related carbon emissions," said Timothy D. Sands, professor of Materials Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering states at Purdue....
photo by Leonardo F. Freitas
It may do nothing directly to halt the increasing rates of deforestation around the world, but a new satellite to be developed by Brazil and the UK will allow us to better judge just how bad things are getting and take steps against it. The Science and Development Network brings us the details:
Brazil-United Kingdom Collaborate on Satellite
Though it won’t be launched until 2011, Amazônia-1 is the product of a Brazil-UK collaboration. The satellite will orbit the Earth at a distance of 400 miles, 14 times per day. It will carry three cameras in total, to collect images of a variety of countries. One of the cameras, made in the UK, will have be able to produce images with a resolution of each pixel showing ten meters of terrain....
Honda OSM Concept: Such a Tease!
Honda has unveiled the OSM (Open Study Model) roadster concept car at the British International Motor Show, and it claims that it is a green "low emission" prototype. But Honda is playing it very close to the vest, so that's all we know.
Is it hybrid? Plug-in hybrid? Fully electric (maybe they liked Tesla Motors' strategy of introducing electric cars upmarket first)? Your guess is as good as ours. You can read the press release if you are curious, but it's not that interesting without details on the drivetrain (we also want details on the drivetrain of Honda's upcoming hybrid). In the meantime, enjoy the photos (more below)....
photo: Getty Images
We’ve reported on the idea to use large solar power plants in the Sahara to power Europe a number of times. In a nutshell, the idea is that North Africa has so much solar potential that if enough solar power plants (either solar photovoltaic or solar thermal) were built there, and an efficient enough transmission infrastructure were built, the region could generate enough electricity to meet all of Europe and the Mediterranean’s needs. It’s an undeniably ambitious plan, but one which is increasingly gaining political support.
...
50 Million More Battery Units per Month
With the progressive electrification of transportation (from hybrids to plug-in hybrids to electric cars), one thing the world will need more of is batteries. Matsushita, who owns the Panasonic brand and has a partnership with Toyota for the development of automotive technologies, has decided to invest 100 billion Yen ($951 million) into a new litium-ion manufacturing plant in Osaka. It will be one of the biggest in the world, allowing the company to triple its output an increase of 50 million battery units per month.
Thankfully, most modern lithium-ion batteries used in vehicles are non-toxic and recyclable, and over the life of a car, they can help save enormous quantities of non-renewable fossil fuels and reduce smog-forming emissions substantially. Not perfect, but better than what we have now....
In a sign of things that might have been, Chinese children born after the closure of a local coal plant have found themselves with 60% less development problems such as motor skill coordination than those born prior to the closing.
For with all the efforts by the Chinese government to clean up places like Beijing for the Olympics, there’s no denying that there are plenty of other places that could use the help.
Of course, the plant that was closed in Tongliang lacked basic pollution control equipment to limit the emission of pollutants like carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and particulate matter.
...
photo: Getty Images
We’ve written before about attempts to monkey around with the oceans in an attempt to increase their carbon sequestration abilities, so as to mitigate the effects of climate change: seeding the oceans with iron being one of the most prominent examples. Enter another candidate for planetary engineering: adding lime (calcium hydroxide) to seawater.
Adding Lime to Seawater Increases Alkalinity, CO2 Absorption
Though the idea has be advanced before, a new method of sourcing the lime has attracted the attention of Shell, who is funding a feasibility study for the idea. Basically, the idea is based upon the idea that adding the lime to the water will increase its alkalinity, thereby increasing its ability to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, as well as reduce its tendency to release it again.
...
...from an energy standpoint, that is. Folks over at The Oil Drum are running the numbers on comparing human labour [sic] to oil. Turns out that running the human machine for 45 years on food-calories uses just about the same amount of energy as contained in four barrels of oil, each of which has a whopping 5.8 million BTUs of energy. And if you think the price of oil is high, flip the fold for what the 'fair' cost should be.
...
