GET's 5W-30 G-Oil.
(Credit: Green Earth Technologies)Green Earth Technologies (GET) announced Wednesday that its environmentally friendly motor oil for cars will soon be available on shelves across the U.S.
The manufacturer of the biodegradable, carbon neutral motor oil made in part from the animal fat of beef slaughter byproducts has been waiting on certification from the American Petroleum Institute before selling its G-Oil to the public.
G-Oil has received API starburst certification, a symbol put on a product's packaging to signify it meets specific standards and is recommended for use by leading vehicle manufacturers. GET's car oil was additionally granted the API service symbol donut, a seal signifying an oil product has "energy-conserving properties in a standard test in comparison to a reference oil."
Until recently, GET has only been selling a 2-cycle G-Oil and a 4-cycle 10W-30 G-Oil for use in small-motor things like lawn mowers and tractors.
Now that the API approval has come, GET, which will be showcasing new products at the AAPEX show in Las Vegas next week, says consumers will begin to see its G-Oil motor oil for cars and trucks at leading national chains. It already began selling its product at National Auto Stores, a Pennsylvania-based chain, as of October 1.
The announcement is not just good news for a company. If the majority of the general public starts buying motor oil that biodegrades rather than taints groundwater, it could have a meaningful impact on the environment. Used motor oil from a single oil change that is dumped into the ground can contaminate about 1 million gallons of fresh water, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
But, of course, the motor oil has to work well with your car.
While the International Motor Sports Association's American Le Mans Series has adopted G-Oil as its official motor oil of choice, the real test will be whether or not the American driving public and car enthusiasts like how it performs in their cars.
While no formal announcement has been made, it's likely a deal is in the works with the retailers already carrying G-Oil for small motors. This would include chains like Amazon.com, Home Depot, Ace Hardware, and True Value, among others.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt (left) and U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu at Google headquarters Monday.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET)MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--For a bunch of search engineers, Google employees care an awful lot about energy and the environment.
Google hosted an event for employees Monday featuring Steven Chu, the U.S. secretary of energy under President Obama and a man Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said "may become one of the most influential scientists of our generation, if he isn't already." Chu took about an hour to speak to a packed room of Google employees following his announcement of $151 million in funding for new energy-related projects as part of the ARPA-E program.
Chu found a friendly audience of some of the most science-and-technology-obsessed individuals in a region known for science and technology obsession. He called the need to invest in alternative fuels and energy systems "the engineering and science challenge of our time" that will demand contributions from young scientists and technologists like the ones in Mountain View.
Several employees asked Chu to opine on the viability of various alternatives to fossil fuels, such as nuclear and geothermal, and the need to reduce carbon through a cap-and-trade system and carbon sequestration. Here Chu jostled a bit with Schmidt, who said he is skeptical about cap-and-trade systems and the ability of the nuclear industry to solve thorny problems like waste disposal and safety.
Congress is considering cap-and-trade legislation at the moment, and Chu is scheduled to testify before Congress on Tuesday about the need for such legislation. Schmidt isn't sure a global system can work because of the tendency for "rogue nations" to do as they please, but Chu thinks if carbon measurement systems are improved, hard data will make it easier to encourage those who are overproducing carbon to get their act together.
And on nuclear, Schmidt bemoaned the lack of standards in nuclear plant construction, saying "the human factors are a disaster" with every plant a little different than its counterparts and the waste issue still unsolved. Chu didn't debate the point, but said the nuclear industry is moving more toward solving those problems and improving safety.
Those were minor policy disagreements, however: Google and the current Department of Energy are definitely friends. Schmidt called Chu one of his heroes, and Chu praised Google's work on reducing the energy consumption of its servers and assuming a "leadership position" in reducing the carbon footprint of its operation.
Schmidt, who serves as an adviser to the administration on President Obama's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology, asked Chu what it's like being the senior scientist in the government. He's actually the first scientist to hold the secretary of energy position, and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997.
"It's funny in a macabre sort of way. I don't think Congress treats me like your average cabinet member," Chu said with a wry chuckle. He said he's spent much of his first year on the job talking to Congress about the problems with energy use and the environment, and that legislators are receptive, for the most part.
"I think the president has made it very clear that science plays such an integral role in the decisions we have to make," Chu said. He was preaching to the choir at the Googleplex.
If current projects under development are completed, the U.S. could have as much as 10 gigawatts of geothermal power at its disposal, according to a new report from the Geothermal Energy Association.
