Solar Light For World's Rural Poor

The 2 billion people in the world who lack electricity often burn kerosene for light and that puts 400 billion pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere. A new solar light can help.

Miller-McCune.com reports:

"But in a massive new study carried out in Gujarat, one of Western India's poorest states, hit hard by drought in recent years, researchers have proposed that solar photovoltaic lanterns could represent a solution for rural communities with insufficient lighting...... generating a solar energy equivalent greater than the country's total energy consumption. With India's large and growing population, solar lanterns, using the country's abundant sunlight, could be the cleanest and most practical energy alternative available." See full article.

New Vending Machines Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Vending machines run day and night and their electricity use and refrigerants can produce significant amounts of greenhouse gases. Pepsi is working on a partial solution.

ClimateBiz.com reports:

"PepsiCo's newest vending machines are more energy efficient than previous models and use carbon dioxide (yes, carbon dioxide) to lower their impact on the environment. The company's new vending machine pilot program includes 30 machines in the Washington, D.C., area. The machines are touted as using 15 percent less energy and putting out 12 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than typical vending machines. They also use carbon dioxide (CO2) as a refrigerant instead of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). HFCs were first used as refrigerants to replace chemicals that depleted the ozone layer, but they also are thousands of times more potent than CO2 in terms of global warming, leading to some groups and companies, mostly in Europe and Asia, switching to carbon dioxide or hydrocarbons." See full article.

A Reveiw of the Chevy Volt: Coming November 2010

Popular Mechanics drove the car and provided a detailed review.

Here is their conclusion:

"The Volt.. was so quiet and smooth that we were left thinking that it didn't belong in a Chevy-branded compact so much as in a luxury sedan, where the projected price of near $40,000 would be a relative bargain. Speaking of pricing, that widely quoted $40,000 mark isn't the final word. Much depends on the state of the economy and the price of gasoline when the Volt comes to market in November 2010, but even if the price gets that high, there's a $7500 tax rebate from the federal government to offset it. Whatever future is in store for General Motors, the Volt technology holds great promise. If one of the new green startup auto companies had it, that company could march straight off to Wall Street, float an IPO and likely get more financing than GM's current market capitalization." See full review.

Miami's New $200 Million Smart Grid Program

Miami's new smart grid program will make its power system more efficient and interactive. Photo: American Progress.org

Pressreleasepoint.com reports:

"Energy Smart Miami has the potential to be the most extensive and holistic smart grid implementation in the country. The backbone of Energy Smart Miami will be the deployment of more than 1 million advanced wireless “smart meters” to every home and most businesses in Miami-Dade County. These meters will give Florida Power & Light Company (FPL) customers more information and control over their electricity usage while also providing FPL with information that will enhance system efficiency and reliability. Implementation of the smart meters will be based on open network architecture, allowing other providers to develop and deploy new applications that could, for example, help consumers better manage the electricity usage of their air conditioning and appliances. " See full article.

Carbon Capture Technology Being Tested

Three different chemical formulas will be employed to assess effectiveness of removing CO2 from post combustion power plant exhaust over the next three months.

BBC reports:

"The UK government recently gave the go-ahead for a new generation of coal-fired power stations provided they were able to limit their CO2 emissions. The scientists have focussed on the post-combustion method of carbon capture and storage (CCS) which aims to trap greenhouse emissions after fossil fuels have been burnt.

The plant, developed by Aker Clean Carbon, will enable them to assess the effectiveness of chemicals, known as amines, at removing CO2. Researchers from the University of Edinburgh will join the project, testing three different types of amine solution over the next three months." See full article.

Home Insulation Made From Mushrooms

New energy-saving material may turn up in unexpected places. Even the woods.

PopSci.com reports:

"Eben Bayer and Gavin McIntyre want to line the walls of your home with mushrooms. The young entrepreneurs have created a strong, low-cost biomaterial that could replace the expensive, environmentally harmful Styrofoam and plastics used in wall insulation, as well as in packaging and a host of other products. Wind-turbine blades and auto-body panels aren't out of the realm of possibility, either." See full article.

