Alain Goeppert, G. K. Surya Prakash, chemistry Nobel Laureate George A. Olah and colleagues have co-authored a paper (doi:
10.1021/ja2100005) in the
Journal of the American Chemical Society describing a novel, cheap material that scrubs CO2 from ambient air, even at the very low concentrations of the atmosphere. The material is easily manufactured, and carbon captured is readily removed from the polymer, allowing recycling of the polymer and sequestration of the carbon. The researchers, co-authors of
Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy regard this as more than simply a technique for decreasing the carbon emissions of industrial processes and fossil-fuel burning machines, but as possibly an energy-carrier, by using the "catalytic hydrogenation of CO2 with H2 where the hydrogen has been obtained from water electrolysis (
wiki).
Articles:
ScienceDaily,
SciAm.
posted by bumpkin
on Jan 6, 2012 -
29 comments
MotherBoard TV: The Thorium Dream If, like many of the world's leaders, you are eager for a dependable and cheap energy source that doesn't spew toxins and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere -- and that doesn't result in terrible, billion dollar accidents -- you can end your search now.
At least, that's the news from a tight-knit collective of energy blogs, dedicated to a common but relatively unknown metal called thorium.
In the right kind of nuclear reactor, they say, thorium could power the world forever -- and without the problems that come with the nuclear energy we use today, from Fukushima-like meltdowns to the difficult by-products of plutonium that leave behind radioactive waste and weapons material.
The idea certainly sounds like the stuff of fringe internet conspiracists, but it was actually born in the U.S. government's major atomic lab in the 1960s under the auspices of one of the country's most respected nuclear scientists, and the inventor of today's most common kind of nuclear technology, the light water reactor. -
Thorium: World's Greatest Energy Breakthrough? [more inside]
posted by ninjew
on Nov 28, 2011 -
58 comments
Some interesting things have recently happened in the world of solar power:
Evergreen and
Solyndra have gone bankrupt, panel cost has gone sub $1.00/watt, and China has vastly increased production capacities.
[more inside]
posted by thewalrus
on Nov 17, 2011 -
103 comments
Most of the talk about renewable energy is aimed at electricity production. However, most of the energy we need is heat, which solar panels and wind turbines cannot produce efficiently. To power industrial processes like the making of chemicals, the smelting of metals or the production of microchips, we need a renewable source of thermal energy. Direct use of solar energy can be the solution, and it creates the possibility to produce renewable energy plants using only renewable energy plants, paving the way for a truly sustainable industrial civilization. [more inside]
posted by Bangaioh
on Jul 30, 2011 -
31 comments
Unusually for a spring season, gasoline prices
have been steadily climbing in the US since the beginning of 2011, and have surpassed $4/gallon in many US states, largely due to
political instability in many oil-producing African and Middle-Eastern nations.
"Not so fast," says the Department of Energy. Although the price of crude oil has climbed steadily throughout the year, the price of gasoline has climbed much faster -- a disparity known as the
crack spread, which
has remained at its highest level in 32 months, even in light of a sharp decline in the price of crude oil at the beginning of the month. The DoE speculates that although crude oil is cheap and plentiful enough, the
2011 Misssissippi River Floods are currently more to blame for $4 gas than the uprisings in the Middle East.
posted by schmod
on May 19, 2011 -
125 comments
Around
one year ago we saw some of the recent events in solar power. At that time solar panels topped out at a peak efficiency of around 290W for a 1.99 x 0.99 meter 72-cell module, with a lone rare and expensive
315W module that was used to build team Germany's
solar decathlon winning house. Since then prices have dropped a lot, and China is advancing in commodity tech.
[more inside]
posted by thewalrus
on Mar 3, 2011 -
80 comments
Green electricity from the artificial, tethered
ray (the fish, not the beam). Video
here.
posted by megob
on Mar 2, 2011 -
21 comments
In September, a privately held and highly secretive U.S. biotech company received a patent for a genetically adapted E. coli bacterium that feeds solely on carbon dioxide and excretes liquid hydrocarbons.
Joule Unlimited, co-founded by
George Church, appears ready to forever alter the way we produce fuel.
[more inside]
posted by Baby_Balrog
on Jan 18, 2011 -
140 comments
The final hours of the Deepwater Horizon. But this was a disaster with two distinct parts — first a blowout, then the destruction of the Horizon. The second part, which killed 11 people and injured dozens, has escaped intense scrutiny, as if it were an inevitable casualty of the blowout.
It was not.
David Barstow, David Rohde and Stephanie Saul report for the
New York Times on the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
[more inside]
posted by spitbull
on Dec 27, 2010 -
72 comments
Dirty Coal, Clean Future To environmentalists, "clean coal" is an insulting oxymoron. But for now, the only way to meet the world's energy needs, and to arrest climate change before it produces irreversible cataclysm, is to use coal—dirty, sooty, toxic coal—in more-sustainable ways. The good news is that new technologies are making this possible. China is now the leader in this area, the Google and Intel of the energy world. If we are serious about global warming, America needs to work with China to build a greener future on a foundation of coal. Otherwise, the clean-energy revolution will leave us behind, with grave costs for the world's climate and our economy. (more
here and responses
here,
here and
here)
posted by kliuless
on Nov 12, 2010 -
49 comments
