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  1. #101
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    Solar farms in Germany make me want to scream. Due to clouds and latitude on average they produce less energy than solar on Mars would. They are viable only because multi billions of subsidies are poured into them, via the price of electricity that goes through the roof in part because of it.

    If solar then they need to go into places with much more sun over the year. Yes I do believe solar is the way to go. For Germany wind farms are the much better choice though.
    "don't attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence"

  2. #102
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Umbuku View Post


    Milan, one of the trendsetting capitals of the world, is applying their avant-garde tactics off the runway as well with 'vertical forests'.

    The city has become one of the most polluted in Italy; with little room for an oxygen-giving forest in the middle of the bustling fashion capital, the only place to go was up.

    Architect Stefano Boeri designed Bosco Verticale, a vertical forest which will plant 900 trees on the balconies of two towers. This vegetation produces the same ecological footprint as 10,000 square meters of forest. And anyway, this way is much more fashion-forward.

    Aside from looking ridiculously gorgeous, the vertical forest has abundant positive eco-effects as well. The plants will produce humidity and oxygen while protecting from radiation and pollution through absorbing carbon dioxide. The towers will use Aeolian and photovoltaic energy systems to increase the buildings' self-sufficiency.

    They will also attract birds and insects, creating a miniature ecosystem. The skyscraper forest was called “the most exciting new tower in the world” by the Financial Times and serves as an inspiration to other industrial spaces wishing to buffer their pollution output.
    World's First Vertical Forest (VIDEO)
    While in Milan today we had a little time to see how the project was coming along.




    It does seems to be coming along well and I am sure will look great after the trees mature.
    Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

  3. #103
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    Interesting but it doesn't look down-to-nature to me. Anyways, nothing beats the world having a little family planning and reducing the population so we don't need to build more buildings and rebuild cities in the future. Less is more.

  4. #104
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    Looks pretty, but the wind is strong 200 metres above the ground. That vertical forest is going to thin out in a storm, unless they bolt the trees to the building.

  5. #105
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    This is a little bit off topic, but the incorporation of nature in the form of plant life is a major benefit to the living environment. I went to the university of Birmingham (the real on in the UK). The place has a repultaion for being a desalate place in many ways a kind of detroit on the UK, however right in the core of the city for around 3 miles around the university is a carefully planned urban area,



    This is a photo from the top of one of the buidings looking towards the north of city center. Under those trees is solid housing, no parks, just houses, gardens, shops and roads. this is intercity land, not the peripheral suburbs. It makes a massive difference to the quaility of life you have in the city.
    Teakdoor CSI, TD's best post-reality thinkers

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  6. #106
    Thailand Expat Boon Mee's Avatar
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    This sounds about as plausible as most other alternative energy ideas...
    Indeed...

  7. #107
    Pronce. PH said so AGAIN!
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boon Mee
    This sounds about as plausible as most other alternative energy ideas... Indeed..
    The no perfect solution fallacy seems pretty common among the right-wing. Can't stop all gun violence? Well then don't bother with any regulations. Can't stop all poverty? Social safety nets of all forms are a complete waste and should go away. Not all children is lernin'? Shut those worthless public schools down!

    Find a new viable and beneficial source of energy but it doesn't solve every issue in five minutes? Fuck it and keep the current stuff.

  8. #108
    Thailand Expat Boon Mee's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by quimbian corholla View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Boon Mee
    This sounds about as plausible as most other alternative energy ideas... Indeed..
    The no perfect solution fallacy seems pretty common among the right-wing. Can't stop all gun violence? Well then don't bother with any regulations. Can't stop all poverty? Social safety nets of all forms are a complete waste and should go away. Not all children is lernin'? Shut those worthless public schools down!

