Green Technology Forum

EnerTech Environmental, Inc. announced today that it has signed an Expression of Interest to build a SlurryCarb demonstration facility at Masdar City in Abu Dhabi. Masdar City will be the world’s first zero-carbon, zero-waste, car-free city, completely powered by renewable energy.

EnerTech’s SlurryCarb demonstration facility will process biosolids (sewage sludge) produced from the permanent buildings erected during Masdar City’s first phase as well as from the accommodation for the several thousand workers building Masdar City between 2008 and 2016. Biosolids from the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, the workers’ accommodation, and the headquarters of Masdar will be converted into renewable E-fuel, a fossil fuel replacement. The demonstration facility is the first step towards installing a permanent SlurryCarb facility in the city.

“This is an opportunity to showcase the SlurryCarb process to the Middle East and work with the international community to build a city that truly embodies sustainable living and working,” said Kevin Bolin, EnerTech CEO. “It showcases the SlurryCarb process as the best available biosolids technology when it comes to sustainability, renewable energy, and the reduction of greenhouse gases.”

Masdar is Abu Dhabi’s multi-faceted, multi-billion dollar investment in the development and commercialization of advanced and innovative technologies in renewable, alternative and sustainable energies as well as green design. By applying scale and leveraging Abu Dhabi’s low-cost, tax-free manufacturing base, businesses will enjoy significant competitive advantages, allowing them to compete internationally and provide significant diversification to the Abu Dhabi economy. On February 9, 2008, Masdar broke ground for Masdar City.

Source: prweb.com

A Pacific Northwest renewable heating solutions manufacturer - Greenwood Technologies - is blazing a new trail in the clean technology market. The company has overhauled the traditional outdoor wood boiler to create a next generation of indoor and outdoor wood-fired furnaces, and investors are starting to take notice. Recently, Martin Tobias, formerly of Imperium Renewables, a biodiesel company located in Washington State, signed on as an investor.

Located in Bellevue, Wash., Greenwood Technologies manufactures low emission appliances that can heat spaces up to 12,000 square feet. The furnaces are available through more than 100 North American Greenwood Dealers. The company’s distribution is currently in the mid-West and Eastern states and provinces, and is expanding into overseas markets. Greenwood Technologies sales are on track to reach more than $10 million by the fourth quarter of 2008 and could reach $30 million by 2010.

“Just like other clean tech companies, we are developing competitive products that exceed the performance of similar conventional products,” noted Tom Eckmann, CEO of Greenwood Technologies. “With the rising cost of oil and gas, high efficiency wood-fired furnaces provide a significant economic relief to their owners.”

Clean tech wood boilers are helping households and light commercial businesses address rising fuel costs because of the locally available and renewable fuel source – firewood. They also produce approximately 90 percent less wood smoke and are twice as efficient when compared to traditional wood boilers. These significant benefits are making a difference to communities struggling with federal non-attainment for air quality.

Source: businesswire.com

This Wednesday, May 14, actor Ed Norton, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and experts in the field of green building appeared before Chairman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming to discuss how more efficient buildings and better building policies can reduce energy costs and cut global warming pollution. Norton is a Trustee for the Enterprise Foundation and works to bring green building practices to low-income housing development.

The building sector is responsible for 48 percent of all heat-trapping emissions, and it is estimated that 76 percent of all electricity generated by U.S. power plants goes to operate buildings. As energy prices rise — increasing the costs of cooling, heating and construction — green building has become a popular mantra for homeowners, corporations and environmentalists alike. Yet the numerous definitions of green buildings can lead to confusion, inaction or ineffective policy. As Congress examines all sources and causes of global warming emissions, it must consider how the buildings we work and live in can contribute to reducing the impact of climate change.

Source: globalwarming.house.gov

The recent report entitled Water for People – Water for Life of the World Water Assessment Programme of the UNESCO says that more than 6000 people die every day due to water-related diseases, including diarrhoea, worm infections, and infectious diseases.

In addition, organic pollutants from industrial wastewater from pulp and paper mills, textiles and leather factories, steel foundries, and petrochemicals refineries, are a major cause of illness in parts of the world where regulations do not necessarily protect people from such industrial outflows.

So the availability of drinking quality water is fast becoming a major socio-economic issue across the globe, especially in the developing world. However, water purification technology is often complicated, requires sophisticated equipment and is expensive to run and maintain. Moreover, it usually requires a final costly disinfection stage.

Now a team of scientists at the Ian Wark Research Institute at the University of South Australia are tackling this by taking a nanotechnology approach to water purification – a move that has the potential to prevent disease and poisoning from affection millions of people.

Research professor Peter Majewski and biomolecular chemist Chiu Ping Chan have investigated how silica particles can be coated easily with a nanometre-thin layer of surface active material (SAM) based on a hydrocarbon with a silicon-containing anchor. The coating is formed through a chemical self-assembly process so involves nothing more than stirring the ingredients to make the active particles.

These active particles were then tested to demonstrate that they could remove biological molecules, pathogens such as the polio virus, bacteria such as Escherichia coli, and Cryptosporidium parvum -– a waterborne parasite.

