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[Michael]

Thought I'd start a thread on fun and interesting new technologies.  Here's a start:

Green, slow air cargo

Air freight is the most ecologically damaging mode of transport. It becomes the most eco-friendly option if speed is reduced.

An American company, Ohio Airships, combines the advantages of air cargo while significantly reducing ecological problems. They achieve this by designing slow cargo airships, called “Dynalifters”. These air vessels mix the travel concepts of planes and Zeppelins. They can carry 3 times more freight than a Boeing 747, but travel at a speed of only 200 kilometres an hour, consuming considerably less fuel.

The vessels are designed to overcome the drawbacks of traditional airships, like ground-handling in windy conditions. The Dynalifter, unlike the Zeppelin aircraft, is not lighter than air and has an internal frame where a large fraction of its weight is carried by aerodynamic lift on the wings and hull.

The airship has wheels and takes off and lands as passenger aircrafts do. The company completed 4 conceptual designs for four different sizes. All designs are equipped with detachable cargo pods for rapid loading and off-loading, and a prototype with a length of 37 metres has already been built and tested.

Air freight will keep on growing

Since the beginning of the nineties, air freight has been increasing at a rapid rate, greater than that of passenger travel. According to French business newspaper Les Echos, air cargo will keep on growing at a rate of 5.2 percent per year up till 2011.

In that year, 112 million tonnes of goods are predicted to be transported by air, compared to 78 million tonnes in 2004. At present, half of all air freight is transported in the cargo space of passenger aircraft.

It is a known fact that the least ecological means of transferring goods is by air. One reason for this is the technology itself. Aeroplanes burn immense amounts of fuel and emit more greenhouse gases than any other mode of transport.

Secondly, geographical trade behaviour dictates goods to be traded predominantly from East to West. According to Air France, for every cargo plane that travels from Europe to Asia, 8 cargo planes travel back. This means that cargo planes are flying across with empty holds, solely to collect goods a lot of the time.

Low cost transport network

It may be said that air cargo also has its ecological advantages. Unlike trucks, airplanes do not need roads. Also, they do not pollute the oceans or displace complete ecosystems through water ballast as ships do. Ohio Airships is aiming mostly at the developing world.

North-America and Europe already have elaborate road systems in place, but for continents like Africa, Asia and South America, the development of an intricate road system may be expensive, and not be environmentally plausible.

To stimulate trade, the World Bank proposed upgrading the muddy African road infrastructure to a trans-African highway network that links 83 major cities and has a total length of about 100.000 kilometres.

Because of their growing economies, developing countries need greater amounts of cargo transport. Trucking (or to a lesser extent rail transport) would destroy their natural environment, and would demand vast amounts of money.

The largest cost in building a rail or trucking system is not the vessels themselves, but the road or rail networks. Dynalifter poses a competitive speed to trucks and trains, minus the need for an over cluttered road or rail network to be in place.

The airships only need a place to land and take off, on runways that are considerably smaller than those of traditional airports. That also means a cargo transport infrastructure could be installed much faster. According to Ohio Airships, a Dynalifter infrastructure could be developed for one tenth of the price of a conventional trucking system.

E-commerce

Ohio Airships also sees an opportunity in the developed nations; a slow air infrastructure, as a means of intermediate intercontinental parcel transport between slow shipping transport, which is cheap, and fast air transport, which is expensive. Airshipping could therefore match the needs of the e-commerce business model, which is the fastest growing trend in distribution.

© Kris De Decker (edited by Shameez Joubert)

Millenniumairships is working on a similar concept, an airship powered by solar energy (which means energy use can almost be reduced to zero).

[Michael]

Possibly the most promising of 2007:

Solar Breakthrough Ready for Market Monday, 31 December 2007

Nanosolar Ships First Panels
by Martin Roscheisen, CEO Nanosolar
After five years of product development – including aggressively pipelined science, research and development, manufacturing process development, product testing, manufacturing engineering and tool development, and factory construction – we now have shipped first product and received our first check of product revenue.

We are grateful to everyone who supported us through all these years and the many occasions where there appeared to be mile-high concrete walls in our path; the unusual intensity and creativity of our team deserves all the credit for achieving this major milestone today.

[Michael]

Ethanol from cellulose:



http://www.rangefuels.com/conversion_process

[Michael]

.