    Find a new viable and beneficial source of energy but it doesn't solve every issue in five minutes? Fuck it and keep the current stuff.
    Bring us up to date on all those shovel-ready Green Jobs Obama poured taxpayer money to while yer at it? What? Gone bankrupt you say?
    A Deplorable Bitter Clinger

  9. #109
    I am in Jail

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    Not sure how its going along but Virgin and i think it was Japan air where looking into using eucalyptus as Aviation fuel, hope it comes off, will be quids inn

  10. #110
    Pronce. PH said so AGAIN!
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    Quote Originally Posted by Boon Mee
    Bring us up to date on all those shovel-ready Green Jobs Obama poured taxpayer money to while yer at it? What? Gone bankrupt you say?
    Do you realise that with that comment you have just proved my observation to be correct?

  11. #111
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    Carbon-Free, Biologically-Grown Bricks Win Green Business Competition


    A British competition chaired by environmentalist investor Richard Branson awarded $669,000 to an American start-up that’s developed an organic, carbon-free process to make bricks. The London-based Postcode Lottery Green Challenge gives an annual award to the best green business idea, and this year’s first-place winner was the firm bioMASON and its founder and CEO, Ginger Krieg Dosier, an architect turned biotechnology entrepreneur.

    Through a process that Dosier compares to the way marine life constructs coral or sea shells, bioMASON uses bacteria to form sand into a crystalline structure that can serve as bricks or a cement-like construction material. The process occurs in a setting similar to a greenhouse, and its only inputs are the bacteria and its food, sand, nitrogen, calcium, and water. As a bonus, the irrigation system for the bacteria is even recycled in a closed-loop set-up, meaning bioMASON’s business model wastes little water.

    Right now, bioMASON is focused on providing an alternative to the traditional bricks used in the developing world. Those are usually made by forming clay, sand, and water into the shape, and then firing the brick at 2,000 degrees for three to five days — obviously a process that’s heavy on the energy use and carbon dioxide emissions. According to Dosier’s presentation, 1.23 trillion such bricks are made worldwide each year, for a total carbon footprint of around 800 million tons — greater than that of the global airline industry. And along with the greenhouse gas problem, there’s also the problem of resource consumption: Dosier cites William McDonough’s documentary on human waste production, “Waste Equals Food,” which concluded that if traditional brick-making is used, rural China’s current need for 200 million new homes would chew up 25 percent of the top layer of agricultural land for the clay, and consume over half the country’s coal reserves for the energy to fire them.

    ____________________________

    Quote Originally Posted by Boon Mee View Post


    This sounds about as plausible as most other alternative energy ideas...
    Indeed...
    and to think,...........some people believe this BM idiot should be allowed to post in the News and Speakers Corner sections of TD. Go Figure

  12. #112
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    India to build world’s largest solar power plant


    The Indian government will set up the world’s largest solar power plant in its northwestern state of Rajasthan, an official statement said on Friday, and the venture is expected to significantly reduce solar power taxes in the country.

    The project, known as the "Ultra-Mega Green Solar Power Project," will have a total power generation capacity of 4,000 megawatts, which is more than double the total solar power generation capacity in India.

    “This will be the largest solar-based power project in the world. Being the first project of this scale … this project is expected to set a trend for large-scale solar power development in the world," a government statement said.

    The project will be spread across 23,000 acres of land belonging to the state-run Sambhar Salts Ltd, near the Sambhar Lake, which is about 47 miles away from Jaipur, Rajasthan’s capital city. The first phase of the project, which will be for 1,000 megawatt capacity, is expected to be completed in three years and will be run by a joint venture of five state-run utilities, including BHEL, Power Grid Corporation of India and Solar Energy Corporation of India.

    In addition to cutting carbon, getting off of coal would help India reduce the 100,000+ deaths each year caused by coal plant pollution.

  13. #113
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    Looks interesting different. Looks quite primitive compared to existing designs. But I am not convinced that expensive high tech is always better. So let's see how it works out.

    I compare to a California plant with mirrors from Germany.


  14. #114
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    Germany isn't so bad for solar energy, 1,000+ Watt per squaremetre all over the country.



