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| Volkswagen's Hydrogen Future is "Sunny" |
| 08.28.05 (11:14 am) |
By Mike Johnston
The ongoing development of the hydrogen energy concept is moving forward rapidly across the globe without much of this activity being obvious to the average person. Most of it takes place in research labs, political meetings and corporate boardrooms where all of the funding for the new energy pie is sliced up and divided. Ocassionally though some interesting little tidbit of news sneaks out into the mainstream for the rest of us to gawk at in wide eyed wonder for a moment or two.
Volkswagen recently unveiled their new solar hydrogen fueling station. It is located at the Volkswagen Technology Center in the State of Lower Saxony in Germany. The station was designed and bult in collaboration with the German solar energy firm Solvis.
“I very much welcome the launching of this solar-hydrogen filling station and the advent of the hydrogen age here in Lower Saxony which this launch represents,” commented Lower Saxony Environment Minister Hans-Heinrich Sander.
Photo from Volkswagen
The plant will produce hydrogen alongside "SunFuel" which is a synthetic diesel fuel produced from biomass. The Sun Fuel site above has a virtual lab in which you can plant your own seed and watch it grow and eventually be turned into fuel.
” This facility will enable a share of the fuel needed to run the fuel-cell vehicles and test beds developed there to be produced on location using energy from sunlight. “Viewed over the long term,” says Hartmut Märtens, head of fuel-cell development at Volkswagen, “hydrogen-powered fuel-cell drive will offer the greatest amount of potential for greenhouse-gas reduction – especially if such hydrogen is produced by way of a regenerative solution with the help of solar or wind energy. So we are paving the way for the future.”
The hydrogen produced at this facillity will come from water. The site will use solar panels with a surface area of 50 square metres to generate the electricity that is necessary to release the hydrogen from the water. This release will be accomplished by a process known as Electrolysis in which an electric current is passed through the water with the result that the water is split into it's constituent elements of hydrogen and oxygen gasses.
Image of Solar Panelsfrom the Solvis site.
The hydrogen produced is then "scrubbed" to achieve a high level of purity and then compressed to 400 bar in a storage tank where it waits to be pumped into vehicle's fuel tanks. The system can produce 25 cu/ft of hydrogen a day which is roughly enough to power a vehicle for 200km. Engineers hope to increase the amount of hydrogen that can be stored on board a vehicle and thereby extend it's operating range.
Other Hydrogen News TodayThe vendor said it has co-developed with NTT DoCoMo a prototype high-capacity micro fuel cell and a prototype external recharger for FOMA handsets. Fuel-cell vehicles have been dubbed the ultimate clean car, but whether they can replace... Cranfield University is at the heart of an ambitious and highly innovative collaborative attempt to... There are major hurdles on the path to achieving the vision of the hydrogen economy; the path will not be simple or straightforward. A U.S. chemist is trying to determine how the world will produce enough energy to supply 9 billion people by mid-century _ and whether that can be done without pumping off-the-charts amounts of carbon dioxide into the air. The idea of hydrogen-powered, non-polluting cars is making progress but challenges still lie ahead, according to the latest progress report issued by the National Research Council Today's experimental hydrogen fuel cells use so much platinum that there is not enough of the precious metal to replace all the world's petrol engines. As oil prices spurted to an all-time high this week, all motorists could do about it was pucker up to Big Oil, dig a little deeper in their pockets and wonder: When will cars run on something besides gasoline or diesel? Long-Term Hydrogen Supply Agreement Signed with U.S. Refiner for Clean Fuels Project Days after South Korea announced it was aiming to have a hydrogen based economy by 2040, the country has said it is to work with the US to develop a nuclear reactor that will produce large quantities of the fuel cell fuel. Requires free registration The City of Las Vegas says so far so good for the two prototypes of hydrogen vehicles they are now testing. With gas prices hitting record highs, the city's fleet manager says these hydrogen cars may have a serious future in Las Vegas. lecturer, John Jostins, has come-up with a solution to the rising price of fuel - a fully-working hydrogen-powered car which can be test-driven by people interested in the vehicle. Abstract: Hydrogen as an energy carrier has generated much attention due to its potential large-scale use in producing electrical energy... (Free pdf available)
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| The Coral Reef Restoration Initiative |
| 08.23.05 (5:37 pm) |
By Mike Johnston
Copyright 2005
In the last 10 years or so there has been an alarming development in the oceans of the world. Coral reefs are dying because of an effect called Coral Bleaching. The main cause that has been identified to date is the warming of the oceans. In 1998 there was a strong el Nino warming event and the result was that up to 90% of the coral reefs in the central Indian Ocean were killed.Click HERE for a large map of worldwide coral bleaching events.
