Engineers at the German Fraunhofer Institute have designed a water collector that can extract water from desert air, just like on Dune!
The principle of the process… hygroscopic brine – saline solution which absorbs moisture – runs down a tower-shaped unit and absorbs water from the air. It is then sucked into a tank a few meters off the ground in which a vacuum prevails. Energy from solar collectors heats up the brine, which is diluted by the water it has absorbed. Because of the vacuum, the boiling point of the liquid is lower than it would be under normal atmospheric pressure… The evaporated, non-saline water is condensed and runs down through a completely filled tube in a controlled manner. The gravity of this water column continuously produces the vacuum and so a vacuum pump is not needed. The reconcentrated brine runs down the tower surface again to absorb moisture from the air.
The annual Manchester Summit has newly flagged the 20 best projects directed at ameliorating global warming. They range from the incremental to the bizarre (my ranking)…
- coaching consumers on lifestyle changes to reduce carbon footprint
- changing economic goal from GDP to some better measure of welfare
- “rocket” stoves for 3rd world cut timber use, pollution, cooking time
- universal access to family planning services
- solar panel rollout on domestic and commercial roofs
- “carbon mortgages” to finance addition of renewable power to homes
- capturing investor interest by issuing semi-government “energy bonds”
- “hot dry rock” geothermal produce 24/7 renewable base load
- marine current turbines produce cyclical but predictable base load
- ceramic fuel cells to produce domestic heat and electricity from natural gas
- grazing animals nomadically allowing grassland to regenerate
- leasing low-emission cars like the RiverSimple hydrogen vehicle
- “oxyfuel” and co-fired wood and coal for carbon-negative power plants
- converting waste to charcoal – “biochar” – and then burying it
- mirror arrays concentrating solar; 140km squared equals EU power needs
- sailing ships spraying mist (pdf) to seed stratocumulus clouds at sea
- a liquid-fuel thorium reactor industry – safer and cleaner than uranium
- artificial photosynthesis to turn CO2 to methanol liquid fuel using algae
- mid-ocean harvesting and digestion of kelp forests
- dumping lime into oceans to absorb more CO2
CNET reports on a push for a super-conducting grid across the USA to distribute new power sources from remote areas, like wind farms in the Oklahoma panhandle, to urban centres.
Direct current superconductor cables are also far more efficient because there is minimal loss during transmission–only three percent. Losses today during transmission and distribution can be more than 10 percent of the energy generated (pdf)… there are few installations of superconductor cables now in the U.S. for relatively short distances, a sign that utilities are more comfortable with using alternatives to aluminum or copper lines. But a long-haul direct current superconductor line is a big step… the cables would be placed underground, as gas pipelines are, and have nitrogen cooling stations every seven or eight miles…
A new solar-powered aircraft able to stay aloft through the night is nearing flight tests in Europe.
After further refinements on the ground, the Solar Impulse is scheduled to make its first test flights by the end of 2009. The first flight will see the plane launch from its current home at the Dubendorf airport; the second will see it take off from the Payerne air base less than two hours away… The aircraft will then take its first night test flight in 2010 to see if it can stay in the air for a 36-hour day-night-day cycle running solely on battery power without any fuel.
2008 was the first year that new power generation investment in renewables was greater than investment in fossil-fueled technologies…
$140-billion went into renewables worldwide in 2008, while $110-billion went into fossil fuels.
The winner of this year’s US high school science prize managed to isolate a strain of yeast bacteria that is remarkably efficient at consuming plastic.
Starting with a common yeast solution, feeding the yeast bits of plastic and selecting for those that munched a little, over time a strain was developed that degrades 40% of the plastic in only 6 weeks.
This is not good news. via SAR.
Reconstruction of sea levels over the past half-million years, based on Antarctic ice core records, implies that even if we were able to stop putting CO2 in the air today – and we’re not – we are already committed to a sea level rise of about 25 meters (80 feet). This estimate agrees with predictions based on data from the Middle Pliocene, 3.5 million years ago when CO2 levels were at today’s level.
Yucca Mountain was always a political, not a technical, solution; but it appears that science is having a come-back.
The area [Yucca] is seismically and volcanically active. More significantly, the repository would have an oxidizing environment — meaning materials there would be exposed to free oxygen in the air. Neither spent nuclear fuel nor canister materials are stable in such an environment in the presence of water… There’s no historical example showing that a lack of a plan for nuclear waste will halt the progress of nuclear energy… Within the next five years, almost every nuclear power plant will have dry-cask storage: the waste will be moved from storage pools to outdoor concrete-and-steel casks inside plant security perimeters. As an interim solution, that’s quite safe. But eventually the casks will corrode and break down and release radioactive material into the environment, though it will probably take hundreds of years. That’s why we need geological storage… We should set aside something on the order of a few decades to get this right. It will cost billions, but that’s part of the price of nuclear power.
Coda Automotive, a startup based in Santa Monica, CA, is attempting to be one of the first companies to sell a highway-capable electric sedan to the general public in the United States.
The car will have a range of 100 miles and will cost $45,000, although federal and state government incentives will bring the cost down to the mid-$30,000 range… The car will be built by the Chinese automaker Hafei, which makes about 200,000 vehicles a year. The electric sedan is a version of one that Hafei already makes, but it’s modified to use an electric motor and batteries instead of a gas engine… Coda hopes to distinguish itself with its battery system, which it developed in cooperation with Tianjin Lishen, a major lithium-ion battery maker based in China, and other companies that specialize in different aspects of the battery system, such as the electronic controls… Coda’s first battery packs will store about 34 kilowatt-hours of electricity and will be made up of 728 battery cells with lithium iron phosphate battery electrodes, which are known to be safer than conventional lithium-ion electrodes…
What auto recession? Prius remains oversubscribed, but the “new” GM will re-launch the Camaro.
The Prius plant has brought back overtime — a rarity these days, given Japan’s weak economy — and recruited workers from Toyota factories across the country… The company sold 110,000 Priuses in Japan in May — and there is a waiting list of several months… Toyota devotes three manufacturing lines in Japan to the Prius — two at Tsutsumi, and another at a subsidiary assembler. At full capacity, the two plants are able to make about 50,000 Prius cars a month, Toyota executives say, about 1.5 times the pace needed to meet its global sales target of 400,000 units…