    It's not much less than in California. The north of Rügen and the edge of East Germany gets almost as much as Bavaria, so it's not necessarily the further south the more sun, but the further away from the Atlantic.

  15. #115
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    IKEA starts selling solar panels for homes

    STOCKHOLM (AP) — Swedish flat-pack furniture giant IKEA will start selling residential solar panels at its stores in Britain, the first step in its plan to bring renewable energy to the mainstream market worldwide.

    The company started selling solar panels made by China's Hanergy in its store in Southampton on Monday. It will sell them in the rest of Britain in coming months, it said.

    A standard, all-black 3.36 kilowatt system for a semi-detached home will cost 5,700 British pounds ($9,200) and will include an in-store consultation and design service as well as installation, maintenance and energy monitoring service.

    "In the past few years the prices on solar panels have dropped, so it's a really good price now," IKEA Chief Sustainability Officer Steve Howard told The Associated Press. "It's the right time to go for the consumers."

    The solar panel investment will be paid off in about seven years for an average home owner in Britain, Howard said.

    "If you are going to be in your house that long, your energy will be free after seven years," he said.

    Some retailers in the U.S., including the Home Depot and Lowe's, already sell solar panels. But in other parts of the world, consumers often have to research a myriad specialist firms before making a purchase.

    Howard said IKEA aims to launch the products in other countries eventually. It picked Britain as its test market because it has the right combination of mid-level electricity prices and government-sponsored financial incentives that make investing in solar energy attractive to consumers.

    "This is a market by market decision," he said.

    The U.K. government offers private solar panel owners the opportunity to sell back electricity to the grid on days when they have surplus production and has a financing plan for solar power investments, which means residents can buy a system for no upfront cost and pay it off gradually.

  16. #116
    Thailand Expat VocalNeal's Avatar
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    Here's a Thai one



    Just at the end of the express way where it meets the outer ring road. 500 acres of cells.
    I have a real picture but can't be assed to upload it.

  17. #117
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    Quote Originally Posted by S Landreth
    This type of solar cell is used in concentrator photovoltaics (CPV).
    This kind of cell requires a mirror tracking the sun using active steering with motors. Nice in theory but expensive to build and maintain. I am not aware of even a single powerplant utilizing this technology because of its complexity and cost. Plus it really only works in full sunlight while flat panel solar cells deliver some energy even if the sun is slightly covered with clouds.

  18. #118
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    A hybrid smart window device that can achieve energy savings and generation was designed based on a sandwiched composite film that was composed of dispersed VO2 particles and a polymer matrix. This device can temperature-dependently regulate solar heat and generate electricity using a solar cell positioned around the glass panel and powered by VO2 particle-scattered light, simultaneously remaining visible transparency. Credit: J. Zhou, Z. Chen and Y.F. Gao


    Scientists unveil energy-generating window

    Scientists in China said Thursday they had designed a "smart" window that can both save and generate energy, and may ultimately reduce heating and cooling costs for buildings.

    While allowing us to feel close to the outside world, windows cause heat to escape from buildings in winter and let the Sun's unwanted rays enter in summer.

    This has sparked a quest for "smart" windows that can adapt to weather conditions outside.

    Today's smart windows are limited to regulating light and heat from the sun, allowing a lot of potential energy to escape, study co-author Yanfeng Gao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences told AFP.

    "The main innovation of this work is that it developed a concept smart window device for simultaneous generation and saving of energy."

    Engineers have long battled to incorporate energy-generating solar cells into window panes without affecting their transparency.

    Gao's team discovered that a material called vanadium oxide (VO2) can be used as a transparent coating to regulate infrared radiation from the Sun.
    VO2 changes its properties based on temperature. Below a certain level it is insulating and lets through infrared light, while at another temperature it becomes reflective.

    A window in which VO2 was used could regulate the amount of Sun energy entering a building, but also scatter light to solar cells the team had placed around their glass panels, where it was used to generate energy with which to light a lamp, for example.

