Fossil Fuels May Have Caused Mass Extinction

Fossil fuels don’t exactly have a good reputation as it is – they’re incredibly environmentally destructive, and bear the brunt of the blame for our current situation with global warming. Now, experts are saying that “a frenzy of hydrocarbon burning” millions of years ago might have caused the most dramatic, devastating mass extinction the Earth has ever seen.

From the New Scientist:

Around 250 million years ago, the so-called “Great Dying” saw 70 per cent of species wiped out on land and 95 per cent in the oceans. A clue to what may have triggered this disaster lies in solidified magma from this time, which is widespread in an area of Siberia where coal is also abundant.

One suggestion is that the heat of the magma could have baked many billions of tonnes of CO2 out of the coal over a geologically brief period of a few thousand years (New Scientist, 8 December 2007, p 42). The ensuing climate change and ocean acidification would account for the extinctions. Now Norman Sleep and Darcy Ogden, both of Stanford University in California, think the trigger for the Great Dying may have been even swifter and more terrifying.

Rather than causing gentle heating, magma encountering oil- and tar-soaked coal underground would melt it, producing a highly combustible material, they say. Crucially, this molten mixture would be light enough to rise quickly to the surface. There it would burn explosively on contact with oxygen in the air, blasting dust and ash into the stratosphere and releasing huge quantities of CO2.

Basically, this resulted in hell on earth – vast areas of fire fountains and smoke columns over a moonscape littered with coal tar and coal fragments. If Sleep and Ogden’s theory is correct, the evidence is hiding in Siberia’s volcanic deposits – but we will probably never know for sure.

Link [New Scientist]
Photo credit: South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut

The World’s Dirtiest Power Plants

Virtually all power plants burning fossil fuels release insane amounts of pollution into the atmosphere – but some are definitely dirtier than others. And if you live in the Southeast United States, you’re practically surrounded by dozens of the world’s biggest carbon offenders.

Forbes has a new interactive map that lets you see where the world’s most polluting power plants are located, and learn all kinds of startling facts about them.

For example, France is the only G-7 country with no power plants among the world’s dirtiest – because they rely on nuclear power. Meanwhile, Taiwan’s got the nastiest one in the world – the Taichung Power Plant, which emits 40 million tons of carbon every year.

Check it out over at Forbes.com.

Link [Forbes]

Slay Your Energy Vampires!

It’s Halloween, the day all the monsters come out of the woodwork – but don’t forget, your house is already full of vampires. Energy-sucking vampire electronics, to be precise. Not only do they pack unnecessary dollars onto your electric bill every month, they also waste tons of energy, forcing those polluting factories to work overtime.

It’s time to hunt them down and kill them – with this guide by Delta Carbon Offsets.

Here’s what you can do.

Make it a family exercise. Have the kids look in every nook and cranny – in each room, in the basement, in the garage, and make a list of every vampire module. Then determine what to do with each of them.
Some need to stay plugged in.

In certain cases, such as perhaps an alarm clock or clock radio, the appliance needs the power all the time. The power module is supplying the juice to allow the clock to run, or to keep its memory.
Some only need to be plugged in when you’re using them.

A lot of appliances only draw power from the module when they’re doing their assigned task, like audio components, stereo systems and certain small lamps, etc. These vampires can be contained easily. You can simply unplug them when you’re finished with them, or better yet, plug them into an outlet strip with a power switch, like this one.

Read the rest at Delta Carbon Offsets. Happy Halloween!

Link [DeltaCarbon.org]

Shocking Photos: Bird Bodies Full of Plastic

Lighters, bottle caps, plastic bags and milk jugs. Fishing net, fishing line, zip ties, remnants of food containers. All of this and more floats in a massive vortex of trash in the Pacific Ocean – and in the stomachs of the birds who search for food amid the debris.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is twice the size of Texas, and many of the particles of plastic contained within it are so small they can’t be scooped out of the water. But other pieces – colorful pieces that look like they might be food – get swallowed by albatross and other birds.