[December 28th, 2007]

North America’s Largest Solar-Electric Plant Switched On

December 28th, 2007

North America’s largest solar photovoltaic system is now running and generating power — about 30 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. The 14 megawatt power plant is at the Nellis Air Force Base in the sunny desert of southern Nevada. It’s expected to save about $1 million in power costs annually, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 24,000 tons each year.

The plant, which cost $100 million to construct, covers 140 acres of land at the western edge of the Nellis base. The company that owns the panels is leasing the land at no cost, and Nellis is agreeing to buy the power for 20 years at about 2.2 cents/kWh, instead of the 9 cents they are paying to Nevada Power, saving the Air Force $1 million each year. None of the $100 million cost came from the Air Force.

The photovoltaic system is made up of 72,000 solar panels. It’s enough to provide 30% of the electric needs on the base, where 12,000 people work and 7,215 people live. But at 14 megawatts the power output of this system is modest, compared to the solar thermal Nevada One project which generates 64 megawatts of power.

SunPower designed and built the photovoltaic power plant using its proprietary single-axis solar tracking system which follows the sun throughout the day and delivers "up to 30 percent more energy than traditional fixed-tilt ground systems," the company says.

[jimtzu]

Activists' national trek takes first steps in Yolo
American Indian group to lead 4,000-mile walk for environmental cause.
By Stephen Magagnini -
Published 12:00 am PST Saturday, February 9, 2008
Story appeared in METRO section, Page B2

"Sacramento Bee-DENNIS BANKS AND BUDDHISTS AMONG THE WALKERS "

Activists from four continents – led by American Indians and Japanese Buddhist monks – will gather in Yolo County on Monday to launch a walk across America dedicated to protecting the environment.

Led by American Indian Movement co-founder Dennis Banks, they will embark on a five-month, 4,000-mile spiritual trek to Washington, D.C., calling for an end to the degradation of the planet.

"We want to raise the issues of global warming and clean air, water and soil," said Banks. "Many native elders believe Mother Earth is being hurt by all this and it's going to cause some very serious climate change."

Banks, a well-known indigenous activist, said he didn't want future generations to look back and say, " 'What did they do to stop it?' "

The trek – dubbed "Longest Walk II" – begins on the 30th anniversary of the first "Longest Walk," another transcontinental journey led by American Indians. Like this second walk, the trek set off from D-Q University, a tribal community college seven miles west of Davis.

The two-year tribal college, founded in 1971 as a symbol of native empowerment, is named after Deganawidah, peacemaker of the Iroquois Confederacy, and the Aztec prophet Quetzalcoatl. Today, the school is fighting for survival after losing its accreditation and federal funding in 2005 over financial and enrollment problems.

"I'm happy they included D-Q because we're trying to get back on our feet and straighten things out," said D-Q chairman Calvin Hedrick, a Mountain Maidu from Plumas County. "Somebody just called and asked is D-Q even around any more – it will be great for people to see we're still trying and not letting things go."

The 1978 Longest Walk was undertaken to protest legislation that activists say would have wiped out Indian treaties and taken away tribal hunting and fishing rights. The legislation ultimately failed.

"Last time, we started with 60 people," Banks said, "and it just kept getting bigger until about 3,000 people walked into D.C., and we collected over 1.5 million signatures along the way."

The 1978 walk "was very much a walk for survival, and this walk, too, is very much about cultural survival," said Morning Star Gali, 28, an organizer from the Achumawi Band of Pitt River Indians near Burney.

"This is a call to action for our elders and youth to bring attention to what's going on in our homeland and the environment in general," Gali said.

The walkers plan to cover 15 miles a day, said Banks, who will lead a southern cross-country route.

A second contingent will follow the footsteps of the 1978 walk through Placerville and Lake Tahoe, Banks said.

Walkers of all ages are coming from 30 Indian nations and about a dozen foreign countries, including Germany, Norway, Switzerland, Russia and Australia, "and a walking order of 20 Japanese Buddhist monks," Gali said.

The walkers plan to to sleep under the stars, though organizers are hoping churches along the way will provide lodging. The Rumsey Tribe of Yolo County, which runs Cache Creek Casino, and other tribes will provide food, and the Sacramento Central Labor Council and Pollock Pines Community Center are helping with water and lodging, said co-organizer Ricardo Tapia of Woodland.