China's E6 Electric Car Could Dominate "Clean Transport"

As China moves into auto manufacturing in a bigger way it could be part of a global warming nightmare or an electric vehicle revolution.

BusinessGreen.com reports:

"When BYD Auto launches one of China's first mass produced fully electric sedans later this year, it will be trying to conquer the world rather than save it. But such is the explosive growth of China's car market and thirst for petrol that the two goals are likely to become ever more synonymous.

The E6 plug-in is currently under wraps at the company's sprawling industrial complex in Shenzhen, but it will soon be at the vanguard of a company's – and a nation's – plans to dominate the global market for "clean-transport". See full article.

New Solar Device Could Transform Impoverished Regions

A new solar device has the potential to improve the lives of people living in impoverished areas, -- cut out wood burning, disinfect water, provide light to see and heat to cook.

Worldchanging.com reports:

"The satellite dish-shaped SolSource, developed by U.S.-based nonprofit One Earth Designs, is elegant in its simplicity. Reflective nomadic tent material, stretched across a bamboo frame, concentrates sunlight from a large area inward toward a focal point where the user can place a pot stand for cooking, a thermoelectric device for generating electricity (at a lower cost than a photovoltaic panel), a heat module for heating the home, a solar water disinfector for treating drinking water, or a thermal battery for cooking after dark. These interchangeable parts are each about the size of a laptop computer, and the main platform is easily folded and disassembled for portability." See full article.

Two-Way "Tide Power" Generator Design

There are a number of emerging designs for slow-moving turbines that will capture the flow of tides on rivers and estuaries. A new, two-way, design may solve a a knotty design and operations challenge.

Science Daily.com reports:

"Most current tidal stream generators are essentially wind turbines turned upside down and made to work underwater. They often include complex gearboxes and move the entire assembly to face the flow of the water..... The Southampton design does not need to turn around because the design of its turbine blades means that they turn equally well, regardless of which way the water flows past them. The blades are also placed in a specially shaped housing that helps channel the water smoothly through the turbine.

Another beauty of the Southampton design is that everything is wrapped in a single package that can be prefabricated so there will be few on-site construction costs. “Just drop it into flowing water and it will start generating electricity." See full article.

How Real are "Geo-Engineering" Approaches?

Science has proposed some imaginitive, massive-scale "fixes" for global warming. But how real are they?

PopSci.com reports:

One of the theories proposed for reducing global warming involves deflecting heat away from the Earth's surface with solar shields or satellites with movable reflectors. Computer models suggest that blocking eight percent of the sun's Earth-bound radiation would effectively counteract the warming effect of our CO2 pollution. The idea was inspired by the cooling effects of large volcanic eruptions -- such as Mt. Pinatubo in 1991....

Another technological fix involves "sequestration," the storage of CO2 either deep underground or deep in the ocean. Some of the nation's largest utilities, which are also "washing" coal to filter out impurities, are working on ways to capture the CO2 they emit and store it miles below the Earth's surface. Costs of such technologies have been prohibitive.

Another leading theory, "ocean fertilization," entails scattering iron powder throughout the world's seas, providing nutrients to boost the amount of phytoplankton that thrive in the water's upper layers...

Yet another take on altering the seas for the sake of the climate, "engineered weathering," entails replacing some of the oceans' carbonic acid with hydrochloric acid. This, the theory goes, accelerates the underwater storage of CO2 ...

While the cost of many of these so-called "geo-engineering" fixes would not necessarily be prohibitive in light of the cost of transforming our global energy economy, the risks of unintended consequences weigh heavily on even the researchers proposing them. See full article.

"Global Warming Ready" Crops

Some technologies will help to lower greenhouse gas emissions while others are being designed to ease the transition to warmer temperatures and some of the consequences including: effects on crops and agricultural productivity in the world.

The Global Diversity Trust reports:

"The Global Crop Diversity Trust announced today numerous new grant awards to support scientists to explore the millions of seed samples maintained in 1,500 crop genebanks around the world. They will search for biodiversity critically needed to protect food production from the ravages of climate change.

