Policy

So much for taking the bus in the People's Republic.

In its latest airport development plan, the General Administration of Civil Aviation of China (CAAC) says the country will erect 97 new airports before 2020, according to the People's Daily, a prominent, unbiased, and properly licensed source of news in China.

The number of airports will increase to 192 by 2010 and rise to 244 by 2020, it said. Right now, there are 147 airports in China, with 45 of those serving civilian and military purposes. Building these airports will cost $64 billion, but once complete, 81 percent … Read more

I'd like to thank licensed ship captain and editor of the gCaptain.com blog, John A. Conrad, for this one: a ship that floats on a curtain of bubbles.

The Bubbling Ship is a concept devised by Yoshiaki Kodama, director of the Advanced Maritime Transport Technology Department at Japan's National Maritime Research Institute in Tokyo. The ship would blow bubbles from slits near the bow of the ship. The bubbles would travel along the hull, reduce friction, and hence increase gas mileage.

Is it feasible now? No, but that's what research grants are for. Ships are one … Read more

Mention hydrogen and a legion of critics will outline the reasons why the gas will likely never be a major energy source.

But it doesn't mean that researchers still aren't working on these problems. And the latest idea comes from Rice University, where scientists have found that buckyballs-- molecular balls made up of 60 or more carbon atoms--can store hydrogen quite well.

The molecules can store around 8 percent of their weight in hydrogen at room temperature, Rice found. The federal government, meanwhile, has set a goal of finding materials that can store 6 percent of its weight … Read more

Sail power is back.

The MV Beluga SkySails, a cargo ship rigged up with a billowing 160-meter sail from SkySails, used approximately 20 percent less fuel than it would have without the sail during a two-month voyage. Put another way, that's 2.5 tons of fuel, or $1,000 a day, in operating costs. Beluga Shipping ultimately hopes to save $2,000 a day with the technology.

The ship left Bremen, Germany, on the 22nd of January, sailed to Venezuela, and then headed toward the Norwegian port of Mo-I-Rana, docking on March 13. In all, the ship sailed 11,… Read more

Can Web 2.0-style collaboration halt climate change? Well, not entirely, but it can certainly help.

Former Vice President and Nobel laureate Al Gore and Cisco CEO John Chambers spoke on a virtual panel on Wednesday to discuss the role of business technology in environmental matters, most notably climate change.

The event was organized to showcase Cisco's videoconferencing technology and, overall, it performed very well.

Gore spoke from a location near his home in Nashville, Tenn., while Chambers was in San Jose, Calif., and the moderator of the event--ITN science editor Lawrence McGinty--spoke from outside London. People could watch … Read more

First there was software as a service. But hot water as a service?

It's happening, says Chris Beekhuis, chief technology officer of Fat Spaniel Technologies, which makes software that monitors how well solar panels, solar thermal hot-water systems, and other energy equipment functions.

Hotels, government buildings, and utilities are all interested in deploying more solar thermal hot-water systems. (They are fairly self-explanatory: heat from the sun is captured and used to heat up water.) The federal government, in fact, has put out a mandate that 30 percent of the hot water in new or renovated buildings comes from solar … Read more

Luminus Devices, a company that wants to change the lighting systems in digital TVs and in buildings, has raised $72 million in its latest round of funding.

The company, which grew out of research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, makes the Phlatlight LED (light-emitting diode), a type of LED that combines some of the qualities of both LEDs and lasers. The Phlat in Phlatlight stands for "photonic lattice structures." Basically, the lattice creates a situation where light can be precisely controlled (like a laser). The Phlatlight also can extract large amounts of light per watt, like an … Read more

In the wake of setbacks to new coal powerplant construction in the face of likely carbon legislation, the coal industry has mounted a serious PR blitz, led by a group called Americans for Balanced Energy Choices (ABEC).

ABEC is a national non-profit organization with a claimed membership of 150,000, whose acknowledged primary funding source is "America's coal-based electricity providers" -- including such big-boys as American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP), Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK), First Energy (NYSE: FE) and Southern Company (NYSE: SO). Not to mention large coal companies such as Arch Coal (NYSE: ACI) and CONSOL (… Read more

Plug-in hybrids are coming. General Motors, Tesla Motors, Fisker Automotive and Toyota are all coming out with gas-electric cars that can be charged from a socket.

The question now is can the grid handle it. The latest voice on the debate, Stan Hadley of the Cooling, Heating and Power Technologies Program at Oak Ridge National Laboratories, says it won't be easy. Hadley examined 182 scenarios on how plug-ins might be used in different regions in the U.S. between 2020 and 2030. Hadley assumed a 25 percent penetration of plug-ins by 2020.

In a worst case scenario, Hadley postulated … Read more