Homely Scientist

Nice to start off the week with some good news:
The wind power industry made big strides last year, according to a Worldwatch Institute report released late Thursday.
15,200 megawatts of new wind turbines were installed around the world last year, representing a 26 percent jump in global wind power capacity, according to the study.
By year’s end, total wind power capacity exceeded 74,200 megawatts, enough to offset 43 million tons of carbon dioxide, the institute said. Source:Study: Wind power soared in 2006 | Tech news blog – CNET News.com

Large-scale deployment and adoption of any alternative energy is the key.  Once it hits …read more

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 Microsoft is in the midst of building a new data centre.  Building, of course, means trucks and in this case trucks of cement.  One problem, when those trucks use petroleum diesel, they spew all kinds of garbage into the air.  Those chemicals and particles aren’t just bad for the planet in the long term they are bad for people in the short term.  Solution to the potential workplace hazard?  Biodiesel!
The construction company working on the new data centers approached Steve Verhey, the chief executive of Central Washington Biodiesel, with a problem earlier this year, he said. The company had built …read more

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How would you like to have a device that generates electricity just from the vibrations that are all around us?  How about if this device were smaller enough to be used in lots of small devices?  Making things like wireless transmitters small, cheap, and self-powered?  It’s a reality now:
The trick with this generator is efficiency: Its vibrating magnets are 10 times better at generating current than other machines of this sort. The obvious use for this is in wireless sensors, that currently use batteries that need to be replaced, and therefore must be located in accessible spots. With a vibration …read more

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Need a daily dose of ideas to help save energy (and the planet…but that is such a huge concept, too distant for many…stick to stuff closer to home and you)?  Check out LiveEarth’s Twitter feed:
Shading windows. It can lower your home’s temperature and reduce your cooling costs by 30%. Source: Twitter / LiveEarth070707
This tip is especially good right now as the hottest part of the summer is coming our way in the Northern Hemisphere (the Dog Day … which are named such because Sirius the Dog Star become visible this time of year).  Another great one is to put a …read more

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 When I’m ranting and raving about alternative energy and lauding companies like Google, I talk about being able to feed into the system and get credit for it.  Looks like the Province of Ontario is finally getting it:
One of the key elements in the incentive programs is a solar “feed-in” tariff that pays people and organizations with solar panels cash for any electricity they feed into the grid. In the United States, utilities offer credits for solar power; a homeowner or business can reduce their electricity bill with these credits, but at best end up owing nothing to the utility.
With …read more

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The big announcement from Google a while ago that they were going to cover the roofs of Googleplex with solar panels has come to pass:
It’ll still be quite a while before that free electricity offsets the initial cost of the system, but at least the panels have earned Google a little positive PR.  The Earth Times Online, for example, states, “The Google system is also now the largest solar installation on any corporate campus in the United States.”
To help people grasp the size of this development, Google has even created a new performance monitoring site; I’m told that, over …read more

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What am I nuts?  Nope, while you might scratch your head at this, read what this C|Net article wraps up with:
With an infrastructure already in place due to commercial trucks never leaving the diesel fold, diesel seems like an obvious solution to help fulfill automakers’ immediate needs–to sell more vehicles while meeting emissions standards and consumer demand to save on fuel.
Today’s diesel engines and diesel fuel itself have come a long way. Advances in turbocharging and fuel injection have boosted performance. New kinds of particle traps and low sulfur diesel fuel have reduced the emissions and soot-producing byproducts. Source: And the …read more

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