The awards support a wide range of innovative projects, including a search in Southeast Asia and the Pacific for bananas that are resistant to banana streak virus, which will likely become more problematic with climate change; transferring traits from a wild to a cultivated variety of potato that convey resistance to a soil-borne pathogen responsible for bacterial wilt; a search for novel traits with tolerance to heat and drought stresses in Chilean maize crop collections; a project in India to find pearl millet that can handle scorching temperatures; and a project to increase the ability of maize to cope with erratic rains, while increasing its nutritional quality for small-scale, marginal farms in Sub-Saharan Africa." See full article.

Solar-Powered Electric Car Plug in Station

For electric cars to become more dependable in U.S. transportation, people will need more places to plug in and recharge when they are at home or away from home. Many are looking at the development of plug in stations. Here is one model based on solar power.

Green Motorsport reports:

"The Electric Vehicle Solar Canopy has been developed to provide protection from the weather for the vehicle as well as generating electricity from the integrated solar roof. The rooftop fits perfectly into a standard parking space and consists of a semi transparent solar array, allowing around 20% daylight through between the PV Cells, and providing shade from the sun and protection from the rain. The green electricity can be used either to charge the batteries on electric cars or it can be used in the adjacent building.

"The Canopy is a modular design which contains 6 special solar laminates each rated at 260 watt peak (Wp), providing a total output from each parking Canopy of 1.5 kilowatts peak (kWp). In the UK this Canopy will generate around 1,100kWh/year. See full article.

New Carbon Footprint Calculator for Filmmaking

Fil, production is just one example of an enterprise that has a greenhouse gas emission impact that might not be well understood. A new calculator is designed to help filmakers assess and lower their carbon footprint.

Netribution reports:

"Film London - perhaps the UK's most pioneering screen agency - has released in Cannes its Green Screen plan, with a Carbon Calulator Excel file for calculating a film's carbon footprint. With Hollywood film productions producing more carbon than all LA air traffic, and London's screen industries producing 125,000 tonnes alone (the equivalent of 24,000 houses), the tool and its accompanying research (also available in Hindi, Arabic and Chinese) is long awaited." See full article.

Electric Car Battery Swapping Stations

One approach being explored by a California firm is setting up battery swap stations.

Environmental Leader.com reports.

"Better Place, a California company, is testing the process for extending the mileage of electric cars by swapping out batteries at strategically placed stations.

At a demonstration in Yokohama, Japan, using a Nissan electric vehicle, the company demonstrated the technology, in which customers would subscribe to a service based on their estimated driving needs. Individual charging stations, not consumers, would own the batteries.
Markets targeted for the service include the United States, Israel, Denmark, Canada and Japan, according to Reuters." See full article.

Inexpensive Magnifying Glasses for Solar Panels

There are many ways that have been developed for concentrating and intensifying light on solar panels. A new inexpensive technology could significantly ramp up the efficiency of traditional solar panels.

PopSci.com repports:

"The next frontier in traditional solar panels is concentrators - devices, usually lenses, that concentrate solar power onto the most expensive part of a solar panel - the silicon. Skyline Solar's "solar trough" design concentrates sunlight without using expensive lenses or complicated robotic armatures for tracking the sun as it crosses the sky. The entire system is built from commodity parts in an effort to make it cheap and scalable – the ultimate goal being 'grid parity,' or a system that is competitive with fossil fuels as a means of generating electricity." See full article.

Exercise Machines Producing Power for the Grid

Using exercise machines to generate power may not be a completely new idea or produce all that much power but the growing popularity of small generators is an example of the many creative ways people are thinking about lower-carbon energy alternatives.

The Baltimore Sun reports:

"As she pedaled an elliptical exercise machine at the University of Oregon, Wen Lee's face lit up like the light bulbs she was powering."I could run my television with this," the environmental studies graduate student said between breaths, making the three bulbs on the stand in front of her glow brighter as part of a demonstration of renewable people power.The University of Oregon — one of its school colors is, after all, green — is the latest in a growing number of college campuses and exercise clubs across the country where workouts produce watts." See full article.

