| first fleet of FC Bikes good to go |
[Nov. 26th, 2005|03:11 pm] |
While I usually cringe with the term First in a news release, it seems that German Fuel Cell manufacturer Masterflex is now supplying the world's first fleet of bicycles with fuel cell propulsion systems to the city of Herten in North Rhine Westphalia. pretty nice, it was displayed last year, and now less than a year later, it's already in production! At first, they're going to be used for tourists who'll rent them for quite day-trips through the Rhine. Partnering with a manufacturer of hydrogen storage systems they provide users with a safe and simple supply of hydrogen. There's plenty of bikes, too, open for now to anyone who wishes to buy 10 or more. Just call Stefan Schulte at Masterflex Brennstoffzellentechnik, Herten, Tel. 49 (0) 02366 305 191, schulte@masterflex-bz.de.
[from FuelCells Today]
...just as an aside-- while I gripe (a bit too much) about the word first, surely you remember the hydrogen bikes from Manhattan Scientificlike, 5 years ago, right?
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| now some real groovy fuel cell news |
[Nov. 26th, 2005|03:33 pm] |
Move over Oscar! There's energy in that there trash!
3 Tons of garbage a day = energy for 2 houses! Japan's ancient city Kyoto has just launched a pilot project to generate electricity for fuel cells with hydrogen derived from raw garbage. Organizers of the project (Kyoto University, the Environment Ministry and Kyoto's Mayor Yorikane Masumoto), aim to put their garbage-based power generation scheme into practical use in 2013.
The project uses a daily 3 tons of raw garbage to produce biogas made up primarily of methane gas, for conversion into hydrogen. From 3 tons of raw garbage, they produce 500 to 600 cubic meters of hydrogen, enough to generate electricity to sustain two households for one month. By 2013, the Kyoto municipal government will build a biogas generation facility that is expected to help generate electricity to cover the daily consumption of 18 million households by using 60 tons of raw garbage a day to be collected from 160,000 households.
I know what you're thinking... and i agree! We are getting close to that point where we'll have our very own Mr. Fusions! And they thought Jim Ignatowski was braindead!
[from Fuel Cell Works] |
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| they were born in Roswell NM... But are now coming to your town!!!! |
[Nov. 26th, 2005|03:53 pm] |
No, Seriously, this slimy green climate change solution did actually come from Roswell New Mexico. But far from Alien, they're older than us!
There's a company I think everybody ought to be watching. It's called GreenFuel Technologies and in the same way that SVO Biodiesel has far outpaced the old B20, this new technology will take biodiesel to a new level. This technology will actually suck CO2 out of the air, compost half and use the rest to drive people around. Yes it's just that good. What GFT do is grow algae (who love Carbon Dioxide and turn it into chlorophyl about 1500 times faster than the next fastest plant). They grow it in the waste gas of coal-fired electricity plants. I've heard that they are getting between 30-80% reductions of CO2 from their system, which looks very modular, and easy to fit in most coal fired generating plant. It looks like this:
 .
This is quite an evolution! When the technology was first discovered and perfected by John Sheehan and the folks at the NREL, they were getting 90% efficiencies. But of course it was on flat beds of slimy water that went on for acres and acres.... this new systems may not be as efficient (yet!) but is certain to spread.... keep your eyes peeled and tell all your friends! |
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| idiotheque .....damn that thom york! |
[Nov. 26th, 2005|04:44 pm] |
are we entering a new ice age?
I get that silly song stuck in my head every now and then... "ice age coming, ice age coming ...let me hear both sides!" ....sure not going to help that today i was reading an article in EnergyPulse("Insight analysis and commentary on the global power industry") where a journalist was quoting Robert Frost:
Some say the world will end in fire,
some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire,
but if it had to perish twice,
I think that for destruction ice
is also great
and would suffice
To which the journalist added; "the likelihood, the science, points to ice." And then even while reading London's conservative Herald(it's brought to my attention that it's actually Glaswegian, and actually leftish, I spot this doozie of a statement; "If and when climate change plunges northern Europe into a new ice age, or floods the planet, who looks after he nuclear waste then?" He's not asking, not even debating, but talking about the next ice age as if its pure fact, and now a given. Where was the debate? I was waiting for the debate for a while now, and now it's just moved to certainty, just like that? I feel cheated.
Is it happening? I can't say that the global power industry rag is going to sway anyone.. i mean he quotes from the Fire by Ice guy, who a lot of people say is a nutter. But at the same time I see this stuff popping up more and more, and pretty soon, hopefully, there will be some good questions for all of us to be thinking about.... you been reading this for a while, i'm sure you know which side i am on... but i dont even want to entertain "are we? are we not?" questions... Because I feel its time to start going beyond that and getting up to speed with the technologies that art going to help us adapt to climate change.
See the guy who quoted Frost, as poetic as he was, ends his argument with the dire; "Just as there is nothing mankind can do to prevent a bogus global warming, there is likely nothing we can do to avoid the very real prospect of the next ice age. When it comes it will be extinction time for people, plants and animals north of the Equator. That’s the way it was the last time" and i think that's just horse poop. To begin with if we went extinct last time, then we wouln't have to be reading such drivel on the internet; WE WOUDLN'T BE HERE! Beyond that major misstep in logic, there's also a lot of credence lent to the argument that there are many things we can do if we want to stop the next ice age. Many. I am going to be getting into my vaery favorite one in on of the next few posts....
stay tuned |
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| My Happy Place |
[Nov. 26th, 2005|05:36 pm] |
..when things get me down, overwhelmed by all that happening on the planet, and about to happen, and all the work we have to do... i go to this place. My happy place. And I'm opening it up now to you
Welcome! I've been meaning to invite you al to my happy place for some time. This is my world I've created, no one can bust the bubbles here, and my oh my, the technologies in this place are simply amazing!!! I've even been sketching fleeting moments of it, and now I see that the more I put my creative energy to this (and everyone else doing this, and there are many) the more this reality creeps in, and takes over the boring gray one, where there's still climate refugees and geopolitical strife.
So the above snapshot must be circa 2025 or something, not too sure, but it's definitely St. Lurent & Rache, right around the corner from my old place in Montreal. Of course with rooftop greenhouses, PRTs, Living Machines, and no ugly pavement to be seen! I’m serious about this! This is where we are heading. And nobody is going to sway me ...See, it all started in Montreal about 7 years ago.
..living right in the building in the middle of the above picture, I had been doing documentaries about climate change for about 4 years, and to be honest, I was a little freaked out about the coming changes, and the feeling that no one was getting prepared, and well, the near-hopelessness... In the documentaries I was making I was allowing a lot of people the room to say what their vision of the future was (usually not all that hot, tbh) and I was pretty much just hanging on like a water skier...
( Read more... ) |
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| ..remeber we were talking about that SoG-Si thing?? |
[Nov. 26th, 2005|06:27 pm] |
i just read that Q-Cells AG, a German maker of solar cells that went public last month, said Norway's Renewable Energy Corp. AS will become the third partner in its EverQ joint venture with Evergreen Solar Inc. Renewable Energy will deliver 250 tons of solar-grade silicon per year to EverQ GmbH, which produces solar modules, Q-Cells said (REC will hold a 15 percent stake in the joint venture, Q-Cells a 21 percent stake, and Marlborough-based Evergreen a 64 percent stake, according to the companies)....
I love it!! another 250 tons, looks like we may end up with enough solar grade silicon to go around after all.... |
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