Wisconsin Bans Phophorus In Lawn Fertilizer To Protect Drinking Water And Tourism Industry

Blue-green algae scum. Image credit:Washington State Dept. of Ecology.

Lawn grass only needs phosphorus to establish a root structure – one growing season. An established lawn needs virtually no phosphorus in the nitrogen/phosphorus/potash blend. Recognizing the need to protect Wisconsin’s lakes and rivers, which support a large and economically important tourism industry, and which provide drinking water for a large portion of Wisconsin’s residents, the State no longer allows sale of phosphorus-containing l…
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Plastic Bags Used in DC Drops From 22 Million to 3 Million a Month

Photo via 2nd Green Revolution

The Most Effective Tax Ever?
Washington DC’s 5 cent tax on plastic bags, instated just this past January, has already proven to have a phenomenal impact: the number of plastic bags handed out by supermarkets and other establishments dropped from the 2009 monthly average of 22.5 million to just 3 million in January. While significantly reducing plastic waste, the tax simultaneously generated $150,000 in revenue, which will be used to c…
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eHydrogen H2-Reactor Produces Hydrogen Fuel Using Water & Metal

eHydrogen Solutions, Inc. has created its H2-Reactor hydrogen on demand system that uses only water and metal alloys. The H2-Reactor system uses aluminum or magnesium alloys plus water to create hydrogen fuel for cars or for stationary fuel cells for residential or industrial applications.

I’ve talked about eHydrogen Solutions once before when they developed their H-Solaris generator that uses the sun’s light to split water into hydrogen fuel cost effectively. Now, eHydrogen has found another cost effective method of creating H2 without sunlight.

The positive aspect of this process is that no outside energy is needed. Water comes in contact with the metal alloys and creates hydrogen and oxygen. During this process some oxidation of the alloys occurs.

Over time, the metal alloys have to be recycled and this can be done in a cost effective manner. According to eHydrogen, “By recycling aluminum oxide back to aluminum, the cost of producing energy both as hydrogen and heat will continually to decrease, and is expected to be well below 10 cents per kilowatt hour.”

Even though eHydrogen is mainly focused in the residential and industrial applications of this technology right now, this would also be a potential solution for creating hydrogen on demand at the pump and for home hydrogen fueling stations as well. The details of who would recycle, pickup and deliver the metal alloys would have to be worked out, but this is true of most new businesses selling tangible goods, especially recycled products.

Visit the original post at: Fuel Cell News

Cleantech VC reaches $1.9B in 1Q10
Transportation attracted $704M this past quarter, while energy efficiency and solar remain key sectors to watch, according to latest Cleantech Group data.

Visit the original post at: Energy News

Tiny Generators Produce Electricity from Ambient Vibrations

Tiny generators developed at the University of Michigan could produce enough electricity from random, ambient vibrations to power a wristwatch, pacemaker or wireless sensor. The energy-harvesting devices, created at U-M’s Engineering Research Center for Wireless Integrated Microsystems, are highly efficient at providing renewable electrical power from arbitrary, non-periodic vibrations. This type of vibration is [...]
Posted in: Future Energy, Inventions

Visit the original post at: Energy News

The Hybrid Field Motor: Using Half Rare-Earth Magnets, Cheaper, Same Performance for EVs

Along with batteries, motors are a must for developing electric cars, and, like batteries, they need continuous improvement to help moving around effectively with as little energy as possible. The Nagoya Institute of Technology just developed a hybrid field motor that is superior to anything on the market in terms of price/quality. [More...]

The hybrid field motor works by generating a magnetic force by synchronizing a permanent magnet and an electromagnet. The main advantage is that hybrid field motors only use half of the amount of rare-earth magnet, compared to a synchronous motor, that you can see in today’s hybrid or electric vehicles.

Visit the original post at: Energy News

Scientists Discover Huge Energy Source by Breaking a Nature Law In Ion Collider

Things are to be discussed, but it looks like scientists from the Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, using their Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), created a symmetry-breaking bubble of space where parity, one of nature’s fundamental concepts, no longer existed for a tiny fraction of a second.

Visit the original post at: Energy News

What Building Owners Need to Know Before Going Solar
March 31, 2010 (Investorideas.com renewable energy/green newswire) – If you are a building owner that is considering a solar panel installation, there are several questions you should ask before signing any contracts.

Visit the original post at: Energy News

What Building Owners Need to Know Before Going Solar
March 31, 2010 (Investorideas.com renewable energy/green newswire) – If you are a building owner that is considering a solar panel installation, there are several questions you should ask before signing any contracts.