Source: engineerlive.com

Prana the Dinosaur is an inflatable “smart” sculpture built by the Contemporary Art and Technology class at Cypress College. The design enables the sculpture to monitor and visualize current air quality data of North Orange County, CA.

Prana (”breathing”, the breath of life) is described on Wikipedia as a Sanskrit word that refers to a vital, life-sustaining force of living beings and vital energy in natural processes of the universe. Prana is a central concept in Ayurveda and Yoga where it is believed to flow through a network of fine subtle channels called nadis.

Prana has been programmed to change color in accordance to the current air quality data extracted from airnow.gov, a cross-agency government website. Airnow.gov is dedicated to transmitting U.S. air quality conditions and forecasts. The hope for this project is to inform our school community with specific air quality data and to spark critical dialogue on campus. This sculpture was inspired by the many other air quality related projects studied in the course.

Source: air-dino.info

Researchers at the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign have developed a simple process to grow upright copper nanowires on different surfaces. The nanowire arrays could find use in field-emission displays, a new type of display technology that promises to provide brighter, more vivid pictures than existing flat-panel displays. In such an application, the nanowires would be used to fire electrons at phosphor particles on a screen, lighting them up.

The new manufacturing method, developed by Kyekyoon Kim and Hyungsoo Choi, leads to copper nanowires between 70 nanometers and 250 nanometers wide. The researchers can use the process to grow the nanowires on various surfaces, including silicon, glass, metal, and plastic. They describe the nanowire array and demonstrate a prototype field-emission display in an online Advanced Materials paper.

Source: technologyreview.com

Two large-scale carbon sequestration projects — the West Coast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership and the Midwest Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership — landed a total of $126.6 million in U.S. Department of Energy funds. The cash will be used to test carbon sequestration technology in California and Ohio. The two projects are the fifth and sixth projects the DOE has funded to improve carbon storage technology.

Both projects are intended to demonstrate the CO2 injection process, from pre-injection characterization to post-injection monitoring, and between the two projects, the DOE expects to see injections of one million tons or more of CO2. So far, the DOE has pursued similar tests in the Plains, Southeast and Southwest regions, through similar regional partnerships. DOE acting deputy secretary of energy Jeffrey Kuper calls these projects “the most promising of the major geologic basins in the United States.” He followed up in a press release from the DOE by saying that, “Collectively, these formations have the potential to store more than 100 years of CO2 emissions from all major point sources in North America.”

Source: matternetwork.com

With the cost of energy rising almost daily, it only makes sense to focus on energy efficiency in homes built for Habitat for Humanity families. That’s exactly what they’re doing in Harrisonburg.

In fact, the Central Valley Habitat for Humanity chapter there is working on its fourth house built to higher energy standards that conserve resources. The program is one that would benefit Habitat programs here and elsewhere across Virginia.
The recently built homes are equipped with solar water heaters and solar panels. The water heaters use sunlight to heat water.

Although the systems cost thousands of dollars to purchase and install, they reduce electricity bills substantially, said Johann Zimmerman, a construction manager with Habitat for Humanity. At one house, he said, the panels and an attached system could reduce the family’s water-heating bills by 80 percent. That’s good for the family’s budget and for the finite energy supplies that fuel power generation across Virginia.

The panels, Zimmerman said, “are part of the design instead of an after-thought. It’s economically stupid not to do it.”

Source: newsadvance.com

The Lightning Car Company offered a detailed look at its 700-horsepower electric Lightning GT this week, with word that “reservations for 2009 delivery are now being taken.” The Lightning GT, which requires a deposit of $30,116 and will cost roughly $300,000, makes the $100,000 Tesla Roadster look like a bargain.

At this point, it appears that the Lightning GT, which its makers say has a 0-60-mph time of 4.0 seconds, is not yet bound for the U.S. “We’ve had tremendous interest from customers in the United States,” says the company on its Web site. “We’re looking into the necessary federal certification requirements to enable us to retail the car in the U.S.”

The Lightning Car Company says “the build of the prototype [is] well underway” and should be finished later this year. The Lightning GT runs solely on electricity. It features a lightweight body built from carbon fiber and Kevlar, along with NanoSafe battery packs. The company says the battery packs have a life expectancy of more than 12 years and use nano titanate materials.

Source: edmunds.com

In keeping with its penchant for innovation in the mobile space, Samsung has announced the development of a cell phone that is powered by a fuel cell that uses water to begin the chemical process. Samsung Electro-Mechanics’ research center developed the fuel cell and water-induced process.

When the mobile is turned on, metal and the water that has been added to the phone react to produce hydrogen gas. The gas is then sent to the fuel cell where it reacts with oxygen in the air to generate power. The micro fuel cell and hydrogen generator can charge mobile devices for 10 hours (about 3 watts), and uses just ordinary water to start the chemical process.

“If the user uses the phone for four hours a day on average, they would have to change the hydrogen cartridge about every five days,” Oh Yong-soo, vice president of Samsung Electro-Mechanics’ research center, said.

Source: brighthand.com