Set aside, for a moment, the foreign policy and political aspects of India's impending crisis of government. Instead, let's turn up the sustainability filter, taking our lead from EnergyDaily from which we provide this excerpt for those of you who have not been following the story:
"Is this an issue on which the government should be brought down?" Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said at the start of the stormy debate in parliament's 545-seat lower house, which will vote on a trust motion Tuesday...
Mukherjee -- one of the architects of the US-India deal -- said the government was merely trying to "solve our problems of the future," saying it was India's only hope of avoiding a gigantic energy crisis.
Via::Energy Daily, Indian govt makes passionate appeal to save US nuclear deal.
What is at the root of India's crisis? What are the implications for climate action?...
Paula Kupfer for the International Herald Tribune
Newspaper sales are dropping all over the world as people migrate to electronic sources; in North America they all let Craigslist eat their lunch with free classifieds, and it seems that young people have completely abandoned them. They certainly are not the most environmentally benign way of delivering news, either.
In France, the newspaper companies aren't waiting for iPhones and computers to kill their business; they are working together to introduce the Read & Go, which will let subscribers download the contents of participating papers onto "the most convincing electronic facsimile of ordinary paper in existence." The Kindle delivers papers in America, but the French system is advertiser supported.
...
Since the first time we reported on developments to use kudzu— the invasive Asian vine covering many areas of the southern United States—as a feedstock for the production of ethanol elicited such an enthusiastic response this short interview may be of interest.
Done by Chemically Green, it asks Doug Mizell, co-founder of Agro*Gas Industries about their efforts to refine "Kuzunol" and their planned use of waste products for the production of ethanol. Only because the firm is just starting out, not because of any inherent problem with their plans an described by Mizell, I’d take the whole thing as aspirational rather than instrumental—there’s no place you can go out and buy Kudzunol yet. That said, Mizell does answer some questions readers had asked in our original kudzu post, so it is certainly worth watching.
Keep in ming that the video quality isn’t quite up to professional standards—not sure whether it’s a focus issue or a compression issue—but there it is.
via :: Chemically GreenEthanolBiofuel Feedstocks Gain a New Candidate: KudzuFirst Cellulosic Ethanol Biorefinery in the U.S. OpensMunicipal Waste to Ethanol Plant Planned for Reno, Nevada
...
photo by m.prinke via flickr
A few months ago, when Shell pulled out of the London Array, leaving its partners E.ON and Dong Energy in the lurch, the future of Britain’s and the world’s largest offshore windfarm was up in the air. Now it seems that the Array’s future is a bit more certain.
E.ON, Dong buy up Shell's share
German-based E.ON and Danish Dong Energy have agreed to buy Shell’s 33% stake in the 1 gigawatt project for an undisclosed sum, The Guardian reports. The two remaining backers will form a new 50-50 partnership to continue development of the wind farm located off the shore of Kent.
...
Image courtesy of Capitol Records.
Singer/Songwriter Tristan Prettyman is using her sophomore album, Hello, to do more than raise money. She donated a song “War Outta Peace” to the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF), which created a DVD to raise awareness about the benefits of renewable energy. She is also volunteering to clean up beaches along her tour route and you can join in the fun.
When not on tour Prettyman lives a very Treehugger life, driving a hybrid, composting in her backyard and recycling just about everything she can find. This album gave her the chance to live the green lifestyle both on the road and at home....
Image from Wikimedia Commons
We've waxed poetic before about the need for a bold New Green Deal to help bring our economy out of the doldrums and into the next renewable Industrial Age. A new organization, appropriately named the Green New Deal Group, has picked up on this idea and is laying out an ambitious 100 month agenda that it says is necessary to prevent dangerous global warming, reports the BBC....
Former Tesla CEO Gets his Roadster
We recently reported that Tesla Roadsters had started shipping, and now we learn that Martin Eberhard, co-founder and former CEO of Tesla Motors, just got his electric Roadster. He blogged about the experience and posted a few photos (more below). It seems to have been an almost religious experience for him:
"The sun had just come over the trees, and its distinct orange stripes lit up the yard. The matching orange panels in the seats screamed Sit Here! Drive me, Baby! Who am I to refuse such an offer?"