Photographer Chris Jordan traveled to the Midway Islands, near the center of the garbage patch, to photograph the bodies of albatross chicks that have been inadvertently killed when their confused parents fed them plastic. Jordan didn’t move a single piece of plastic – he photographed the carcasses exactly as he found them.

The photos are a disturbing reminder of just how much of an effect our throwaway society is having upon our fellow inhabitants of this planet. Head over to Planet Green to view the whole set of 30 photographs.

Link [Planet Green]

Amazonian Tribe Massacred by Loggers Dwindles to 5 Members

Deforestation has many prices – not the least of which is the loss of an entire Amazonian tribe, which will inevitably die out now that there are only five members left. The once-vibrant, ancient Akuntsu tribe of Brazil lost almost all of their numbers to a massacre by loggers intent on stealing their land in the 1990s.

From The Independent:

Much of the Akuntsus’ story is – for obvious reasons – undocumented. For millennia, they lived in obscurity, deep in the rainforest of Rondonia state, a remote region of western Brazil near the Bolivian border. They hunted wild pig, agoutis and tapir, and had small gardens in their villages, where they would grow manioc (or cassava) and corn.

Then, in the 1980s, their death warrant was effectively signed: farmers and loggers were invited to begin exploring the region, cutting roads deep into the forest, and turning the once verdant wilderness into lucrative soya fields and cattle ranches.

Fiercely industrious, the new migrant workers knew that one thing might prevent them from creating profitable homesteads from the rainforest: the discovery of uncontacted tribes, whose land is protected from development under the Brazilian constitution.

As a result, frontiersmen who first came across the Akuntsu in the mid-1980s made a simple calculation. The only way to prevent the government finding out about this indigenous community was to wipe them off the map.

The seven members of the tribe who escaped the massacre retreated deep into the wilderness to survive, and were not formally “contacted” until 1995. They include Konibú, the tribe’s elderly chief and shaman, Pugapía, his wife, their two daughers Nãnoi and Enotéi and a cousin, Pupak. Konibú’s sister Ururú, the sixth last member pictured at front left, recently passed away. Tribal custom does not allow outsiders to marry in.

A documentary of their struggle called ‘Corumbiara: they shoot Indians, don’t they?’ which was filmed over a period of twenty years, is now showing in Brazil. Campaigners hope that the story of the Akuntsu tribe will persuade the Brazilian public to strengthen government protections for indigenous people.

The Akuntsu represent yet another reason why we must make protecting the rainforests of the Amazon, and elsewhere in the world, a top priority. Not only are these forests five times more effective than carbon capture at combating catastrophic climate change, they also harbor so many wonders of the human, animal, insect and plant worlds.

Link [The Independent]

Amphibians Going the Way of the Dinosaurs

If we don’t act soon, amphibians could disappear – forever. That may seem improbable given how many frogs, toads, salamander and newts there are on this planet, but experts say they’re in a swift decline and projected losses would constitute the biggest mass extinction since the disappearance of dinosaurs.

Amphibians are currently found on every continent except Antarctica, with some species able to survive partial freezing, 10 years without food, long droughts and temperatures of up to 104 degrees Fahrenheit – but that doesn’t make them immune to the problems that are facing them now.

From BBC News:

A third of all species of amphibian are threatened with extinction; nearly half are in decline, and they are the most threatened of all the vertebrate groups.

The usual suspects of habitat destruction, climate change, invasive species, environmental contaminants and overexploitation represent key interrelated factors.

Additionally, a disease called chytridiomycosis or “chytrid” (caused by the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) infects a wide range of amphibians globally and is capable of driving species to extinction.

Exacerbated by the other issues impacting amphibians, chytrid has emerged as one of the major threats to their survival. This disease can kill amphibians in otherwise pristine habitats or provide the final nail in the coffin for species already pushed to the brink of extinction.

Naturally, amphibians play an incredibly important role in the food chain, consuming massive amounts of invertibrates that we humans consider pests. Their skins also contain important pharmaceutical compounds like epibatidine, which is a painkiller 200 times more effective than morphine.