Visit the original post at: Energy News

Fond du Lac turbine company pumps up energy, economy

From an article by Toni Hoh in The Northwestern (Oshkosh):

One of the first wind turbines to come out of Oshkosh’s Renewegy Inc. is up and running at the business’s Jackson Street headquarters. Soon, eight more turbines will leave the plant and begin churning out wind energy at other northeast Wisconsin businesses and even out of state.

The company’s next eight units will be installed by early summer. Four will go to SCA Tissue in Menasha; one to Manitowoc’s Orion Energy Systems; one to an undisclosed location in the Fox Valley; and two to Nebraska. Turbines can meet anywhere from 1 percent to 100 percent of a facility’s energy demands.

Renewegy, launched in 2008, is poised to bring small wind energy turbines — the type that serves commercial and industrial businesses, schools, universities, municipalities and farms — into the forefront when it comes to meeting clean energy needs.

The company has created 10 new research, development and manufacturing jobs so far and expects to hire between 60 and 100 people over the next few years, including another five to 10 in 2010.

“This is exactly the type of company we want to grow in our area,” said Rob Kleman, executive director of the Oshkosh Area Economic Development Corporation.
Kleman said the technology being created by Renewergy can have a spin-off effect that benefits other companies in its supply chain.

Visit the original post at: Energy News

U.S. Air Force Pumps Up A-10C Thunderbolt II with Camelina Biofuel

This is a lesson to all weeds: dream big.  Camelina is a scrawny looking plant that also goes by the unflattering moniker “false flax,” yet it may turn out to be the biofuel of choice for U.S. military aircraft.  The U.S. Air Force has just announced the successful flight of an A-10C Thunderbolt II using a blend of half camelina and half conventional jet fuel, and it plans to test the blend on additional aircraft over the next couple of years.  Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy has also set its sights on camelina-based jet fuel.

Weed though it may be, camelina has also been cultivated as an oilseed crop for centuries and therein lies its charm, sustainably speaking.  Camelina been championed by a number of biofuel companies including Sustainable Oils, which has supplied camelina biofuel for both the Air Force and the Navy test runs.  The company may soon have company; Shell (yes, the petroleum company) is set on becoming the biggest of the big-oil companies to use biofuel as a profitability-booster.

(more…)

Visit the original post at: Energy News

U.S. Air Force Pumps Up A-10C Thunderbolt II with Camelina Biofuel

This is a lesson to all weeds: dream big.  Camelina is a scrawny looking plant that also goes by the unflattering moniker “false flax,” yet it may turn out to be the biofuel of choice for U.S. military aircraft.  The U.S. Air Force has just announced the successful flight of an A-10C Thunderbolt II using a blend of half camelina and half conventional jet fuel, and it plans to test the blend on additional aircraft over the next couple of years.  Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy has also set its sights on camelina-based jet fuel.

Weed though it may be, camelina has also been cultivated as an oilseed crop for centuries and therein lies its charm, sustainably speaking.  Camelina been championed by a number of biofuel companies including Sustainable Oils, which has supplied camelina biofuel for both the Air Force and the Navy test runs.  The company may soon have company; Shell (yes, the petroleum company) is set on becoming the biggest of the big-oil companies to use biofuel as a profitability-booster.

(more…)

Visit the original post at: Energy News

U.S. Air Force Pumps Up A-10C Thunderbolt II with Camelina Biofuel

This is a lesson to all weeds: dream big.  Camelina is a scrawny looking plant that also goes by the unflattering moniker “false flax,” yet it may turn out to be the biofuel of choice for U.S. military aircraft.  The U.S. Air Force has just announced the successful flight of an A-10C Thunderbolt II using a blend of half camelina and half conventional jet fuel, and it plans to test the blend on additional aircraft over the next couple of years.  Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy has also set its sights on camelina-based jet fuel.

Weed though it may be, camelina has also been cultivated as an oilseed crop for centuries and therein lies its charm, sustainably speaking.  Camelina been championed by a number of biofuel companies including Sustainable Oils, which has supplied camelina biofuel for both the Air Force and the Navy test runs.  The company may soon have company; Shell (yes, the petroleum company) is set on becoming the biggest of the big-oil companies to use biofuel as a profitability-booster.

(more…)

Visit the original post at: Energy News

CANADIAN SOLAR AND THE SAN JOSE SHARKS ANNOUNCE PARTNERSHIP
The San Jose Sharks today announced that Canadian Solar Inc., a leading vertically integrated provider of ingot, wafer, solar cell, solar module and other solar applications, will serve as the presenting sponsor for the team’s 2010 playoff campaign. With U.S. headquarters in San Ramon, Calif., Canadian Solar is the perfect partner for Northern California’s championship hockey team.
Visit the original post at: Renewable Energy News – RenewableEnergyWorld.com