Through several extraction methods, geothermal energy harnesses heat from the Earth for the purpose of heating and cooling buildings or for power generation. Many have argued for years that geothermal is an underestimated resource for clean electricity.
There are currently 144 new geothermal projects under development in 14 states. If successful, those projects could add up to 7,100 megawatts (7 gigawatts) of power to the existing 3,100 megawatts of U.S. geothermal energy output. That would give the U.S. a total of roughly 10 gigawatts of power capacity from geothermal energy, according to data from the GEA's report (PDF) released Wednesday.
"At the high end, that would be enough baseload power to supply about 20 percent of California's total electric power in 2008--or enough generating capacity to supply the power needs of about 7.2 million people," the GEA said.
The GEA gives a state-by-state breakdown, listing how many new geothermal projects are under way and the potential amount of energy they could collectively generate. Nevada leads with 64 new projects that could add a geothermal capacity of up to 3,473 megawatts. California, Oregon, Utah, and Idaho follow respectively, with capacities ranging from 238 MW to 2,436 MW. Here's the breakdown:
- Nevada, 64 projects, potential 1,876-3,473 MW
- California, 37 projects, potential 1,842-2,436 MW
- Oregon, 13 projects, potential 317-368 MW
- Utah, 10 projects, potential 272-332 MW ... Read more
Artist's rendering of what an Eco-Pod configuration could look like on the old Filene's Basement site in Boston's Downtown Crossing.
(Credit: Howeler Yoon Architecture)Howeler Yoon Architecture has proposed that an algae farm and vertical garden be erected at the old Filene's Basement site in Boston's Downtown Crossing.
The prefabricated design of interlocking pods containing algae-incubators on the inside and plants on the outside would be a temporary structure until the city of Boston, the site's owners, and the new owner of the bankrupt Filene's Basement chain agree on what to ultimately do with the historic Washington Street real estate.
But it's not just a one-off idea for the Filene's Basement spot.
Howeler Yoon, which is collaborating with Squared Design Lab, proposes placing its Eco-Pods on transition real estate throughout the city instead of leaving the sites to lie fallow while developers and officials spend months working through zoning, financial, and legal webs.
The pods, which are used as incubators for growing algae for biofuel, can be configured in several ways depending on the needs of a given site. Individual pods can also be rented out by researchers for algae-based projects, according to Howeler Yoon.
The spaces that form between the attached pods allow for planting and creating a vertical garden.
While the pods and their cranes look eerily futuristic, it's not such a far-out idea. The U.K.'s Institution of Mechanical Engineers released a report in August that suggested algae-cultivating buildings as one idea toward mitigating climate change. And just recently, PNC Financial Services Group unveiled a vertical garden spanning 2,380 square feet on the south side of its downtown Pittsburgh headquarters.
Clarification at 5:40 a.m. PDT October 1: Squared Design Lab is a collaborator on the project.
PNC's green wall in downtown Pittsburgh.
(Credit: PNC)On Tuesday PNC Financial Services Group unveiled what it claims to be the "largest green wall in North America."
Certainly, the wall is taller and "greener" than Fenway Park's famous 37-foot-high Green Monster in Boston.
The PNC wall is a living, breathing wall of plants spanning 2,380 square feet on the south side of the bank's Pittsburgh headquarters, at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Wood Street. The wall is made up of 602 two-foot square panels. Each panel contains 24 evergreen plants.
"The vertical garden, similar to a green roof, will help to cool the 30-story building. Preliminary studies show the south-facing living wall will be 25 percent cooler behind the wall than ambient temperatures," PNC said in a statement.
Currently, the wall is shades of green with darker green plants placed to create the bank's logo, but this spring some of the evergreen plants will bloom creating more color and changing the design.
The wall, similar in functionality to a green roof, was designed by Kari Katzander of Mingo Design, and built by Green Living Technologies and Cenkner Engineering Associates.
Contraception would be the cheapest and most effective way to reduce carbon emissions worldwide between 2010 and 2050, according to a study by the London School of Economics.
The report, "Fewer Emitters, Lower Emissions, Less Cost," (PDF) determined that if contraception was made widely available between 2010 and 2050 to women and men around the world who wished to use it, the reduction in unwanted births could result in saving 34 gigatonnes (one billion tonnes) of carbon emissions. That's roughly 60 years worth of U.K. emissions or 6 years worth of U.S. emissions.