A new conservation organization called the Amphibian Survival Alliance has been launched in an effort to protect these creatures, but so far it’s seriously underfunded. Hopefully they’ll start seeing some donations roll in soon, because a world without amphibians would be really sad.

Link [BBC News]

Photo credit: R A Mittermeier/BBC News

Cave-Dwelling Blogger Hasn’t Spent Money in 9 Years

Could you go nine years without spending a penny? It sounds pretty much impossible – how would you feed yourself, keep yourself safe from the elements? What about clothing and medicine?

Daniel Suelo consciously removed himself from the consumer lifestyle nearly a decade ago and hasn’t looked back. He lives in a cave in Utah and fishes, forages, dumpster dives and sometimes hunts for his food – and writes all about it on his website and blog from a nearby public library.

From MatadorChange, via Treehugger:

While in Ecuador on a Peace Corps mission, he witnessed a rural community acquire increased monetary wealth through farming and shift their traditional lifestyle towards a diet of unhealthy, processed food and a newfound addiction to television.

The experience led Suelo on a spiritual quest that realized itself in India, where he was particularly moved by the Sadhus, wandering monks who renounce all money and possessions. He made the conscious decision to return home, quit his job, and carve out a life without money.

As he put it, “I simply got tired of being unreal. Money is one of those intriguing things that seem real and functional because two or more people believe it is real and functional.”

Essentially an extreme freegan, Suelo receives no government assistance and does not panhandle. He lives off the excess of American society, though the kindness of strangers helps a lot when he needs a ride, and he does use taxpayer-supported public libraries.

As Treehugger points out, Suelo probably has the lowest carbon footprint of any blogger in the world. Read more about his lifestyle and how he makes it work at MatadorChange and Suelo’s own website, Living Without Money.

Link [MatadorChange] via [Treehugger]
Photo: BBC World Service

Bizarre Exoplanet Atmosphere: Pebble Rain, Molten Lava Lakes

It sounds rather hellish: a planet where clouds of pebbles rain down into lakes of molten lava. That’s what scientists think the atmosphere is like on a newly discovered exoplanet called COROT-7b, and it definitely makes even our worst storms here on Earth seem like a piece of cake.

COROT-7b was spotted last February by the COROT space telescope launched by French and European space agencies.

From Washington University News:

The peculiar atmosphere has its own singular weather. “As you go higher the atmosphere gets cooler and eventually you get saturated with different types of ‘rock’ the way you get saturated with water in the atmosphere of Earth,” explains Fegley. “But instead of a water cloud forming and then raining water droplets, you get a ‘rock cloud’ forming and it starts raining out little pebbles of different types of rock.”

Even more strangely, the kind of rock condensing out of the cloud depends on the altitude. The atmosphere works the same way as fractionating columns, the tall knobby columns that make petrochemical plants recognizable from afar. In a fractionating column, crude oil is boiled and its components condense out on a series of trays, with the heaviest one (with the highest boiling point) sulking at the bottom, and the lightest (and most volatile) rising to the top.

COROT-7b has an average density about the same as Earth’s, but it’s certainly nowhere near as hospitable. It’s 23 times closer to its star than Mercury is to our Sun and its star-facing side is hot enough to vaporize rocks.

You don’t even have to be a stoner to have have a “Whoooaaaa, duuuuude!” reaction to stuff like this. It’s sort of mind-blowing to ponder such things from the comfort of our own beautiful planet.

Link [Washington University News]
Photo credit: ESO/L Calcada

How to Live on Earth: Experts Suggest User’s Guide

When it comes to living in harmony with nature, we humans have repeatedly screwed up, big time. But there’s no instruction manual that explains exactly how we should do things so we don’t harm the earth – yet. 28 scientists have suggested nine key areas including freshwater use and chemical pollutants where governments could define limits to ensure a “safe operating space for humanity”.

From Reuters:

“Today we are clearly driving development in the world blindfolded,” Johan Rockstrom, leader of the study and director of the Stockholm Resilience Center at Stockholm University, told Reuters of a lack of international guidelines.