As you see in the map coral bleaching is taking place all over the world. It is estimated that 27% of the world's reefs have already been destroyed. In fact there are many effects happening worldwide and many harbingers of tomorrow which in themselves seem fairly innocuous. For a detailed look at these many current events please click on the map below.
In 2004 the Australian government sponsored a study to determine the current state of coral reefs around the world. I reccomend reading this report. " The report recognises that the major stresses to coral reefs are: natural forces that they have coped with for millions of years; direct human pressures, including sediment and nutrient pollution from the land, over-exploitation and damaging fishing practices, engineering modification of shorelines; and the global threats of climate change causing coral bleaching, rising sea levels and potentially threatening the ability of corals to form skeletons in more acid waters." From the Abstract of the report.
The organization Earth Echo has devised a method of perhaps restoring coral reefs that have been lost to bleaching. They call it the Coral Reef Restoration Initiative (CRRI). It's goal is to establish a genetic bank of corals from around the world. The corals will be maintained in an aquaculture labrotory. As long as the corals can be grown in captivity there will exist a healthy supply of living coral from which to plant corals back into the wild.The expected effect will be the repair of damaged reefs. It will also help to preserve rare, endangered corals so that they do not become extinct.
If you would like to ake a tax-deductable contribution to support the work of Earth Echo please contact them at: info@earthecho.org or go to their website: http://www.earthecho.org
Other News TodayThe Russian Federal Space Agency and an American company, Space Adventures, have signed a memorandum of intent on selecting passengers and investors for flights round the Moon, a spokesman for the agency said Tuesday. Last week three studies came out in Science about tropospheric temperatures. All contributed to overturning a key global warming "skeptic" argument--that there's some sort of discrepancy between such temperatures and surface air temperatures, and that this discrepancy undermines the reliability of climate models. This is big news that we're talking about here. The studies' joint [...] As scam artists, organized-crime rings and other miscreants find a home on the Internet, top federal officials are trolling hacker conferences to scout talent and talk up the glories of a career on the front lines of the information wars. Denmark urged "new thinking" on Tuesday about ways to combat global warming at the start of climate talks by 25 nations in Greenland. Friends of the Earth reports that the world?s largest frozen peat bog is melting, potentially releasing billions of tonnes of the global warming gas methane into the atmosphere, showed the urgent need for international action to tackle climate change. Scientists in the US have managed to get single cells to move objects up and down tiny chambers. HUNDREDS of villagers in Sibbinda Constituency in the Caprivi Region, who are tired of fetching wood for their energy needs and who intend to switch to alternative sources have expressed a keen interest in securing low-interest loans to buy solar panels Brought to you by the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies. One in 25 fathers could unknowingly be raising another man's child, British scientists said on Thursday. New techniques could lead to the mass production of meat in the laboratory, researchers say. A new urine-powered paper battery could offer a cheap way of generating electricity ? for medical tests and even emergency cellphones A South Korean man who played computer games for 50 hours almost non-stop died of heart failure minutes after finishing his mammoth session in an Internet cafe, authorities said Tuesday. far from challenging the role Europeans have played in bringing about and in worsening Africa's socio-economic conditions, most African leaders are giving Pig brain cells could be implanted into human brains by 2006 if trials of a pioneering treatment for Huntington's disease are approved
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| Solution for Production of Hydrogen Fuel Through Solar Technology |
| 08.07.05 (4:43 pm) |
A press release from the Weizmann Institute:
Successful Testing - a Solution for Production of Hydrogen Fuel Through Solar Technology
Innovative solar technology that may offer a 'green' solution to the production of hydrogen fuel has been successfully tested on a large scale at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. The technology also promises to facilitate the storage and transportation of hydrogen. The chemical process behind the technology was originally developed at Weizmann, and it has been scaled up in collaboration with European scientists. Results of the experiments will be reported in August at the 2005 Solar World Congress of the International Solar Energy Society (ISES) in Orlando, Florida.
The solar project is the result of collaboration between scientists from the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, Institut de Science et de Genie des Materiaux et Procedes - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France, and the ScanArc Plasma Technologies AB in Sweden. The project is supported by the European Union's FP5 program.
Hydrogen, the most plentiful element in the universe, is an attractive candidate for becoming a pollution-free fuel of the future. However, nearly all hydrogen used today is produced by means of expensive processes that require combustion of polluting fossil fuels. Moreover, storing and transporting hydrogen is extremely difficult and costly.
The new solar technology tackles these problems by creating an easily storable intermediate energy source form from metal ore, such as zinc oxide. With the help of concentrated sunlight, the ore is heated to about 1,200°C in a solar reactor in the presence of wood charcoal. The process splits the ore, releasing oxygen and creating gaseous zinc, which is then condensed to a powder. Zinc powder can later be reacted with water, yielding hydrogen, to be used as fuel, and zinc oxide, which is recycled back to zinc in the solar plant. In recent experiments, the 300-kilowatt installation produced 45 kilograms of zinc powder from zinc oxide in one hour, exceeding projected goals.