The cost for supplying, and distributing contraception over those 40 years would cost an estimated $220 billion, or $7 for each tonne of carbon emissions avoided. It's cheaper than the next most efficient low-carbon technology, wind power, which would cost $24 per tonne or $1 trillion to prevent the same amount (one billion tonnes) of carbon emissions from being produced, according to the report.
In its per-tonne cost analysis, the report also calculated $51 for solar, $57 to $83 for coal plants with carbon capture and storage, $92 for plug-in hybrid vehicles, and $131 for electric vehicles.
The contraception as carbon reduction conclusion was based on United Nations statistics that 40 percent of worldwide pregnancies are unintentional. If contraception was made available to people who wanted it, those unintentional births could be reduced by as much as 72 percent. Between 2010 and 2050, that would result in curbing the world population growth by half a billion people, according to the UN statistics.
That is a conservative estimate, according to the report, since the UN figures are based solely on the lack of contraception access for married couples, and did not include unintended pregnancy statistics for unmarried women.
The study was funded by the U.K. environmental group Optimum Population Trust (OPT), which has argued that a more responsible attitude toward reproduction could be the answer to many environmental issues such oil, food, and water shortages.
The group has said that family planning programs in poor countries should qualify for environmental aid, since fewer people result in less energy use and fewer emissions.
"It's always been obvious that total emissions depend on the number of emitters as well as their individual emissions--the carbon tonnage can't shoot down, as we want, while the population keeps shooting up," Roger Martin, chair of OPT, said in a statement.
Is the practical idea too controversial to be considered because of moral reservations, or will countries warm up to it as not only climate change, but world water supplies become an issue?
"The taboo on mentioning this fact has made the whole climate change debate so far somewhat unreal. Stabilising (sic) population levels has always been essential ecologically, and this study shows it's economically sensible too," said Martin.
Watch the video report
Nothing grows in Chile's Salar de Atacama desert. It's the driest place on the planet, and one of the most remote. But to Tim McKenna, what's underground is paradise. He calls it, "the best place on earth."
McKenna's company produces lithium, the world's lightest metal. And lithium powers the batteries in the cell phones, BlackBerrys, and laptops that in turn power the world.
In Chile, the extraction process comes naturally: melting snow from the Andes Mountains runs into underground pools of salt water--or brine. That brine's pumped out. In a network of ponds, the desert sun evaporates out other salts, leaving lithium brine.
McKenna says, "the sun basically does all the work."
The brine's processed into white powder, lithium carbonate--a growing part of the world's energy future. Two companies, one American, one Chilean, produce half of the world's lithium in the salt basin in Chile.
As a source for battery power, demand for lithium is about to soar. This fall, Mercedes will sell the first lithium powered plug-in car. At least six more carmakers plan their own models. Chevy's new Volt is expected to get 230 mpg off of just one charge.
In your cell phone or BlackBerry battery, the lithium weighs one-tenth of an ounce. In a plug-in car, the battery's lithium weighs 20 pounds. In 10 years, lithium's price per pound has tripled to around $3, with only three major companies dominating the world's market in a half-dozen countries.
Chile, the largest supplier, has been called the "Saudi Arabia of lithium."
Energy analyst Ben Johnson said, "it looks very similar to an OPEC-style cartel. It's highly concentrated. The various producers are very secretive about their expansion plans and about their pricing movements."
Lithium producers deny that. Consumers will wait and see. But there's no denying, in the world's evolving energy science, lithium means power.
This story was written by Mark Strassman and originally posted at CBSNews.com.
The Gates Center for Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University.
(Credit: Carnegie Mellon University)Please raise your hand if you've spent a lot of time in a basement environment while attempting to master one computer-related art or another.
I'm referring to any room with a noisy ventilation system, windows that don't open, and dim fluorescents overhead. You know the one. It was either so sweltering that you ended up wearing shorts in January, or kept so cold for the sake of the servers that you wore a scarf and fingerless gloves year-round.
Well, that universal rite of passage for computer lovers seems to be over for Carnegie Mellon University students thanks to a $20 million gift from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a $10 million gift from the Henry L. Hillman Foundation, and several other donors.
The Gates Center for Computer Science and the Hillman Center for Future-Generation Technologies will officially open on September 22. The linked buildings will house research space, offices, conference rooms, laboratories, an auditorium, and classrooms for CMU's School of Computer Science.
Inside the atrium of the Gates Center.
(Credit: Carnegie Mellon University)In announcing the scheduled September 22 opening ceremony at which Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates will speak, CMU also released updated information on the Green attributes of the Gates-Hillman complex.
