Alternative Energy Sources That Are Cheaper Than Solar

Nuclear

Seeing as the nuclear power plants been around since the 1950s, you may not think of nuclear power as being particularly "alternative." But it doesn't produce greenhouse gases, and it does produce electricity.

And at just 11 cents a kwh to pay for electrons generated by the latest generation of nuclear reactors, it's definitely in the hunt to underprice solar. In France, where they do nuclear power at scale, utility company Electricite de France sells nuclear-generated electricity for about 5 cents a kwh.


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Eco-friendly Removal of Oil from Soil

A Lithuanian company claims that their three stage process can remove oil from contaminated soil using only environmentally friendly chemicals, bacteria, and plants.

Oil contaminated soil comes from both accidents and industrial processes. The refining of oil often results in large amounts of highly contaminated sludge. But oil soaked into soil requires different cleaning techniques than oil spills on water.

The company Biocentras first uses a surfactant, a chemical which breaks down the chemically repellent barriers between substances. The surfactant, mixed with water, is used to wash the soil and can be used up to ten times, Biocentras reports. Afterward, the chemical breaks down into a “natural” compound, according to a press release by Eureka, a European business technology advocacy group.

The second stage uses microorganisms to break down the oil remaining in the soil.

"The bacteria used in the process lie dormant in negative temperatures, but then come to life as the temperature rises. However, some organisms can start to degrade oil at temperatures that are only a little more than is required to melt ice," said Monika Kavaliauske, manager at Biocentras, in a press release by the company. But, she added "it is much more effective in warmer climates."

Microorganisms break the oil down to a point where hardy plants can be used to further break down the oil. Using plants to clean up the environment is called “phytoremediation.”

Don't try this at home, only certain plants can take that kind of abuse. Moviegoers might remember the scene in Fight Club where members of Project Mayhem put up a billboard that says, “Did you know used motor oil can be used as fertilizer?”

It can't.

The whole process takes about one year, and leaves soil that can be used by other, less hardy plants. Biocentras has cleaned soils with up to .67 pounds (300 grams) of oil per kilogram (2.2 pounds) of soil.

So far more than 22,000 tons of soil have been cleaned using this process, mostly in Lithuania. But Biocentras hopes to expand into the Middle East, where warmer temperatures will make the process even more effective.

“We have no clients in the Middle East and are actively looking for them. There are potential applications for most of the world and we are keen to develop it further,” said Kavaliauske.

Alternative Energy Sources That Are Cheaper Than Solar

Geothermal

There's also geothermal energy -- which uses the differential between near-constant temperatures below-ground and temperatures up here to create energy.

Because geothermal energy equipment is of necessity buried, it costs a bit more to maintain it. But total costs tend to average around 10 cents a kwh -- similar to wind, and not much more than hydro. But again, a heck of a lot cheaper than solar. Indeed, at the Geysers power plant in California, geothermal energy is sold for as little as 3 cents a kwh.


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Alternative Energy Sources That Are Cheaper Than Solar

Wind

Say what you will about the downsides of wind power -- that windmills kill birds and bats, that they allegedly induce headaches in their neighbors -- one thing's for sure: Wind power is a whole lot cheaper than solar.

EIA estimates say that amortized over their lifetime, windmills generate electricity for a cost of just 10 cents a kwh on average -- on par with hydro, and far cheaper than solar.

Across the ocean, the European Wind Energy Association claims that some of its member projects are generating electricity at a cost of as little as 5 cents a kwh.



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Alternative Energy Sources That Are Cheaper Than Solar

 Hydroelectric

Electricity generated by running water through a dam's turbines costs about 9 cents a kwh generated. That's less than half the cost of electricity generated from "ordinary" solar panels. More than three times less than solar thermal power. And hydropower may be even cheaper than what the EIA says it is.

The Hoover Dam, for example, is said to wholesale the electricity it generates for as little as 1.6 cents a kwh -- about a penny-and-a-half.



