Sustainable Energy, USA and worldwide

Wonder how they plan to accomplish that.

It feels to me it should have been the other way around. Coal out first and Nuclear last. Or maybe not kick nuclear out at all.

Nuclear power is really pretty safe when done carefully and not on, say, fault lines, or on coasts exposed to storms. Germany's probably one of the safest places for it. It's not near any major faults.

I'm happy that nuclear power generation doesn't cause CO2 emissions but its advocates should build disaster-proof storage areas that they can guarantee with at least 95% certainty to last at least a couple thousand years so that the waste can be stored without risking killing people.

edited 24th Nov '14 10:23:47 AM by BestOf

Or switch to thorium.

The moon, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

edited 24th Nov '14 10:53:47 PM by SilasW

Jupiter. The gravity and pressure means that it's not going to be a problem for anyone until the Sun burns out, if not longer.

Or you know, keep our fingers crossed aneutronic fusion technology.

If it was blasted on any of the other bodies in the Solar system I wouldn't mind. Well, except for the costs (and emissions) from launching all those rockets, but you know.

Nanodot team aims to charge phones in less than a minute: "The world of smartphone users, which is a very large base indeed, is ripe for better battery solutions and an Israel-based company has an attractive solution in store, in the form of nanodot batteries that charge in less than a minute, The name of the company is StoreDot, which prides itself on technology based on its explorations into self-assembled nanodots of biological origin. The multifunctional nanodots are designed to make some important changes to using smartphones and other devices."

Blu-ray disc can be used to improve solar cell performance: "Who knew Blu-ray discs were so useful? Already one of the best ways to store high-definition movies and television shows because of their high-density data storage, Blu-ray discs also improve the performance of solar cells—suggesting a second use for unwanted discs—according to new research from Northwestern University."

edited 25th Nov '14 3:08:59 PM by rmctagg09

There's also the fact that none of the rockets we use have a perfect safety record

Switch to magnetic slingshots. Without people or anything else valuable on them, G-forces aren't an issue. You can basically shove the waste into a shipping container and toss it at the heavenly body of your choice.

Lazard's numbers show cost-competitive gains for wind, solar: "Critics wanting to curb the enthusiasm of supporters of alternative energy have held up production cost as proof that coal and natural gas cannot be rivaled. Now there is a sign that the story changed. Diane Cardwell, reporter covering energy for The New York Times, said that solar and wind energy are starting to win on price versus conventional fuels."

Are electric cars greener? Depends on where you live: "Although the technology for electric cars is improving quickly, the industry still depends heavily on public policy - such as the $7,500 subsidy that the federal government gives everyone who buys one. The rationale for such aggressive policy support is, in part, rooted in the idea that these cars cause less pollution. Indeed, conspicuously "green" consumers dominate sales of electric vehicles, just as they did initially for hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius.

But whether electric cars are actually greener depends on where the electricity comes from. Our research, along with other studies, finds that electric cars are not necessarily the environmentally friendly choice when it comes to the emissions of carbon dioxide - the pollutant of greatest concern for climate change.

It is true that electric cars have no tailpipe emissions (they don't even have tailpipes!), which means they can help clear local air. But the electricity used to charge these vehicles comes mainly from power plants that burn coal or natural gas, with coal being the biggest emitter. Other sources of electricity - wind, solar, hydro and nuclear - generate zero emissions."

Building a better battery: "Imagine an electric car with the range of a Tesla Model S - 265 miles - but at one-fifth the $70,000 price of the luxury sedan. Or a battery able to provide many times more energy than today's technology at significantly lower prices, meaning longer-lasting and less expensive power for cellphones, laptops and the home.

Those are among the goals of a $120 million, Department of Energy-funded Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, a 14-member partnership led by Argonne National Laboratory and including Lawrence Berkeley Lab, Sandia National Laboratories and several universities and private companies. In January, the center's Berkeley hub is moving into the lab's new $54 million General Purpose Laboratory, bringing its battery scientists, chemists and engineers together under one roof for the first time."

A cool way to cool: Engineers invent high-tech mirror to beam heat away from buildings into space: "Stanford engineers have invented a revolutionary coating material that can help cool buildings, even on sunny days, by radiating heat away from the buildings and sending it directly into space.

The heart of the invention is an ultrathin, multilayered material that deals with light, both invisible and visible, in a new way.

The result is what the Stanford team calls photonic radiative cooling - a one-two punch that offloads infrared heat from within a building while also reflecting the sunlight that would otherwise warm it up. The result is cooler buildings that require less air conditioning."

Single-atom gold catalysts may offer path to low-cost production of fuel and chemicals: "New catalysts designed and investigated by Tufts University School of Engineering researchers and collaborators from other university and national laboratories have the potential to greatly reduce processing costs in future fuels, such as hydrogen. The catalysts are composed of a unique structure of single gold atoms bound by oxygen to several sodium or potassium atoms and supported on non-reactive silica materials. They demonstrate comparable activity and stability with catalysts comprising precious metal nanoparticles on rare- earth and other reducible oxide supports when used in producing highly purified hydrogen."

