Green Friendly – Page 7

Electric Vehicles, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News, United Parcel Service

Heavy-duty trucks and buses must go electric, says new report

December 20, 2019

The electrification of trucks and buses needs to be accelerated, says a new report released yesterday by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

The UCS report, titled “Ready for Work: Now Is the Time for Heavy-Duty Electric Vehicles,” states that there are currently about 28 million trucks and buses in the US, or 10% of all vehicles. They are responsible for 28% of total carbon emissions in the transportation sector.

Electric trucks, on the other hand, emit 44% to 79% less emissions than diesel trucks, depending on the type of vehicle. They have zero tailpipe emissions. Further, the ownership costs can be cheaper.

Fuel and maintenance savings can offset the higher upfront costs of heavy-duty electric vehicles, making them cheaper than a diesel or natural gas vehicle over the life of a vehicle.

Continue reading… “Heavy-duty trucks and buses must go electric, says new report”

2020 Predictions, Energy, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News

5 emerging energy technologies to watch out for in 2020

December 12, 2019

2019 was a year of consolidation rather than breakthroughs for clean energy technologies. Will 2020 be different?

This year will likely be remembered as a period of technology consolidation rather than breakthrough innovation in the energy industry. Emerging industries such as offshore wind and lithium-ion battery storage have gone from strength to strength.

Meanwhile, more novel technologies such as energy blockchains and flow batteries have been relatively quiet this year.

In some respects, this is no bad thing. It signals that many low-carbon grid technologies are maturing and achieving the scale needed to compete with fossil-fuel generation. And there is still plenty of scope for innovation in maturing sectors.

In the battery market, for example, “the supply chain is constantly battling disruptions resulting from limited mineral supply,” said Lindsay Gorrill, CEO at the energy storage firm Kore Power.

Continue reading… “5 emerging energy technologies to watch out for in 2020”

Great New Product, Green Friendly, Home Technology, Science & Technology News

New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water

November 25, 2019

Penn State researchers have developed a method that dramatically reduces the amount of water needed to flush a conventional toilet, which usually requires 6 liters. Credit: Wong Laboratory for Nature Inspired Engineering, Penn State

Every day, more than 141 billion liters of water are used solely to flush toilets. With millions of global citizens experiencing water scarcity, what if that amount could be reduced by 50%?

The possibility may exist through research conducted at Penn State, released today (Nov. 18) in Nature Sustainability.

“Our team has developed a robust bio-inspired, liquid, sludge- and bacteria-repellent coating that can essentially make a toilet self-cleaning,” said Tak-Sing Wong, Wormley Early Career Professor of Engineering and associate professor of mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering.

In the Wong Laboratory for Nature Inspired Engineering, housed within the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Materials Research Institute, researchers have developed a method that dramatically reduces the amount of water needed to flush a conventional toilet, which usually requires 6 liters.

Continue reading… “New, slippery toilet coating provides cleaner flushing, saves water”

Electric Vehicles, Environment, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News, Transportation

Large ‘Tesla ships’ all-electric container barges are launching this autumn

November 23, 2019

The Dutch company Port-Liner is building two giant all-electric barges dubbed the ‘Tesla ships‘. The company announced that the vessels will be ready by this autumn and will be inaugurated by sailing the Wilhelmina canal in the Netherlands.

The 100 million-euro project supported by a €7m subsidy from the European Union is expected to have a significant impact on local transport between the ports of Amsterdam, Antwerp, and Rotterdam.

Continue reading… “Large ‘Tesla ships’ all-electric container barges are launching this autumn”

Energy, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News, Solar Energy, Solar Power

A new floating solar farm shows that renewables can be easy

November 15, 2019

The Sekdoorn floating solar farm in the Netherlands is completed after a record six weeks of work. This is the fastest construction speed ever for the German company specialized in the renewables sector BayWa r.e., who worked together with its Dutch partner GroenLeven to build the power plant.

The construction was done in only six weeks and the plant can power 4,000 households.

The solar farm will have a yearly energy yield of 13.330 MWh, saving around 6,500 tons of CO2 emissions a year and powering the equivalent of 4,000 households.

