Federal researchers have created a new tool to clean up oil spills by tinkering with the kind of foam found in seat cushions.
The modified foam can soak up oil floating on water and lurking below the surface, and then can be repeatedly wrung out and reused, the researchers say.
It “just bounces back like a kitchen sponge,” said co-inventor Seth Darling, a scientist at the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago.
Continue reading… “Scientists tweak seat cushion material to clean oil spills”
You probably do some form of recycling if you live in the U.S. You probably separate paper from plastic and glass and metal. You rinse the bottles and cans, and you might put food scraps in a container destined for a composting facility. As you sort everything into the right bins, you probably assume that recycling is helping your community and protecting the environment. But is it? Are you in fact wasting your time?
Pollution levels decrease and the health of people improves when cities plant trees. Studies show that America’s trees save thousands of lives a year, mainly by preventing breathing-related problems (they also make you feel like you have more money, if you’re into that sort of thing).
A new study suggests that you should probably count the number of trees on the block, the next time you are hunting for a house or apartment. Continue reading… “Feeling 7 years younger and $10,000 richer by living near a lot of trees?”
Scientists are creating and discovering new materials all the time, but few are so jaw-droppingly cool that they deserve to be recognized. Continue reading… “Coolest chemical substances humans have discovered”
On July 9th, Denmark’s wind farms produced 116% of national electricity demands, and according to The Guardian, that figure had risen to 140% by the next morning, allowing the country to export power to Norway, German, and Sweden. Continue reading… “Wind energy output in Denmark just exceeded national demand”
This week Kenya set in motion the construction of Africa’s biggest wind power farm, near Laisamis, 550km north of Kenya’s capital Nairobi. Continue reading… “Kenya to generate a fifth of its power with Africa’s biggest wind energy farm”
Showing no signs of slowing, the global solar boom that began a decade ago could triple the generating capacity installed worldwide by 2020. Continue reading… “Global solar market could triple in the next 5 years”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Indian Cabinet recently approved increasing the country’s solar target five times to a goal of reaching 100 gigawatts, up from 20 GW, by 2022. Continue reading… “India raised solar goal five-fold, will install more solar than Germany”
According to new estimates from the International Monetary Fund, which puts the cost of subsidizing fossil fuels at an enormous $5.3 trillion a year, or around $10 million a minute every day, global energy subsidies are quite a lot larger than most of us thought. Continue reading… “Fossil fuels subsidies cost the world $10 million a minute”
In a remote part of southern California the new Topaz Solar Farm sprawls over an area about a third of the size of Manhattan, and these solar plants are only getting bigger. Continue reading… “Forget solar farms in the desert, more than enough solar energy can be produced in cities”
By turning the mattress-shaped batteries in Tesla’s electric car into upright pillars so they can be used to power homes, businesses and even utilities, Elon Musk is trying to pave the way to a better energy future. Continue reading… “Elon Musk trying energy storage fix where utility industry has failed”
