Green Tech

The British government on Monday proposed the construction of up to 7,000 offshore wind turbines to accelerate the country's conversion to cleaner power.

The proposal, unveiled by U.K. business secretary John Hutton, is meant to help achieve the European Union's goal of producing 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, according to reports.

Britain will overtake Denmark next year as the country with the most offshore wind power, Hutton said at an energy conference in Berlin.

The country now gets about 2 percent of its energy from renewable sources. The plans call for … Read more

Attention, parents of school-age children. Are you worried about a growing Purell addiction? CleanWell has the hand sanitizer for you.

The San Francisco-based company has come out with an alcohol-free, all-natural hand sanitizer. I got some samples at the ThinkGreen conference last week and my hands have been free of epidemic-causing bacteria ever since.

The company claims it kills Listeria monocytogenes, Candida (we can make it together) albicans, Streptococcus pygenes, and Salmonella enterica. You can't spray it on chicken, but the salmonella killing would be great for kitchen sanitizing. Spray CleanWell on your hands and it kills over 99 … Read more

A recent study shows that damming the Red Sea could provide 50 gigawatts of emissions-free hydroelectric power. This would be the largest power plant in the world. However, tens of thousands of people would have to be displaced, not to mention untold ecological damage.

Hank Green at EcoGeek writes about how this would impact the Middle East politically:

"The project would provide enough power to switch off oil-burning power plants throughout the Middle East. Political scientists are already estimating the stability such a project would bring to the region."

Sustainable leadership

"Sustainability" is now becoming a … Read more

Purfresh, which used to go by the name Novazone, has tested and now will more actively market a sunscreen for things that come out of the ground.

Called Eclipse, it's a powder made from multicrystalline calcium carbonate. You spray it on onions and other crops to reduce solar stress. Farmers can lose 30 percent or more of their crops to overexposure to the sun, said Purfresh CEO David Cope. The remaining, salable crops can also get damaged and lose some of their value through overexposure. Spray on the powder--which is rated SPF 42--and you can eliminate losses due to … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--A Stanford research team has concluded that the ocean not far off the Northern California coastline is the most promising spot for an offshore wind farm to generate power.

Specifically, the researchers concluded that the sea off Cape Mendocino, roughly 150 miles northwest of San Francisco, was their top pick. Wind turbines there could supply 5 percent of California's electrical power needs, they projected.

The researchers plan to present their findings Thursday at the American Geophysical Union conference here Thursday.

There are a number of offshore wind farms--one to the west of Denmark springs to mind--but most of … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Researchers have linked global climate change to a tripling in the frequency of large fires in major forests of Alaska and Canada.

Black spruce forests cover about 2.7 million square kilometers in Canada and Alaska--about a third of the area of the lower 48 states of the U.S., and fire records date back to the 1950s. Beginning around 1987, the rate that large wildfires struck the forest jumped from about once every 10 years to once every 3 years, said Eric Kasischke of the University of Maryland at College Park, speaking at the American Geophysical Union conference … Read more

It will be delicious, nutritious, and kill tapeworms.

TyraTech, a green technology incubator, is developing a cheese that will be as nutritious as regular food but also kill intestinal parasites, according to CFO Keith Bigsby. The company has signed a deal with Kraft Foods to bring these functional foods to market. Kraft will pay the company engineering fees and, if products come out, royalties from sales. TyraTech is going to try to send me a glass of a drink they are working on for a taste test.

If you are reading this, you probably don't have a tapeworm, but … Read more

Tuesday was a really bad day for my carbon footprint.

First I learned that my divorce is heating up the planet. A Michigan State University study concluded that divorced couples use up more space in their respective homes, resulting in 38 million more rooms around the globe to light, heat, and cool.

Then, later in the day, as I readied to go home and light candles for the first night of Hanukkah--the Jewish Festival of Lights--I learned of the environmental implications of the annual tradition. The Jerusalem Post told of a campaign--now the topic of much blog fodder--encouraging Jews to … Read more

HALF MOON BAY, Calif.--Chlorine is bad for you, and iodine isn't, points out Jared Franks, CEO of Ioteq, and that difference is the basis of the company's business.

The Australian company has come up with a water purification system that kills microbes with iodine rather than chlorine or ozone. Ioteq's Isan system basically immerses fruit and vegetables in iodine-soaked water, and monitors the iodine dosage.

After purification, the produce gets bagged and sent to grocery stores. The process leaves a minimal iodine residue that is not harmful to people--and it doesn't change the flavor, Franks … Read more