A new washing machine design uses 90 percent less water and reduces utility bills by 30 percent by cleaning clothes with tiny plastic beads.

The machine by UK company Xeros Ltd uses 3mm-long nylon beads that can get into all crevices and folds of clothing and absorb stains and dirt.  Stephen Burkinshaw, a polymer chemist at Leeds University, discovered that nylon beads at 100 percent humidity could attract stains away from clothing and into the center of the beads, preventing deposition back onto the clothes.

The machine uses a small amount of water to dampen the clothes and to reach the right humidity level, then the drum is flooded with the beads.  When the cycle is complete the beads drain away with the water to be reused hundreds of times.

I’m sure you’ve already started questioning what happens to these plastic beads once they’re done scrubbing clothes.  The company wants to eventually create a closed loop where the saturated beads can be refreshed and reused in the machines, but for the time being they will be collected and recycled.

Xeros says that if all of the US used these machines instead of regular washing machines, it would save 1.2 billion tonnes of water per year and  the CO2 emissions saved would equal taking 5 million cars off the road.  The machine would also eliminate the need to dry clean many delicates, another environmental benefit.  The Xeros machine is expected to be available by the end of next year.

via Guardian

Usually when you read about concentrated solar power, it’s referring to some large project destined for the Mojave Desert, but Syracuse’s Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems (SyracuseCoE) has set out to prove that this technology can be used in smaller, colder settings.

SyracuseCoE in Syracuse, NY is itself a LEED-platinum-certified, 55,000 square-foot building that serves as a testing ground for renewable energy and efficiency technologies.  The south wall of the building is home to a concentrated solar facade that, at first glance, resembles the frosted cube walls found in doctors’ office waiting rooms.

This 8-foot by 8-foot facade houses several clear pyramid lenses that track the sun and concentrate the rays onto high-efficiency PV cells.  Extra energy not converted to electricity is used for heating water and radiant heat in the building.  And because it’s made up of clear panels, it also adds natural lighting indoors.  You can watch a video of the system at work here.

Using a concentrated solar power system in an architectural application is a new concept, so the center will be monitoring and reporting on its performance.

The facade was designed by the Center for Architecture Science and Ecology and the company HeliOptix is licensed to market it.

via Jetson Green

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.

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

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

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 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

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.

While the focus continues to be on expanding means and methods for generating electricity from renewable sources, the limits of the existing grid to handle that generated power and distribute it to where it is needed are beginning to show.

Last weekend in Texas, wind power reached a record high point of 6,242 MW represented 22% of demand. That’s fantastic news, and we love to see that kind of records being broken. However, utility officials were forced to curtail wind power generation “because the supply of electricity outstripped the capacity of lines to move the power to urban areas such as Dallas-Fort Worth.”

Production needs to continue to increase. But this points out what may become a more frequent problem, and dealing with the grid cannot be forgotten either.

image: CC 2.0/ roxannejomitchell

Energy savings of 99% over previous methods probably sound like snake oil. But some math geeks have been able to find a way so that computers can use only 1% of the energy (and the time) necessary for some tasks.

IBM has announced a new data-processing algorithm that enables large sets of data to be processed in a fraction of the time, and with only a fraction of the electricity, as was previously needed. Supercomputer testing of the algorithm showed that the process speeded the calculations and reduced the power consumption by two orders of magnitude.

“The new method was tested on the fourth largest supercomputer in the world and what would normally have taken a day, was crunched in 20 minutes. In terms of energy savings, the analysis required 700 kilowatt-hours total, compared with 52800 kilowatt-hours total.”

Not only does this mean that far less electricity is needed for data-intensive operations, but also more work will be able to be scheduled onto the same number of machines. And while the demonstration was carried out on a powerful supercomputer, the intent of the research was to make intensive data-processing activities more readily available and accessible to scientists who do not have supercomputers.

via: Slashdot

image: IBM press release