Environment

Philips has announced that its 22-watt LED lightbulb is the first 100-watt tungsten equivalent bulb to have been awarded Energy Star certification. Often referred to as the A21, which is actually just one of several standard forms for light bulbs that this bulb happens to conform to, Philips' 22-W bulb puts out "nearly" 1,800 lumens for an efficacy of about 82 lumens/watt (lm/W). It's a fine spec, but not too dissimilar to the competition, which raises the question of why Philips' product has been singled out.  Read More

Wind energy may be one of the more sustainable sources of power available, but the spinning blades of conventional wind turbines require regular maintenance and have attracted criticism from bird lovers. That might explain why we've seen wind turbine prototypes that enclose the blades in a chamber or replace them entirely with a disc-like system. But researchers in the Netherlands set out to eliminate the need for a mechanical component entirely and created the EWICON, a bladeless wind turbine with no moving parts that produces electricity using charged water droplets.  Read More

While much research is being done on capturing carbon dioxide emissions at their source to reduce the amount expelled into the atmosphere, researchers at the University of Georgia’s Bioenergy Systems Research Institute have taken a different approach to tackle the problem. Taking a leaf out of the process used by plants to convert CO2 into something useful, they have uncovered a way to take CO2 from the atmosphere and transform it into useful industrial products, including, potentially, fuel.  Read More

Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology and Purdue University have developed new solar cells based on natural substances derived from plants, including trees. The organic solar cells have an efficiency of 2.7 percent – a new high for cells on substrates derived from renewable raw materials – and can be easily recycled.  Read More

After looking into the pros and cons of nine methods of electricity production (including coal, geothermal, biomass, and solar), a group of 9 and 10 year-olds from Central Park School for Children in Durham, North Carolina decided that their classroom should be powered using only energy from the sun. They hit Kickstarter at the beginning of this month with a modest funding goal of just US$800 to help finance the installation of a small PV panel array – a target that was smashed in less than a day.  Read More

Not having a section devoted to cures for insomnia, Gizmag tends to pass over press releases about investment agreements. Tuesday's announcement that the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU) is to find somewhere in the order of US$ 2 billion for the Cape Wind is extremely interesting, however, as it means the U.S. should finally build its first offshore wind farm, with construction slated to commence before the year's end.  Read More

Thanks to its low latitude and low percentage of cloudy days, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is an ideal location for capturing solar energy. So it’s no surprise to see the world’s largest operating concentrated solar power (CSP) has launched in the sun-soaked Middle Eastern country. Officially inaugurated this week by UAE President and Ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Shams 1 is a 100 MW CSP that will power 20,000 UAE homes.  Read More

In November 2009, Norwegian state owned electricity company Statkraft opened the world’s first osmotic power plant prototype, which generates electricity from the difference in the salt concentration between river water and sea water. While osmotic power is a clean, renewable energy source, its commercial use has been limited due to the low generating capacities offered by current technology – the Statkraft plant, for example, has a capacity of about 4 kW. Now researchers have discovered a new way to harness osmotic power that they claim would enable a 1 m² (10.7 sq. ft.) membrane to have the same 4 kW capacity as the entire Statkraft plant.  Read More

Carbon capture is one of the many solutions proposed to curb emissions of CO2. But, so far, methods being used require a great deal of energy to release the captured carbon from the capture material for storage. Now researchers at the University of South Florida (USF), in a partnership with King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), have announced what they claim is a more energy-efficient alternative in the shape of a cheaper, more efficient and reusable material for CO2 capture and separation.  Read More