Battery technology has lagged behind in terms of advancement.  There are two main hindrances with batteries…storage capacity and wear.  We have found some interesting alternatives to batteries, but the old double a  is going to be hard to replace in form, and until there are some real breakthroughs we might have to hold on to our dreams of phones and laptops with super fast processors.  However, before you wake up, a company has come through with an innovation in the wear category.

Normally plastics are not a part of the green equation.  They cause massive amounts of pollution to manufacture, and if not disposed of properly, can cause vast areas of our oceans to be covered in trash.  However, Dr. Jeffrey P. Youngblood of Purdue University has been working on new transparent plastic coatings that may eliminate the need for detergents and soaps.  The hope is that one could just leave dishes in water and they would clean themselves.  If commercialized, this could have a huge impact on the amount of phosphates entering our marine ecosystems.

Chemicals are a less than desirable way to treat water, but it is a necessary evil so that we all have clean drinking water.  However, Cavitation Technologies, Inc. has come up with a solution that uses mechanical and electrical systems to destroy pathogens in our water supply without the use of any chemicals.  Enter the CaviGulator.

A set of complex reactions based on kinetic energy, chemical, electro-chemical, and hydrodynamic principles drives the cleaning process.  This process is

One way to make our cities more energy efficient is to use the energy we already use and make it go further.  That is the concept behind Turbine Light.  It uses the wind generated by cars and trucks to power the lights and recycles that energy used to produce more energy to light the highways.  It is a good idea, but there are a few issues with this concept.

One problem with hybrid cars is that they look like hybrid cars.  Perhaps something that will help to bridge the aesthetic gap between what is green and what is gas could be the new Volkswagon NCC Hybrid Coupe Concept that was unveiled at the 2010 Detroit Auto Show.  This car, although not perfect, helps to shed the “green cars are ugly” image with aggressive styling and smart technology.

Teenagers in a unlikely neighborhood attending West Philadelphia High School Academy for Automotive and Mechanical Engineering have built a hybrid that will go 0-60 mph in less than 4 seconds and get over 60 mpg.  They have also come up with an innovative, yet logical way to achieve these astounding statistics.  

A company called FloDesign has created an all new wind turbine based on technology found in jet engines.  They claim that these new turbines are 3-4 times more efficient, require less space, and can operate at higher speeds than the traditional wind-mill style turbines we see installed today.

Traditional wind turbines create a wake effect much like a wake seen behind a boat.  This causes the turbines behind the front line to be less effective than the ones behind it.  Turbines after the first row tend to produce 20-30% less power.  This is due to the fact that the turbines cannot dynamically move as winds change direction.

Last year we brought you news about Pacific Gas & Electric using compressed air energy storage to solve energy needs.  Now it seems Southwest Solar Technologies is taking it a step further.  Instead of just using wind turbines, it will combine, wind, solar, and other renewable energy resources to make renewable energy grid ready.

If you are not familiar with the technology, it basically uses off peak and surplus energy to power giant compressors that will fill salt caverns with air.  When power is at a greater demand than what is being produced, or in the case of solar, the renewable energy is not available, it will use the air pressure in the caverns to power the generators to produce electricity.

Traditional power plants like a 110 MW plant in McIntosh, Alabama have used this technology successfully for 16 years.  It seems the transition to a renewable source would be the next logical evolution in renewable energy.

via eere.energy.gov, inhabitat, swsolartech.com

If you want to get people excited about something there are a few things people can say to create a buzz.  Tax credit, free, and get more money.  It just so happens that all three of these things are involved when talking about New South Wales Solar Bonus Scheme.  This goes to show how serious the people of New South Wales are about helping the environment.

The government will give you a free quote and pay you to have solar in your home.  If worked out correctly the solar panels and installation could be free, and they get to use the solar energy so it lowers bills.  The max size that qualifies for the tax credit is 10 kilowatts, which is much more than any one house will use.

All along we have all heard rumors about vast areas of floating garbage in our oceans, particularly with problematic plastics in the area officially known as the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone. But, until you see the images of sea turtles tangled in plastic shopping bags and dolphins dodging discarded plastic toys and containers in the North Pacific Gyre, it is hard to grasp just how vast and complicated this issue has become.

Worldwide, bee populations have been mysteriously in decline.  This of course is big trouble, not just for the production of honey, but for the ecosystem as a whole.  As you probably have learned in school, bees are an integral part of a plant’s life cycle in being able to cross pollinate.

French officials have discovered that there is an invasion of bee-eating Chinese hornets, Vespa veluntina that may be causing bee colony collapse.  It only takes a few hornets to wipe out an entire bee hive.  The hornets first kill all the bees and then proceed to eat the honey and feed the bee larvae to their young.

As we all know drinking water is a precious thing.  Its such a shame that so much of it goes down the drain without it even entering our body.  I am pretty sure that I am conscious of it because my parents strived for an efficient lifestyle (turn off the lights if you are not in the room…turn off the tv if you are not watching it…etc…)  So here are some tips to save water starting today.

1.  Many people leave the water running when doing the dishes.  This is not necessary.  This is how I do the dishes.  I turn the water on about 1/4 to 1/3 of full blast.  During this time, I scour the dining ware.  Then I wash a small sized

Chemical Engineers at Oregon State University have come up w/ a way to deposit a “nanostructure film” on a multitude of surfaces.  The film will essentially make solar cells less reflective and able to absorb more photons for conversion of light to energy.  This new technology will enable solar cells to perform better at a lower price.  What makes this technology even more convenient is that it can be applied on site in a dispenser’s office.  No special manufacturing process is needed.

Technology in chips increases regularly, but for the average user, there is no need to pay the high dollar for the newest, fastest chip.  Here are some decent specs for a computer.

Dell Lattitude

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz, 3M L2 Cache, 1066FSB

Screen Size: 14.1″

Memory: 4 GB DDR 2 SDRAM 800MHz (2 DIMMs)

(A) Heating one side of a conductive rod causes heated electrons to move to the other end, creating a voltage. (B) Heating one side of a magnetized nickel-iron rod creates a “spin voltage,” with spin-up and spin-down electrons on opposite ends. Image credit: (c)2008 Nature.

Eiji Saitoh a physicist at Keio University in Yokohama, Japan, and his colleagues have published their results in a recent issue of Nature. As they explain, the term “spin Seebeck effect” comes from the original Seebeck effect, which is a thermoelectric phenomenon discovered by Thomas Johann Seebeck in the 1800s. The Seebeck effect states that, heating one side of a conducting rod causes electrons at that end to heat up and move toward the cooler side, creating a voltage.