Mircea Sandru, Author at The Green Optimistic

7 Ways Forests Benefit the Environment

Mircea Sandru — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 12:28:38 +0000

We’re seeing these days many scientists and environmental researchers talking about how forests could improve the environment. After developing and implementing so many green technologies that can reduce carbon emissions, some researchers concluded that forests are still unbeatable in environmental and climate conservation. So, without too much talking, let’s see what forests can do for […]

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Excess Human Body Heat Used to Keep Buildings Warm

Mircea Sandru — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 08:00:16 +0000

Already being used in many places around the world, the idea of using human body heat to keep buildings warm during cold seasons gains popularity very fast. After many studies engineers concluded that excess body heat could slash carbon emissions in urban areas by one third, if collected and used properly. You may have noticed […]

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How New Self-Healing Circuit Restores Electricity in 20 Seconds

Mircea Sandru — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 06:26:17 +0000

As many of you know, a broken and then repaired thing won’t ever be as it was before, no matter how much we try. This truth applies as well to electronic circuits, that once broken are not very easy to fix. Despite these, a team of engineers at the University of Illinois managed to create […]

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New Photo-Catalytic Fuel Cell Can Both Clean Wastewater and Produce Electricity

Mircea Sandru — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:08:12 +0000

People have so far created many water purifying devices and we always presented them here on The Green Optimistic. Now, Yanbiao Liu and his colleagues from Shanghai Jiao Tong University have created the photo-catalytic fuel cell, a new device capable of both cleaning wastewater and producing electricity from it. The photo-catalytic fuel cell uses light […]

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Agave Ethanol Could Replace Petrol Without Displacing Food Crops

Mircea Sandru — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 18:59:45 +0000

In recent years, those voices saying that using corn crops to produce biofuels is a bad idea are increasingly common. Taking into account the concentration of carbon emitted into the atmosphere and the high prices of grain, many people said that corn ethanol proved to be worse than oil. The agave plants nevertheless proved that […]

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Big Spring Town, TX, Recycles Urine For Drinking Purposes

Mircea Sandru — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:11:03 +0000

Maybe inspired by The Adventures of Bear Grylls, some people in Texas started to recycle urine in order to fight drought. Big Spring, a town in Texas, has been going through the worst drinking water crisis lately, so, authorities decided to take advantage of every possible source of water to overcome this critical moment. John Grant, […]

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Homemade Water Distiller Built in Less Than an Hour

Mircea Sandru — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:03:49 +0000

Here is a simple but efficient homemade water distiller that should be able to help us meet our daily water needs. As one of the most important elements of life, water can cause serious inconveniences when missing. Speaking of potable water, you have to admit that the idea of drinking tap water has become, for […]

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Aquacube Water Treatment System Provides Clean Water in Underdeveloped Countries

Mircea Sandru — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 14:25:20 +0000

Water, a key element of life, has always been one of the most exploited natural resources. Even if we have a lot of water (71 percent of the earthÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s surface), in some places on earth drinking water still remains an unsolved issue. Especially with the increasing population and industrial development, our clean water resources dropped drastically in recent years.

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Plastic Bottle Light Bulbs Illuminate Homes Without Electricity During the Day in Philippines

Mircea Sandru — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 07:24:14 +0000

Using one-liter plastic bottles, water and bleach, they managed to create the Bottle Light Bulb. The concept is very simple but a real wonder for those poor people who lived in darkness, or at the light of toxic petrol lamps.

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Blimp Wind Turbine Can Generate Power at 2000 Feet Above the Ground

Mircea Sandru — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 18:58:07 +0000

As you may know, many people became experts in generating wind power in recent years. Even so, they are still searching for more powerful, more consistent winds. For this purpose, some graduates from MIT came up with a new concept: if we can produce wind power on the ground, why not try to do the same thing in the air?

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Clean Water Harvested From Fog by Beetle-Inspired Device

Mircea Sandru — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 19:55:53 +0000

Inspired by Stenocara gracilipes, a beetle found in the Namib Desert, MIT engineer Shreerang Chhatre developed a simple and efficient device that can harvest fog. Being actually an inexpensive way to provide clean drinking water, this fog harvesting device could be perfect for poorer countries, where water scarcity is still an unsolved problem.

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Adama Kamara's Eco Friendly Stove Uses Biodiesel For Cleaner Cooking

Mircea Sandru — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 18:14:04 +0000

Most people didn't know that cooking on a regular stove can be very harmful for the environment and also for themselves. Using wood, kerosene and coal in your cook stove is not so cheap and more than that, the toxic fume resulted is very dangerous for anyone who inhales it.

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170 MW Geothermal Plant Built In Carribean Island of St. Lucia

Mircea Sandru — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 05:53:51 +0000

Being only the half the size of Los Angeles, the St. Lucia island has a decent infrastructure and tends to attract the interest of many investors. St. Lucia's government decided to sign this agreement with Qualibou Energy, to keep up with world's renewable energy trends.