100% Powered by the Sun
Trivia: Martin's house is equipped with a 5.2kW solar panel system. This means that he'll be driving around on the sun's power, with some left over to power his house....
(Image credit: NASA)
Humans are not just making a mess of our planet. Since we started exploring the heavens, our divine species has been cluttering up Earth’s orbit. Not long ago, TreeHugger reported on shocking space debris images: space junk circling our earth. The oldest piece is the American satellite, the Vanguard I, launched in 1958. It’s still out there.
Sadly China has been creating space debris intentionally, and America has plans to create some more as well (by shooting down a failing spy satellite).
What’s out there? There are dead satellites, paint flakes, spent rocket stages, and other high-velocity objects such as coolant from nuclear-powered satellites spinning around Earth.
"Space debris has become a major concern recently, since collisions with such debris at ultrahigh velocities could be a disaster for spacecraft that pass through Earth's orbit," says Dr. Noam Eliaz, from Tel Aviv University: "An impact could be catastrophic."...
image: Fulcrum BioEnergy
Edmonton, Canada is in the process of building a waste-to-ethanol plant. Now, Reno, Nevada will be getting in on the act. The facility in question will be built by Fulcrum BioEnergy and is expected to begin operating in 2010.
Taking municipal sold waste and converting it to ethanol, the Sierra BioFuels plant will produce approximately 10.5 million gallons of biofuel per year, from 90,000 tons of material that otherwise would have been disposed of in landfills. The plant, located ten miles east of Reno, will cost $120 million to build, with construction starting later this year.
...
Improving on LCD Screens
Apparently, LCD screens don't have much going for them except that compared to CRTs they are more power-efficient, and compared to other flat screen technologies they are less expensive. Their downsides are that the pixels do not turn completely off and take on average 25 to 40 milliseconds to switch between black and white (which can cause motion blur), they don't perform very well in bright ambient lights, they are complex (with three sub-pixels per pixel, each with its controlling transistor), and most importantly for us, only 5-10% of the light emitted by the LCD's backlight passes through the polarizing films, liquid-crystal layer, and the color filters to reach your eye.
Millions of Miniature Telescopes Staring You in the FaceMicrosoft Research has published a paper in Nature Photonics about a new kind of monitor that could someday replace LCDs. Their 'telescopic' pixels (pictured under magnification on the left) use two micromirrors allowing them to switch completely on or off in 1.5 millisecond. Because they are so fast, you don't need 3 sub-pixels, reducing cost and complexity. But the best part is that about 36% of the light emitted by the backlight is getting through, making them potentially about 3.6 and 7 times more power-efficient than LCDs. But that's not all: Computer simulation show this could reach 56% with further design improvements. That would be up to 11.2 times better than LCDs!...
photo by Hugh Gray
A couple of weeks ago we reported on how a series of interconnected wind farms in northern Sweden has been planned and that the project, at a total capacity of 3-3.5 gigawatts, is claiming bragging rights as Europe’s largest wind farm. I won’t get into parsing the logic of 'when does calling something the largest x?' become an exercise in semantics rather than measurement, but the project will be nevertheless big. Based on news reported by the BBC however, Scotland will for a time be able to claim another largest, and this one is more straight measurement than classification: Europe’s largest single onshore windfarm.
Clyde Wind Farm Gets Approval
Scottish ministers have approved the 152-turbine, 456 megawatt Clyde Wind Farm, to be built alongside the M74 motorway near Abington. Construction is scheduled to begin next year and all phases of the project to be completed by 2011. The project is expected to cost £600 million and will create 200 jobs during construction, with 30 remaining once the project is operational.Scottish and Southern Energy, the project’s developer, estimates that the windfarm will produce enough electricity to power 320,000 homes.
...
We'll be working on better category archives soon. In the meantime, take a look at the weekly archive if you really want to dig around, or use the search box at the top of the page.
TreeHugger breaks it down for you in a series of in depth how-to articles that will help you green your life. No time like the present!