Through landscaping and a series of five green roofs, the university has managed to "double the amount of green space that previously existed on the 5.6-acre site," according to CMU. Professors and students using the buildings will actually be able to breathe in the fresh air created by that surrounding green foliage because the Gates-Hillman complex has over 310 windows, "most of which can be opened."
The green roofs are each equipped with heat exchange system to limit energy loss in the ventilation system. They will also collect rainwater and snow melt (gray water) that will be directed to the building's toilets.
The nine-story Gates Center has seven atria, and roughly 21,000 square feet of interior glass to insure plenty of natural light throughout the building.
"I was truly captivated also by the many cuts and atria in the building (a couple having complex series of stairways reminiscent of Hogwarts). There is even an 'impluvium' that will allow weather--including rain and snow--to enter into the building, all the way to the central 'collaborative commons' area," Peter Lee, head of the Computer Science Department and future Office Director at DARPA, described in his blog.
Both buildings have individual thermostats for each room that can be manually controlled, and are additionally linked with motion sensors to detect when they are empty so they can adjust accordingly.
Rendering of an aerial view of the completed Gates-Hillman Complex.
(Credit: Carnegie Mellon University)While it's not officially open, professors and students have already moved in. Photos of the building have also appeared on The Tartan, CMU's student newspaper.
As you would expect, there's some nostalgia for the old facilities. Mark Stehlik, professor and assistant dean for undergraduate education at the School of Computer Science, had his dim, overcrowded office memorialized with a Gigapan snapshot, according to Lee.
Update 7:22 a.m. PDT: Photos were added to this story since it was originally published.
(Credit:
Invest Maldives/Republic of Maldives)
The Republic of Maldives has signed a partnership with a tech company to develop biochar for its soils, both parties announced this week.
Biochar, a method of carbon capture and storage, is typically produced by heating biomass in a kiln until it turns into a manmade charcoal. That biochar can then be buried to enrich soil for agriculture. In some cases, biochar can be used as fuel.
The deal with U.K.-based Carbon Gold is part of the Maldives' plans to be carbon-neutral by 2020.
With the help of Carbon Gold, the Maldives will manufacture biochar from woody biomass, including coconut shells, for use in its own soil. As part of the deal, Carbon Gold will also launch an informational campaign directed at Maldivians on the benefits of using biochar rather than imported fertilizers to enhance soil quality for agriculture.
"The Maldives is already adversely affected by climate change so I warmly welcome this relationship with Carbon Gold. Biochar has a crucial role in helping us achieve carbon neutral status as well as providing an economic and environmental boost to our people," Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed said in a statement.
Though not a very powerful player on the global carbon stage, the Republic of Maldives is significant for being at the front line of climate change. If the Earth warms and seas rise as predicted, scientists believe the Indian Ocean archipelago country will be the first to go under water.
A new company pursuing an advanced geothermal energy technology has had to suspend its first attempt to drill a deep well in Northern California.
AltaRock Energy on Wednesday said it ran into problems during drilling for a demonstration project, "resulting from geologic anomalies particular to the formation" at the Geysers Geothermal field.
The project, said to be budgeted at $17 million, was partially funded by a Department of Energy grant given to several companies to explore the viability of enhanced geothermal systems. Sausalito, Calif.-based AltaRock was funded by Google and venture capital company Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
(Credit:
AltaRock Energy)
Although technical difficulties are normal in drilling projects, the progress of AltaRock is significant because it is one of few companies pursuing enhanced, or engineered, geothermal systems. It's a technology that holds great promise but that has raised safety concerns.
Traditional geothermal power draws on naturally occurring underground hot-water reservoirs to make electricity. With enhanced geothermal systems, wells are dug a few miles underground, and rock formations are fractured. Then water is injected into the wells, heated by the rock, and pulled back up. That hot water is converted to steam to turn an electricity turbine.
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study two years ago found that using this enhanced method of geothermal power generation could supply 10 percent of the electricity in the United States. It could also be done in a wide variety of locations, rather than just the limited number of locations that have traditional geothermal resources.
But an article in The New York Times in June raised questions over the safety of enhanced geothermal systems, due to the deep drilling. In one test in Switzerland, drilling from a geothermal project caused earthquake tremors, causing the project to shut down. The Department of Energy and the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management will not allow AltaRock to fracture rock before a review which is still pending, according to the Times report.
In its statement, AltaRock didn't offer many details on why it suspended drilling but said it is evaluating other locations to build a demonstration facility, including other spots at the site where it had been working.
