plant

Bourne Energy's Backpack Power Plant puts a sub-25-pound, 500-watt-generating hydroelectric plant on your back. That's like being able to walk around with 60 solar panels. And when civilization finally collapses, I'll be dragging mine to an as-yet-undisclosed location.

You can use the BPP-2 in any stream deeper than 4 feet. It also operates silently, with no heat or exhaust emissions, and can be "bottom mounted" for total invisibility: all good things for hiding from the roving hordes of the post-apocalyptic dystopia. The BPP-2 is aimed for the military and can operate in a variety of … Read more

Start-up Bloom Energy says it can deliver a power plant in a box. What is it and how does it work?

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company, which is generating some serious buzz this week, will officially announce on Wednesday what it calls the "Bloom box." In an interview Sunday on CBS News' "60 Minutes," CEO K.R. Sridhar said the goal is to get businesses, and eventually consumers, off the transmission line grid and deliver power at a much lower cost with low emissions.

What is the Bloom box? It's a fuel cell. (See photo.) While that's nothing new--as Greentech Media editor Michael Kanellos says, fuel cells have been around since the 1800s--it's Bloom Energy's secret sauce that makes it special. Kanellos said that the solid oxide fuel cell patents point to a "yttria stabilized zirconium" material. This formula is used to fabricate an ink-coated floppy-disk-size ceramic tile (with an ink-based anode and cathode) made from 'beach sand." These are then stacked (see photo) into small blocks, and multiple stacks are housed in a unit about the size of a refrigerator.

Oxygen is fed into the fuel cell on one side and fuel on the other, according to the "60 Minutes" segment. The two combine in the cell to create a chemical reaction, which produces electricity. No burning or combustion. No power lines from an outside source. More here.… Read more

Before we get to the apps today, I have a couple of news items to tell you about. First, there is a sale right now for the game I wrote about in last week's post, Space Miner: Space Ore Bust (was $4.99; now $1.99). I really can't recommend this game enough (I'm still playing whenever I get a chance), so if you were waiting for the price to come down, now is the time to pull the trigger.

Also, a new Apple patent application, reported by AppleInsider, suggests that a future handheld device will have … Read more

eSolar is partnering with a power plant developer to offer utilities a soup-to-nuts approach for designing, building, and installing thermal solar power plants, the solar start-up announced Thursday.

Power plant developer Ferrostaal will act as a general contractor to build the plants, while eSolar will provide the solar thermal field technology design and development. The two plan to initially offer the service in Spain, the United Arab Emirates, and South Africa.

eSolar, which was created by Idealab and funded by Google.org, makes utility-scale thermal solar systems that operate differently than conventional solar plants. Instead, using solar panels to convert … Read more

Casual gaming has taken over the industry, and particularly the App Store, by force. Popcap Games is at the epicenter of it all, with several notable games--Bejeweled 2, Peggle, and now Plants vs. Zombies--being stand-outs on the iPhone. We won't lie: we were eagerly awaiting the release date of this long-promised iPhone and iPod Touch port, having fallen into an addictive trance with the PC version.

For those not familiar, Plants vs. Zombies is a variant on tower defense games, where the player sets up fortresses and weapons to stave off waves of enemy attackers. In the case of … Read more

Brazil on Tuesday opened the world's first ethanol-fueled power plant in an effort by the South American biofuels giant to increase the global use of ethanol and boost its clean power generation.

State-run oil giant Petrobras and General Electric, which helped design the plant, are betting that increased use of ethanol generation by green-conscious countries will boost demand for the product.

Brazil, the top global ethanol exporter, is already in talks with Japan to develop biofuels power generation there.

"We have great expectations to show the viability and economy of generating electricity from...an alternative feedstock to fossil … Read more

Check out a behind-the-scenes look at the Brampton Assembly Plant, in Ontario, Canada, as a Dodge Challenger rolls off the line. This video covers different aspects of assembly: from paint to the installation of a Hemi.

Updated at 2:30 p.m. PST with additional information on PG&E deal.

SolarReserve said on Tuesday it has signed a deal to build a utility-scale solar plant in Nevada with a molten salt storage system that will let it supply power when the sun isn't shining.

The Santa Monica, Calif.-based company has a 25-year power purchase agreement with utility NV Energy to supply about 480,000 megawatt-hours of electricity a year, enough to power about 75,000 homes during peak times. The capacity of the concentrating solar system will be 100 megawatts and be located … Read more

We have yet to meet a game from PopCap that we didn't like, and Plants vs. Zombies is no exception. The premise doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but we don't care; like most other games from this publisher, it's addictively fun.

The game contains the same high-quality graphics we've come to expect from PopCap. The object of the game is to protect your house from a zombie invasion using a variety of plants in your front yard. Each of the plants needs a certain amount of sunshine (or points) for you to be … Read more