According to The Thorium Dream by Motherboard TV, it is because two major nuclear powerhouses want it that way.  The other reason mentioned was that the current reactors, using 60 year old technology, are what we are comfortable with and what we know works.  The fact that there have been major disasters like Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and, most recently, Fukishima have shown that that doesn’t make them safe and the results are devastating when they fail.

Enter Thorium as the miracle that will save us as fossil fuel supplies dry up and current Uranium reactors are viewed as too dangerous.  Rather than using solid fuel rods like light water reactors(LWR) do, Thorium reactors use a liquid Thorium salt mixture.  It doesn’t require redundant safety mechanisms in part because it doesn’t blow up.  Unlike Uranium, you can’t make bombs out of Thorium.

Richard Martin talked about Thorium on The Leonard Lapate Show.  According to Martin, the amount of Thorium needed to produce electricity is significantly less than needed in a Uranium reactor.  A liquid Thorium-Fluoride salt reactor is actually a breeder reactor where it creates more fuel as it producing electricity.  These types of reactors would require less maintenance and could run longer on the same fuel producing less nuclear waste.  Should something happen to the reactor it would not blow up.  At the bottom of the reactor is a and salt plug that would melt draining the radioactive fuel into a lead lined safety chamber. In other words we are talking about a type of nuclear reactor that is much safer than Uranium reactors, with less waste, and less maintenance.

A Thorium reactor was brought on line in the 1960’s but was shut down after 6 years primarily because market forces decided to continue focusing on Uranium reactors.  Watch The Thorium Dream to get a better picture on why. While the United States may have taken a pass on these safer types of reactors, other countries like India and China are funding Thorium research and will probably have Thorium reactors before we will. 

Unlike fossil fuels, Thorium doesn’t produce any carbon byproducts which makes it cleaner even than natural gas.  It is readily available so one country or area of the world, think OPEC, can’t manipulate the cost.  It would not require such risky methods as fracking or trying to extract oil from shale using pollution producing methods.

All in all it looks as if Thorium reactors would actually help solve a number of our energy problems.  While renewable energy is continuing to grow, it is growing so slowly that we still use coal fired plants for much of our electricity.  Thorium nuclear reactors would produce cleaner electricity.  We would have cheaper electricity and could power our lives (including cars) using only a golf ball size of Thorium. 

The Thorium Dream will become reality.  Too bad it won’t happen here first.

More information on Thorium can be found here and here.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a UK charity.  The actual idea for the Raspberry Pi mini computer started in 2006 with Eben Upton, a lecturer at Cambridge University.  One of his roles also included admissions.  He noticed that the experience of applicants interested in Computer Science had changed drastically.  Rather than kids who were playing around with programming on the family computer, the current applicants had little to no experience with computer programming.

He and fellow colleagues from the university like Rob Mullins and Alan Mycroft started pondering how to get kids programming again.  Upton started building prototypes of Raspberry Pi.  In 2008, processor chips designed for mobile devices became powerful enough and cheap enough to provide good multimedia support.

The current models are the size of a credit card. An illustration of the computer can be found below. The minicomputers will do about everything a regular computer will do including word processing, spreadsheets, gaming, and playing videos.  Both models have the same components but different amounts of RAM.  The A model has 128 MB and the B model has 256 MB.  To put this in perspective, the latest cell phone models have one gigabyte of RAM so we aren’t talking computers that will do a lot of multitasking.

According to EcoGeek, the performance of the computer will be similar to a 300 MHZ pentium processor.  The actual processor in use is an ARM based system on a chip.  These should be easy to power up since they will run off of four AA batteries.  The model A will require only a 300 mA charger and the model B a 700 mA charger.  Solar power is also an option.

As mentioned earlier, the idea behind these computers is to provide a small affordable computer for kids to learn programming. The foundation has gotten a lot of interest from the educational community and developing countries.  Inquiries have also come from museums and hospitals who want to use the Raspberry Pi to run displays. Of course, people interested in building robots are interested in these little boards. While the computers are aimed at kids, they sound like they might be a lot of fun to play with for adults as well.

The first production run will be 10,000 and will go on sale at the end of this month.  Orders are limited to one per person.  The Raspberry Pi will come uncased and can be ordered from raspberrypi.com.  The model A will cost $25 and the model B, $35.

The Foundation does expect to offer a buy one, donate one option at some time in the future and as with all charity organizations, they accept donations.

