Category — ENERGY

Phys.org reports on a completely self-sufficient apartment building revealed at the International Housing Exhibition in Hamburg, which produces renewable energy by harvesting micro-algae.

The 15-apartment block has 129 algae filled tanks hanging over the exterior of the south-east and south-west sides of the building— powered exclusively by algae.

The fast-growing algae not only create biofuel, they also produce heat, shade the building, and abate street noise. The algae were retrieved from the nearby Elbe river, and put into large thin rectangular clear cases. Inside, the algae live in a water solution and are provided nutrients and carbon dioxide by an automated system. Each tank was then affixed to the outside walls of the building onto scaffolding that allows for turning the tanks towards the sun—similar to technology used for solar collectors.

In ten years, everyone will be doing it. (more…)

Returning to a theme often covered on this site, the US Army continues to make the pace in off-grid technology.
The idea of converting communities to total renewable energy, complete recycling and a culture of conservation to bring humankind’s carbon footprint into a sustainable balance with a healthy earth, is usually seen as one for deep green activists.
The last place you’d expect this ideal to take root – and even flourish– is a Texas Army base. But Fort Bliss, a sprawling military base accommodating 35,000 soldiers in El Paso, is one of the armed forces’ leading hotbeds of energy conservation and creativity.
The Department of Defense recently released this announcement:
WASHINGTON, April 5, 2013 – The largest renewable energy project in U.S. military history is slated to begin soon at Fort Bliss, Texas, a big step toward the installation’s goal of generating all the energy it uses, Army Maj. Gen. Dana J.H. Pittard, the installation and 1st Armored Division commander, announced today. (more…)

Margaret Thatcher privatised Britain’s power, water and rail network, handing huge profits to the private sector, at the expense of ordinary homeowners. Perhaps the best way to mark her death yesterday would be to renationalize the Utilities. Bolivia nationalised its domestic energy resources a few years ago. A shrewd move, at a time when owners of natural resources hold the best cards.

Maggie Thatcher’s greatest legacy was (together with US President Ronald Reagan) initiating the free market economics that have led directly to the bonus culture and gaping income inequality.

The era of “greed is good” capitalism went global, a fitting tribute to this extraordinary politician. Britain’s first and only female Prime Minister, she set the template for a massive transfer of public money into private hands.

The privatization of the state owned energy industry took a lumbering inefficient national power grid and turned it into a lumbering, inefficient and eye-wateringly expensive Corporate national power grid, where nearly 20% of households are officially in fuel poverty. (more…)

This web site tends not to write about new technologies until they are commercially available, but a new breakthrough from Stanford prof Shanhui Fan, reported in the Journal of Engineering seems worthy of a heads-up. It taps the frigid expanses of outer space to cool the planet.

Once its perfected, homes and buildings will be chilled without air conditioners, car interiors won’t heat up in the summer sun.

The team of researchers at Stanford designed an entirely new form of cooling structure that cools even when the sun is shining. Such a structure could vastly improve the daylight cooling of buildings, cars and other structures by reflecting sunlight back into the chilly vacuum of space.

“People usually see space as a source of heat from the sun, but away from the sun outer space is really a cold, cold place,” explained Shanhui Fan, professor of electrical engineering and the paper’s senior author. “We’ve developed a new type of structure that reflects the vast majority of sunlight, while at the same time it sends heat into that coldness, which cools manmade structures even in the day time.”

The trick, from an engineering standpoint, is two-fold. (more…)

A ground-breaking car battery that requires no mains recharging may revolutionise ecofriendly transport.. The Metalectrique battery powers a car for a claimed 10 times further than existing models, Devon-based engineer Trevor Jackson and colleague George Adams say that bench tests indicate their battery is capable of distances of between 1,400 and 4,000 miles without stopping off to re-power.

When the batteries are spent, they are removed and replaced, with the idea that drivers will eventually be able to swap them at depots or services stations at a cost of around £27, working out at around 13p per mile travelled. Known as long-range metal air batteries, energy is transferred through the corrosion of aluminium by a chemical solution. While the driver simply buys a replacement, the spent cells themselves can be re-filled by suppliers, ready to go again. (more…)

Tokyo, 4 MArch – Japanese scientists have developed a way to generate electricity from chemical waste – a byproduct of paint-manufacturing.

IHI Corp. envisages receiving its first order this year for a next-generation gas-turbine cogeneration system it developed that uses volatile organic compounds (VOC) emitted by chemical, paint and printing plants as fuel to generate electricity, allowing users to lower their VOC-abatement costs while cutting their fuel costs by as much as 40%. (more…)

Before we moved to our off grid home, long before, we had begun purchasing the things we would need to live off grid. This meant solar panels, inverters, charge controllers, lots of wire and much of the other things we would need. Buying these things before we were ready to move meant we could bargain hunt, we could find deals on used items (Craigslist is your friend!) and none of this hit us too hard in the pocketbook.

Little did I know that we would be forced to put our off grid goodies to the test before we moved off grid. (more…)

A few residents of the Isle of Wight,  65,000 population off the coast of England, are hoping to make half its homes energy and water self-sufficient by 2020. But they have not dropped their main technology partner ITM Power in favour of fuel cell provider Dantherm Power. (Correction: earlier versions of this story said ITM had been dropped but Eco-Island stated this was not the case.The company said: “Ecoisland Partnership CIC confirms that it has not issued any other Partnership Contract or Licence to any other Hydrogen Partner nor has it placed any other orders or contracts for the supply of hydrogen technology to the Ecoisland Project other than those it has in place with ITM Power plc.”)

Ecoisland, a Community Interest Company hopes to offer the domestic renewable energy storage solution after first testing it on a single home, believe to be that of Ecoisland founder David Green. The island’s local government has not endorsed the campaign but the term ecoisland was coined by the ex-CEO of IOW Council, Joe Duckworth during his short tenure. (more…)

 

Just as the Internet was invented by the US military, in conjunction with University College London and a Norwegian research lab – so the US military are at the leading edge pf the next generation of energy production
The U.S. Department of Defense /DoD/, is the biggest single energy user in the country. It accounts for 93 percent of U.S.government fuel consumption and 30,000 gigawatt hours of electricity annually — enough to power 6ر2 million American homes.

The DoD recently embarked on a mission to source 25 percent of its power from renewable energy by 2025 and one of its latest technologies is on show today in Abu Dhabi where you can see some of the world’s leading off-grid military energy solutions at the International Defence Exhibition and Conference /IDEX this week. (more…)