Battery that Runs on Air

More efficient power storage and battery power is a key to a low-carbon future and there are many new bettery technologies evolving including the "air" battery from Scotland.

Inventorspot.com reports:

Within the next five years we could see electric cars that can run far longer on one charge than a tank or two of gas. Your computer and cell phone batteries could last for several days without charging... while they are in use! In one huge step for the electronics and renewable energy industries, air power could actually be in 'charge.'

Researchers at Scotland's University of St. Andrews are reporting great progress in their work on the air-powered battery, which is being designed to replace the lithium cobalt oxide electrode in the fuel cell. The "STAIR" (St. Andres Air) battery will run on all renewable sources, including solar, wind, and oxygen!

The four-year research project, sponsored by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Councle of Great Britain (EPSRC), is not even two years underway, but the project has already achieved a battery lasting 8 times longer than a lithium cobalt oxide battery, and the overall goal was to achieve a battery with 5 to 10 times more life." See full article.

Prediction: "Smart" Electric Grid -- Bigger Than Internet

Cisco the Internet network company is betting that the "next big thing" will be bringing digital technology to the smart grid.

Cnet News.com Greeentech reports:

"The company, whose networking gear is installed in all corners of the Internet intends to make communications equipment for the electricity grid--everything from routers in grid substations to home energy controllers. CEO John Chambers is scheduled to discuss Cisco's smart-grid push Monday morning at a JP Morgan conference in Boston.

Cisco's move is a sign that the creaky electricity distribution system is poised for a digital upgrade. Other high-tech companies, including IBM, Intel, and several start-ups, are ramping up smart-grid efforts to capitalize on expected investments from utilities and federal governments. Cisco estimates that the communications portion of that build-out is worth $20 billion a year over the next five years." See full article.

Less Wind: Larger Generator Blades

The U.S. is full of areas with high average winds but many of these places are also heaviliy populated and large wind farms would be controversial. Engineers are finding that a wider range of sites with less wind can be effectively developed for wind power if the bades are larger and slower.

CNET News GreenTech reports:

"So some wind-turbine makers are shifting their focus toward building bigger wind turbines that can harvest the lower-speed winds that are more readily available. This next generation of wind turbines is no small matter: their rotors have a diameter the size of a football field.

In general, wind turbines get more powerful and efficient with taller turbine towers and larger areas swept by the blades, according to the American Wind Energy Association. A turbine's swept area is a key indicator in how much power output potential the turbine has.

'Lower wind-speed turbines certainly open up more land for development,' said Rich Reno, platform leader for General Electric's new 2.5-megawatt wind turbine. "Larger turbines open up the opportunity to get more megawatts out of a given piece of land." See full article:

A Billion Gallons of Algal Fuel by 2025

The use of Algae to produce bio fuel is an emerging technology with a long way to go. But a company in California is confident it can produce a billion gallons.

Checkbiotech.org reports:

"If all goes as planned, [Sapphire Energy] says, it will be in the position to supply one million gallons of biofuel annually by 2011, 100 million gallons annually by 2018 and one billion gallons each year by 2025.

'Fuel from algae is not just a laboratory experiment or something to speculate on for years to come,' Dr Brian Goodall, a Sapphire vice president, told the New York Times. 'We’ve worked tirelessly, and the technology is ready now.'

Two airlines have already made test flights using Sapphire’s algal fuel. In January, Continental airlines flew a 737-800 for two hours using a blend of 50-percent biofuel in one engine. The flight included a full-power takeoff and climb, cruise at 37,000 feet, descent, approach and landing and was considered a success. The second test took place on a Japan Airlines 747 powered by Pratt & Whitney engines, with a biofuel blend of camelina, jatropha, and algae." See full article.

First Carbon Neutral Building

An Australian development and construction company, is about to build the world's first carbon neutral office building. They call it the Pixel Building.

Inventorspot.com reports:

Here are some of the Pixel building's exciting green features planned:

Supply of 100% fresh outside air at a rate three times the minimum Building Code requirements. This air will be distributed through the floor with an individual control at each work station, in much the same way as vents work on a car dashboard.