“We are not considering the risks that there are deep holes we can drive into,” he told Reuters. The call, for setting “planetary boundaries,” was published in Thursday’s edition of the journal Nature.

Rockstrom said there were signs human activities had already pushed the world into the danger zone because of global warming, a high rate of extinctions of animals and plants and pollution caused by nitrogen, mainly used in fertilizers.

Among limits, they suggested capping the percentage of global land area converted to cropland at 15 percent. At the moment, the percentage is 11.7 percent, they said.

Though conservatives are probably shrieking in terror at the idea of global guidelines for a range of human activities, such a ‘user’s guide’ would be extremely helpful in uniting people around the world with a common goal of keeping this planet a safe and healthy place to live. Imagine if world leaders had concocted such a guide back at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution – the world would probably be a much cleaner, healthier place today.

It would definitely have to be a group effort, however, without giving any one person or organization too much say in how the guidelines were developed. Otherwise, we could end up with another Bible on our hands (and Great Flying Spaghetti Monster, we sure as hell don’t need that.)

Link [Reuters]
Photo credit: Alan Dean/Woodley Wonderworks

Ancient, Bizarre New Species of Ghostshark Discovered

The Eastern Pacific Black Ghostshark is a bizarre, highly unusual, newly discovered species… yet it was found off the coast of California. This ‘chimaera’ is part of an ancient and strange group of fish that branched off from sharks, in terms of evolution, nearly 400 million years ago. They’re normally found in deep waters.

From Science Daily:

The new species, the Eastern Pacific black ghostshark (Hydrolagus melanophasma), was described in the September issue of the international journal Zootaxa by a research team including Academy Research Associates David Ebert and Douglas J. Long. Additional co-authors included Kelsey James, a graduate student at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, and Dominique Didier from Millersville University in Pennsylvania. This is the first new species of cartilaginous fish to be described from California waters since 1947.

This new species belongs to the genus Hydrolagus, Latin for ‘water rabbit’ because of its grinding tooth plates reminiscent of a rabbit’s incisor teeth. This new species was originally collected as early as the mid 1960s, but went unnamed until this year because its taxonomic relationships were unclear. A large blackish-purple form, Hydrolagus melanophasma (melanophasma is Latin for ‘black ghost’), is found in deep water from the coast of Southern California, along the western coast of Baja California, and into the Sea of Cortez (Gulf of California). This species is known from a total of nine preserved museum specimens, and from video footage taken of it alive by a deep-water submersible in the Sea of Cortez.

Deep sea creatures are so fascinating, aren’t they? Finding new species is always fun, but it’s even more interesting when they are so ancient and have remained mostly unchanged for millenia. The sea is packed with so many amazing, mysterious things.

Link [Science Daily]

Want Big Veggies? Pee in Your Fireplace Ashes

Just about anyone will tell you that pee and food don’t mix. The idea of someone urinating on your food before it makes its way onto your plate is probably enough to make you feel a little nauseous – but, surprise! Piss can make veggies grow bigger and tastier, especially when mixed with wood ash.

It’s common knowledge that urine is good for compost – some gardeners even install toilet seats above their compost piles to make it easier for women to contribute. Now, a study has confirmed that human urine mixed with wood ash can produce as many high-quality tomatoes as synthetic fertilizers without risks to human health.

From Science Daily:

In the study, Surendra Pradhan and colleagues point out that urine, a good source of nitrogen, has been successfully used to fertilize cucumber, corn, cabbage, and other crops. Only a few studies, however, have investigated the use of wood ash, which is rich in minerals and also reduces the acidity of certain soils. Scientists have not reported on the combinaton of urine and wood ash, they say.

The new study found that plants fertilized with urine produced four times more tomatoes than nonfertilized plants and as much as plants given synthetic fertilizer. Urine plus wood ash produced almost as great a yield, with the added benefit of reducing the acidity of acid soils. “The results suggest that urine with or without wood ash can be used as a substitute for mineral fertilizer to increase the yields of tomato without posing any microbial or chemical risks,” the report says.

