energy

Rehabilitation of disused industrial sites has been a costly and contentious issue in urban planning.  Sites that are mildly or moderately contaminated are called href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownfield" rel="tag">brownfields.  Research is underway to see if some brownfields can be used to grow crops, specifically for the production of biofuels. Michigan State University, known affectionately as "Moo-U," in collaboration with rel="tag">DaimlerChrysler and href="http://www.nextenergy.org/" rel="tag">NextEnergy, has small plots of soybean, corn, canola and switchgrass…

I've long been a fan of href="http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/solidstate/SSLWhat.htm">LED lighting, thinking that it holds a href="http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=16135&z=318&p=1&ch=nanotech">lot of promise for reducing electricity demands.  Early on in the development of light emitting diodes, it became apparent that they produced a lot of light and not a lot of heat per watt of energy used. There have been two persistent problems, though.  One problem is that the light from LEDs comes out in only one color.  The second problem is the cost.    The…

href="http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2006/10/raise_the_gas_tax.php">Jonah and href="http://scienceblogs.com/nosenada/2006/10/if_we_did_raise_the_gas_tax_wh.php">Kevin have already chipping in on this topic.  Bob Lutz, the VP of General Motors, turned a few heads.  Not with an eye-catching new auto design, but with a comment in the Wall Street Journal: "I'd say the best thing the (U.S.) government can do is to raise the gas tax by 10 or 15 cents a year until it reaches European levels," Mr. Lutz said, during an impromptu interview just before GM Europe's media event last Thursday.…

The Washington Post today has an article on href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/19/AR2006081900842.html">Brazil's milestone achievement: this year, their oil exports will equal or exceed their imports.  This is significant for a few reasons.  For one, it shows that it can be done, at least in one sizable country.  Although the fact that they were able to do it does not prove that we could do it too, it does indicate that we could be doing a lot better than we are.  It also shows that a country does not have to be an academic or technological powerhouse to…

A friend and colleague of mine drives around in a cute little VW bug powered by biodiesel.  There's a peace sign on the front of it, which helps it get better mileage.  But peace sign or not, there has been an ongoing controversy about whether biofuels are worth anything. In this post, I provide a little amateur analysis of the whole topic of biofuels, and comment on the most recent study of the potential benefits. The controversy stems from the fact that it takes a lot of energy to plant, transport, harvest, and process the crops needed to produce biofuels.  Some analyses indicated that…

The ask-a-scienceblogger question for this week was submitted by a reader, Jake Bryan, who comments on Science Blogs as "chezjake." "Assuming that time and money were not obstacles, what area of scientific research, outside of your own discipline, would you most like to explore? Why? It did not take long for me to come up with an answer to this.  What I would most like to see researched intensively would be: alternative energy sources.  Continue reading below the fold... The reasons?  First, I had to pick something outside of my own discipline.  Second, it seems that such a once-in-a-…

...reads the headline of this article from the The Times of London. Pump prices have risen by one third over the past year and in some parts of the US have topped $3 (£1.68) a gallon. Among the ultra-rich of Beverly Hills, the cost of fuel has even slipped over the $4 mark. This is, of course, still far less than the equivalent of about $8 being paid by British motorists, but such comparisons hold little sway in the US where, for many, the unfettered freedom of the individual to drive across wide-open spaces is almost part of the Constitution. By contrast, public transport has, historically…

There's an interesting article in the New York Times today about the rise of solar power. Apparently the market for solar is growing rapidly--expected to expand by as much as 150 percent between now and the end of 2008. And the new generation of solar panels is 50 percent more efficient at converting sunlight to electrical power than the last. Up until recently, the market for solar energy has been somewhat stagnant, and the technology's relatively poor efficiency--around 14 percent--might be attributed to lack of market demand. It occurs to me, though, that the new appetite for solar may be…