Longest Walk II will launch at 4:30 a.m. Monday with a ceremony at Alcatraz Island. Banks and thousands of other activists occupied Alcatraz from 1969 to 1971 to fight for American Indian rights.

Activists also occupied the land that became D-Q in 1971.

The walkers will caravan to D-Q Monday, where they'll sleep in dorms or camp out, said Hedrick. They'll meet a handful of students living at D-Q and running their own gardening class.

For more information on Longest Walk II, go to www.longestwalk.org or call Gali at (510) 827-6719.

[Michael]

Silicon Valley Starts to Turn Its Face to the Sun
By G. PASCAL ZACHARY

CAN Silicon Valley become a world leader in cheap and ubiquitous solar panels for the masses?

Given the valley’s tremendous success in recent years with such down-to-earth products as search engines and music players, tackling solar power might seem improbable. Yet some of the valley’s best brains are captivated by the challenge, and they hope to put the development of solar technologies onto a faster track.

There is, after all, a precedent for how the valley tries to approach such tasks, and it’s embodied in Moore’s Law, the maxim made famous by the Intel co-founder Gordon Moore. Moore’s Law refers to rapid improvements in computer chips — which would be accompanied by declining prices.

A link between Moore’s Law and solar technology reflects the engineering reality that computer chips and solar cells have a lot in common.

“A solar cell is just a big specialized chip, so everything we’ve learned about making chips applies,” says Paul Saffo, an associate engineering professor at Stanford and a longtime observer of Silicon Valley.

Financial opportunity also drives innovators to exploit the solar field. “This is the biggest market Silicon Valley has ever looked at,” says T. J. Rogers, the chief executive of Cypress Semiconductor, which is part-owner of the SunPower Corporation, a maker of solar cells in San Jose, Calif.

Mr. Rogers, who is also chairman of SunPower, says the global market for new energy sources will ultimately be larger than the computer chip market.

“For entrepreneurs, energy is going to be cool for the next 30 years,” he says.

Optimism about creating a “Solar Valley” in the geographic shadow of computing all-stars like Intel, Apple and Google is widespread among some solar evangelists.

“The solar industry today is like the late 1970s when mainframe computers dominated, and then Steve Jobs and I.B.M. came out with personal computers,” says R. Martin Roscheisen, the chief executive of Nanosolar, a solar company in San Jose, Calif.

Nanosolar shipped its first “thin film” solar panels in December, and the company says it ultimately wants to produce panels that are both more efficient in converting sunlight into electricity and less expensive than today’s versions. Dramatic improvements in computer chips over many years turned the PC and the cellphone into powerful, inexpensive appliances — and the foundation of giant industries. Solar enterprises are hoping for the same outcome.

To be sure, Silicon Valley’s love affair with solar could be short-lived.

“We’ve seen a lot of pipe dreams in the industry over the years, a lot of wild claims never came through,” says Lisa Frantzis, a specialist in renewable energy at Navigant Consulting in Burlington, Mass.

Another brake on the pace of solar innovation might be consumer behavior. It often can be hard to get consumers to change their habits, and homeowners may be slow to swap out expensive water heaters for newfangled solar solutions. Reliability is also an issue: while current solar technologies have proved relatively durable, it’s unknown how resilient the next generation of solar will be.

“We need technologies that can survive on a rooftop for 20 years,” says Barry Cinnamon, chief executive of Akeena Solar Inc. of Los Gatos, Calif., a designer and installer of solar systems.

Affordable solar development is also still dependent on government subsidies.

“Mass adoption requires technological innovations that dramatically lower costs,” says Peter Rive, the chief operations officer of SolarCity in Foster City, Calif., a system designer and installer.

So what does the valley bring to the mix? Expertise in miniaturization and a passion for novelty among its entrepreneurs.

“There are suddenly a lot of new ideas coming into this field,” says Paul Alivisatos, a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, who also has his own solar start-up.

One novel approach is called “solar thermal,” which uses large mirrors to generate steam to run conventional turbines that generate electricity.

In 2006, Vinod Khosla, a veteran venture capitalist best known as a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, discovered an obscure Australian company, Ausra, pursuing solar thermal. He persuaded the management of Ausra to move to Silicon Valley and helped it raise money.