So, basically, if you want big tomatoes, just pee in your fireplace ashes and then spread them on the soil. Cheap, easy, and your drunken party guests will be more than happy to assist. Gotta love it!

Link [Science Daily]
Photo credit: Flickr user Wonker

Robot Seeks Out Toxic Waste Dumped by the Mafia

The mafia is going to have to rethink dumping toxic waste into Italian waters now that there’s a robot submarine on their trail. Italian authorities have deployed the underwater surveillance robot to a shipwreck off the Calabrian coast to see if it’s loaded with radioactive waste. An informant has told police that the ship may be part of a lucrative toxic waste-dumping scheme.

From The Huffington Post:

Calabrian prosecutor Bruno Giordano has cautioned in TV interviews that that until the contents of containers on the sunken ship are known, he can’t say if the allegations by a mob turncoat about the ship are true.

The robot sub began filming Saturday. On Tuesday, it was still unclear what the cargo held, or even if the ship was the Cunsky cargo vessel that turncoat Francesco Fonti has spoken about to magistrates and in interviews on Italian TV.

No name of the ship is visible, and it wasn’t known if someone had removed the name or if algae might have covered up writing.

Giordano said the former mobster, Francesco Fonti, from the Calabria-based ‘ndrangheta crime syndicate, has claimed the mob sank “hundreds” of barrels of illegally disposed of waste.

It won’t be surprising at all if it turns out the ship is carrying toxic waste. The Italian mob is renowned for orchestrating serious offenses against the environment in addition to their other crimes, dumping toxic waste on rural lands and in the waters off foreign countries for huge sums of money.

And, crazy as it may sound, this surveillance submarine is far from the first robotic pollution-detector. UK scientists developed creepily lifelike robotic fish that will be released off the coast of Northern Spain in 2011 to collect data on pollution.

Link [The Huffington Post]

Light Pillars: Amazing Natural Phenomenon

Photo credit: National Geographic

From a distance, it looks like someone spared no expense to put on a spectacular, colorful light show that can be seen from miles away. But these strange columns of light that often confound onlookers are actually caused by the combined forces of light and falling ice crystals.

Photo credit: Walter Tape

Usually seen only in polar regions, light pillars – as this phenomenon is called – result when natural or artificial light bounces off ice crystals as they waft to the ground. When the light source is close to the ground, the pillars appear above the floating crystals. When the light is coming from the sun or moon, the pillars appear beneath the crystals.

Photo credit: National Geographic

The height and brightness of light pillars depends upon the shape of the ice crystals. Crystals with plate or column shapes produce the most stunning effects. Ice crystals that cause light pillars can be found in ice clouds, ice fogs, blowing snow and what is known as diamond dust – ground-level clouds made up of tiny ice crystals.

Photo credit: ArborSci.com

While light pillars formed by sunlight may only extend a few degrees, in artificial light, they can extend 90 degrees or more depending on your vantage point.

Learn more about the science of light pillars at The Weather Doctor.

Link [National Geographic]

Amazon Deforestation Plummets 46%

Brazil pledged to slow down deforestation in the Amazon, and many environmentalists were highly skeptical – but new figures show that the logging rate did actually decrease dramatically between August 2008 and July 2009. Deforestation Detection in Real Time (DETER) and the National Institute for Space Research (INPE) say that deforestation rates dropped by a remarkable 46%.

Increased policing probably has a lot to do with it – the Brazilian government initiated 650 probes into illegal deforestation and arrested 298 people. However, this lower figure probably has something to do with the state of the global economy as well. When things pick back up again, the rate of deforestation will likely go through the roof.

There are already signs that this will be the case. June 2009 saw a stunning increase in Amazon deforestation, with an area the size of Los Angeles cleared in a single month. Though demand for timber products is still part of the problem, the biggest cause by far is cattle ranching, responsible for 80% of deforestation in the Amazon. Most of that beef is exported to Russia, Iran and Venezuela.

Though an appetite for meat is the main driver, vegetarians shouldn’t get too smug. Soybeans are the second leading cause.