    "This smart window combines energy-saving and generation in one device, and offers potential to intelligently regulate and utilise solar radiation in an efficient manner," the study authors wrote in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.

  19. #119
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    While in Italy we saw a tiny Smart Car being driven in the cities we visited.


    Seems the US is trying to get into the market with this new EcoV.


    In what may be a prelude of the future urban market, a Detroit-based manufacturer named EcoV Electric is offering an electric vehicle for just under $12,000.

    The EcoV is geared towards urban driving — lower speed commutes over relatively short distances — and can go 25 to 40 miles on a charge. It charges by plugging into a standard wall socket and the company pegs the cost of the electricity for a recharge at a mere 50 cents. Thanks to those reduced fuel and maintenance costs, and the $11,999 price tag, they also estimate the car should pay for itself within a year. Safety-wise the EcoV is built with a roll cage frame, and the lack of a large gasoline-powered engine block actually makes electric cars safer in head-on collisions in general.

    Obviously, these features also come with limitations most American car customers aren’t used to. The key is realizing they’re well-geared towards two specific emerging markets.

    One is urban commuters: people who live in denser areas and use their cars for short trips to work or the grocery store, while relying on rented cars, air travel, or public transportation for longer trips. Traffic congestion resulted in an estimated 56 billion pounds of carbon pollution in 2012, so turning all that commuting over to electric power could come with climate benefits. Furthermore, demonstration projects are already showing how digital technology and the smart grid can be used by individuals to control when and how their electric vehicles are charged, which cuts down on their electricity bills.

    The other market is delivery businesses that rely on urban fleets. Again, it’s a job well-suited to vehicles with the EcoV’s characteristics: the daily routes and range needs are known and fixed, and the vehicles return to the same spot every night which makes re-charging much easier. EcoV seems to realize its potential in this area, as it’s designed the car to come in several iterations, including four-passenger vehicles, six-passenger vehicles, pickup trucks, delivery trucks, and more.

    Fleets of small electric vehicles for urban driving are also possible investments for cab companies and other car-sharing arrangements, which again can cut down on the need for car ownership amongst dense populations and also cut carbon emissions. Further in the future, there’s also the possibility of combining those electric vehicles with something like Google’s driverless car technology and Uber’s smartphone-based cab-hailing service, as Matt Yglesias recently described.

    As CleanTechnica explains, EcoV’s use of a low-capital-intensive business model — the reverse of what you usually see in auto-manufacturing — is what enabled the company hit such a low price tag. “A capital-intensive business model involves purchasing factory machinery with a high initial cost, and these machines have to pay for themselves for them to make financial sense.” Further, “a high production volume is required for them to pay for themselves, and electric vehicle production volume (in general) is currently low, making it more difficult for factory machinery to pay for itself.”

    Being Detroit-based, EcoV also shows one potential strategy U.S. automakers specifically could use to keep building on their recovery by moving even further into the expanding electric vehicle market.


  20. #120
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rainfall View Post
    Germany isn't so bad for solar energy, 1,000+ Watt per squaremetre all over the country.



    It's not much less than in California. The north of Rügen and the edge of East Germany gets almost as much as Bavaria, so it's not necessarily the further south the more sun, but the further away from the Atlantic.
    Excellent observation.

  21. #121
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    An Australian founded clean energy company that is allowing slum-dwellers in India to replace expensive and highly polluting kerosene lamps with cheaper solar energy is to receive an award at the UN climate change talks on Wednesday.

    Pollinate Energy is one of two Australian initiatives to get awards under the Lighthouse initiative for the UN’s Momentum for Change program. The other is the Australian-based 1 Million Women initiative, which aims to build a movement to get one million women to take small steps in their everyday lives to cut emissions.

    The not-for-profit Pollinate Energy began its operations in the slums of Bangalore, initially with the aim of allowing children to do school work after the sun sets, and to reduce reliance on kerosene lamps, which eats up a large part of incomes with fuel costs and can cause health problems, burns and fires.