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Solar Power Growth Rate Compared to FaceBook Popularity

Mircea Sandru — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 19:47:42 +0000

The 1BOG service is a solar social network using a large group of people interested in solar power, to negotiate low-cost solar panel installations. They combine a group buying strategy with small daily solar deals in order to obtain lower prices for solar power installation.

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California Egg Farm Installs Chicken Poo-Powered Fuel Cell

Mircea Sandru — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 19:04:11 +0000

FuelCell Energy, one of the companies promoting alternative energy sources, announced the sale of a chicken poo-powered fuel cell to an egg farm in California. The 1.4-megawatt fuel cell system will produce enough energy to supply the farm's operations.

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VW Testing Hydrogen Fuel Cell Version of Bora on European Highways

Mircea Sandru — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 19:00:35 +0000

Volkswagen has recently tested two of their most advanced clean car technologies in a long-range drive, between France and Italy. The Volkswagen Bora HY.POWER and the SunFuel Bora TDI (Jetta in the U.S.) were successfully driven over the Simplon Pass, once again proving their efficiency.

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New York Firemen Benefiting From Solar Power

Mircea Sandru — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:17:02 +0000

Providing emergency medical services and fire protection on a 7 square miles area involves high costs,so installing a solar powered system will save the fire station nearly $200k.

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How Zinc Oxide Nanostructures Improve Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Mircea Sandru — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:50:35 +0000

In the latest generation of dye-senzitised solar cells, a ZnO nanostructure works as a medium for electron transport and as a scaffold for light harvesting dyes.

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Installation of Largest Rooftop Solar Project in Portland Finally Completed

Mircea Sandru — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:20:49 +0000

Portland General Electric and ProLogis have managed to finish what they started in March 2010, bringing their total solar build-out to 3.5 MW of solar energy. Atop of 7 ProLogis distribution warehouses in Clackamas, Portland and Gresham were installed 673,000 square-foot panels producing 2.4 megawatt of solar power.

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India Plans to Generate 1,000 MW of Solar Power by 2013

Mircea Sandru — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:28:08 +0000

Among the most important solar power harnessing nations like Spain, Japan or Germany, India decided to produce 1,000 MW of solar power by 2013. Farooq Abdullah, the Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy, announced that India will generate 500 MW of the power through solar photovoltaic cells and 500 MW will be solar thermal. “This is […]

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Power-Conducting Plastics Could Significantly Slash the Cost of Solar Panels

Mircea Sandru — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 12:48:29 +0000

Solar panels have become very popular these days, but the cost of making them has also reached a fairly high level. So far this thing happened because of the expensive materials used, but today researchers have managed to develop some new power-conducting plastics, able to slash the cost of making solar panels. In order to do that, they replaced tin oxide with conductive plastics.

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Nissan Planning to Install Their New EV Rapid Charger Every 80km Around Japan

Mircea Sandru — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 12:46:00 +0000

In order to promote the newly-developed rapid charger, Nissan has planned installing it in 200 stores throughout Japan. To avoid those situations when the batteries die when you least expect them to, Nissan has developed a network of similar charging stations. So, with 200 stations across Japan and with a 40km-radius circle around each charger, you can not remain without batteries.

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CUESS: 3 Times Cheaper, 4 Times More Efficient Concentrated Photovoltaic/Thermal Array

Mircea Sandru — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:48:08 +0000

Using cheaper materials and latest technology scientists have managed to create a new type of concentrating array, three times cheaper and four times more efficient than any other solar cells. Researchers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology have explained why this technology is so efficient by listing some key components and explaining how they work.

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Hydroelectric Generator: How to Build a Small One

Mircea Sandru — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 17:13:38 +0000

If you want to produce electricity using a river near your home, the best way you can do it is to build a small-scale hydroelectric generator. Often called as a low-impact hydro, micro-hydro or run-of-stream hydro generator, this system is not very hard to build.

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Arctic Emissions of Methane Could Trigger Abrupt Climate Warming

Mircea Sandru — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:52:29 +0000

Researchers concluded that the release of just a fraction of the methane held in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf sediments could lead to a sudden warming of the climate.

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Scientists Extracting Biofuels From Waste Tea Leaves

Mircea Sandru — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:06:35 +0000

Pakistani scientists have begun to think seriously about converting waste tea leaves into biofuels. They found a way to produce biodiesel from used tea leaves, using a nanocatalyst that is able to accelerate chemical reactions.

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New Chemical Process Converts Cellulose from Agricultural Wastes Into Jet Fuel

Mircea Sandru — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:13:05 +0000

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have managed to produce jet fuel and gasoline by processing cellulose from agricultural waste with a new chemical method.

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