Link [Treehugger]
Photo credit: The Guardian

Could Salting Clouds Buy Precious Time in Fight Against Global Warming?

Once considered a risky last resort, geoengineering is becoming more accepted as a possible way to slow down global warming – but that doesn’t mean some of the ideas scientists are coming up with don’t sound downright kooky to the layman. One proposal involves lightening clouds with salt to improve their ability to reflect sunlight.

Scientist John Latham suggested that increasing the number of droplets in maritime layer clouds (stratocumulus), which cover a third of the ocean, could significantly increase their reflectance.

From BBC News:

The water droplets in clouds reflect solar radiation back to space. And the numbers of droplets they contain are largely controlled by the number of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), such as specks of dust.

Many of these nuclei are produced over the land. Land-locked clouds therefore contain many hundreds of cloud droplets per cubic centimetre, whilst clouds that form over the sea contain substantially fewer.

Generally, the more droplets that are present in a cloud, the smaller they are. For a given mass of water in a cloud, clouds with smaller droplets tend to be whiter.

So the proposal is to inject a fine spray of sea salt from the ocean surface into the clouds; to artificially increase the number of drops, reduce their size and increase the reflectance of the clouds, making them whiter.

The cooling that could result from this experiment could buy us 25 years in the battle against global warming – certainly, a lot of precious time to make other changes that could improve the outlook. But this method will take quite a bit of testing to get it just right, including experiments to determine the ideal size of the sea-salt nuclei. Research is expected to cost about $10 million.

So how exactly would we go about salting clouds? Edinburgh University scientist Stephen Salter (yes, that’s really his name) suggested a fleet of “cloudseeders”, wind-powered yachts that would inject the clouds with sea salt.

Link [BBC News]
Photo credit: John McNeill via WFS.org

Great Pacific Garbage Patch Researchers Find Even More Plastic than Expected

Scientists with ‘Project Kaisei’, who spent three weeks gathering plastic debris from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, returned to the Bay Area this week with a rather horrifying sample of the trash that can be found floating in the ocean.

Chunks of styrofoam, cracked patio chairs, bleach bottles, tangled nets and old toys were among the junk they brought back – but the bigger concern is the amount of tiny, “confetti-like” pieces of broken plastic floating in the garbage patch 1,000 miles west of California.

From Mercury News:

“Marine debris is the new man-made epidemic. It’s that serious,” said Andrea Neal, principal investigator on the Kaisei, a 151-foot research ship on the trip.

Neal, a Santa Barbara researcher who has a doctorate in molecular genetics and biochemistry, said crews on the three-week voyage discovered tiny jellyfish eating bits of the plastic debris. The jellyfish are, in turn, eaten by fish like salmon or tuna, which people eat.

Because the plastic pieces contain toxic chemicals — and are believed to be able to absorb now-banned chemicals such as DDT and PCBs, which can persist in the environment for decades — state toxicologists have taken hundreds of the objects, along with more than 300 fish, to an environmental chemistry lab in Berkeley to see if any chemicals are moving up the food chain.

“Every day, every night, we’d pull up samples and pour the water through a sieve. It would be completely clogged with tiny pieces of plastic,” said Margy Gassel, a research scientist with the California Environmental Protection Agency. “It was so disturbing.”

The garbage patch is estimated to be twice the size of Texas, and scientists believe that the trash comes from storm drains and rivers in places like Japan and the Bay Area. It accumulates in a slow-moving zone in the Pacific Ocean. Most of the plastic fragments that make it up are too small to be visible from the air or from satellites.

Doug Woodring, one of the founders of Project Kaisei, believes that two possible solutions to keeping the problem from getting worse could be biodegradable plastics and specially designed storm drains that filter plastic debris from ocean-bound streams of water.

Stopping its spread is essential, but scientists aren’t even sure how to begin cleaning up what’s already collected in the garbage patch. The use of fine nets would likely result in the accidental killing of marine life. Hopefully, now that scientists are taking a closer look at the problem, a solution will be found soon.

