Energy

Climate Pragmatism: It's Time To Innovate, Not Mitigate, And Create A High-Energy Planet

James Lovelock, the Godfather of Global Warming, says we are doomed and the only recourse left is to retreat to climate-controlled cities. Others claim we can solve the problem if we just shut off all of the power plants. Others contend we simply need to ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 9 2014 - 8:22pm

Genetically Modified Tobacco Plants As Biofuel

Tobacco is a high-density crop that is mowed several times throughout its cycle and that can be a good thing, because it can produce as much as 160 tons of fresh biomass per hectare. Biomass that is suitable for producing bioethanol.  Smoking cigarettes i ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 14 2014 - 10:52am

Mitigate Electric Vehicle Charge Rage With Improved Batteries

There's a disturbing, though funny to outsiders, trend sweeping green conscious corporations on the coasts of the United States- flurries of emails between indignant employees talking about how long their cars have been plugged in. Though subsidies a ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 16 2014 - 10:28am

Tesla On The Horizon: Wireless Power Now Works Over 15 Feet

Researchers have reported a big improvement in the distance of wireless power.   Their "Dipole Coil Resonant System (DCRS) boosts the extended range of inductive power transfer up to 5 meters between transmitter and receiver coils.  It's not qui ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 17 2014 - 11:08am

The Slow Decline Of Biofuels- Corn Stover Inclusion Won't Help

Biofuels- ethanol- were trumpeted as being a renewable alternative to fossil fuels for decades. Finally, in 2005, it got the mandates and subsidies environmentalists insisted were necessary to make inroads against a mature industry like petroleum. Immedia ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 21 2014 - 11:14am

Is Direct Current Electricity Going To Make A Comeback?

Direct current- DC- electricity is used by us every day. If you see a blocky black thing on a power cord, that is a transformer and it turns alternating current (AC) electricity into DC that is used by a device. In the early days of mass electricity, it w ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 30 2014 - 10:31am

EV Infrastructure Validation: World Record-Breaking Electric Vehicle Journey Complete

Earlier this month, the Epic Electric American Road Trip, a 24-day, 12,183-mile battery-powered journey sponsored by electric vehicle (EV) software and information services company Recargo Inc., was completed. They expect to be awarded Guinness World Recor ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 30 2014 - 1:30am

The Goldilock Grid: Electrical Networks Need To Be Just The Right Size

There is an optimum size for electrical networks if you want to avoid blackouts- and that does not mean making things better and more redundant.  Being the right size is a common topic in fields like biology. In 1928, geneticist John Haldane wrote the ess ...

Article - News Staff - May 12 2014 - 11:14am

Natural Gas Alone Won't Change Climate Projections

Natural gas has been true boon to emissions. When the rest of the civilized world was adopting more nuclear energy, American politicians representing their constituents were determined to kill it. President Bill Clinton and Senator John Kerry were cheered ...

Article - News Staff - May 14 2014 - 12:23pm

Fuel Cells: Can Microbes Make Biodiesel Sustainable?

A new fuel-cell concept could allow biodiesel plants to eliminate the creation of hazardous wastes while removing their dependence on fossil fuel from their production process. The platform, which uses microbes to glean ethanol from glycerol and has the a ...

Article - News Staff - May 21 2014 - 7:30pm