Note: Above you see a solar furnace. Image SOURCE.
Note: Above you see the solar reflecting/collecting mirror from such a furnace. Image SOURCE.
Note: Above you see a solar furnace and a schematic of how such a furnace works. Image SOURCE.
The process generates no pollution, and the resultant zinc can be easily stored and transported, and converted to hydrogen on demand. In addition, the zinc can be used directly, for example, in zinc-air batteries, which serve as efficient converters of chemical to electrical energy. Thus, the method offers a way of storing solar energy in chemical form and releasing it as needed.
Zinc/air battery image SOURCE.
'After many years of basic research, we are pleased to see the scientific principles developed at the Institute validated by technological development,' said Prof. Jacob Karni, Head of the Center for Energy Research at Weizmann.
'The success of our recent experiments brings the approach closer to industrial use,' says engineer Michael Epstein, project leader at the Weizmann Institute.
The concept of splitting metal ores with the help of sunlight has been under development over the course of several years at the Weizmann Institute's Canadian Institute for the Energies and Applied Research, one of the most sophisticated solar research facilities in the world, which has a solar tower, a field of 64 mirrors and unique beam-down optics.
The process was tested originally on a scale of several kilowatts; it has been scaled up to 300 kilowatt in collaboration with the European researchers.
Solar Tower image SOURCE.
Weizmann scientists are currently investigating metal ores other than zinc oxide, as well as additional materials that may be used for efficient conversion of sunlight into storable energy.
Prof. Jacob Karni's research is supported by the Sussman Family Center for the Study of Environmental Sciences; the Solomon R. and Rebecca D. Baker Foundation; the Angel Faivovich Foundation for Ecological Research; Mr. Nathan Minzly, UK; the Abraham and Sonia Rochlin Foundation; Mr. and Mrs. Larry Taylor, Los Angeles, CA; Dr. and Mrs. Robert Zaitlin, Los Angeles, CA; and the Arnold Ziff Charitable Foundation.
Other News TodayA new study shows that human-induced global warming will accelerate the extinction of this species. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hurricane Ivan, which caused a swathe of destruction across the Caribbean last September before crashing into the U.S. Gulf coast, generated ocean waves more than 90 feet high, researchers said on Thursday. I’m sympathetic to the notion expressed in the New Scientist opinion piece, and raised by Christopher here on Sciencegate, that intelligent design is both poor science and lousy religion. Attempts to bolster Christian doctrine with scientific rationales undercut the very faith they purport to defend. But I think it bears reminding that this [...] OSLO (Reuters) - Salmon swim north into Arctic seas, locusts plague northern Italy and two heat-loving bee-eater birds nest in a hedge in Britain. Johannesburg - African cities could experience a transformation like Hyderabad and Bangalore in India, where computer and telecommunications industries have reinvigorated local economies, according to a report in the New Scientist last month. A University of Idaho graduate student believes the answer to the world's crude oil crisis grows on trees. Juan Andres Soria says he has developed a process that turns wood into bio-oil, a substance similar to crude oil. Northern Indiana Public Service Co. stands ready to help customers who want to start "net metering"... WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists looking for easier and less-controversial alternatives to stem cells from human embryos said on Friday they found a potential source in placentas saved during childbirth. For as low as Rs 10 a day, a villager in a place like Kumta, can avail of solar power in his home.... Wouldn't it be great if in 30 years or so America could have a reliable supply of electricity generated by methods that don't contribute to global warming? And that use no imported fuels? For years this thought has loomed large in the mind of Chauncey Starr, a physicist who has been pondering energy problems for seven decades. He was present at the birth of nuclear power when he worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II. Hydrogen is an attractive power source since it could reduce air pollution, and the United States' dependence on foreign fuel sources. However, it is a difficult source to harness. To that end, South Dakota State University scientists are designing a manure digester that would turn the resulting gas... In a round table discussion at IGBP-PAGES (Past Global Changes) Open Science Meeting in Beijing 10-12 August, Mike Mann, Gavin Schmidt and Dmitry Sonechkin will debate the myths and realities of what we really know about temperature change during the last two millennia. In critiquing a common safety standard, researchers have found the testing regimen may not detect lead that could be leaching from brass plumbing parts. As a result, the researchers believe some of the lead creeping into tap water in Washington, D.C., and other metropolitan areas may trace to fixtures, valves and other components--not just pipes further from the home. The damage done to Spain's Guadalajara province by July's fierce forest fire has been measured from space by Envisat.