Link [Mercury News]

Urban Organic Gardener: Self-Watering Fire Escape Garden in NYC

You don’t have to have a lot of outdoor space or cash to start an organic garden – in fact, if you’ve got a fire escape and some plastic containers in your recycling bin, you can grow everything from fresh greens and tomatoes to a wide array of herbs. Just ask Mike Lieberman, who built self-watering containers out of recycled materials so he could grow some of his own food at his Manhattan apartment.

Lieberman proves that small space can still provide a big yield with simple materials like soda bottles and buckets. He grows kale, swiss chard, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, peppers, mint, oregano and tarragon, all on his fire escape.

A second small garden in his grandmother’s Brooklyn backyard fits an incredible variety of fresh herbs and veggies into 16 mostly recycled containers, from cauliflower to cucumbers. This garden is a great example of how easy it can be to grow your own food, even if all you have is a porch or a deck to work with.

“This is my first time growing and the goal is get more people to do the same. To show them that it’s simple, they have the space and there’s nothing to be scared of,” said Lieberman.

Check out his blog at UrbanOrganicGardener.com for lots of tips and photos!

Link [Urban Organic Gardener]

Solar Electric Vehicle Company Provides Free Green Rides

Colleges, parks, museums and other institutions now have a green way to shuttle people around – for free! – thanks to the Solar Electric Vehicle Company. The company provides emissions-free, solar-powered people movers that are paid for by corporate sponsors so that more people will be able to breathe cleaner air, creating a healthier environment.

From SolarEVco.com:

For every solar electric vehicle in a community, citizens will have access to pollution-free transportation. For every vehicle at a university campus, more students will be able to cut down on their gas bills, as well as feel more secure traveling on campus. For every vehicle at any park, museum, garden, or zoo, there will be one less dirty, costly, petrol burning vehicle which keeps us dependent on foreign oil, and which keeps our economy inescapably tied to the price of a barrel of oil.

At the same time, while every solar electric vehicle is creating cleaner, greener, and better communities and institutions, they are also creating cleaner, greener, and better exposure for advertisers and sponsors. This allows them to connect more intimately and highlight their green commitment to their target markets. This is truly a model in which everyone wins.

Each Solar Electric People Mover is topped with two solar panels, which charge six 8-volt batteries. This enables the electric vehicle to go longer between charges, increasing the range by up to 33%.

It’s a pretty rad concept. Imagine how much cleaner the air would be in cities around America if even a fraction of universities and tourist attractions used these vehicles instead of traditional fossil fuel-powered vehicles. It could make a huge difference!

Link [SolarEVco.com]

Lower-Cost Solar Cells Can be Painted onto Rooftops

Nanoparticle ‘inks’ could soon be used to produce solar cells that can simply be sprayed onto a rooftop or other surfaces, and though this sounds like expensive technology, the chemical engineer who created it says it could reduce costs to one-tenth of their current price. Brian Korgel of the University of Texas at Austin says he believes that this reduction in price could thrust solar power into competition with fossil fuels.

From Science Daily:

For the past two years, Korgel and his team have been working on this low-cost, nanomaterials solution to photovoltaics – or solar cell – manufacturing. Korgel is collaborating with professors Al Bard and Paul Barbara, both of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Professor Ananth Dodabalapur of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. They recently showed proof-of-concept in a recent issue of Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The inks could be printed on a roll-to-roll printing process on a plastic substrate or stainless steel. And the prospect of being able to paint the “inks” onto a rooftop or building is not far-fetched.

“You’d have to paint the light-absorbing material and a few other layers as well,” Korgel said. “This is one step in the direction towards paintable solar cells.”

Currently, Korgel and his team at Innovalight, a company he founded, have been able to develop solar-cell prototypes using copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) with efficiencies at one percent. If they can get to 10 percent, there’s great potential for commercialization.

That’s definitely promising considering the fact that America’s solar industry is lagging behind China’s due to the fact that we just can’t seem to compete with their prices. It will be interesting to see how far Korgel and his team can take this technology.

Link [Science Daily]

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