Environment

Researchers at Stanford University have developed an experimental solar cell made entirely of carbon. In addition to providing a promising alternative to the increasingly expensive materials used in traditional solar cells, the thin film prototype is made of carbon materials that can be coated onto surfaces from a solution, cutting manufacturing costs and offering the potential for coating flexible solar cells onto buildings and car windows.  Read More

As our smartphones and computers continue to become obsolete and get discarded, the environmental problem of electronic waste gets worse. Needless to say, the greater the number of electronic components that can be reclaimed and reused, the better. That’s why scientists from the UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL) have developed a printed circuit board that falls apart when immersed in hot water.  Read More

American clothing maker and denim specialist Levi Strauss & Co. has announced a new collection of denim apparel, including jeans, that will be comprised of a minimum 20 percent of plastics recycled from drinks bottles and food trays.  Read More

Having successfully negotiated the challenging regulatory slopes of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Department of Energy, and a host of Oregon state agencies, the Newberry Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) demonstration project is in the process of creating a new geothermal reservoir in central Oregon. The core of the new reservoir is a two mile (3.2 km) deep well drilled about four miles (6.3 km) from the center of Newberry Volcano. The rock surrounding the wellbore reaches temperatures in the order of 600° F (315° C), and is nearly impermeable to water. That, however, is about to change.  Read More

Air Fuel Synthesis, Ltd. (AFS), a small company in the northern English county of Durham, has recently made headlines for a chemical process that claims to synthesize gasoline from air and water. In essence, AFS is using energy to unburn fuel so that it can be burned as fuel again – a great deal of energy. Sixty kWh of electric energy are used up to store 9 kWh of that energy in a liter of gasoline. When you take into consideration that gasoline vehicles are about 15 percent efficient, a car fueled with synthetic gasoline would use roughly 35 times more energy on a given trip than would an electric vehicle. Not, it would seem, a prescription for a commercially valuable green product.  Read More

Ontario, Canada has carved out a niche for itself as a hub of green technology. One of the latest clean tech innovations to come out of that province is DARWIND5, a vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT). Designed by Harvistor, it comes with a promise of more oomph than existing models for small-scale wind power generation. According to the company, recent tests showed that its technology can achieve 35 percent more kilowatt hours per year than current VAWTs for the same sweep area, besides operating at 25 percent lower heights than similarly priced market leaders.  Read More

As the old adage goes, knowledge is power. Following this principle, Arizona State University researchers have developed a computer program called Hestia, that is capable of estimating the greenhouse gas emissions of specific roads and even buildings. With its high level level of detail and accuracy, the software can help cities make more precise calculations about their GHG footprint as well as more informed decisions related to carbon mitigation efforts.  Read More

Wind turbines have the potential to be very useful in providing renewable power to remote communities which have little or no infrastructure. Unfortunately, larger turbines tend to require a relatively involved set-up, with specialist gear needed to construct and maintain the turbines. The Portable Power Center (PPC) by Uprise Energy innovates in this regard by providing a self-contained unit which folds within a shipping container, and can be transported by truck.  Read More

The Gold certification of Apple's Retina MacBook Pro by EPEAT has been labeled "a clear case of greenwashing" by ifixit's Kyle Wiens. Gold is the highest rating of the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, which is used by the federal government (among others) to inform more environmentally-friendly procurement. Wiens says the decision is evidence that the "EPEAT standard has been watered down to an alarming degree."  Read More