Unfill The Land Fill

Conventional gasoline engines are terribly inefficient things. Only 13% of the energy of the fuel actually moves the car. 62% is lost in the engine as waste heat, and driveline losses, accessories, and idling also reduce the efficiency.

Transonic Combustion is planning to build automobile engines with improved efficiency obtained through heating and pressurizing gasoline before injecting it into the combustion chamber. “This puts it into a supercritical state that allows for very fast and clean combustion, which in turn decreases the amount of fuel needed to propel a vehicle,” according to MIT Technology Review. A transonic test vehicle achieved 64 MPG in highway driving, compared to a 48 MPG hybrid Prius, and running at a steady cruising speed of 50 mph, the test vehicle achieved 98 MPG.

Like diesel and HCCI, the Transonic Combustion technology operates without needing a spark plug. Timing software also further enhances the operating efficiency of the system. Transonic injection is being developed for use with gasoline engines at present, but will also be compatible with advanced low carbon footprint bio-fuels in the future. Transonic expects its system will be comparable in cost to other current high-end fuel injection systems.

Because of the higher operating pressure, the longevity and durability of the engine will be important considerations the company will need to address. The company plans to build its production facility in 2013 and expects to be building engines for production vehicles in 2014.

via: Inhabitat

Beginning today, Google has begun providing bicycle directions for its Google Maps service with directions for cyclists in 150 cities in the United States. Google already incorporates public-transit and walking directions in addition to automobile driving directions, and the bicycling community has been calling for Google to add bike routes for some time.

The routing suggested for cyclists is designed to avoid freeways and high-traffic areas, and to select gentler terrain by routing around hills. To make it even more useful for riders on the go, Google expects to have a mobile version available in the near future, as well.

Eco Factor: Sustainable architecture designed to have minimal impact on the environment.

Designed by Coolie Calihan and Charles Johnson, the Cidade Suspensa (Suspended City in Brazilian Portuguese), aims to refine urban architecture and bring it in harmony with nature and the environment. The site of this proposal is located on the dense urban waterfront of Rio de Janeiro and is to be completed in time for the 2016 Olympics.

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Suspended City aims to bring Rio de Janeiro in harmony with nature

Warren County Kentucky is building the first net-zero energy school in the country.  Richardsville Elementary School will operate free of the grid by generating its own renewable energy, incorporating smart architectural features and a major emphasis on efficiency.

The list of features for this school is mind-boggling.  The school will have thin-film PV roof arrays, solar water heating, geothermal HVAC, insulated concrete form walls, a rainwater collection system and energy-efficient lighting.  The building is designed to take full advantage of natural light and wind for cooling. The plot of land includes a reclaimed brownfield, preserved woodland, a protected stream and bioswales.

Read more…

A new report from technology research corporation iSuppli warns that we’re facing a global LED shortage in 2010.  Hooray!

Why am I cheering?  Because the reason for this shortage is a huge surge in demand for the energy-efficient lighting in the electronics industry.  Yes, it’s bad that the supply is low, but it’s great news that the use of more efficient lighting is becoming more mainstream.

The report says that demand for LEDs is expected to rise by double-digit percentages for at least the next three years.  In 2009, 63 billion units were consumed out of the 75 billion unit capacity worldwide.  The worst-case scenario is a rise in prices for mid-range and high-end computers and HDTVs because of their larger displays.

The solution is simple enough though:  increase production.  The two largest suppliers have gotten the hint — Aixtron and Veeco Instruments are doubling their production by the end of this year.

via PC Mag

A new study from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies has identified on-road transportation as the most significant overall source contributing to global warming. Power generation, while having the greatest total impact, also includes a large number of compounds that increase cloud reflectivity and provide other effects to offset some of the warming they are responsible for.

In the study, rather than looking at specific chemicals and compounds, the range of airborne pollutants is broken down by economic sector. The study looks at the range of gases and aerosols that are released by each of 13 sectors of the economy, and finds that on-road transportation has the greatest overall effect on global warming.

“Cars, buses, and trucks release pollutants and greenhouse gases that promote warming, while emitting few aerosols that counteract it. The researchers found that the burning of household biofuels — primarily wood and animal dung for home heating and cooking — contribute the second most warming. And raising livestock, particularly methane-producing cattle, contribute the third most. On the other end of the spectrum, the industrial sector releases such a high proportion of sulfates and other cooling aerosols that it actually contributes a significant amount of cooling to the system. And biomass burning — which occurs mainly as a result of tropical forest fires, deforestation, savannah and shrub fires — emits large amounts of organic carbon particles that block solar radiation.”

The intent of this study is to make the information about climate change more accessible and understandable. “We wanted to provide the information in a way that would be more helpful for policy makers,” according to Nadine Unger, leader of the research team. “This approach will make it easier to identify sectors for which emission reductions will be most beneficial for climate and those which may produce unintended consequences.”

