We’ve see plenty of green power research over the years, from solar plants to underwater turbines , but relying on the sun or the sea for electricity is not without its challenges: the sun doesn’t always shine, for instance, and sometimes the water is calm. A group at MIT led by professor Donald Sadoway is developing grid-scale storage solutions for times when electricity isn’t being generated. Since these batteries are intended for the power grid instead of cellphones and Roombas, the researchers can use materials not feasible in consumer electronics — in this case, high temperature liquid metals. Besides being recently awarded a grant from ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency, Energy) to put these things in green power facilities, MIT has just embarked on a joint venture with the French oil company Total to develop a smaller-scale version of the technology for homes and office buildings.

MIT researchers develop liquid metal battery for the grid and the home originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve see plenty of green power research over the years, from solar plants to underwater turbines , but relying on the sun or the sea for electricity is not without its challenges: the sun doesn’t always shine, for instance, and sometimes the water is calm. A group at MIT led by professor Donald Sadoway is developing grid-scale storage solutions for times when electricity isn’t being generated. Since these batteries are intended for the power grid instead of cellphones and Roombas, the researchers can use materials not feasible in consumer electronics — in this case, high temperature liquid metals. Besides being recently awarded a grant from ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency, Energy) to put these things in green power facilities, MIT has just embarked on a joint venture with the French oil company Total to develop a smaller-scale version of the technology for homes and office buildings.

MIT researchers develop liquid metal battery for the grid and the home originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Pavegen taps pedestrians for power in East London (video)

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Pavegen taps pedestrians for power in East London (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Machines that used to stamp out car parts are now making arrays for solar panels. Credit: Skyline Solar.

Skyline Solar, a Silicon Valley start-up, has become the latest green energy company to tap the struggling auto industry’s manufacturing muscle.

The company announced today that components for its solar power plants

There can be no doubt “green” energy is becoming more and more important in Japan. And just like the many other inventions in this area, I am sure this newest invention that’s potentially beneficial for the environment can one day make its way outside Japan, too: A floating wind turbine that’s currently in prototype mode and is 12.5m tall (5.5m are above the surface).

The turbine is being jointly developed by researchers from Sasebo Heavy Industries, Toda, and Kyoto University. The big idea it is to avoid the high costs involved in fixing wind turbines to the seabed. One area where the turbines could be put to good use according to the researchers is out in the ocean, simply because of the strong winds to be found there.

The current version of the turbine is being tested in Sasebo in Southern Japan, with the researchers hoping to achieve 2,000kW for the finished version. It will be ten times larger, too, and the technology is supposed to be commercially available by 2012 or 2013. (As no picture of the floating turbine is available yet, the picture shows a conventional model.)

Via Moneyzine [JP]

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Japan field-tests floating wind turbine

A Californian power company is looking at launching giant, reflective solar panels into space to beam clean energy back to us on Earth. But the tech was originally designed for Bond-villain-like weather control

Original post:
Space-Based Solar Panels May Be Used for Energy-Saving Good or Catastrophic Evil [Good Vs Evil]

If you watch 30 Rock religiously, you might have seen one or two references to an out-of-control fart machine. Well, Tina Fey’s dream is kind of, sort of becoming a reality. Methane is becoming a prized source of green energy —in fact, we are already harvesting it from alternative sources like landfills and cow manure to meet our energy needs. Along those lines, Professor Bruce Logan at Pennsylvania State University has developed an electronic fart machine that can collect and store energy from gassy single-celled microbes with 80% efficiency. It works like this: giving small jolts of electricity to single-celled microorganisms known as archea prompts them to remove C02 from the air and turn it into methane, released as tiny “farts.” The methane, in turn, can be used to power fuel cells or to store the electrical energy chemically until it’s needed

The rest is here:
Tina Fey’s Fart Machine Becoming a Reality…Only With Gaseous Microbes [Energy]

Earth Day is in full swing. Have you offset your carbon emissions yet? Well, there are plenty of apps and Websites out there ready to help you do just that and more. Green is the new black. Speaking of which, if you want to be green, you’d better avoid black cars and Websites with all-black backgrounds (like goth sites and sometimes even Google).

