BioLite: a campstove that creates electricity

Open wood fires are inefficient, wasting potential energy and creating toxic smoke due to incomplete combustion. Carefully designed stoves that use fans to blow air into the fire can dramatically improve combustion. However, such stoves require small amounts of electricity to power their fans and most people who cook on wood are without grid or battery access. BioLite stoves solve this problem by converting a fraction of the fire’s thermal energy into electricity to power our combustion improvement system. Excess electricity is made available to users for charging small electronic devices such as mobile phones, LED lights, GPS and many others.

Available from BioLite

Researchers figure out how to outperform nature's photosynthesis

"The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) last week published a paper titled "Solar hydrogen-producing bionanodevice outperforms natural photosynthesis." They modified the photosynthetic proteins found in cyanobacteria -- bacteria which gain their energy through photosynthesis.

Says io9: “They frankensteined together proteins from Synechococcus sp. with those from Clostridium acetobutylicum using molecular wire to create a 'hybrid biological/organic nanoconstruct' that was more efficient than either on their own.”

More @ PhysOrg

Engineers can build a low-carbon world if we let them

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The engineering solutions to combat climate change already exist. Politicians must be brave enough to use them before it's too late

One word sums up the attitude of engineers towards climate change: frustration. Political inertia following the high-profile failure of 2009's Copenhagen climate conference has coupled with a chorus of criticism from a vocal minority of climate-change sceptics. Add the current economic challenges and the picture looks bleak. Our planet is warming and we are doing woefully little to prevent it getting worse.

Engineers know there is so much more that we could do. While the world's politicians have been locked in predominantly fruitless talks, engineers have been developing the technologies we need to bring down emissions and help create a more stable future.

Wind, wave and solar power, zero-emissions transport, low-carbon buildings and energy-efficiency technologies have all been shown feasible. To be rolled out on a global scale, they are just waiting for the political will. Various models, such as the European Climate Foundation's Roadmap 2050, show that implementing these existing technologies would bring about an 85 per cent drop in carbon emissions by 2050. The idea that we need silver-bullet technologies to be developed before the green technology revolution can happen is a myth. The revolution is waiting to begin.

More @ New Scientist

Japanese breakthrough [Wind Lens] will make wind power cheaper than nuclear

A surprising aerodynamic innovation in wind turbine design called the 'wind lens' could triple the output of a typical wind turbine, making it less costly than nuclear power.

Of course, the challenge is in storing the energy.

More @ Mother Nature Network

Cars could run on recycled newspaper, scientists say

Tulane has applied for a patent for a method to produce the biofuel butanol from organic material, a process developed by associate professor David Mullin, right, postdoctoral fellow Harshad Velankar, center, and undergraduate student Hailee Rask. Credit: Photo by Paula Burch-Celentano

Here's one way that old-fashioned newsprint beats the Internet. Tulane University scientists have discovered a novel bacterial strain, dubbed "TU-103," that can use paper to produce butanol, a biofuel that can serve as a substitute for gasoline. They are currently experimenting with old editions of the Times Picayune, New Orleans' venerable daily newspaper, with great success.

More @ PhysOrg

Brazilian wind power cheaper than natural gas

The Brazilian authorities have this week confirmed that wind power in the country currently costs less than natural gas, after a series of energy auctions saw wind farm operators undercut other forms of energy generation.

Seventy-eight wind power projects won contracts in last week's energy auctions held by Brazil's National Electric Power Agency, totalling 1,928MW and priced at approximately 99.5 reals (37.4 GB pounds) per MWh.

More @ BusinessGreen

13-Year-Old Makes A Solar Breakthrough With Fibonacci Sequence : TreeHugger

image via American Museum of Natural History

(...) the Fibonacci sequence: Starting with the numbers 0 and 1, each subsequent number is the sum of the previous two - 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13.... These numbers, when put in ratios, happens to show up in the patterns of branches and leaves on trees. Aidan, having been mesmerized by tree-branch patterns during a winter hike in the Catskills, sought to investigate why. His hunch: "I knew that branches and leaves collected sunlight for photosynthesis, so my next experiments investigated if the Fibonacci pattern helped."

One thing led to another, and before you know it, this kid, three years from being eligible for a driver's license, had built a tree-like stand affixed with small solar panelsin the Fibonacci pattern. He compared its ability to collect sunlight to a flat-panel collector. And Nature won.

Summing up his research and imagining the possibilities, Aidan wrote: "The tree design takes up less room than flat-panel arrays and works in spots that don't have a full southern view. It collects more sunlight in winter. Shade and bad weather like snow don't hurt it because the panels are not flat. It even looks nicer because it looks like a tree. A design like this may work better in urban areas where space and direct sunlight can be hard to find."

More @ TreeHugger