    The company focuses on training members of the local community to distribute and install solar lighting systems as micro-entrepreneurs, or what the organization calls “Pollinators” – hence the name.

    So far, the company has provided solar systems to 10,000 urban poor living in 250 of Bangalore’s slum communities, in turn saving 40,000 litres of kerosene and 100,000 kilograms of carbon emissions.

    Co-founder Katerina Kimmorley, who grew the idea out of her Master’s thesis at the London School of Economics, says the idea is growing faster than expected and the program will extend to other cities in 2014.

    A total of 17 different businesses in Asia, Africa and latin America will be show-cased, including companies that lease solar farms, make bamboo bikes, recycle waste, and deliver low-smoke stoves.

    Australian solar lighting project in Indian slums wins UN award : Renew Economy

    ______________________

    The prize comes from the United Nations’ Momentum for Change program, and will be presented today at the ongoing climate talks in Warsaw. According to the UN’s numbers, Pollinate energy has provided 10,000 in Bangalore to date with its lighting systems, saving 40,000 litters of kerosene and 100,000 kilograms of carbon emissions ion the process. Further, they estimate Pollinate Energy could soon be operating across 50 major Indian cities and providing their lighting to 35,000 communities.

    The company’s other co-founder, Katerina Kimmorley, told RenewEconomy the idea for the program grew from her Master’s thesis at the London School of Economics. And Alfris provided a concrete example of how it helped a woman in Bangalorte named Parambi: “She was the first in her community to take a solar lighting kit from us for a week as a demo. Parambi told us that she uses the solar light to do tailoring work in the evenings. “I do domestic housework in the daytime so I previously wasn’t able to work at night,” she told us. Her children also use the light to study. Previously they would get home from class at around 6 or 7pm and would not be able to do any further work… Now her kids are able to use the light to do a few extra hours work, or instead use the hours to play safely without danger of knocking over the naked flame and being burnt.”

    Australian Company Wins U.N. Prize For Bringing Solar Power To The Poorest In India

    Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC | Blog of UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres

  22. #122
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    World's Largest Landfill Will Soon Be NYC's Biggest Solar Plant


    Mayor Bloomberg, Parks Commissioner Veronica M. White, Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty and Director of the Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability Sergej Mahnovski today announced the largest solar energy installation in New York City will be installed at Freshkills Parks on Staten Island. Approximately 47 acres of land will be leased to SunEdison, which was selected through a public bidding process to design, construct, install and operate a solar power facility with the potential to generate up to 10 megawatts of power – five times more than any solar energy system in the city and enough to power approximately 2,000 homes.

    The solar power system will be an integral part of the Freshkills Park, and will increase the City’s current renewable energy capacity by 50 percent. Fostering the market for renewable energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions are two key initiatives of PlaNYC, the City’s long-term sustainability blueprint. This announcement is the latest in a series of solar initiatives the city has launched in recent years including significantly scaling up use of solar energy at City-owned sites and developing the NYC Solar Map, a web-based tool that estimates the feasibility of installing solar panels on any of the 1 million New York City buildings. The Administration is moving forward with steps to officially map an additional 1,500 acres of Freshkills into parkland, officially bringing the total for Freshkills Park to 2,200 acres and bringing total parkland in New York City to more than 30,000 acres for the first time in history. The Mayor made the announcement at Freshkills Park where he was joined by Borough President James Molinaro, Assembly Member Michael Cusik, Assembly Member Matthew Titone and Atilla Toth, General Manager for SunEdison, for the announcement.

    snip

    Freshkills spans 2,200 acres on the western shore of Staten Island and served as the City’s principal solid waste landfill until 2001. In 2006, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation began working to develop Freshkills Park, which will incorporate the solar and wind power installations. The use of capped municipal landfills to develop renewable energy facilities was outlined in PlaNYC, Mayor Bloomberg’s unprecedented program to prepare the City for more residents, strengthen the economy, combat climate change, and enhance the quality of life for all New Yorkers.