According to Gas2 the $10,000 would be applied to natural gas vehicles as well other green technology cars which presumably takes in hybrids as well as EVs.  The rebate as opposed to the tax credit would mean that more people would be able to purchase these green technology vehicles.

Right now the only people who can afford cars like the Tesla S car, Chevy Volt, or even Nissan Leaf have to have a fairly good income to shell out $36,000 to $60,000 for a car.  If the $10,000 is taken off the front end, it moves at least a couple of the cars like the Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt into the affordable range at $26,000 and $31,000 respectively.

If manufacturers can get more people buying these green tech vehicles than they can produce more of the cars which in turn lowers the price.  It’s simply that higher production means lower costs for all involved. 

While Obama may be trying to help the adoption of green vehicles, Congress is another matter.  The Republican majority in the House is rabidly pro-fossil fuels and anti-green anything.  Getting any part of Obama’s budget through is going to be difficult.  Getting this particular provision through may be just about impossible in this coming election year.

Too bad we have a Republican leadership whose stated goal is to make Obama a one term president.  If they were more interested in helping car manufacturers and in turn consumers, we might see this little piece of goodness passed.  Ford, Chevrolet, Tesla, GM and other American car companies would benefit from the passage of this provision. 

Maybe we’ll be lucky and this provision will actually sneak through on rider to prolong Exxon and BP’s gas subsidies.  Stranger things have happened.

Safran Group and Honeywell announced that easyJet will begin testing the EGTS in 2013. The companies hope to begin providing the system for new airplanes and as a retrofit by 2016. As the UK’s biggest airline with 604 routes to 130 airports in 29 countries, easyJet will be able to give the system a thorough testing.

Due to the high frequency and short sector lengths of easyJet’s operations, around 4% of total fuel consumed annually is used when the airline’s aircraft are taxiing. easyJet’s aircraft average 20 minutes of taxi time per flight – the equivalent of 3.5 million miles a year.

The tests will make sure that the fuel savings are actually realized and will determine other benefits of the system. 

Each wheel is fitted not only with a motor but also with an electromechanical actuator and unique power electronics and system controllers. One benefits of this new system will be the increased maneuverability and control over speed, direction and braking of the plane as it approaches the docking area. Currently planes are tugged into the docks.  The new system should reduce or eliminate the need for the final assist.

Cutting down on fuel costs isn’t the only reason to look for innovative ways to incorporate electrical systems and and reduce fuel use.  The European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) went into effect on January 1 of this year.  That scheme requires airlines using European airports to account for their greenhouse gases.  The idea behind the EU ETS is to speed up the adoption of green technologies, like this one, in aviation.

Although The New York Times has reported that the EU is willing to suspend some portions of the directive that doesn’t mean that this type of innovation will cease.  One of the conditions of suspending portions of the ETS is that a global system would need to be developed that would go beyond the ETS in achieving reductions of green house gases in aviation.

While the four percent reduction in fuel might not seem like a lot, it is one step of many, like the combination of weight reduction and more powerful batteries increases the distance that an electric vehicle can travel.  Safran, Honeywell and easyJet are testing a system that with the addition of other innovations like jet biofuels will reduce greenhouse gas emission and make breathing easier.

According to NASA the current fuel it uses is hydrazine.  It is a highly toxic and corrosive fuel.  It can be stored for long periods of time and provides the energy necessary for rocket launches but it is hazardous to the environment.  NASA wants a cleaner greener alternative.

Madsci.org has an article that describes the four types of fuel normally used for rocket launches – solid, cryogenic, petroleum and hypergolic.  The space shuttle used three of these types.  According to Starts with a Bang, the solid fuel rocket used a noxious fuel called ammonium pecholorate composite that creates hydrogen chloride which mixed with water makes hydrochloric acid.  The second fuel used was liquid hydrogen that expelled water vapor, by far the least toxic emission.  The shuttles engines use a small amount of hypergolic fuel, relatively speaking, for maneuvering. That only covers the space shuttle and not the numerous rockets used for launching satellites and other items into space.

According to Slate, one of the dangers of rocket propellants it that they emit reactive gases that destroy the ozone, as well as soot and aluminum oxide that add to the problem.  Crosslink commented that the build up of black soot in the stratosphere will last for years so multiple launches could accumulate more soot that absorbs sunlight.  Most man made pollutants do not reach the levels that rocket exhaust does which creates unique problems.