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Amazing Transportation Inventions: SkySails Towing Kite

Photograph courtesy SkySails

"Let's go fly a kite, up to the highest height," the characters of Mary Poppins sing in Walt Disney's 1964 film. For SkySails, a company headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, high-flying, huge kites are the basis of a business aiming to transform the shipping industry.

Already, SkySails has attracted about 50 million euros ($67.6 million) in investment for its automated towing kite systems, which include onboard launch, recovery, and steering systems, plus a rope, control pod, and towing kite that swoops in figure-eights hundreds of meters in the air in front of the ship to generate propulsion power.

Fewer than 10 ships have been outfitted with the technology to date. Yet using wind propulsion to eliminate even a portion of cargo ships' fossil fuel needs could be an important step for an industry responsible for some 3.3 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions in 2007. And the International Maritime Organization estimates emissions from international shipping, which made up 2.7 percent of global human-caused CO2 emissions in 2007, could double or triple by 2050.

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Gobi Desert of Inner Mongolia turns up evidence of a 90-million-year-old grave­yard

An expedition in the Gobi Desert of Inner Mongolia turns up evidence of a 90-million-year-old grave­yard, including the remains of more than a dozen fossilized ostrich like dinosaurs.
 

Evidence at the site points to a unique and rare conclusion: the dinosaur fossils were not deposited at the site over millennia. Instead the dinosaurs all met their fate at the same time.

The sudden death of the herd in a mud trap provides a rare snapshot of social behavior. Composed entirely of juveniles of a single species of ornithomimid dinosaur (Sinornithomimus dongi), the herd suggests that immature individuals were left to fend for themselves when adults were preoccupied with nesting or brooding.

Paleontologist: Mary Anning

Mary Anning was a British fossil collector, dealer, and paleontologist who became known around the world for a number of important finds she made in the Jurassic marine fossil beds at Lyme Regis in Dorset, where she lived. Her work contributed to fundamental changes that occurred during her lifetime in scientific thinking about prehistoric life and the history of the Earth.

At the time Mary Anning lived, scientists were just beginning to appreciate the significance of fossils--recognizing them as the remains of long-extinct creatures, rather than the rare skeletons of still-living animals. Not a trained scientist herself, Anning got into fossil collecting as a way of making money: when she was 12 years old, she found an ichthyosaur skeleton on the English coast, and she discovered the first-ever plesiosaur fossil ten years later. By this time she had come to the attention of the British scientific establishment, which must not have been surprised when she managed to dig up a Dimorphodon (a genus of pterosaur that, until then, had never been identified outside Germany).

Mary Anning's upbringing had a lot to do with her later notoriety. Even when she was a child, the English town of Lyme Regis was known for its unusual fossils, mostly of marine animals like ammonites and belemnites dating to the early Jurassic period. During the Napoleonic Wars, before Mary had reached her teens, her father took her and her brother out to collect fossils and sell them to curious visitors, since the upheavals across the English Channel had a dismal effect on the local economy (in fact, Anning's father was himself involved in organizing protests against food shortages).

By the time she died, at the age of 47, Mary Anning had received a lifetime annuity from the British Association for the Advancement of Science--not a small honor at a time when women weren't expected to be literate, much less capable of making scientific discoveries. Anning was memorialized even more effectively by a popular tongue-twister written by Terry Sullivan in the late nineteenth century: "She sells sea shells by the sea shore."

Fossils of the Cretaceous

Ancient bird - Confuciusornis

Roughly 130 million years ago, in what is now northeastern China, volcanoes repeatedly showered down fine-grained ash, capturing remarkable details of ancient animals and plants. The fossils have allowed scientists to reconstruct a vivid picture of the ecosystem and gain insights into how modern organisms evolved. Here, glimpse the creatures—some familiar, others entirely alien—that inhabited the region long ago. 

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When feathered dinosaurs roamed the land, true birds soared through the Liaoning skies. Some were as big as albatrosses; others, such as this Confuciusornis, were more the size of pigeons. This fossil, dating to about 120 million years ago, reveals characteristics that make Confuciusornis a mix of primitive (more dinosaur-like) and advanced (modern bird-like) traits: Like dinosaurs and the oldest known bird, Archaeopteryx, it has three fingers that are not fused into a single element, but like modern birds, it has a toothless beak and a well-developed shoulder girdle to power flight. 