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| Drought bumps up global thermostat |
| 08.03.05 (12:38 pm) |
From a EurekAlert Press Release
FOREST fires are raging across southern Spain and Portugal, and African locusts are invading French fields. As this summer's European drought continues, two climate research groups have warned that it will unleash large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, giving further impetus to global warming.
Estimates from CarboEurope, a European Union research team based in Jena, Germany, suggest that during July and August 2003, around 500 million tonnes of carbon escaped from western Europe's forests and fields as crops shrivelled, soils desiccated and trees burnt. The releases are equivalent to around twice the emissions from fossil-fuel burning in the region over the same period.
Image SOURCE.
The study, headed by CarboEurope's Philippe Ciais of the Laboratory for Climate and Environmental Sciences in Paris, France, used data from a network of 100sites across the continent. These each analysed air samples for CO2 and then plotted exchange of the gas between ecosystems and the atmosphere. The 2003 carbon releases coincided with a worldwide build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere. US figures show that in August 2003, the atmosphere contained 374parts per million of CO2, which at 3parts per million above the level of the previous August makes it a record year-on-year rise.
Image SOURCE.
Two years ago, before the 2003 drought, CarboEurope estimated that Europe's ecosystems were absorbing 7 to 12 per cent of the continent's man-made carbon emissions. But its researchers agree that this year the ecosystems themselves will probably be net releasers of CO2. Much of western Europe- including Spain, Portugal, Italy, France and parts of the UK- is suffering drought on a similar scale to 2003.
Spain, for example, has received less than half its normal rainfall so far this year. And drought is also sweeping much of the US. Corn crops are failing and cattle are dying of heat stress in the Midwest, where many areas have seen less than half their typical rainfall. In New York, extra use of air conditioners resulted in record power demand last week. Summer CO2 releases may be rising across the world.
This week, US researchers reported that since the early 1990s, hot dry summers across the northern hemisphere have reduced the ability of plants to absorb CO2 during their normal growing season (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 102, p 10823).
Image SOURCE.
Alon Angert and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, say this finding dashes the widespread expectation of a "greening trend", in which warm summer temperatures would speed plant growth and moderate climate change by soaking up some of the industrial CO2 emissions.
"Excess heating drives the dieback of forest, accelerates soil carbon loss and transforms the land from a sink to a source of carbon for the atmosphere," says team member and atmospheric chemist Inez Fung, also at UC Berkeley. So hotter temperatures amplify human-induced climate change, she adds.
Other News TodayChairman Issa: Hydrogen Economy Must Become a Reality Contact: 202-225-6427 July 27, 2005 Washington, DC- The Energy and Resources Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), urged the Department of Energy to meet the goals of the President's Hydrogen Fuel Initiative China has mastered the technique for the collection of shallow geothermal energy and developed facilities that integrate the supply of heat, cool and hot water. A new sea-floor analysis reveals that a sunken landmass could have been the fabled island Saturn’s Rings are filled with molecular oxygen. By making close flybys of the ring system, Cassini has been able to determine that the atmosphere around the rings is composed principally of molecular oxygen (O2). Discovering an affordable and cleaner burning alternative energy source has long been the dream of industrial chemical engineer Robert Manurung. Many experts agree that hydrogen is the energy source of the future. They also agree that widespread use of economically competitive hydrogen-fueled fuel cells and engines are a decade--and maybe even a couple of decades--away, thanks the to total lack of a hydrogen fuel infrastructure. Microbe is a photosynthesizer but doesn't need the sun NASA researchers consider whether to nudge the space rock's position. Policy experts say treaty is designed to distract from Kyoto. The astonishing find is the third new world revealed in two days it is larger than Pluto and 97 times farther from the sun than the Earth Leaders representing powerful political constituencies not usually associated with the debate over national energy policy have joined forces to launch a new campaign to "Re-energize America." Reflecting the growing national consensus on the need to reduce U.S. oil dependence, these leaders are concerned about how national security, job growth, faith-based stewardship and the Western way of life are affected by energy choices. At an event at the National Press Club, they urged government leaders to embark on a new path toward a cleaner, more secure energy future for America. Queen Elizabeth II plans to use water from the River Thames to help power Windsor Castle in the Royal family's latest environmental project, Buckingham Palace announced Monday. The world's rapidly increasing population is straining natural resources, necessitating a sustainable approach to development. Starting this fall, University of Pittsburgh students will be able to travel to the University at Campinas (UNICAMP) in S.o Paulo, Brazil, to conduct research in green construction and sustainable water use technology under a new Pitt program funded by a $3.2 million Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Scientists from CSIRO and University of Sydney have made the link through a detailed analysis of Australia's triple bottom line in a revolutionary report on sustainability.
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