clipped from environment.newscientist.com Power-generating buoys shelter in the deep They look a bit like underwater mines, but they have a far less sinister purpose – the first of these submarine wave-energy devices should sprout up off the UK coast in 2008. AWS Ocean Energy has developed an underwater buoy that harnesses wave energy from 50 metres below the surface. The British company says that because the entire device is underwater, it does not suffer from storms in the way that other wave-power devices do, and will not interfere with shipping.

clipped from environment.newscientist.com Nitrogen pollution drives trees to soak up more CO2 Nitrogen pumped into the environment by human activities such as driving cars and farming is fertilising tree growth and boosting the amount of carbon being stored in forests outside the tropics, say researchers. Their study provides a surprising example of how one type of human pollution is helping to counter another. But the researchers caution that they do not yet know what proportion of carbon dioxide emissions are being offset by the anthropogenic release of nitrogen.

wireless electricity: Cable Free Power Arrives

It is a great achievement, we can transmit electricity through air.
WiTricity: wireless electricity

clipped from blog.wired.com WiTricity: Cable Free Power Arrives MIT physicist Marin Soljacic has managed to get around the biggest problem with transmitting power through the air; waste. Throwing power out in all directions means that nearly all of it remains unused. The fix? Magnetic resonance. Two 20 inch coils were designed to resonate with one another, with one hooked up to the power supply and the other to a light bulb. As the magnetic fields interact weakly with most other materials, the power can go through walls and more importantly, doesn't affect the human body. The efficiency is still only around 40%, but that's a big leap over past attempts. They are close to getting 100 Watts on the receiving end, which is enough to juice up a laptop (the MacBook, for instance, sucks 85 Watts from it's adapter). For more on the science behind this, see the article at Wired Science. Scientists light bulb with "wireless electricity" [Xinhua] Wireless Energy Could Signal the End of Power Cords [Wired Science]

Recycling Tires to Reduce Road Noise

Time to email my city planner on this one!

clipped from www.treehugger.com Traffic noise is an obvious issue for many people, particularly in high-density areas. Much of that noise comes not from engines, but from the vibrations caused by tires on the road. This can be demonstrated by the fact that, while a hybrid is notoriously silent in all-electric modes at slow speed, as soon as it speeds up (even when it remains in electric mode), the sound is not that different to any other modern, relatively efficient motor vehicle, at least to this author’s ears. Now researchers in Japan have come up with a new technology to significantly reduce traffic noise, possibly by as much as 90%, by using ‘elastic’ pavement made, appropriately enough, from old car tires. “This pavement has many additional features. One of these is resistance to ice formation, as the high elasticity allows the weight of the car to break the ice into pieces. In addition, as the high proportion of voids contributes to better drainage, slip-resistance and water-splash prevention

Scientists double capacity of rechargeable lithium batteries

clipped from www.tgdaily.com Scientists double the capacity of rechargeable lithium batteries Researchers of the Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory claim to have developed an enhanced approach to building of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. First test results are promising: The scientists claim that the new materials yielded record charge-storage capacities of more than 250 mAh/g or more than twice the capacity of materials used in rechargeable lithium batteries today. In addition to the capacity advantage, the presenters also say that manganese-rich systems are cheaper to manufacture than today’s cobalt and nickel versions of lithium batteries. According to a press release, the technology could be used in virtually all lithium-based rechargeable batteries – and improve the battery life for example in consumer electronics, laptops, medical devices and even hybrid electric vehicles.

Vertical Wind Turbine

It's quiet & doesn't kill birds. Nice!

clipped from www.mag-wind.com The magnetically-levitated Mag-Wind design solves 11 different problems that previously limited the development of vertical-axis wind turbines for generation of electricity. clipped from www.mag-wind.com If we put 10,000 wind turbines onto roofs in a city, on a windy day that could produce 50 megawatts of electricity, which could replace a coal-fired or other fossil-fuelled power generating plant. clipped from www.mag-wind.com Our vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT), the MW 1100, is sized to fit on a roof without disturbing the neighbours. A roof with a 10-foot vertical rise and a 30% angle will provide nearly a 200% increase in the amount of wind energy that is available to be turned into electricity. Compared to the same turbine just sitting on a pole, the roof effect increases the power yielded by operation of the wind turbine dramatically.

Power Savings Guide for PCs

clipped from www.tomshardware.com clipped from www.tomshardware.com In short, it is possible to save as little as 2 W and as much as 40 W just by a smart component choice. Energy-saving features such as AMD's Cool'n'Quiet or Intel's Enhanced SpeedStep reduce the processor clock speed and voltage, which saves up to 50 W The largest potential to save energy is hidden in the graphics card The GeForce 8800 GTS requires 40-65 W more than a GeForce 7800 GT, which is more than the total power requirement of a notebook PC or a 20" TFT display.