An absorption heat pump chiller, to be used to heat and cool the building. The chiller uses ammonia as refrigerant and has no harmful ozone, global warming or legionella emissions. (See Legionnaire's Disease)

Rainwater providing most of the water supply. In an Australian first, grey water (non-industrial, non-waste water) will be recycled through a unique reed bed system that also acts to shade the windows.

The building will include exposed concrete ceiling slabs to be cooled via pipes embedded in the concrete and carrying cooled water.

Metering will be installed on every floor, -- if an analysis shows any irregularities, the energy and water use will be fine tuned.

More than 75 per cent of the building’s roof will be covered with native grasses in the form of a green roof. The grasses filter the rainwater and insulate the structure. See full article.

New Florida City to Run on Solar

Florida has a rapidly growing population and a need to keep a serious eye on see level rise. A new city being developed there wouldbe fueled by sun power.

Physorg.com reports

"The new city is being developed by Kitson & Partners on 17,000 acres northeast of Fort Myers. The city will include the world's largest photovoltaic power plant, which will be operated by Florida Power & Light.

The concept behind this 75-megawatt solar generator is that it will produce more power for the state's electric grid while the sun shines than the city will use in 24 hours. For the evening and night time hours, Babcock Ranch will have to rely on conventional power sources but its net effect will be a solar power city. FPL estimates the Babcock Ranch solar facility will cost about $300 million and sit on 350 acres within the development." See full article.

Space Mirrors to Block the Sun and Cool the Planet?

Even the idea that Planet Earth could be shielded from the sun and global warming by a cloud of mirrors has been floated by some scientists.

The Engineer Online reports:

"A concept, championed by astronomer Roger Angel of the University of Arizona, is positively James Bond-like in scale. He has proposed creating a 100,000-square-mile 'sunshade' in space, orbiting the Sun at the inner Lagrange Point (L1), 1.5 million kilometres from the Earth in a direct line between star and planet, where it will keep station and reduce the amount of sunlight hitting the Earth.The sunshade would be made up of hundreds of millions of small solar deflectors, about 60cm in diameter and made from a transparent film, formed into a cylindrical 'cloud' 60,000 miles long and about half the diameter of the Earth. Around 10 per cent of the sunlight travelling through the cloud would be deflected to a path where it misses the planet, reducing the amount of incident solar radiation by about two per cent. This, Angel calculates, is enough to offset the consequences of the greenhouse effect." See full article.

See-through Solar Cells for Windows

Remember those large solar panels on people's roofs? New technology is evolving that will make the roofs themselves and the windows of the home into no-carbon energy generators.

CNet News reports that:

"Solar company Konarka has developed a transparent solar cell that it hopes will be built onto electricity-generating windows. Under its Arch Active Solar Glass development, the company has built prototypes of windows with the solar cells between two panes of glass. The photovoltaic cells can be tinted different colors.

"It is energy-efficient and transparent with superior vertical performance and a subtle red, blue or green aesthetic. With these features, BIPV (building-integrated photovoltaics) will no longer need to be confined to spandrel or overhead applications," says CEO Leon Silverstein" See full article.

Zero Emission Hydrogen from Zero Emission Energy

Hydrogen technology would be easiest on our climate with better ways to produce it without carbon emissions. The Glenn Research Center is moving in that direction.

Discovery News reports:

A NASA-backed group is designing a wind- and sun-powered fueling system for city buses -- and possibly other machines -- that run on hydrogen. The demonstration is intended to not only showcase a fuel with zero carbon emissions, but to produce the hydrogen in similar fashion.

The project, spearheaded by NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio, would use power produced by a windmill and solar energy cells to run a machine called an electrolyzer that splits water molecules into its base elements of hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen, in turn, would be used as fuel for specially-equipped buses. See full article:

Energy From Ocean Waves

The action of waves in the ocean can help drive sea-going turbines. Very preliminary indications are this method can be more efficient than wind energy.