Ausra recently signed a deal with PG&E, the big California utility company, to supply a large solar plant. “The best work in solar is happening in Silicon Valley,” Mr. Khosla says.

Another exciting area is thin-film solar, in which cells are created in roughly the same way that memory is created on dense storage devices like hard-disk drives — allowing the nascent industry to tap into the valley’s expertise.

At Nanosolar, for instance, some of those in top management come directly from Seagate Technology and I.B.M., two traditional titans in computer storage.

The promise of Solar Valley has investors opening their wallets as never before. But some worry that promising technologies of today must be renewed, and quickly, if the logic of Moore’s Law is to define solar.

“There’s a lot of money being thrown at the problem and that’s healthy; it gives it a real chance of succeeding,” Mr. Alivisatos says. “But so much of our effort is going into short-term victories that I worry our pipeline will go dry in 10 years.”

The fear of a solar bubble is legitimate, but after years of stagnation, entrepreneurs say the recent developments in the field are welcome. Long ignored by the most celebrated entrepreneurs in the land and now embraced as one of the next big things, solar energy may gain traction because of a simpler rule than Moore’s Law: where there’s a will, there’s a way.

[jimtzu]

vets making/using biodiesel to rebuild new orleans green.



<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/9cfOTXAXC14&amp;rel=0&amp;hl=en" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/9cfOTXAXC14&amp;rel=0&amp;hl=en</a>

[Michael]

Fuel from algae:

[Jana]

Yea that is a nice interum fuel, but we probably won't need it in 5-10 years. All the combustion engine fuels will go by the wayside...still these experiments will not go to waste, the development will lead to other things...algae for food for example.
Hey I learnt the highest efficiency solar collecting algae is a purple one...at 95% efficiency!!!
Wow. They should use that one.

[henry]

spirulina is also "pond scum", i partake a little with mitchell may's "pure synergy"... good new video jimtzu; being fogged in on top of "my" mountain is a scary thought. today was a good day and we went to the top of the mountain before the leaves come out in a week or so. the views over to the blue ridge and south to mount rogers were beautiful as was the view into burkes garden and over to kentucky. 4100 feet, small by western standards, but these old mountains have their charm. When the leaves come out, you can't see much, hence the appalachian trail's nickname,"the long green tunnel"... coming down the mountain out of the forest,the floor of our valley looked like it had been photoshop doctored. grass Beyond GREEN ...henry

[jimtzu]

Driving on Compressed Air
William McGillis
 
India’s largest automaker, Tata, has begun producing the world’s first commercial, air-powered car. Compressed air powers the Air Car, which will produce no emissions, reach speeds over 65 miles per hour, and have a range of 125 miles. Drivers will be able to fill up their air tanks in a few minutes at a gas station or plug the car into their home electrical system for a 4-hour recharge. Popular Mechanics reports that it will cost about $2 to fill the car’s carbon-fiber tanks with 340 liters of pressurized air.

Guy Negre, an ex-Formula One engineer, designed the high performance Compressed Air Technology for Motor Development International, who plans to introduce an air car into the US market in partnership with Zero Pollution Motors (ZPM). The first American Air Car models are slated to roll out of the ZPM factory in 2010; they will cost $18,000, have a top speed of 90 miles per hour, and achieve the equivalent of 106 MPG. Driving this car will not be completely pollution-free, as the recharging requires some fuel source, fossil or otherwise, but the efficient process will result in less total pollutants out of the tailpipe and into the atmosphere.

 

[jimtzu]

“The Secret of Dreaming.” Poulter, Jim and illustrated by Mark Smith. The Secret of Dreaming: The Story of Why the Land is Sacred and Why Man Must Be its Caretaker. Templestowe: Victoria: Red Hen, ©1988.

Used with the permission of Jim Poulter.


 Once there was nothing.

Nothing
but the Spirit of All Life

For a long time
there was nothing.

Then
in the mind of the Spirit of Life

…a Dreaming began.

In the empty darkness
there was a dreaming of Fire.

And the colour of Fire burned brightly
in the Mind of the Great Spirit

Then came a Dreaming of Wind,

and the fire danced and swirled
in the mind of the Spirit of Life

Then came a Dreaming of Rain

For a long time
the battle of Fire Wind and Rain
raged in the Dreaming

And the Great Spirit liked the Dream.

