Scientific American Topic - Green Technology

Don't Let the Bedbugs Bite: Pest Management Proves More Effective than Pesticides

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:04:00 EST

In a large apartment building, it’s impossible to avoid the neighbors. You can hear the Bruce Springsteen that the tenant in 7B cranks while vacuuming, the kids in 8A directly above tromping around, and if someone decides to paint, the fumes reach everyone on the floor. So when a building supervisor notified owners in a sixty-unit co-op building in Brooklyn that one of the apartments had a bedbug infestation, Eddie Rosenthal feared that it was only a matter of time until the bugs spread to his home. [More]

Can Closing the Ozone Hole Also Help Combat Climate Change?

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:31:00 EST

Carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse culprit in human-generated global warming , most scientists agree, but CO 2 itself, and a handful of other substances, are now being promoted as good alternatives to commonly used refrigerants that threaten Earth's atmosphere and climate. [More]

Being Green: 10 Earth-Friendly Habits You Can Adopt

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:27:00 EST

A Bus with Legs Remember the good ol’ days when kids walked to school? Those treks weren’t as rough as some people recall them--five miles through the snow, uphill both ways!--but they did burn calories instead of fossil fuels. Today kids need more opportunities for exercise, but many parents feel it’s not safe for them to walk alone. One simple solution is to organize a “walking school bus” or “bicycle train” for your neighborhood, with one or more adults supervising a group of children traveling together. It’s a good way to build muscles and communities. For details on how to get started, see www.walkingschoolbus.org . [More]

Capturing Carbon Dioxide

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:00:08 EST

That's the sound of clean coal. Well, cleaner coal. A relatively small unit attached to the smokestack at the Mountaineer Power Plant in West Virginia is capturing some 1.5 percent of the carbon dioxide the coal-fired plant would otherwise belch into the sky.

The loud thrum comes from the whirring of fans that cool the flue gas and the jostling of an agitator that keeps things moving in the tower where the reaction to actually capture the CO 2 takes place. There’s also the chug of the compressor, which turns the odorless, colorless greenhouse gas into a milky liquid at 1,400 pounds per square inch (psi).

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Is the World Outsourcing Its Greenhouse Emissions to China?

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

Dear EarthTalk: Has China been making any progress reducing its output of global warming gases, and/or in tackling other environmental problems? --Bill W., Saugus, MA [More]

Al Gore advocates for gender equality, political action to slow climate change

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:20:00 EST

Slowing climate change is neither inevitable nor impossible, former Vice President Al Gore said in a speech Tuesday night in New York City. Gore, who was launching his new book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis , said that he has "absolute conviction that we have all the tools to solve [several] climate crises." [More]

Buying Green: 9 Goods for Sustainable Living [Slide Show]

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:13:00 EST

With the holiday shopping season around the corner, don't forget the eco-lover on your list. [More]

Government Incentives Can Help Finance Energy-Efficient Home Improvements

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:00:00 EST

Dear EarthTalk: Since Obama took office, have any new incentives been put in place for homeowners looking to increase energy efficiency and reduce the overall environmental footprints of their homes? --Rob Felton, Little Rock, AK [More]

The Future of Cars (preview)

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:00:00 EST

For a glimpse into what automobiles will be like 20 years from now, contributing editor Stuart F. Brown conducted a group interview with executives at General Motors, Tesla Motors and Toyota and also spoke separately with a program manager at the Electric Power Research Institute. The interviewees, whose comments have been edited for length, foresee increased communication among cars and a combination of vehicle types. Some, like Tesla’s current sports cars, will draw their energy from a battery pack. Others, in common with today’s Toyota’s Prius and the 2010 Chevy Volt, will be hybrid designs, relying on both electric motors and small internal-combustion engines. Many forthcoming hybrids will charge batteries by plugging into the electric grid, and hydrogen fuel cells might be a reality. But that is not all that the participants see. Read on. --The Editors

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Wireless tech taking a toll on Earth science and astronomy

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:35:00 EST

Nearly lost amidst the breathless anticipation of all things wireless--whether it's the latest smart phone, free Internet hot spot or GPS navigation system--is the potential impact these gadgets may have on scientific instruments that likewise need access to the electromagnetic spectrum. Yet the proliferation of wireless technologies, licensed and otherwise, grabbing increasingly more spectrum bandwidth is interfering significantly with scientists' ability to monitor radio emissions from the Earth and space that "yield vital information" about our planet and its place in the universe, according to a report released Monday by the National Research Council's Scientific Use of the Radio Spectrum committee . [More]

Mining for Algae: Could Abandoned Mines Help Grow Biofuel?

