Upcoming technology to save the planet!

tecoyah · 04-10-08, 07:25 AM

This site makes me smile....so many possible solutions waiting for us to tap. One can only imagine what will happen when we get serious about renewable energy and the Government decides to pay attention to science again. Heres a small snippet:

Quote:

The Plasma Converter ... can consume nearly any type of waste—from dirty diapers to chemical weapons—by annihilating toxic materials in a process ... called plasma gasification. A 650-volt current passing between two electrodes rips electrons from the air, converting the gas into plasma. The plasma arc is so powerful, it disintegrates trash into its constituent elements by tearing apart molecular bonds. The system is capable of breaking down pretty much anything except nuclear waste. The only by-products are an obsidian-like glass [and] a mixture of primarily hydrogen and carbon monoxide that can be converted into a variety of marketable fuels, including ethanol, natural gas and hydrogen. Perhaps the most amazing part of the process is that it’s self-sustaining. Once the cycle is under way, the 2,200°F syngas is fed into a cooling system, generating steam that drives turbines to produce electricity. About two thirds of the power is siphoned off to run the converter; the rest can be used on-site for heating or electricity, or sold back to the utility grid. Even a blackout would not stop the operation of the facility. New York City is already paying an astronomical $90 a ton to get rid of its trash. According to Startech, a few 2,000-ton-per-day plasma-gasification plants could do it for $36. Sell the syngas and surplus electricity, and you’d actually net $15 a ton. But the decision-making bureaucracy can be slow, and it is hamstrung by the politically well-connected waste-disposal industry. Startech isn’t the only company using plasma to turn waste into a source of clean energy. A handful of start-ups—Geoplasma, Recovered Energy, PyroGenesis, EnviroArc and Plasco Energy, among others—have entered the market in the past decade.

Energy Inventions News Articles

tecoyah · 04-10-08, 07:28 AM

This one is very exiting, as its happening right now:

Quote:

Imagine a solar panel without the panel. Just a coating, thin as a layer of paint, that takes light and converts it to electricity. From there, you can picture roof shingles with solar cells built inside and window coatings that seem to suck power from the air. Consider solar-powered buildings stretching not just across sunny Southern California, but through China and India and Kenya as well, because even in those countries, going solar will be cheaper than burning coal. That’s the promise of thin-film solar cells: solar power that’s ubiquitous because it’s cheap. The basic technology has been around for decades, but this year, Silicon Valley–based Nanosolar created the manufacturing technology that could make that promise a reality. The company produces its PowerSheet solar cells with printing-press-style machines that set down a layer of solar-absorbing nano-ink onto metal sheets as thin as aluminum foil, so the panels can be made for about a tenth of what current panels cost and at a rate of several hundred feet per minute. Nanosolar’s first commercial cells rolled off the presses this year. Cost has always been one of solar’s biggest problems. Traditional solar cells require silicon, and silicon is an expensive commodity. That means even the cheapest solar panels cost about $3 per watt of energy they go on to produce. To compete with coal, that figure has to shrink to just $1 per watt. Nanosolar’s cells use no silicon, and the company’s manufacturing process allows it to create cells that are as efficient as most commercial cells for as little as 30 cents a watt. "It really is quite a big deal in terms of altering the way we think about solar and in inherently altering the economics of solar," says Dan Kammen, founding director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley.

Lachean · 04-10-08, 08:59 AM

Psht, thats nothin: Check out Dean Kamen's new water machine. It'll make fresh water out of anything!

YouTube - Dean Kamen's Water Machine

laska · 04-25-08, 09:21 PM

Its looks like the secretive Austin based company EEStor may be the real deal in introducing a battery(ultra capacitor) that will make electric cars viable. From Wikipedia:

In April 2008, ZENN Motors announced a highway speed vehicle for 2009 which will achieve 80 mph (130 km/h) speeds, 250 mile (400 km) range and charge in 5 minutes [11]
Critics have suggested that measurements of the permittivity of the Eestor components were made only at low voltage and that permittivity would have been much lower at the operating voltage of 3,500 V due to the phenomenon of dielectric saturation. However, the latest version of the Eestor patent [12] contains measured permittivity at 85°C averaging 19,869 at an unspecified voltage, 19,837 at 3,500 V and 19,818 at 5,000 V, demonstrating that little dielectric saturation occurs below 5,000 V.
[ edit] Partnerships
Equity funding for the company appears to come predominantly from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Feel Good Cars (based in Toronto, Canada), which operates Zenn Motor, stated in April 2007 that it had invested $2.5 million in EEStor. [13]
On January 9th, 2008, Lockheed-Martin signed an agreement with EEStor for the exclusive rights to integrate and market EESU units in military and homeland security applications. [14] This was widely seen as lending a great deal of credibility to the company and its technology; ZENN, who had been taking flak for their investment in EEStor, saw their stock increase by 28%. [15] Lockheed has not yet tested prototypes, but did tour EEStor's facility and analyzed their technology and methodology. Lockheed was "very impressed" with EEStor, noting "they are taking an approach that lends itself to a very quick ramp-up in production." The two companies look to complete joint product testing over the course of 2008. [16]-