Various scientists have been arguing over bioplastics and their cleanliness to the environment lately. A new invention from Brazil creates bioplastics having the strength similar to Kevlar from bananas and pineapples. Alcides Leão, a researcher at Sao Paulo State University, and the project leader, says his bioplastics are "30% lighter and three to four times stronger."
Princeton-based startup Proterro has announced the development of a technology that can produce sugar, the main source for ethanol, by using engineered cyanobacteria, photosynthetic organisms that can produce sucrose through a normally-occurring defense system.
Indian company Tata is getting more and more involved in the renewable energy sector. After the agreement their CEO had with Daniel Nocera for producing energy from water, they now make a deal with Australia-based Sunengy, which manufactures LSAs (Liquid Solar Arrays), basically floating concentrated solar power systems (CSP).
Google has started to invest in a 350-mile-long power line that will link Virginia and new Jersey. Taking into account that we're talking about energy, the $5 billion cost is insignificant, over a period of 10 years.
Fuel cells can have a hope of improvement due to a discovery by TU Delft researchers in Holland. They added minuscule titanium dioxide crystals to solid electrolytes to make them more conductive. Unlike liquid electrolytes, solid ones have the advantage of being more stable and easier to be contained. Electrolytes are also used mainly in batteries, between their two electrodes.
A team of Georgia Tech students (Solar Jackets) has converted an Audi TT into a "solar-assisted electric vehicle," in order to participate at the World Solar Challenge in Australia. The car has been presented at the Buckhead Eco-Collection.
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High concentrations of carbon dioxide could also affect atmospheric moisture, a recent study reveals. Long Cao and Ken Caldeira, from Carnegie Global Ecology found out an explanation for why the moisture increases with the decrease of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This finding could help us prevent droughts, economic instability and hunger.
Witness Russ Kremer, the leader of a group of 51 family farmers who sell meat under the brand of Heritage Acre Foods and a Missouri-based hog farmer plan to build the United States' first zero-waste pork processing plant, 100% powered by biodiesel.
Honestly, the reflection off my phone's screen annoys me, and I think it does the same to anyone. Some French scientists from a company named Wysips have produced a 100-micron thin film that uses the ambient light to charge the phone's battery - in a very cheap manner.
Designers Ale Leonetti Luparinia and Qian Jiang have come up with a new concept of a device that uses the wind energy produced by a running train. As the designers claim, the device, dubbed T-box, is a power generator that is able to harnesses wind power when a train moves across the tracks.
