Tag: Energy

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Counting Spots: How Clean Are The Tar Sands?

— Measuring, or what Richard Feynman called “quantitative observation” in his Lectures on Physics, is one of the defining features of science. Some scientists, most notably Steven Hawking, even believe that science is nothing but measuring – if something can’t be measured it isn’t science. But measuring is also fraught with surprising practical, philosophical, and political implications – and even important social consequences – as demonstrated by a recent study of the Alberta tar sands. Continue reading Counting Spots: How Clean Are The Tar Sands?

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Spinning electricity out of thin, moving air

The sun’s beaming rays heat the Earth, but not evenly. Many attributes of the Earth – such as its atmosphere, topography, bodies of water, and rotation – contribute to uneven heat distributions, which create air movement, or wind []. Windmills use wind-generated kinetic motion to perform useful work, such as pumping water or grinding grains, whereas wind turbines use it to generate electricity []. Wind … Continue reading Spinning electricity out of thin, moving air

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Electric Vehicles and Hybrids: Where are we now?

As President Eisenhower said, our “transportation systems are dynamic elements in the very name we bear—United States.  Without them, we would be a mere alliance of many separate parts.” (Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Feb 22, 1955). The automobile became a household staple and a powerful symbol of our industrialized economy, such that cars are now intimately intertwined with our lives. As we move into the … Continue reading Electric Vehicles and Hybrids: Where are we now?

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Why We Need Sustainable Energy

The degree to which we use energy has far-reaching consequences. For example, the simple act of driving to work uses fuel that is ultimately tied to both international conflict and global climate change. The success of modern civilization is fundamentally linked to our ability to harness energy, primarily in the form of fossil fuels like oil, coal, and natural gas. As shown in Figure 1, … Continue reading Why We Need Sustainable Energy

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Black Silicon: Working around the current limits of solar cells

For many years, sunlight has been seen as a potential gold mine of useable energy for our global needs.  Having successfully used the sun to grow food to feed the world, people are now trying to harvest the sun’s energy and convert it into electric energy.  The principle way this has been accomplished is through the use of solar cells, also known as solar photovoltaics … Continue reading Black Silicon: Working around the current limits of solar cells

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Synthetic Biology for Fuels

Fossil fuels are running out Since the mid nineteenth century, humans have progressively mastered the discovery, extraction, and combustion of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are the remains of organisms, mostly thick growths of plants from more than 500 million years ago, that were buried under heavy layers of sediment and slowly heated and compressed, under conditions without oxygen, into carbon-rich deposits. These are now used … Continue reading Synthetic Biology for Fuels

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Beyond the Debate: The role of government in renewable energy finance

Last year, the world invested more money in renewable energy than ever before, at over $257 billion [1]. There is no question that renewable energy projects need finance to develop and commercialize. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), $37 trillion of investment will be needed in the world’s energy supply system over 2012-2035, of which a growing component will be in renewable energy [2]. … Continue reading Beyond the Debate: The role of government in renewable energy finance

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The Promise of Organic Solar Cells: Flexible, Cheap, and Printable

— The world is excited about solar cells – and with good reason. Imagine the City of the Future, where every exposed surface has solar cells on it, converting the sun’s energy into electricity. This vision could include solar cells on windows, on top of our cars, on the surface of our cell phones, or on our clothes. Instead of using energy from coal or oil, which pollutes the environment, we would be using the ever-present, pollution-free energy available from the sun. Scientists and engineers must work on improving solar cells if we want to make this futuristic city a reality. Continue reading The Promise of Organic Solar Cells: Flexible, Cheap, and Printable

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Green Energy from Bacteria

— The idea that we could grow fuel from a renewable resource is incredibly exciting. Researchers have been hard at work developing biofuels that will allow us to run our society using easily renewable resources. These efforts have gained a lot of media attention in recent years, and are being touted as a way for the US to decrease its dependence on foreign oil and to mitigate climate change. The longest standing method for creating biofuels is extracting ethanol from corn and sugar cane. More recently, researchers have begun engineering bacteria to produce biofuels, a method that may avoid many of the problems associated with making biofuels from plants, but that also presents new scientific and engineering challenges. Continue reading Green Energy from Bacteria

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Harnessing the power of the Sun: How can raspberries and genetically modified viruses help?

If you’ve watched the movie The Day after Tomorrow, you must remember the climate-related natural disasters that ravaged the human civilization. Though the events depicted in the movie are unrealistic, we are still dramatically altering Earth’s environment and climate through our current energy policies and practices. How can we mitigate some of the effects of man-made global warming? One possible solution is to increase our … Continue reading Harnessing the power of the Sun: How can raspberries and genetically modified viruses help?

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