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Better, Cheaper LEDs
The incandescent lightbulb that wastes 90% of the electricity as heat is dying, we all know that. But a new breakthrough in solid state lighting might also kill compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) faster than some expected. Scientists at Purdue University have figured out how to manufacture LED solid-state lights on regular metal-coated silicon wafers (more details below). What this means is: much lower costs.
10% Reduction in Total Electricity Use
And since about 1/3 of U.S. electricity is used to produce light, this is major. "If you replaced existing lighting with solid-state lighting, following some reasonable estimates for the penetration of that technology based on economics and other factors, it could reduce the amount of energy we consume for lighting by about one-third. That represents a 10 percent reduction of electricity consumption and a comparable reduction of related carbon emissions," said Timothy D. Sands, professor of Materials Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering states at Purdue....
photo by 
Honda OSM Concept: Such a Tease!
Honda has unveiled the OSM (Open Study Model) roadster concept car at the British International Motor Show, and it claims that it is a green "low emission" prototype. But Honda is playing it very close to the vest, so that's all we know.
Is it hybrid? Plug-in hybrid? Fully electric (maybe they liked 
photo: Getty Images
We’ve reported on the idea to use large 
50 Million More Battery Units per Month
With the progressive electrification of transportation (from 
In a sign of things that might have been, Chinese children born after the closure of a local coal plant have found themselves with 60% less development problems such as motor skill coordination than those born prior to the closing.
For with all the efforts by the Chinese government to clean up places like Beijing for the Olympics, there’s no denying that there are plenty of other places that could use the help.
Of course, the plant that was closed in Tongliang lacked basic pollution control equipment to limit the emission of pollutants like carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and particulate matter.
...
photo: Getty Images
We’ve written before about attempts to monkey around with the oceans in an attempt to increase their carbon sequestration abilities, so as to mitigate the effects of climate change: 
...from an energy standpoint, that is. Folks over at 
Set aside, for a moment, the foreign policy and political aspects of India's impending crisis of government. Instead, let's turn up the sustainability filter, taking our lead from 
Paula Kupfer for the International Herald Tribune
Newspaper sales are dropping all over the world as people migrate to electronic sources; in North America they all let Craigslist eat their lunch with free classifieds, and it seems that young people have completely abandoned them. They certainly are not the most environmentally benign way of delivering news, either.
In France, the newspaper companies aren't waiting for iPhones and computers to kill their business; they are working together to introduce the Read & Go, which will let subscribers download the contents of participating papers onto "the most convincing electronic facsimile of ordinary paper in existence." The Kindle delivers papers in America, but the French system is advertiser supported.
...
photo by m.prinke via 
Image courtesy of Capitol Records.
Singer/Songwriter Tristan Prettyman is using her sophomore album, Hello, to do more than raise money. She donated a song “War Outta Peace” to the Bonneville Environmental Foundation (BEF), which created a DVD to raise awareness about the benefits of renewable energy. She is also volunteering to clean up beaches along her tour route and you can join in the fun.
When not on tour Prettyman lives a very Treehugger life, driving a hybrid, composting in her backyard and recycling just about everything she can find. This album gave her the chance to live the green lifestyle both on the road and at home....
Image from 
Former Tesla CEO Gets his Roadster
We recently reported that 
(Image credit: NASA)
Humans are not just making a mess of our planet. Since we started exploring the heavens, our divine species 
image: Fulcrum BioEnergy
Edmonton, Canada is in the process of building a 
Improving on LCD Screens
Apparently, LCD screens don't have much going for them except that compared to CRTs they are more power-efficient, and compared to other flat screen technologies they are less expensive. Their downsides are that the pixels do not turn completely off and take on average 25 to 40 milliseconds to switch between black and white (which can cause motion blur), they don't perform very well in bright ambient lights, they are complex (with three sub-pixels per pixel, each with its controlling transistor), and most importantly for us, only 5-10% of the light emitted by the LCD's backlight passes through the polarizing films, liquid-crystal layer, and the color filters to reach your eye.
Millions of Miniature Telescopes Staring You in the Face
photo by 
