Energy

Global incomes continue to rise, more people are living more comfortably, globalization has been a huge win for many developing nations and that means more people than ever can afford air conditioning. While some policy makers live in an idealized developed world where more wind and solar power at ever higher costs will solve the emissions problem, that lacks fairness for people who are only now able to afford to live well. More people are going to need electricity and that means we need to embrace true green energy and not fudge numbers to where political winners look like viable…

Renewable electricity has nearly trebled under this government. said Ed Davey, Liberal Democrat energy and climate change minister, during an environment debate held by the Daily Politics show. Amid the climate of mistrust about claims made by politicians that tends to accompany election campaigns, it is reassuring to report that the evidence supports the minister’s statement. According to official figures on renewable electricity, installed generation capacity in the UK in 2014 was 2.6 times higher than in 2010, while actual generation of renewable electricity was 2.5 times higher. For…

James Hansen, a former head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies who was one of the first scientists to raise concerns about global climate change, spoke at MIT Tuesday in the biennial David J. Rose Lecture, sponsored by the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE).  Hansen came to prominence in the late 1980s, when he first testified before Congress about the perils of accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. “I think it’s really important that young people understand the situation that we older people are leaving them with,” said Hansen, currently an adjunct…

A breakthrough in artificial photosynthesis has been achieved with the development of  a hybrid system of semiconducting nanowires and bacteria that can capture carbon dioxide emissions before they are vented into the atmosphere and then, powered by solar energy, convert that carbon dioxide into valuable chemical products, including biodegradable plastics, pharmaceutical drugs and liquid fuels.  The system mimics the natural photosynthetic process by which plants use the energy in sunlight to synthesize carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and water but this artificial…

The cost of batteries is one of the major hurdles standing in the way of widespread use of electric cars and household solar batteries. By storing surplus energy, batteries allow households to reduce power bought from the electricity grid. Unfortunately, batteries have so far been prohibitively expensive. But research published recently in Nature Climate Change Letters shows battery pack costs may in some cases be as low as US$300 per kilowatt-hour today, and could reach US$200 by 2020. This cost development is notably cheaper and faster decreasing than I and many others expected. The…

Researchers have made a significant breakthrough in the development of synthetic pathways that will enable renewable biosynthesis of the gas propane.  Natural metabolic pathways for the renewable biosynthesis of propane do not exist but scientists at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology (MIB), Imperial College and University of Turku have developed an alternative microbial biosynthetic pathway to produce renewable propane. The team led by Prof. Nigel Scrutton of the University of Manchester and Dr. Patrik Jones from Imperial College, modified existing fermentative butanol pathways…

In 2005, environmentalists got what they and former Vice-President Al Gore had lobbied for since the late 1980s; federal subsidies to commercialize biofuels. Mr. Gore later admitted that he was just endorsing biofuels to get corn belt votes for his presidential run and few academic scientists had publicly disagreed because, well, they voted for him. The result of the last corporate subsidy effort: Corn and soy growers have been happy, to be sure, but poor people got rising food costs and biofuels remain even more of a net penalty to the environment than regular gasoline. While traditional…

New research shows bacteria can use tiny magnetic particles to effectively create a 'natural battery.' The bacteria can load electrons onto and discharge electrons from microscopic particles of magnetite. This discovery holds out the potential of using this mechanism to help clean up environmental pollution, and other bioengineering applications.  Researchers from the University of Tübingen, the University of Manchester, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, USA, incubated the soil and water dwelling purple bacteria Rhodopseudomonas palustris with magnetite and controlled the amount…

A day after Playstation announced that their players are finally getting an update which will allow them to quickly switch from Rest Mode to powered-up, a feature already available on Xbox, the Natural Resources Defense Council announced that Xbox players are killing Gaia. The “Instant On” feature of the Xbox One allows players to turn it on with voice command and there is no boot time, because it is basically always on, except in low power - and the NRDC claims 11 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity is being wasted, to the additional tune of $250,000,000 each year. How do they know that? I…

The solar eclipse due to cover much of Europe on March 20 will be the continent’s first for 16 years. Back in 1999, as people stopped staring at the sun and got back on with their day they caused a power surge which still stands as a UK record – greater than anything after a football match or royal wedding. At the time, solar power made up just 0.1% of all Europe’s electricity produced from renewables. Since then it has increased to at least 5% as countries subsidize renewables to meet EU targets. The installed capacity of solar power in continental Europe is expected to reach 90 GW this…