Giving Waste Water the Power to Clean Itself
A novel form of renewable energy can generate electricity from waste-water treatment
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How to Extract Gas Responsibly
Failing to reduce methane leaks from fracking largely eliminates the environmental advantage of natural gas over coal. Yet If the leaks are reduced to 1 percent, the decrease in greenhouse gases jumps to 14 percent.
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U.S. Puts Clean Energy on the Fast Track
Department Of Energy chief Steven Chu says research will reshape the future of energy, enabling electricity grids that run on renewable energy and batteries and vehicles that are both more efficient and powerful.
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Scientists Image Charge Distribution Within Single Molecule
IBM scientists were able to measure for the first time how charge is distributed within a single molecule. This achievement will enable fundamental scientific insights into single-molecule switching and bond formation between atoms and molecules. Furthermore, it introduces the possibility of imaging the charge distribution within functional molecular structures, which hold great promise for future…
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Space Superbugs Eyed As New Fuel Cell Power Source
A U.K.-based research team has created a fuel cell that can power a lightbulb, with the aid of a high flying bacteria found in the Earth’s atmosphere. Bacterially-run fuel cells may provide a cheap, portable source of energy for villages without electricity and they’re a potential source of green, nearly emissions-free energy for the future….
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Energy Poverty Creating Respiratory Disease Epidemic
Limited access to clean sources of energy, known as energy poverty, makes nearly half the world’s population reliant on burning wood, animal waste, coal or charcoal to cook. This leads to severe respiratory diseases that kill roughly two million people worldwide each year. It is often women and children who suffer the most from indoor…
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In China, Electric Cars Are More Polluting than Gas Guzzlers
It turns out that the use of electric vehicles may not be that clean after all, particularly in the world’s most populated country, China. In a recent study, Christopher Cherry, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at University of Tennessee, and his colleagues found that in terms of air pollution, electric vehicles were…
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Hurricanes Pose Risk to Offshore Wind Farms
When an oncoming hurricane curves offshore — as most do — we usually breathe a sigh of relief. But soon, those offshore storms might give us something more to worry about. Offshore hurricanes could demolish half the turbines in proposed wind farms just off the USA’s coastlines, according to a recent study in the Proceedings…
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Air Sampling Reveals High Methane Emissions from Natural Gas Field
When US government scientists began sampling the air from a tower north of Denver, Colorado, they expected urban smog–but not strong whiffs of what looked like natural gas. They eventually linked the mysterious pollution to a nearby natural-gas field, and their investigation has now produced the first hard evidence that the cleanest-burning fossil fuel might…
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The Greening of the Super Bowl
The National Football League and the Indianapolis Super Bowl XLVI Host Committee are going green. They have selected Green Mountain Energy to provide renewable energy credits (RECs) equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions produced by the electricity to power the event. Green Mountain will provide 15,000 megawatt hours worth of RECs generated at wind farms…