Japanese Company Invents Water Fueled Car

Tired of pumping expensive gasoline into your car? Well one Japanese company reveals an eco-friendly car that runs on water, using the company's generating system, which converts water into electrical power - possibly the world's first.

All you need is a liter of water - any kind of water to be exact, whether its river, rain, sea water, or even Japanese tea.

Genepax unveiled a car that runs on water in the western Japanese city of Osaka. They say it's an electric powered car that runs solely on hydrogen dioxide.

Kiyoshi Hirasawa, Genepax CEO: "The main characteristic of this car is that no external input is needed. The car will continue to run as long as you have a bottle of water inside for you to add from time to time."

According to Japanese broadcaster TV Tokyo, once the water is poured into a water tank at the back of the car, the newly invented energy generator takes out the hydrogen from the water, releases electrons and finally generates electrical power.

Kiyoshi Hirasawa, Genepax CEO: "We highly recommend our system since it does not require you to build up an infrastructure to recharge your batteries, which is usually the case for most electric cars."

According to the Genepax, 1 liter of water keeps the car running for about an hour with a speed of 80 kilometers or 50 miles an hour.

The company has just applied for a patent and is hoping to collaborate with Japanese automobile manufacturers to mass manufacture their invention in the very near future.



Reposted From Healthy Posts

Fossils of the Cretaceous

Dinosaur with proto-feathers - Sinosauropteryx


Roughly 130 million years ago, in what is now northeastern China, volcanoes repeatedly showered down fine-grained ash, capturing remarkable details of ancient animals and plants. The fossils have allowed scientists to reconstruct a vivid picture of the ecosystem and gain insights into how modern organisms evolved. Here, glimpse the creatures—some familiar, others entirely alien—that inhabited the region long ago. 

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The full name of this animal, Sinosauropteryx prima, means "first Chinese winged lizard." Its discovery in the mid-1990s delighted many paleontologists who suspected that birds are close kin to dinosaurs. This fossil offered evidence in the form of downy, short feathers all along the animal's head, back, and tail. A carnivorous dinosaur about the size of a greyhound, Sinosauropteryx likely ran swiftly on its two hind legs. With fuzzy feathers just a few millimeters long, it is unlikely that it ever flew. The feathers could, however, help keep the dinosaur warm through cool nights in the temperate forest.

Yesterday’s fuel

The world’s thirst for oil could be nearing a peak. That is bad news for producers, excellent for everyone else

THE dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. The first barrels of crude fetched $18 (around $450 at today’s prices). It was used to make kerosene, the main fuel for artificial lighting after overfishing led to a shortage of whale blubber. Other liquids produced in the refining process, too unstable or smoky for lamplight, were burned or dumped. But the unwanted petrol and diesel did not go to waste for long, thanks to the development of the internal-combustion engine a few years later.

Since then demand for oil has, with a couple of blips in the 1970s and 1980s, risen steadily alongside ever-increasing travel by car, plane and ship. Three-fifths of it ends up in fuel tanks. With billions of Chinese and Indians growing richer and itching to get behind the wheel of a car, the big oil companies, the International Energy Agency (IEA) and America’s Energy Information Administration all predict that demand will keep on rising. One of the oil giants, Britain’s BP, reckons it will grow from 89m b/d now to 104m b/d by 2030.


Scraping the barrel

We believe that they are wrong, and that oil is close to a peak. This is not the “peak oil” widely discussed several years ago, when several theorists, who have since gone strangely quiet, reckoned that supply would flatten and then fall. We believe that demand, not supply, could decline. In the rich world oil demand has already peaked: it has fallen since 2005. Even allowing for all those new drivers in Beijing and Delhi, two revolutions in technology will dampen the world’s thirst for the black stuff.

