'Fuel battery' could take cars beyond petrol

'Fuel battery' could take cars beyond petrol - tech - 25 July 2008 - New Scientist Tech: "Batteries produce electricity from a closed chemical system that is eventually exhausted. Fuel cells use a constant supply of fuel, so they are continually topped up. Licht's cell has features of each.
Its negative electrode, or anode, is made from vanadium boride, which serves double-duty as a fuel too. But unlike the flowing fuel of a fuel cell, the material is held internally, like the anode material of a battery.
The vanadium boride reacts with a constant stream of oxygen, as in a fuel cell, provided by the positive electrode, or cathode. This brings in a supply of air from outside.
The cell has a theoretical energy capacity of 27 kilowatt hours per litre, compared to 9.7 kilowatt hours per litre for gasoline. But both approaches are limited by practical factors to smaller figures.
Licht says his new system would likely have a practical energy capacity of around 5 kilowatt hours per litre. 'But that's two-fold higher than the practical storage capacity of gasoline,' he says."

Solar so good for our house

Worth looking at, this: Solar so good for our house | Money | The GuardianHere's the pleasant surprise; "We, a family of four, have produced 92% of our electricity usage from the roof of a century-old terraced house in south-east London - laying to rest the idea that Britain is not sunny enough for solar power. It also disproves any suggestion this sort of technology only works in state-of-the-art, modern detached houses.
Not only will we not pay for any electricity, we should get a rebate of about £50 once a payment from the so-called renewables obligation (RO) scheme, which rewards microgeneration schemes with cash, is included."
This at rates which could see the initial sum repaid within about 15 years -depending on electricity prices. Of course this was a subsidised initial outlay. So as the writer says,

I received a 50% grant for the system from the government's low-carbon buildings programme - the total cost of buying and installing the panels was £17,000. Unfortunately, the government is so pathetic at supporting low-carbon technologies that it last year cut the maximum grant to £2,500 because the scheme was so popular. As a result, demand has collapsed to the extent that the small company that fitted my system has gone out of business.
That means your return on a system purchased now will be lower - little more than 3% for one like mine this year, rising to close on 4% when the RO payments increase next year. Still, 4% that is not taxable is comparable to a building society account that you do pay tax on.

And there is a really interesting reflection on use of electricity, which at first seems counter-intuitive, but as I think about my reactions I think this might be true for many.

You might think generating your own power would make you relaxed about leaving lights on or the TV on standby. But the contrary is true. It has woken us all up to the realities of energy use. The computer, TV, lights, everything, we now turn off at the wall when they are not in use. We have some of those remote control switches to turn off wall sockets that are hard to get to. In future when we go on holiday, we will empty the fridge and freezer and switch them off. The challenge now is to raise that 92% figure to 100%.

Electronics manufacturers; greenest and worst

A guide to who seems to be the best and the worst, courtesy of Greenpeace. How the companies line up | Greenpeace International

Those horizontal wind turbines just got more feasible

What I liked about this article is that it explains in simple terms what the engineering difficulties have been for this family of wind turbines.
Here' the bit that draws me in:

It may resemble a giant rotary washing line, but it might just help Britain meet its hugely ambitious new wind energy targets. At least that's the claim of the company developing a novel "vertical axis" wind turbine dubbed the Aerogenerator.

The 144-metre high V-shaped structure would be mounted offshore and capable of generating up to 9 megawatts of electricity, roughly three times as much power as a conventional turbine of equivalent size. Switching to such a design could ensure that thousands fewer turbines would be needed in order to meet the government's new wind power target, says Theo Bird, founder of Windpower, the Blyth-based firm behind the new turbine.

As unique as it may sound, the Aerogenerator is in fact just the latest addition to a family of wind turbines that generate power through a rotating vertical shaft as opposed to the horizontal shafts of the more familiar windmill design.

Portugal gambles on 'sea snakes' providing an energy boost

"Portugal is poised to open what will be the world's first commercial wave farm ... The Pelamis machines, named after the Latin for sea snake and developed by a Scottish company that leads the world in one of the newest renewable energy fields, are a series of red tubes, each about the size of a small commuter train, linked together, and pointed in the direction of the waves. The waves travel down the tubes, causing them to bob up and down, and a hydraulic system harnesses this movement to generate electricity."
Hurrah for Portugal. Why aren't the UK there as the first? Oh yes: we're too busy pouring research and development money down the plug-hole of nuclear power to invest in truly green energy.
Portugal gambles on 'sea snakes' providing an energy boost | Environment | The Guardian:

How To Green Your Electronics

How To Green Your Electronics (TreeHugger): "In this guide we’ll tell you how to stop wasted energy, what gizmos are greener than others, and what to do about e-waste and electronics recycling. We’ll also show you some of the newest green gadgets coming over the horizon."

Power-generating buoys shelter in the deep

A new kind of generating buoy which sits beneath the storm levels at c.50m. Looks hopeful and is being developed by a British firm and tested offshore in Scotland.

'A town with 55,000 inhabitants would need half a square kilometre of seabed covered with 100 buoys to power it,' says Grey.
He adds that they could be effective in the North Atlantic, from Scotland down to Portugal, along the Pacific US shoreline, from San Francisco in the US up to Vancouver in Canada, along the coast of Chile, and even in South Africa and New Zealand.
But calmer seas, such as the Mediterranean do not have enough wave height to pump the buoy.

Power-generating buoys shelter in the deep - earth - 14 June 2007 - New Scientist Environment:

New way to split water into H and O

Could be significant, because it would appear to be quick and scalable.

"We put these films in water and they promote some reactions that split water into hydrogen and oxygen," said Biswas. "We can use any oxide materials such as titanium dioxide, tungsten oxide and iron oxide in nanostructures sandwiched together that make very compact structures. The process is direct and takes only a few minutes to fabricate. More important, these processes can be scaled up to produce larger structures in a very cost effective manner in atmospheric pressure processes."

ScienceDaily: Solar Power Splits Water Into Hydrogen And Oxygen Using Unique Method

Technorati Tags: water, catalysis, solar, hydrogen

Wind power for urban areas

I keep finding articles on wind power from machines that are not windmill shaped. How long before we see some really serious use of these kinds of designs? Or is there something about them that really is unsuitable? Have a look and make up your own mind

Turbulent flow is the enemy of traditional turbines. How about a non-traditional turbine?

Check out this site too.
Climate Change Action

Technorati Tags: wind, urban, design

fridge gadget that could slash greenhouse emissions

The patented cube mimics food and is designed to fit around a fridge's temperature sensor, which usually measures the temperature of the circulating air.
Because air heats up much more quickly than yoghurt, milk or whatever else is stored inside, this makes the fridge work harder than necessary. With the cube fitted, the fridge responds only to the temperature of the food, which means it clicks on and off less often as the door is open and closed.

Technorati Tags: gadget, fridge, efficiency, CO2, electricity