    NYC's Largest Solar Energy Installation to be Built at Freshkills Park in Staten Island

  23. #123
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    Taylor Wilson

    A nuclear genius here on a Ted Talk...

    Taylor Wilson: My radical plan for small nuclear fission reactors | Video on TED.com

    He was 14 when started fiddling around nuclear stuff in the garage of his father.

    Works on some NASA Projects now.

    He has a invented a nuclear safe room that could power thousand homes, burried underground and in case of problem the water separates from fission area removing the actual danger of melting in conventional nuclear systems.
    Another good point is that he would use the disarmament program for the raw material.

    Lots of great inventions on Ted talks...
    Monday,Tuesday, then it goes WTF !

  24. #124
    Guest Member S Landreth's Avatar
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    good luck


    Michelin eyes organic matter for tyres

    Is it possible to make car tyres using sugar beet, straw or even wood? Strange as it may seem, Michelin, the world's second-biggest tyre manufacturer, last month announced a major research programme to investigate those very possibilities. But the French firm is not simply acting out of a general concern for the environment; it is concerned there may soon be a shortage of oil-based materials.

    The project, codenamed Bio Butterfly,involves construction of a pilot plant and will be carried out in partnership with a public research centre, IFP Energies nouvelles, and its subsidiary Axens. France's Environment and Energy Management Agency is also supporting it with a €14.7m ($20m) subsidy as part of its Investing in the Future initiative. Over the next eight years BioButterfly's budget will total €52m.

    The stakes are high for Michelin. To produce tyres it currently uses a mixture of natural and synthetic rubber. But the main synthetic ingredient is butadiene, a petroleum by-product that will ultimately run short. "We are expecting a butadiene shortage by 2020," says Vincent Ferreiro, who has global responsibility for developing the firm's materials and components.

    Curiously, this threat is linked to the worldwide surge in shale gas, which has driven gas prices down and prompted chemists to neglect oil and focus on the new energy source. As such there is a risk of a shortfall in butadiene output, despite demand continuing to rise by 4% a year.

    In 2011-12 the first signs of a shortage doubled prices, giving tyre manufacturers a big scare. Prices have dropped back since, due to the slowdown in the Chinese economy. "But the upward pressure will return and we can't just sit here doing nothing," Ferreiro says. Hence the decision to find a sustainable alternative.

    The plan is to start with organic matter often treated as waste. The biomass will be fermented to obtain alcohol, the end result being a form of "bio-butadiene". "But it remains to be seen whether the process is technically feasible and competitive," says Jean-Pierre Burzynski at IFP Energies nouvelles. The Bio Butterfly project will test these assumptions.

    Faced with the same risk, Michelin's key rivals, such as Bridgestone, and chemical firms, such as Eni and TPC, are also working on alternatives to butadiene. It may not be the sort of race normally associated with Michelin, but one it nevertheless wants to win.

  25. #125
    Member Umbuku's Avatar
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    Hydrogen squeezed from stone could be new energy source



    Scientists from the University of Lyon have discovered a new way to split hydrogen gas from water, using rocks.

    The method promises a new green energy source, providing copious hydrogen from a simple mixture of rock and water.

    It speeds up a chemical reaction that takes geological timescales in nature.

    In the reaction, the mineral olivine strips one oxygen and hydrogen atom from an H2O molecule to form a mineral called serpentine, releasing the spare hydrogen atom.



    The mineralogists at Lyon were expecting the reaction to take weeks, if not months, so having set the experiment running one afternoon they were shocked to discover that half of the olivine crystal had already reacted when they took a look at it the next morning.

    They realised that the addition of aluminium, dissolved from the ruby crystal, was key, speeding up the rate at which the olivine crystals dissolve in water and new serpentine minerals grow. Any source of aluminium could be used, and at the lower temperature experiments the researchers also used bauxite.
    BBC News - Hydrogen squeezed from stone could be new energy source

    A cheap industrial process for gathering hydrogen from one of the most common minerals on the planet.

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