Discovery Magazine reports:

"A new prototype of a wave power generator has been unveiled in England, and its inventors followed the creed espoused by Leonardo da Vinci: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” The new wave power device, known as Anaconda, is a basic tube made from rubber and fabric and filled with water. It is still in trial phase, but its creators, optimistic about its potential as a source of mass power, are confident it will be cheaper than a wind farm generating the equivalent amount of power and less controversial in terms of public protest since the devices will be below the sea [Telegraph].

The Anaconda rides waves in the ocean, which create bulges along the tubing that travel along its length gathering energy. At the end of the tube, the surge of energy drives a turbine and generates electricity." See full article:

The "Heat Pump and Gravel" Answer to Energy Storage

Storing energy is a huge challenge in the fight to reverse global warming. A couple of UK engineers are working on part of the solution using gravel.

Reuters Reports:

"Some energy storage technologies for the power grid are expensive but can be deployed anywhere, like advanced batteries, while others are cheap but can only be built in certain locations, like pumping water up and down hilly terrain (known as “pumped hydro”). But a group of English engineers have built an advanced heat pump and connected it to an energy storage system using two silos full of plain old gravel that they say is as cheap as pumped hydro, as location-agnostic as a battery — and is super efficient. The startup they founded two years ago called Isentropic, named after a reversible process in thermodynamics, is now looking for a Series B round of $5 million and will be showing off its technology at the Energy Storage Association conference." See full article.

Smart Chips vs. Coal-Powered Plants

There is major worry these days about all the energy-sucking devices we use in our daily lives. The semiconductor industry is starting to have a few answers that could add up to a lot fewer coal-powered power plants pouring greenhouse gases into the air.

Reuters Reports:

"According to the report, Semiconductor Technology: The Potential to Revolutionize U.S. Energy Productivity, electronics built with semiconductors are proving energy efficient. Well known for powering cell phones, global positioning devices, and display screens, semiconductors have been used to pack a lot of power into a tiny device transforming the electronics industry into millions of products with sleek and slim designs.

And now, these tiny powerhouses are helping to conserve energy and reduce the overall power load of electronics "the entire family of semiconductor-enabled technologies generated a net savings of about 775 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity in the year 2006 alone" (when compared to those technologies available in 1976. To put this into perspective, those savings prevent the need for more than 100 coal powered plants." In contrast, the International Energy Agency announced yesterday their work has found that cell phones, iPods, computers, and other electronics are negating the energy efficiency of other household and office electricity conserving devices. Apparently, these devices are not made using semiconductors." See full article.

Wind Power: The Emerging "Smart" Turbine Blade

Some existng technologies will need to get better and better to make a large enough dent in the vast challnge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years. Wind energy shows great promise.

Physorg.com reports on a smarter mousetrap .. err .. windmill blade:

This research is to improve the efficiency of turbines and prevent damage to blades from high winds. The researchers, from Purdue and Sandia National Laboratories, have developed a technique that uses sensors and computational software to constantly monitor forces exerted on wind turbine blades. Such sensors could be instrumental in future turbine blades that have control surfaces and flaps like those on an airplane's wings to change the aerodynamic characteristics of the blades for better control.

"The ultimate goal is to feed information from sensors into an active control system that precisely adjusts components to optimize efficiency," said Purdue doctoral student Jonathan White, who is leading the research with Douglas Adams, a professor of mechanical engineering and director of Purdue's Center for Systems Integrity. See full article

Will We Need "Future Proof" Homes?

In April 2007, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that, regardless of our prospective ability to lower grenhouse gas emissions, the planet will be warming by 4 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit in the next 80 to 100 years. This will mean that humans will need to make some adaptations. Architects and home designers are looking at new approaches.

New Scientist reports:

"Global warming will change how we live. Models forecast that tropical storms are likely to become stronger and more frequent, drought will bring more forest fires, and shrinking ice caps will raise sea levels worldwide. Some architects are now preparing for these challenges by attempting to design "future-proof" homes.