Floating solar power plants are what the name suggests, solar panels mounted on a structure that floats on a body of water. The advantage is that they reduce land requirements because they can be installed in industrial pools, drinking water reservoirs and small lakes.

Continue reading… “A new floating solar farm shows that renewables can be easy”

Architecture, Engineering, Green Friendly, Inventions, Science & Technology News

Porous polymer coatings dynamically control light and heat

November 10, 2019

The porous polymer coatings, which switch from white to transparent when wetted, can be put into plastic enclosures to make panels that control light and temperatures of buildings. Credit: Jyotirmoy Mandal/Columbia Engineering

Buildings devote more than 30% of their energy use to heating, cooling, and lighting systems. Passive designs such as cool roof paints have gone a long way toward reducing this usage, and its impact on the environment and climate, but they have one key limitation—they are usually static, and thus not responsive to daily or seasonal changes.

Columbia Engineering researchers have developed porous polymer coatings (PPCs) that enable inexpensive and scalable ways to control light and heat in buildings. They took advantage of the optical switchability of PPCs in the solar wavelengths to regulate solar heating and daylighting, and extended the concept to thermal infrared wavelengths to modulate heat radiated by objects. Their work is published on October 21, 2019 by Joule.

Continue reading… “Porous polymer coatings dynamically control light and heat”

Batteries, Energy, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News, Solar Energy, Wind Power

How cheap must batteries get for renewables to compete with fossil fuels?

November 4, 2019

Production of lithium batteries for environmentally friendly electric cars future of energy

While solar and wind power are rapidly becoming cost-competitive with fossil fuels in areas with lots of sun and wind, they still can’t provide the 24/7 power we’ve become used to. At present, that’s not big a problem because the grid still features plenty of fossil fuel plants that can provide constant baseload or ramp up to meet surges in demand.

But there’s broad agreement that we need to dramatically decarbonize our energy supplies if we’re going to avoid irreversible damage to the climate. That will mean getting rid of the bulk of on-demand, carbon-intensive power plants we currently rely on to manage our grid.

Alternatives include expanding transmission infrastructure to shuttle power from areas where the wind is blowing to areas where it isn’t, or managing demand using financial incentive to get people to use less energy during peak hours. But most promising is pairing renewable energy with energy storage to build up reserves for when the sun stops shining.

The approach is less complicated than trying to redesign the grid, say the authors of a new paper in <emJoule, but also makes it possible to shift much more power around than demand management. A key question that hasn’t been comprehensively dealt with, though, is how cheap energy storage needs to get to make this feasible.

Continue reading… “How cheap must batteries get for renewables to compete with fossil fuels?”

Engineering, Environment, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News

In this “biorecycling” factory, enzymes perfectly break down plastic so it can be used again

October 27, 2019

In this “biorecycling” factory, enzymes perfectly break down plastic so it can be used again

The process lets any plastic—say a polyester shirt—be recycled into any other plastic (like a clear water bottle). It could fundamentally change the market for recycling.

Inside a bioreactor in the laboratory of the France-based startup Carbios, pulverized PET plastic waste—the kind of plastic found in drink bottles and polyester clothing—is mixed with water and enzymes, heated up, and churned. In a matter of hours, the enzymes decompose the plastic into the material’s basic building blocks, called monomers, which can then be separated, purified, and used to make new plastic that’s identical to virgin material. Later this year, the company will begin construction on its first demonstration recycling plant.

“Our process can use any kind of PET waste to manufacture any kind of PET object,” says Martin Stephan, the company’s deputy CEO. It’s a process that could happen in an infinite loop: Unlike traditional recycling, which degrades materials each time you do it, this type of “biorecycling” can happen repeatedly without a loss in quality. A new transparent water bottle made this way will look and perform like one made from oil, even if the source was a mixture of old clothing and dirty plastic food trays. “The final product will be the same quality as petrochemical PET,” Stephan says.