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:21:00 EST

Backers of algae-based biofuels tout the simplicity of their feedstock. Sunlight and water are all that's needed to convert carbon dioxide into fuel.

Now, some scientists are testing the notion that sunlight might be optional.

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Calling all solar enthusiasts: Tell me about your system!

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:16:00 EST

Editor's Note: Scientific American 's George Musser will be chronicling his experiences installing solar panels in Solar at Home (formerly 60-Second Solar). Read his introduction here and see all posts here .

Have you installed a grid-connected solar array on your home? If so, I'd love to hear about your experience! I'm planning to pull together a series of blog posts that surveys the variety of projects out there to see what common themes emerge. Please contact me offline at solarathome@sciam.com and summarize what you've done: the size of the system, its performance, your location, the subsidies (if any) you've taken advantage of, any problems you encountered, whatever. If you're blogging about it, include the URL and I'll link to it.

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Joining the Energy Underground: Residential Geothermal Power Systems

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

Dear EarthTalk: I'd like to know the relative electricity cost of utility-scale solar and wind plants versus rooftop residential solar. In other words, how can I know whether to subsidize my utility's alternative-energy plant or renovate my own home? -- Randy Wilson, Flagstaff, AZ

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A Clunker of a Climate Policy

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:00:00 EST

The Cash for Clunkers program offers a cautionarytale for the future of climate change control. The federal program paid individuals up to $4,500 to replace their “clunker” automobiles with new, higher-mileage vehicles. Part of the purpose was to give a lift to the ailing auto industry. Another part, at least it was claimed, was to mitigate climate change by getting old high-carbon-emissions vehicles off the road. But billions of dollars were spent quickly without clear answers on what we were getting for our money.

The broad principle of climate change mitigation is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) from the combustion of fossil fuels, to target levels at the minimum net cost to society. There are many ways to reduce emissions: drive more efficient or electrically powered vehicles; produce electricity with renewable energy sources; capture CO 2 from power plants and store it geologically; restart the nuclear power sector; weatherproof homes to reduce energy for heating and cooling.... The list is long, with different time horizons, costs and uncertainties.

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EPA tests porous pavement to combat contaminated rain runoff

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:00:00 EST

In an effort to prevent polluted parking lot rain runoff from contaminating surrounding soil and underground water, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday said it has launched decadelong test of permeable materials to find one that can filter out impurities in rainwater before it flows to its final destination. [More]

Coal Gasification and Carbon Capture Increasingly Linked

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:00:00 EST

Oil giant BP and General Electric Co. announced plans yesterday to collaborate on a 250-megawatt coal-fired power plant that would employ integrated gasification technology and carbon dioxide capture in Southern California.

The plant, to be built near Bakersfield in oil-rich Kern County, is the result of a technology licensing agreement between GE Energy and Hydrogen Energy International, a joint venture of BP and mining giant Rio Tinto.

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Prospects for solar: "It's like watching the Internet mature in 1995"

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:50:00 EST

I may be one of the few people in my town to have solar power right now, but if the news I’m hearing from the Solar Power International trade show this week is right, a wave of installations is about to sweep the country. I wasn’t able to attend the show -- this blog is just a sideline for me and I couldn’t justify a whole trip -- but I had a chance to talk with two conference attendees, Mike Caliel, CEO of IES , a big national energy contractor that has gotten heavily involved in renewables, and Harry Fleming, CEO of Acro Energy Technologies , one of the biggest solar installers in California.

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U.S. Lags Behind World with Its Patchwork Approach to Curbing E-Waste

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:20:00 EST

Lurking behind the introduction of each new touch-screen computer, high-definition television and digital music player is the stark reality that some once-prized electronic gadgets from a previous techno-generation will get kicked to the curb, ending up in a toxic trash heap thousands of miles from its former owner. The reasons for this digital dumping are many, including ignorance of recycling options and indifference to the environmental impact. The remedy is straightforward--stricter governmental oversight, by the U.S. federal government in particular, of what goes into making these devices and how and where they are discarded, a team of University of California researchers posit in a study to be published Friday in Science . [More]

Can the World's Most Polluted Places Ever Be Cleaned?

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:00:08 EST

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Burying Climate Change: Carbon Gets Stuffed Underground

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:00:00 EST

Editor's note: The original online version of this story was previously posted.

Over the next five years at least half a million tons of carbon dioxide will be injected into rock deep underneath the Mountaineer power plant near New Haven, W.Va. Although that is less than 0.00001 percent of global emissions of the greenhouse gas and less than 2 percent of the plant’s own CO 2 output, the sequestration, which began in September, marks the first commercial demonstration of the only available technological fix for the carbon problem of coal-fired power plants, one that many coal facilities around the world hope to emulate.

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