Perpetual Power? NASA creates submersible that can run nearly forever

Perpetual Power? NASA creates submersible that can run nearly forever — Autoblog Green

Well, it's not exactly perpetual motion or energy, but it's getting closer than most such attempts. Plus, instead of being backed by some sort of random crackpot scientist, this particular project has the backing of NASA and the U.S. Navy. So, what is it? (Take a deep breath.) The Sounding Oceanographic Lagrangrian Observer Thermal Recharging (SOLO-TREC) autonomous underwater vehicle. Says Jack Jones, a JPL principal engineer and SOLO-TREC co-principal investigator:

SOLO-TREC draws upon the ocean's thermal energy as it alternately encounters warm surface water and colder conditions at depth. Key to its operation are the carefully selected waxy substances known as phase-change materials that are contained in 10 external tubes, which house enough material to allow net power generation. As the float surfaces and encounters warm temperatures, the material melts and expands; when it dives and enters cooler waters, the material solidifies and contracts. The expansion of the wax pressurizes oil stored inside the float. This oil periodically drives a hydraulic motor that generates electricity and recharges the vehicle's batteries. Energy from the rechargeable batteries powers the float's hydraulic system, which changes the float's volume (and hence buoyancy), allowing it to move vertically.

More @ Autoblog Green

Wind's latest problem: it . . . makes power too cheap

Wind's latest problem: it . . . makes power too cheap

Bloomberg has a somewhat confusing article about the newest complaint about wind power, but the gist of it is that wind power is an issue for the industry because it brings their revenues down:

After years of getting government incentives to install windmills, operators in Europe may have become their own worst enemy, reducing the total price paid for electricity in Germany, Europe’s biggest power market, by as much as 5 billion euros some years, according to a study this week by Poeyry, a Helsinki-based industry consultant.

Implicit in the article, and the headline (which focuses on lower revenues for RWE) is the worry that wind power will bring down the stock market value of the big utilities - which is what the readers of Bloomberg et al. care about.

But despite the generally negative tone of the article, it's actually a useful one, because it brings out in the open a key bit of information: wind power actually brings electricity prices down!

More @ The Oil Drum

FTL Solar's Lightweight Solar Fabric

FTL Solar's Lightweight Solar Fabric | Harry Tournemille

FTL Solar has combined lightweight, flexible tensile fabric with thin film solar panels to create a highly versatile solar fabric.

Originally designed for military usage (due to their portability), FTL Solar is now going commercial with them, touting them as effective ways to shelter and power car parks, battery charging stations, disaster relief shelters, communication command centers, medical units, temporary housing, research posts, and energy pods for small villages.

In the case of the PowerPark II, each structure can generate roughly 20 kilowatt-hours (KwH) per day. So, for large parking lot installations the numbers can add up quickly.

More @ Harry Tourneille

Climategate Claptrap

Climategate Claptrap

At last! The controversy is over. It turns out the "scientific" claims promoted for decades by whiny self-righteous liberals were a lie, a fraud, a con--and we don't need to change after all. The left is humiliated; the conservatives are triumphant and exultant.

The year is 1954, and the "science" that has been exposed as a "sham" by conservatives is the link between smoking and lung cancer. Welcome to Tobaccogate, as Fox News would call it. The conservatives are championing professor Clarence Cook Little, who says he has discovered insurmountable flaws in the use of statistics and clinical data by "anti-tobacco" (and quasi-commie) scientists. The press reports the "controversy," usually without mentioning that Cook Little is being paid by the tobacco industry. A relieved nation lights up--and so, over the next few decades, millions of them die.

It is happening again. The tide of global warming denial is now rising as fast as global sea levels--and with as much credibility as Cook Little. Look at the deniers' greatest moment, Climategate, hailed by them as "the final nail in the coffin" of "the theory of global warming." A patient study by the British House of Commons has pored over every e-mail from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and interviewed everyone involved. Its findings? The "evidence patently fails to support" the idea of a fraud; the scientists have "no case to answer"; and all their findings "have been repeated and the conclusions have been verified" by other scientists. That's British for "it was a crock."

More @ The Nation

What it Means to be Green at a Mario Batali Restaurant

Elizabeth Meltz: What it Means to be Green at a Mario Batali Restaurant

The restaurant industry accounts for 10% of the U.S. economy. Americans spend approximately forty-eight percent of their food budget on food consumed away from home ($1,078 per person annually), dining at over 945,000 restaurants.¹ The average restaurant produces 50,000 pounds of garbage per year, typically close to 95% of which could be recycled or composted.² The Restaurant industry consumes 1/3 of all energy used by the retail sector (in the US, and the average food service facility uses 300,000 gallons of water per year.

In our restaurants, from the more casual Otto Pizzeria to fine dining at Del Posto, we have addressed some of these issues: we have banned bottled water, we have a full scale recycling andcomposting program at each of them and all of our chefs have personal relationships with the local farmers. Our steakhouse, Carnevino, in Las Vegas, NV, the city of excess, is located in the largest LEED-certified silver building in the world. In that restaurant we have introduced water saving measures, recycled paper and toilet paper, energy conservation initiatives, recycling and composting -- you name it. And our restaurants are buried deep within a hotel. Where there is a will, we know there is a way:

More @ HuffingtonPost [photos]

IBM's New Solar Desalination Tech Could Create Rivers in the Desert

IBM's New Solar Desalination Tech Could Create Rivers in the Desert

Living in the desert comes with major advantages and disadvantages — excess solar power and not enoughwater, to be more specific. Now IBM and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technologyare teaming up to solve the water problem with solar-powered desalination technology. Eventually, the two organizations hope to construct a desalination plant in Al Khafji, Saudi Arabia that can harness sunlight to generate 7.9 million gallons of water daily — enough for 100,000 people.

More @ Inhabitat

Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change?

James Lovelock: Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change

Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change from radically impacting on our lives over the coming decades. This is the stark conclusion of James Lovelock, the globally respected environmental thinker and independent scientist who developed the Gaia theory.
It follows a tumultuous few months in which public opinion on efforts to tackle climate change has been undermined by events such as the climate scientists' emails leaked from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit.
"I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change," said Lovelock in his first in-depth interview since the theft of the UEA emails last November. "The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful."
One of the main obstructions to meaningful action is "modern democracy", he added. "Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while."

More @ The Guardian