Energy

Wind Turbines On Galapagos Meet 30 Percent Of Energy Needs

Though wind energy is not viable everywhere, there are places it can work. The Galapagos Islands, a fragile ecosystem, is touted as one example, because it otherwise has to import diesel fuel.  A performance summary and recommendations for the expansion a ...

Article - News Staff - May 31 2016 - 7:12am

In Regulated Electricity Markets, Microgrids Are Not Viable

Installing a microgrid, such as a cooperative of power generators and power consumers operating in a coordinated system, within a regulated electricity market, will not work any better than the type of regulated de-regulation that led to California having ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 8 2016 - 7:51am

Hellisheidi Power Plant Turns Carbon Emissions To Stone

Hellisheidi power plant in Iceland is the world's largest geothermal facility and now it has one other distinction. Engineers there have shown that carbon dioxide emissions can be pumped into the earth and changed chemically to stone within months, f ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 11 2016 - 6:42am

Fuel Prices Could Have Significant Climate Change Impact- Unless Natural Gas And Oil Are Decoupled

Activists believe that sustained high ($110-120 per barrel) prices will lead to  lower carbon emissions because it will make solar and wind seem viable by comparison, but a new study finds that is not true. Why abandon something where the same margin on a ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 13 2016 - 12:30pm

Why Sweden Says No To Replacing Nuclear Power With Wind

With generous government subsidies and a 'green' halo, wind power is enjoying a lot of financial windfalls. Meanwhile, since being gutted by the Clinton administration in 1993, nuclear energy has been blocked so that it is increasingly less viabl ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 13 2016 - 1:00pm

Toward Greener Solar Cells

Solar energy wants to become an alternative source to fossil fuels but no one wants to incur the much higher cost required by continued subsidies. Rather than  trying to create large solar farms, which are invariably blocked by environmental lawsuits, the ...

Article - News Staff - Jun 21 2016 - 6:30am

Old Green Is The New Black: Hydroelectric Dams Linked To Food Web Havoc

A decade ago, ancient technology- using natural water to perform work- was the green goal. Today, dams are bad but now wind is back in fashion. ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 13 2016 - 10:36am

Environmentalists In Academia Link Increased Risk Of Asthma Attacks To Natural Gas Wells

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health  graduate student Sara G. Rasmussen, from their Department of Environmental Health Sciences, says that people with asthma who live near bigger or larger numbers of active hydraulic fracturing (fracking) natu ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 19 2016 - 5:55am

New Organic Battery Made Using Vitamin B2

A new class of high-performing organic molecules inspired by vitamin B2 can safely store electricity from intermittent energy sources like solar and wind power in large batteries. The high-capacity flow battery uses organic molecules called quinones, which ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 22 2016 - 7:53am

Energy Crops Are Major Flops

Whatever happened to energy crops? A decade ago, the UK authorities confidently expected farmers to devote swaths of land to growing the likes of short-rotation willow and poplar and perennial grasses. These were to help feed one of the UK’s promising new ...

Article - The Conversation - Aug 2 2016 - 7:30am