But don’t avoid us. We just decided to turn the background of TechCrunch black today in memory of Google’s noble effort last year, when its site went black in honor of “Earth Hour”. And don’t even think about printing out an e-mail (not that you would—unless it had really important information on it that you needed hard copy of like a contract or a map, in which case, be my guest).

Seriously, green apps are great and we fully support them here at TechCrunch. The first step to dealing with a problem is often to measure it. And theer are plenty of Websites that let you measure your carbon footprint such as Co2Stats, (for Websites) and Zerofootprint (for people). But all too often these turn out to be nothing more than green vanity apps, designed to make you feel good about being green, but not really impacting the environment one way or the other.

For instance, consider a Facebook app just that launched called GoRecycle411 (developed by Jerry Kelly, the former VP of finance at Mark Cuban’s 2929 Productions). You enter how many cans, bottles, newspapers, or office paper you’ve recycled and it tells you how much energy you saved and posts your achievement to all your friends via the Facebook News feed. It keeps a tally, and translates your energy into how many barrels of oil, trees, gallons of water, pounds of carbon dioxide, kilowatts of electricity, and cubic yards of garbage you save. It also keeps track of how much everyone using the application is saving.

The more you recycle, the more virtual points you get which you can spend on virtual gifts for friends like a polar bear, a windmill, or a tree. Of course, you can enter whatever numbers you want, and you still get all those good green karma points. All in all, it is better than a lot of other Facebook apps. Not only do you get to show off how green you are, but you get to shame your friends into recycling at the same time.

Another example is Greenbookings, a Dutch travel site that calculates the carbon emissions caused by your vacation and offsets that at the end of the year by investing in green energy projects. You pay nothing extra for the offsets, but you get to feel good about it and Greenbookings uses that as marketing lure to get you to book flights, hotels, and rental cars through its site. Why not, right? It is easier for one company to offset a years worth of travel-related carbon emissions than for each traveler to do so individually, and probably cheaper too. Except that who knows what Greenbookings is going to invest that offset money into. Last year, it put the money into a hydroelectric project in China. Water power is certainly cleaner than a coal plant, but isn’t China notorious for creating huge hydroelectric projects that wreak all sorts of other environmental and human havoc? I guess you just have to trust Greenbookings on that one

(Photo by Steve Jurvetson. Yes, the venture capitalist. Is it me, or is he channeling Thomas Kinkade, the “Painter of Light” in the image above?)

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

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It’s Earth Day, So Make Sure To Try Out Some Green Vanity Apps

Dancers perform in front of art installations using recycled products during an Earth Day celebration in Manila. Credit: Francis Malasig / EPA

Happy Earth Day, Appiphiliacs.

Earth Day was born in the era of Pintos, IBMs and recession. Today, 39 years later, we have Priuses, iPods and recession.

Though some things have changed — and others have just been recycled — the day gives us a chance to celebrate, create and accelerate environmental progress in protecting our planet, according to EarthDay.gov.

We focused earlier on “green”-specific apps here and here, so let’s check out a few apps to help us integrate enviro-friendlier habits.

Seafood Guide (Free)

What it is: A pocket version of Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program, which is designed to help users make ocean-friendly seafood choices. (The iPhone-less can check out a mobile version here.)

What sizzles: It breaks down seafood options from abalone to yellowtail by “best choice,” “good alternative” and “avoid” and is separated into regions. I really dig that it includes suggestions in consumer notes and health alerts and that the summary explains each animal’s circumstances. For sushi fans, there’s a guide that lists fish by their Japanese and common market names.

What fizzles: It would have been nice to be able to zoom the text since there’s a lot of good info to read.