The first revolution was led by a Texan who has just died . George Mitchell championed “fracking” as a way to release huge supplies of “unconventional” gas from shale beds. This, along with vast new discoveries of conventional gas, has recently helped increase the world’s reserves from 50 to 200 years. In America, where thanks to Mr Mitchell shale gas already billows from the ground, liquefied or compressed gas is finding its way into the tanks of lorries, buses and local-delivery vehicles. Gas could also replace oil in ships, power stations, petrochemical plants and domestic and industrial heating systems, and thus displace a few million barrels of oil a day by 2020.

The other great change is in automotive technology. Rapid advances in engine and vehicle design also threaten oil’s dominance. Foremost is the efficiency of the internal-combustion engine itself. Petrol and diesel engines are becoming ever more frugal. The materials used to make cars are getting lighter and stronger. The growing popularity of electric and hybrid cars, as well as vehicles powered by natural gas or hydrogen fuel cells, will also have an effect on demand for oil. Analysts at Citi, a bank, calculate that if the fuel-efficiency of cars and trucks improves by an average of 2.5% a year it will be enough to constrain oil demand; they predict that a peak of less than 92m b/d will come in the next few years. Ricardo, a big automotive engineer, has come to a similar conclusion.

Not surprisingly, the oil “supermajors” and the IEA disagree. They point out that most of the emerging world has a long way to go before it owns as many cars, or drives as many miles per head, as America.

But it would be foolish to extrapolate from the rich world’s past to booming Asia’s future. The sort of environmental policies that are reducing the thirst for fuel in Europe and America by imposing ever-tougher fuel-efficiency standards on vehicles are also being adopted in the emerging economies. China recently introduced its own set of fuel-economy measures. If, as a result of its determination to reduce its dependence on imported oil, the regime imposes policies designed to “leapfrog” the country’s transport system to hybrids, oil demand will come under even more pressure.

A fit of peak

A couple of countervailing factors could kick in to increase consumption. First, the Saudis, who control 11% of output and have the most spare capacity, may decide to push out more, lowering prices and thus increasing demand. Then again, they might cut production to try to raise prices, thereby lowering demand further. Second, if declining demand pushes down the oil price, drivers may turn back to gas-guzzling cars, as they did when oil was cheap in the 1990s. But tightening emissions standards should make that harder in future.

If the demand for oil merely stabilises, it will have important consequences. The environment should fare a little better. Gas vehicles emit less carbon dioxide than equivalent petrol-powered ones.

The corporate pecking order will change, too. Currently, Exxon Mobil vies with Apple as the world’s biggest listed company. Yet Exxon and the other oil supermajors are more vulnerable than they look. Bernstein, a research firm, reckons that new barrels of oil from the Arctic or other technologically (or politically) demanding environments now cost $100 to extract. Big Oil can still have a decent future as Big Gas, but that will not prove as profitable.

The biggest impact of declining demand could be geopolitical. Oil underpins Vladimir Putin’s kleptocracy. The Kremlin will find it more difficult to impose its will on the country if its main source of patronage is diminished. The Saudi princes have relied on a high oil price to balance their budgets while paying for lavish social programmes to placate the restless young generation that has taken to the streets elsewhere. Their huge financial reserves can plug the gap for a while; but if the oil flows into the kingdom’s coffers less readily, buying off the opposition will be harder and the chances of upheaval greater. And if America is heading towards shale-powered energy self-sufficiency, it is unlikely to be as indulgent in future towards the Arab allies it propped up in the past. In its rise, oil has fuelled many conflicts. It may continue to do so as it falls. For all that, most people will welcome the change.

Reposted From The Economist

Yes, Smog-Eating Sidewalks Are a Real Thing

Dutch scientists say their revolutionary concrete can cut urban air pollution by 45 percent.

Eco-concrete in the Netherlands: Dirty air, beware!

The eco-makeover of urban surfaces continues. First came white roofs. Then so-called cool pavement. And now smog-eating concrete.

Yup, sidewalks with a taste for filthy air.

Eindhoven University of Technology scientists have installed air-purifying cement onto a city block in Hengelo, Netherlands, and published the results, which found that it reduced nitrogen oxide air pollution up to 45 percent in ideal weather conditions. This is an average reduction of 19 percent each day.