So the Dreaming continued.

Then, as the battle waned
between Fire Wind and Rain

There came a Dreaming
of Earth and Sky
and of Land and Sea.

For a long time
this Dreaming continued.

The Great Spirit began to grow tired
from the Dreaming,

but wanted the Dream to continue.

So life was sent into the Dream
to make it real,

and for Creator Spirits
to continue the Dreaming.

So the Spirit of Life
sent the Secret of Dreaming
into the world
with the Spirit of the Barramundi.

And Barramundi
entered the deep still waters,

…and began to Dream

Barramundi Dreamed
of waves and wet sand,

But Barramundi
did not understand the Dream
and wanted to Dream
only of the deep still water.

So Barramundi
passed the Secret of Dreaming
to the Spirit of the Currikee,
which is the Turtle.

And Currikee
came out of the waves
onto the wet sand

…and began to Dream.

Currikee Dreamed
of the rocks and warm sun.

But Currikee
did not understand the Dream,
and wanted to Dream
only of the waves
and wet sand.

So Currikee
passed the Secret of Dreaming
on to the Spirit of the Bogai,
which is the Lizard.

And Bogai
climbed onto a rock
and felt the warm sun on his back,

…and began to Dream.

Bogai Dreamed
of the wind and the open sky.

But Bogai
did not understand the Dream
and wanted to Dream
only of the rocks
and warm sun.

So Bogai
passed the Secret of Dreaming
onto the Spirit of the Bunjil,
which is the Eagle.

And Bunjil
rose into the open sky,
felt the wind in his wings,

…and began to Dream.

Bunjil Dreamed
of the trees and the night sky,

But Bunjil
did not understand the Dream
and wanted to dream
only of the wind
and open sky.

So Bunjil
passed the Secret of Dreaming
onto the Spirit of the Coonerang,
which is the possum.

And Coonerang
climbed high into the tree,
looked at the night sky,

…and began to Dream.

So Coonerang Dreamed
of wide plains and yellow grass.

But Coonerang
did not understand the Dream,
and wanted to Dream
only of the trees
and the night sky.

So Coonerang
passed the Secret of Dreaming
onto the Spirit of the Kangaroo.

And Kangaroo
stood tall,
looked across the plain of yellow grass

…and began to Dream.

Kangaroo Dreamed
of music, and song and laughter.

But Kangaroo
did not understand the Dream
and wanted to Dream
only of the wide plains
and yellow grass.

So Kangaroo
passed the Secret of Dreaming
onto the Spirit of Man.

And man
walked across the land
and saw all the works of creation
He heard the birdsong at dawn
and saw the red sun at dusk,

…and began to Dream.

Man Dreamed
of sharing the music of dawnbirds,
the dance of the emu
and the red ochre of sunset

And he Dreamed also
of the laughter of children

And man understood the Dream

So he continued to Dream
of all the things
that had been dreamed before.

He dreamed
of the deep still water,
of the waves and wet sand,
the rocks and open sky,
the trees and the night sky,
and the plains of yellow grass.

And Man knew through the Dreaming,
that all creatures
were his spirit cousins

…and that he must protect their Dreaming.

And he Dreamed
of how he would tell these secrets
to his child
who was not yet born.

Then the Great Spirit knew at last

that the Secret of Dreaming was safe.

And being tired
from the Dreaming of Creation,
the Spirit of Life entered the land
to rest

So that now,
when the spirits of all creatures
become tired

they join the Spirit of Life in the Land
So this is why the Land is sacred

and man must be its Caretaker.

[Morgan Maher]

Blooming Cycle

Morgan Maher

Inspired by tufts of dandelion carried by the wind to disperse seedlings, Matthew Boyko and Christina Ng of Society Creative LLC created Bloom, a device that attaches to a bicycle and releases floating seed-bubbles as you roll through the streets.

Vegetable based soap and seeds combine together to make a dissolving "nugget" which is stored in a resevoir.

As you pedal along, air enters the front of Bloom and spins a pinwheel inside which picks up a small drop of a bubble-seed mixture and blows a bubble carrying a seed out the back as "exhaust".

Sooner or later the bubbles pop, dropping the seeds where they might find a small crack or a little patch in which to grow.

[Michael]

New Solar Powered Bubble Plane