World's largest solar farm is up and running in California: "The world's largest solar plant is up and running in California, with the completion of Topaz, a 550 megawatt plant; the Topaz solar project completed its final 40-megawatt (AC) phase, reported Greentech Media, making history not only as the first 500-megawatt plus solar farm to come on-line in the U.S. but also as the largest solar plant on-line in the world. Reports are talking about a plant with 9 million solar panels installed across 9.5 square miles."

Audi to develop Tesla Model S all-electric rival: "The Tesla Model S has a rival. Audi is to develop all-electric family car. This is to be a family car that will offer an all-electric range of 280 miles (450 kilometers), according to Auto Express, which reported that the vehicle is under development and is to arrive in 2017. Audi's technical development chief Ulrich Hackenberg told Auto Express, "I was able to reengineer the R8 e-tron project and technology with the team and we are on the way to a range of 450km (280 miles)." Auto Express reporter Jonathan Burn said the all-electric family car is expected to adopt a saloon style body to allow for better packaging. 'The larger surface area of a saloon would allow for the bigger and more powerful batteries to be stowed beneath the floor of the car so to not encroach on boot or passenger space.'"

Well, you could stick to the fast breeder reactors that consume their own waste. Put up some solar collectors on the moon and beam it to earth and you're golden.

Yea, I still think making the reactors safer and making them produce both less potent and less waste in general is preferable to chucking the shit somewhere else. Because we really don't need someone screwing up the math and blasting, let say, the French country side with radioactive waste 2-3 orbits later.

Desolenator has tech for water independence, looks to 2015 (w/ Video): "What else is new: Earnest people who are aware of the difficulties very poor families face in many regions of the world wish for safe, cheap drinking water for everyone on the planet. The difference is that there is something new in a team who think that their Desolenator can actually deliver water for those in need.

'Today we estimate that there are over a billion people on the planet who don't have constant access to clean safe water. That's a billion too many.' (Desolenator in a nutshell harnesses the power of the sun to convert seawater into drinking water.) The system purifies water from any source, including salt water. This is a solar-powered water desalination system. Desolenator will desalinate water at a lower cost per liter, they said, than any system at this scale available on the market today. But what about other drinking water and desalination technologies on the market? The Desolenator team said that existing solutions are not viable. CEO of Desolenator, William Janssen, said that 'A massive 97 percent of the world's water is salt water and our plan is to tap into this valuable and available resource to disrupt the global water crisis in an unprecedented way. The process is called desalination and today whilst 0.7 percent of the world's water comes from desalination, existing technology is expensive, inefficient and disproportionally drains 0.5 percent of the world's global energy supply.'

They seek a way to transform sea water into drinking water in a sustainable way. The problem with large-scale desalination technologies is that the enormous plants require huge costs to set up and to run as well as vast amounts of energy powered by fossil fuels."

New technique offers spray-on solar power: "Pretty soon, powering your tablet could be as simple as wrapping it in cling wrap. Scientists have just invented a new way to spray solar cells onto flexible surfaces using miniscule light-sensitive materials known as colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) — a major step toward making spray-on solar cells easy and cheap to manufacture."

Researchers convert sunlight to electricity with over 40 percent efficiency: "UNSW Australia's solar researchers have converted over 40% of the sunlight hitting a solar system into electricity, the highest efficiency ever reported.

The record efficiency was achieved in outdoor tests in Sydney, before being independently confirmed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at their outdoor test facility in the United States."

New technique could harvest more of the sun's energy: "As solar panels become less expensive and capable of generating more power, solar energy is becoming a more commercially viable alternative source of electricity. However, the photovoltaic cells now used to turn sunlight into electricity can only absorb and use a small fraction of that light, and that means a significant amount of solar energy goes untapped. A new technology represents a first step toward harnessing that lost energy."

Jackie Chan Blu-ray disc boosts solar panel efficiency by a massive 22%.

Colloidal Quantum Dots Allow Solar Cells to Be Sprayed on Products: "Using miniscule light-sensitive materials known as colloidal quantum dots, scientists from the University of Toronto have developed new technique for spraying solar cells onto products."

Switching to vehicles powered by electricity from renewables could save lives: "Driving vehicles that use electricity from renewable energy instead of gasoline could reduce the resulting deaths due to air pollution by 70 percent. This finding comes from a new life cycle analysis of conventional and alternative vehicles and their air pollution-related public health impacts. The study also shows that switching to vehicles powered by electricity made using natural gas yields large health benefits."

Study identifies metal organic framework candidates for methane storage, fuels hope for natural gas cars: "Cars that run on natural gas are touted as efficient and environmentally friendly, but getting enough gas onboard to make them practical is a hurdle. A new study led by researchers at Rice University promises to help.

Rather than shoehorn bulky high-pressure tanks like those used in buses and trucks into light vehicles, the Department of Energy (DOE) encourages scientists to look at new materials that can store compressed natural gas (CNG) at low pressure and at room temperature. Cage-like synthetic macromolecules called metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are among the candidates.

MO Fs are nanoscale compounds of metal ions or clusters known as secondary building units (SBUs) and organic binding ligands, or linkers. These linkers hold the SBUs together in a spongy network that can capture and store methane molecules in a tank under pressure. As the pressure is relieved, the network releases the methane for use.

Because there are tens of thousands of possible MOFs, it's a daunting task to synthesize them for testing. Researchers have turned to using computers to model candidates with the right qualities."

edited 18th Dec '14 9:25:59 PM by rmctagg09