The concrete, dubbed “photocatalytic,” is made with run-of-the-mill cement sprayed with a chemical—titanium oxide—that neutralizes air pollutants, the researchers’ abstract states.

“[The concrete] could be a very feasible solution for inner city areas where they have a problem with air pollution,” said researcher Jos Brouwers in 2010 to CNN, when the pavement was in its early stages.

So, what’s the world waiting for? Why aren’t urban jungles with smog problems—we’re especially looking at you, Beijing—not jackhammering every piece of old-school pavement and pouring the new stuff?

Well, like most public work projects, it all comes down to cost. Titanium dioxide pavement is simply more expensive than your grandfather’s cement.

But, with further product tinkering and price–reduction, air-scrubbing pavement could be the stomping ground of the future.

Reposted From Take Part.com

Hopeful Energy Stories: Energy Impacts from Extreme Weather

 Photograph by Karly Domb Sadof, AP

An exploding transformer lit up part of lower Manhattan, which was otherwise plunged into darkness during power outages in the wake of Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. Mother Nature roughed up the power industry in 2012—and some believe she got a boost from human-driven climate change.

Sandy knocked out power to some 8.5 million homes and businesses in 16 states. Damage from the storm highlighted the aging and vulnerable grid infrastructure found across much of the U.S., which many states are working to update with smarter electric-distribution systems that can quickly identify and respond to trouble. 

During the lead-up to Labor Day, Hurricane Isaac was part of a perfect storm that drove pump prices sky high just before one of the year's biggest travel weekends. The approaching storm shut down Gulf Coast refineries, which caused dips in inventory and reactionary spikes in gasoline prices. 

Not all of the stress on the power grid came from storms. Record-breaking drought conditions that gripped much of the U.S. over the summer also took a toll. Nuclear power plants, which require water for cooling, were forced to scale back production, and some shut down—even as heat drove demand for air-conditioning and electricity. Hydroelectric power production was also slowed during summer 2012's extended dog days.

—Brian Handwerk




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Notable Feathered Dinosaurs: Shuvuuia

Late Cretaceous (85-75 million years ago)

Size and Weight:About 2 feet long and 6 pounds

Diet:Insects and small animals

Distinguishing Characteristics:Small, birdlike head; dinosaur-like forelimbs
 

Shuvuuia is one of those ancient dino-birds that gives paleontologists fits, seeming to be composed of an equal number of bird-like and dinosaur-like characteristics. Its head, for example, was distinctly birdlike, as were its long legs and three-toed feet, but its too-short arms call to mind the stunted limbs of bipedal theropods like Tyrannosaurus Rex. Lately, the consensus seems to be that the almost certainly feathered Shuvuuia was closer to a dinosaur than to a prehistoric bird, but the issue may never be settled conclusively.

By the way, Shuvuuia also stands out for being one of the few dinosaurs (or prehistoric birds) whose name isn't derived from Greek roots--"shuvuu" is the word for bird in Mongolia, where Shuvuuia's fossils were first discovered.






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Check out Bob's Dinosaur Blog !

Bob Strauss is a freelance writer and book author; one of his specialties is explaining scientific concepts and discoveries to both a lay and professional audience.

Bob Strauss is the author of two best-selling question-and-answer books that range across the expanse of science, biology, history and culture: The Big Book of What, How and Why (Main Street, 2005) and Who Knew? Hundreds & Hundreds of Questions & Answers for Curious Minds (Sterling Innovation, 2007).

10 Essential Books Featuring Dinosaurs in Science Fiction: Thunder Series by James F. David (1995)

Starting with the novel Footprints of Thunder and continuing in Thunder of Time and then most recently Dinosaur Thunder, this series imagines strange temporal inconsistencies seeing a contemporary world colliding with aspects of the Cretaceous world. Dinosaurs are eating people and jungles are randomly popping up everywhere. In the latest book, a T-Rex has been discovered on the moon. We’ve always wondered what else was on the moon. Now we know.


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