Continue reading… “In this “biorecycling” factory, enzymes perfectly break down plastic so it can be used again”

3D Printer, Green Friendly, Record Breaker, Science & Technology News

Watch the world’s largest 3D-printer spit out a 25 foot boat

October 25, 2019

…and how this is really about using wood to replace metal

If you’re shopping for a 3D printer, a key consideration is bed size; what’s the largest object you’d realistically need to print?

For the University of Maine’s Advanced Structures and Composites Center, size limitations aren’t so much of an issue. That’s because they’ve got a gantry-style 3D printer that can spit out pieces that are 22×100.

Twenty-two by 100 feet. And ten feet tall.

Continue reading… “Watch the world’s largest 3D-printer spit out a 25 foot boat”

Green Friendly, Science & Technology News, Shopping, Solar Energy, Wind Power

IKEA will produce more energy than it consumes by 2020

October 2, 2019

It hopes to be ‘climate positive’ by 2030.

Many companies are pouring money into renewable energy, but how many can say they’re producing more than they need? IKEA thinks it will, at least. Its holding company Ingka revealed that IKEA will generate more renewable energy before the end of 2019 than the energy its stores use. The firm only expected to draw even by 2020. The furniture chain added that it had invested about $2.8 billion in solar and wind energy over the past decade, and told Reuters that it intended to continue funding that renewable tech, including two stakes in American solar farms this week.

The retailer expects to offer home solar panels in stores across all its markets in 2025. Ultimately, it plans to be climate-positive (reducing more emissions than it puts out) by 2030.

IKEA’s timing isn’t a coincidence. Like Google, Amazon and other companies, it’s using both the Global Climate Strike and the UN’s Climate Action Summit to build goodwill and avoid controversy. This isn’t a selfless act. With that said, the move could illustrate the next step for companies hoping to burnish their ecological credentials. Instead of merely striving for neutrality, more companies might try to counter the effects of climate change. There’s no guarantee they’ll act in a timely fashion, but it might be more a question of “when” than “if.”

Via Engadget.com

Energy, Engineering, Green Friendly, New Inventions, Science & Technology News

This “Anti-solar panel” could generate power from the darkness

October 2, 2019

A new poll confirms that the majority of constituents in the United States are still opposed to president Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement, as well as his overall views on climate change. According to reporting by Time Magazine, “while the administration has rolled back regulations to cut emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide from power and industrial plants and pushed for more coal use, wide shares of Americans say they want just the opposite, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.”

Meanwhile, the scientific community continues to release studies showing that the need to address the threat posed by global warming is greater than ever and growing more dire all the time. At the end of last year, the premiere global authority on the state of global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released a report showing that compiled data and research indicates that in order to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial averages this century, we will have to cut global carbon emissions by 45 percent by 2030 and down to zero by the middle of the century.

This is going to be extraordinarily difficult to do with just renewable resources. As Vox reports, explaining the tension between whether going 100 percent renewable is really an option, “at the heart of the debate is the simple fact that the two biggest sources of renewable energy — wind and solar power — are ‘variable.’ They come and go with the weather and time of day. They are not ‘dispatchable,’ which means they cannot be turned on and off, or up and down, according to the grid’s needs. They don’t adjust to the grid; the grid adjusts to them.

Continue reading… “This “Anti-solar panel” could generate power from the darkness”

drones, Environment, Green Friendly, Plant Life, Science & Technology News

These tree-planting drones are firing ‘seed missiles’ into the ground. Less than a year later, they’re already 20 inches tall.

October 1, 2019

Technology is the single greatest contributor to climate change but it may also soon be used to offset the damage we’ve done to our planet since the Industrial Age began.

In September 2018, a project in Myanmar used drones to fire “seed missiles” into remote areas of the country where trees were not growing. Less than a year later, thousands of those seed missiles have sprouted into 20-inch mangrove saplings that could literally be a case study in how technology can be used to innovate our way out of the climate change crisis.

“We now have a case confirmed of what species we can plant and in what conditions,” Irina Fedorenko, co-founder of Biocarbon Engineering, told Fast Company. “We are now ready to scale up our planting and replicate this success.”

Continue reading… “These tree-planting drones are firing ‘seed missiles’ into the ground. Less than a year later, they’re already 20 inches tall.”