Bottom line: Your mama was right. There are many fish in the sea. This app can help you reel in better choices. (Too bad it doesn’t work on mates.)

beamME Pro vCard exchange ($4.99)

What it is: An electronic replacement for business cards. You set up your own card and text it over, mimicking the infrared beaming from the days of Palm. You also can e-mail it from the phone.

What sizzles: We really missed the ease of beaming. (Remember when groups of people would gather in hallways, giddy from beaming business contacts and apps among them?) Anything that saves our fingers from tedious tapping has to be a good thing.

Plus with companies cutting back on just about everything, you can still have a business card even if those have been eliminated from the budget. The company says beamME users have saved more than  100,000 pieces of paper from being wasted and have planted thousands of trees through the Arbor Day Foundation. (For Earth Day, they say they will plant a tree for every sale.)

What fizzles: For iPhone users on the receiving end, it does take a few more steps than reaching in a case and handing it over — the upside is that you don’t have to transcribe it yourself. That’s because iPhones cannot receive vCard via SMS. So you text it; a link shows up. The receiver goes to the link and selects “download vCard.” Next, you send it to yourself via e-mail. And then you can save it to your address book. How much energy was expended there?

Bottom line: It’s a quick way to better ensure your card doesn’t get lost.

3rdWhale Mobile (Free)

What it is: Another guide to the greener side of life. It can help you find the nearest vegetarian restaurant, fair-trade store or bike shop. 3rdWhale tells you what’s nearby based on criteria including whether the company is using natural or organic materials, whether the company follows energy-efficiency measures, and whether fair labor practices are employed. They say the app features info for more than 25,000 “green” businesses in North America.

What sizzles: Making better choices isn’t always easy — and how. This app gives a glimpse at how to be more green on the go. You can scroll through for what you’re looking for in a mix-and-match approach. Say, printing services within walking distance. Using your phone’s inner location services (GPS or triangulation), it tells you what’s nearby, gives you a description, rating and can open Google Maps for directions.

In terms of interactivity, users who consider themselves “green gurus” or “ecoistas” can review the listings and rate them with one, two or three whales.

What fizzles: The app is in beta. For that printing service within walking distance, it offered me something 80 miles away. In fairness, most of the other options were appropriate distances for walking, biking and driving.

Some of the information is limited — and dependent on the store or restaurant’s description of itself. So far, there weren’t a lot of reviews in my test areas. They say they have more than 100 cities in the U.S. and Canada, with a goal of 1,000 cities across the world. Two things I couldn’t figure out: I didn’t see where other people’s ratings and reviews were to appear and the Facebook connection. It lets you use your Facebook account if you want, but why wasn’t quite apparent yet.

Bottom line: It seems to be on the right path.

A few other enviro-focused apps that you might want to check out:

• shopgreen (Free)
• Mission Zero (Free)
• The Green Lemur (Free)
• Green Energy Challenge (Free)
• Global Warming Personal Calculator (99 cents)

Do you have any green tips or app ideas for other iPhone and iPod users? Share them in the comments section below.

– Michelle Maltais

[via LATimes.com]

A study conducted by the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21) shows that Germany is the world’s leading country when it comes to grid-connected solar photovoltaic capacity, clearly besting all other nations.

Germany tops REN21’s list with 5.4 milllion kw, followed by Spain with 2.3 million kw. Japan (last year’s No.2 and the No. 1 in 2005) slipped to third place (1.97 million kw). No word on America’s rank (for some reason, REN21’s official homepage doesn’t mention the list at this point), but it doesn’t look too good as far as added capacity in 2008 is concerned.

Spain added a whopping 1.7 million kw of solar capacity last year, followed by Germany with 1.5 million kw. The US trails with 300,000 kw in this ranking (Japan’s added capacity stood at 240,000 kw). The reason for these differences is to be found in national politics. Power companies in both Spain and Germany are forced by law to purchase a certain amount of “green energy”, which is not the case in Japan and America.

Via Sankei MSN News [JP]

Continued here: 
Study: Germany world’s No. 1 nation in solar photovoltaic capacity