No one should mistake the point of this study to indicate that coal burning and other power-generation and industrial processes are benign and therefore do not need to be scaled back. Although industrial processes mitigate their adverse effects with regard to global warming, the sulfates and aerosols that are beneficial in this one manner are responsible for a range of other, negative environmental impacts.

The paper was published online on Feb. 3 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

via: Worldchanging

Eco Factor: Energy-saving playhouse harvests solar energy.

Designed by C. F. Møller for Saint-Gobain Isover the Saint-Gobain Playhouse is conceived as a sustainable playhouse for children and adults. According to the designers the house is so well insulated that the even a few candles suffice for heating even during the cold winter months.

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Saint-Gobain Playhouse by C. F. Møller can be heated with candles

A recent article from Lawrence Berkely Laboratory suggests that readers should ‘Pull the plug. Your battery will thank you.‘ Researcher Venkat Srinivasan writes about batteries and battery chemistry rather specifically, but without becoming overwhelmingly technical. He explains how batteries begin to fail, and suggests keeping your computer unplugged as a way of extending the life of your battery. I pulled the plug on mine as soon as I read the article, and I’m now writing this on battery power.

On the other hand, if you charge the battery and then pull the plug (so to speak), the battery discharges some, the voltage drops, and these reactions become less of a problem and your battery life goes up. So the best things you can do is to charge the laptop (or cell phone, camera etc.) and once its charged, pull the plug. Your battery will thank you for it.

This also has relevance for plug-in hybrid and electric vehicle owners, whose batteries have the same characteristics. A car sitting in a garage for hours, full charged, is going to be slowly deteriorating the battery. Manufacturers may already be incorporating measures into battery packs to address this problem, but this highlights just one of the many potential issues battery makers need to address in order to keep portable electrical devices functioning.

This week in batteries may not be on everyone’s RSS feed right away. But engineers for computer companies, electric vehicle manufacturers, cell phone and other portable device makers should be following him. While the articles run to the technical, the information is accessible for all kinds of battery geeks.

The news from Iceland has been all about its economic meltdown, but there’s other seismic activity going on there, too. Will Iceland roll with hydrogen vehicles or, as it looks increasingly likely, plug-in battery ones?

Despite the delivery, during the Copenhagen climate talks, of 10 new Ford Focus FCV fuel-cell vehicles into the tiny country of just 300,000 people (adding to a small fleet of 10 hydrogen-burning Priuses), it’s still likely that Iceland will have an EV infrastructure before there’s extensive fuel cell operations. (Photo: Ford.)

Iceland is still on the ropes financially, and that complicates the purchase of any high-tech cars in what is otherwise the greenest country on earth (according to the Yale/Columbia Environmental Performance Index). After all, more than 80 percent of Iceland’s energy use is from ultra-clean domestic sources, including geothermal and hydro.

Iceland already produces far more electricity than its small use (which explains the presence of those current-heavy aluminum smelters). It could easily produce hydrogen in bulk, too. So which way will it go?

It’s official: I’ve become my grandmother. I realized it the other morning when I opened the door to our freezer.

That icy vault was packed to the brim. But — in the finest tradition of my Grandma Yeager — it wasn’t filled so much with leftovers, like you’d find in most household freezers. You see, my Grams had a few deep frozen secrets. She knew about weird stuff; weird stuff you can deep-six in the freezer and maybe save some money in the process.

* Candles: Keep your wax candles in the freezer and they’ll burn longer. It’s especially good for slim table tapers that normally burn very fast.

* Batteries: A number of studies have shown that storing batteries in the freezer helps them retain their charge longer. This is less true for alkaline batteries (freezing extends their shelf life by only about 5%) than it is for NiMH and Nicad batteries often used in electronics. Keeping NiMH batteries in the freezer can boost battery life by 90%.

* Plant Seeds: Many (but not all) types of plant seeds will keep longer and germinate more successfully when stored in the freezer. Consult a copy of Seed Storage of Horticultural Crops, by S.D. Doijode, for more than you’d ever want to know about this fascinating topic. Many of the planet’s most important seeds are being stored in the chilly “doomsday” seed vault in Norway.

* Cheap Booze: In the interest of full disclosure, my Grams was a teetotaler. Me, I need an attitude adjustment from time to time, and I’ve found that storing cheap booze — not just vodka, but all types of distilled spirits — in the freezer makes it taste smoother (and more expensive).

* Wine Cubes: Speaking of keeping alcohol in the freezer, when you have a little leftover wine from dinner, pour it into an ice cube tray and freeze it. “Wine cubes” are perfect to use in making stock and other cooking.

* Plastic Soda Bottles Filled with Water: Grandma knew that keeping her freezer chockfull helped to insulate it and perform better, and kept things cold longer if the electricity failed. I like to fill empty plastic soda bottles nearly full with water, and put them in the freezer to take up any vacant space. Plus they make convenient “drip-less ice cubes” to use instead of real ice cubes in my ice chest.