Several companies such as Monolithic will build eco-homes for you or provide specialised equipment and instructions on how to build them for yourself. In the Netherlands, rising sea-levels are a greater concern than hurricanes. There, architects are experimenting with structures on stilts, or that float, as a solution to the prospect of more flooding."

See full article and photo galleries:

Converting Carbon Dioxide to Solid Rock

As we continue to work to cut back on the burning of greenhouse gas-producing fuels, some are also looking for ways to pull carbon dioxide from the air and store it.

The Guardian.UK reports:

"Engineers in Iceland are set to convert carbon dioxide to solid rock as a way to tackle global warming.

The experts want to exploit the country's volcanic origins to dispose of up to 30,000 tonnes of the greenhouse gas each year. They expect the gas to react with layers of volcanic rocks deep beneath the surface to form minerals that will lock the carbon pollution away for millions of years.

"This is a well-known natural process," said Holmfridur Sigurdardottir, project manager. "We are just trying to imitate what nature is doing."

The project will take CO2 produced by an Icelandic geothermal energy plant and dissolve it in water under high pressures. It will then pump the solution into layers of basalt about 400-700m underground, and watch what happens. Laboratory experiments suggest the dissolved CO2 will react with calcium in the basalt to form solid calcium carbonate. See full article.

Seals Help Monitor Global Warming

They say that creatures often sense things happening to the environment before people. Here Elephant Seals are assisted by robotics -- yup -- ROBOTICS!

CNN Technology Reports:

"Elephant seals equipped with electronic tags and robotic mini submarines using sonar were just two projects during the International Polar Year (IPY) that aimed to investigate the effects of global warming in polar regions.

The fourth IPY, which began in March 2007 and actually covered two full years, ended last month, after 160 scientific projects were undertaken by researchers from over 60 countries.
A joint project by the International Council for Science (ICSW) and World Meteorological Organization. (WMO), the IPY hoped to spearhead efforts to better monitor and understand the Arctic and Antarctic regions." See full article

Climate-saving Bacteria

Sometimes a look at "technology" means a closer looks at biology. In this case it means the properties of bacteria.

Science Daily reports:

"An international team of scientists has determined the structure of the chlorophyll molecules in green bacteria that are responsible for harvesting light energy"

"We found that the orientation of the chlorophyll molecules make green bacteria extremely efficient at harvesting light," said Donald Bryant, Ernest C. Pollard Professor of Biotechnology at Penn State and one of the team's leaders. According to Bryant, green bacteria are a group of organisms that generally live in extremely low-light environments, such as in light-deprived regions of hot springs and at depths of 100 meters in the Black Sea. The bacteria contain structures called chlorosomes, which contain up to 250,000 chlorophylls. "The ability to capture light energy and rapidly deliver it to where it needs to go is essential to these bacteria, some of which see only a few photons of light per chlorophyll per day." See full article

Solar Panels In Space

Here is some interesting techno-thinking:

The fact that greenhouse gases capture the sun's refected heat as it drifts back to space and warms Planet Earth has gotten people thinking about ways to intercept the sun as it enters the atmosphere. Sometimes this is to block its rays and sometimes its to beam the captured energy down in a more concetrated form.

Discovery Magazine reports:

"By 2016, the energy powering some California homes may come from solar panels orbiting the planet. California’s largest electric utility has announced plans to purchase energy from Solaren Corp., a startup company that hopes to launch the first commercial test of space solar power. Solaren would generate the power using solar panels in Earth orbit and convert it to radio-frequency transmissions that would be beamed down to a receiving station in Fresno…."" See Full Article

What Role Climate Technology?

Many people hope there might be a quick cure for the global warming problem. Not likely or even possible. No matter what, solving the global climate crisis will require a combination of measures starting with using less energy and changing many long-held, wasteful habits.

But keeping tabs on those climate techno-dreams out there can be fun. There are some wild ideas being tossed around such as putting mirrors into orbit around the planet, floating windmills out at sea, vacuuming CO2 from the air and more.

Here we will report on some of the most sensible global warming techno-fixes being developed (and someof the wackiest) and discuss their pros and cons.

Stay tuned.