Our Sponsors

Our Sponsors

Viewing Science & Technology Category

Starting With Solar

Posted on Thu Jul 3 2008
Share: Digg | Hugg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Email

Most of us cannot feasibly afford to install a full solar power system into our homes. Energy Refuge suggests starting small. One solar panel and a sealed battery would hold about 400 watts of electricity. You will also need a charge control, power inverter, and a voltage meter. That is enough to run some of your small appliances, and will offset the cost of the solar panel. Here is a tutorial, put together by Energy Refuge on how to build a basic solar power generator.

If you are not comfortable starting from scratch, then have a look at this kit, by the 'Go-Solar' Company. Reasonably priced especially when you consider the savings on your electrical bill. Five hours of sun per day and a 20 watt solar panel will give you 100 watt-hours of energy. To store more electricity simply purchase a larger battery.


Grand_prismatic_spring.jpgProducing ethanol from the cellulose in plant material may end up being be a part of the solution to humanity's energy woes, but right now the process is expensive, slow and inefficient. Now researchers at the Sandia National Laboratory in Livermore and UC Riverside are trying to draft some of the earth's oldest inhabitants into service for the cause. They're working with ancient microbes known as archaea, which live in some of the most hostile environments on the planet, such as hyper-saline lakes, acidic hot springs, and near-boiling deep ocean vents. They found that one strain, discovered in an Italian volcano, produces enzymes that break down the cell walls of plants, releasing the sugars within that can then be converted into ethanol. Now the scientists are working on improving the efficiency of the enzymes' activity, to make fuel production viable.


Scientists have always thought that hot lava from exploding volcanoes were not possible in the Arctic---until now. After amazing eruptions that took place in 1999, mountains erupted from the Arctic floor. And this sparked science to make advances in technology in order to see the floor of the arctic. And what they saw brings news to the science community.

Providing A Working Bike

Posted on Wed Jul 2 2008
Share: Digg | Hugg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Email

Summer is here. People are cleaning up their bikes to hit the roads. Using a bicycle for transportation becomes much more appealing when the breezes are balmy and the sun is shining. Only the committed few choose to brave winter rain and snow. Typically, in many developed countries, we have a rather laissez-faire attitude about bikes - they are more for pleasure than work.

But in many countries, bikes represent a modern innovation that can play a more important role. Cycling is faster than walking. It is certainly cheaper and more eco-friendly than driving. And new designs offer the chance to maximize the utility factor. WorldBike has developed an extension, called Big Boda, that transforms a basic bike into a passenger and cargo carrier.


space_elevator.jpg

My definition of the space elevator: What, like in the Jetsons?

Wikipedia's ( www.wikipedia.com ) definition of the space elevator: A space elevator is a proposed structure designed to transport material from a planet's surface into space. Many different types of space elevators have been suggested. They all share the goal of replacing rocket propulsion with the traversal of a fixed structure via a mechanism not unlike an elevator in order to move material into or beyond orbit. Space elevators have also sometimes been referred to as beanstalks, spacebridges, space lifts, space ladders or orbital towers.


How to Find Vampire Electronics

Posted on Mon Jun 30 2008
Comments: 1
Share: Digg | Hugg | Del.icio.us | Reddit | Email

dvdplayer.jpgVampire electronics suck! Literally! These are electronics that use energy even when seemingly turned off or idle. CNN recently did a video report about these electronics and found that even some washing machines, when you turn them off, still suck energy. Many homes have up to 50 vampire devises. For example, a turned on DVD player uses 11.32 watts, and when it's turned off it still uses about 6 watts of energy. A home computer uses around 60 watts in standby.

Check out this news piece from CNN.


Students at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have designed an urban transportation innovation that will work a lot like luggage carts at the airport: stackable, electric, two-person “City Cars” that can fold up to take up less space. Calling them “cars” is slightly misleading, however, since they don’t have an engine and are intended not as a replacement for conventional cars, but rather as a completely new type of vehicle.

The vehicles are driven by robotic motors in each wheel, eliminating the need for any combustion engine, or even a transmission. This frees up a lot of space, so that the interior of the car is big enough for two, yet the exterior is about one quarter of the size of a regular sedan. Everything on board is controlled by a computer, and the car starts with the push of a button. The wheels have 360 degrees of rotation, which eliminates the need for U-turns, 3-point turns, or parallel parking!


baby.jpgYour baby will use one ton of diapers as a child. Did you know that in Southern Ontario you can recycle your baby's old diapers? With a subscription and the provided waterproof storage container, smallplanet will pick them up from your driveway and recycle them for you. After your diapers are picked up, the Knowwaste process sanitizes the diapers and separates them into wood pulp and plastic that can then go through the normal recycling process. This process, will help keep soiled diapers out of our landfills, which will also be more environmentally friendly and cost effective.

Sources:

http://www.knowaste.com

http://www.smallplanetinc.com


cane-toad.JPGBiological control of invasive species is notoriously fraught with risk: It's hard to know in advance if the biocontrol agent will stay nice and well-behaved, or become an even worse menace than the species you're trying to eradicate. A researcher in Florida thinks he's figured out how to get around that problem, by turning the invasive species into its own biocontrol agent using "Trojan" animals. By exposing males of many fish and amphibians to female hormones, scientists can create female animals with male chromosomes. When they mate with normal males, their offspring will be exclusively male, and over time, the population will become extinct. This isn't the first time the idea of manipulating sex ratios has been discussed, but it's the first time someone's thought of a way to do it without genetic engineering.

Source: Louis Buckley, Sex change wipes out invasive species. News @ Nature.com, July 26, 2007. Photo: The invasive cane toad, introduced in Australia to control cane beetles, is an example of biological control gone wrong.


antarctic-lakes_big.jpgHuge lakes covering hundreds of square miles are hiding beneath half a mile of Antarctic ice, but their undulations cause such dramatic changes at the surface that they can be detected from space. Laser pulses sent from NASA's ICESat provided the evidence of the lakes, which are continuously draining and filling, and which scientists say are not caused by global warming. If all of Antarctica's ice were to melt, sea levels could rise by 23 feet, so detailed models of the behavior of Antartica's ice sheets are crucial to understanding the impacts of climate change. Currently those models don't take into account the subglacial lakes, which help speed the journey of glacial ice to the sea. Scientists hope that the new understanding of how the lakes work will help improve computer models that predict how the Antarctic glaciers will respond to climate change.


   Next Page

Our Sponsors

Recent Comments

  • Jerry says: Knowledge Publications sells at least two sizes of heaters....
  • Jerry says: I don't know Joe. I live in the deep south where propane, natural...
  • Joe says: Jerry or anyone else: Why is B100 for home heating, 50 cents...
  • John T. Vannest says: Please why o why won't some one lessen to MOTHER NATURE . She tells...
  • Jerry says: To add more to my previous post, I don't usually repeat as truth...
  • Jerry says: Var, political thinking only clouds your mind. I was not bashing...
  • munoz says: This article is stupid. Its selfish and centered only around the...
  • Categories

    Green Friends


    Privacy Policy | All contents copyright © AboutMyPlanet.com