Even though the amount of propellant burned by rockets—and so, too, their carbon dioxide emissions—is small compared to the fuel burned each year by the aviation industry, the accumulation of stratospheric soot could represent a net additional heating, or radiative forcing, on the atmosphere comparable to all of aviation.

Now start adding in more launches coming from more countries like China and you begin to see the problem.  The fuels used for the ever increasing launches of GPS, defense, spy, and climate satellites is simply adding more stuff into parts of our atmosphere we previously had been unable to reach.  Add to the those launches what some hope will be a burgeoning space tourist industry and we simply compound our climate change issues.

Unfortunately, liquid hydrogen is unable to be the only fuel used to lift rockets into the air thus NASA’s need to find other fuels that won’t produce the dangerous byproducts of the fuels used today.

Photo from NASA.

The Telegraph reports that a 23 year old Middlesex University design student named Kieron Scott-Woodhouse designed the new ADzero phone out of frustration.  He was tired of all the similarity of design of Android phones.  For a while, if you had seen one, you’d seen them all.  The only difference it seemed was the name on the front and the innards.

Scott-Woodhouse is still in school but looks to have a potential hit on his hands when the phone is finally produced.  He has already been “contacted by a technology entrepreneur” and is working for the company ADzero developing the unibody phone.  While he works on the case, an engineer is designing the technology that will fit inside.  One of the new features will be a Mobile Ring Flash Technology (MRFT), a LED flash that will ring the camera improving picture lighting.  It looks from the picture as if there might be two different designs for the front of the one.

The phone will be built in China which is how the company and Scott-Woodhouse decided to make the case out of bamboo.  Bamboo can be locally sourced and has all of the features mentioned above.  Scott-Woodhouse has worked on strengthening the case so that it is rugged enough to survive everyday wear and tear.  It will also weigh less than an iPhone, which is good since we’ve seen the advent of the Razr and Razr Maxx that are extremely thin light phones.

The company has not released any information about the technology that is going into the phone so there is no information on memory, processor or Android build. Since the phone is expected to be sold in boutiques rather than typical mobile phone outlets there is no telling what will wind up inside of it.

Unfortunately, the fact that it will be sold in boutiques means that it will probably be more expensive than most Android phones currently on the market.  Bamboo items from socks to furniture seem to be costing a premium these days.  Since it is such a sustainable material, you would think that the cost would be lower than the cost of products from less sustainable materials.

The release date for this phone has not been announced, but the company says that it wants to get the phone to market as soon as possible.  That presumably means sometime this year.  Whether that will be the Spring, Summer or Fall hasn’t been announced.

It looks to be a great looking phone.  Too bad it’s aimed at the nose bleed section of the market.

All photos from ADzero

According to MIT News research scientist in the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms, Andreas Mershin, has built upon previous work by Shuguang Zhang, a principal research scientist and associate director at MIT’s Center for Biomedical Engineering, to develop this new type of solar cell.  Mershin’s work has been published in Nature.com’s Scientifi Reports. 

Zhang’s earlier research was able to take “photosystem-I (PS-I), the tiny structures within plant cells that carry out photosynthesis”, stabilized it, and applied it to a glass substrate to create a very weak solar cell.  It was so weak as to be useless.

Mershin claims that he has simplified the process so that even high school labs could create solar cells from PS-I molecules derived from plants.  The resulting solar panels, while 10,000 more efficient than Zhang’s earlier ones would still be too weak to be useless.  They would need to improve in efficiency by 10 times to make them useable.  Which is why Mershin wants to get researchers around the world to help improve the process.

The simplified process required that rather a flat coating on glass, the PS-I molecules had to achieve a three dimensional structure similar to pine trees in a forest where the majority of a pine tree’s canopy is at the top with smaller limbs down the trunk to catch sunlight that leaked through.

Turning that insight into a practical device took years of work, but in the end Mershin was able to create a tiny forest of zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires as well as a sponge-like titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanostructure coated with the light-collecting material derived from bacteria. The nanowires not only served as a supporting structure for the material, but also as wires to carry the flow of electrons generated by the molecules down to the supporting layer of material, from which it could be connected to a circuit. “It’s like an electric nanoforest,” he says.

The zinc oxide and titanium dioxide also absorb ultraviolet light that would damage the PS-I molecules.  Both ZnO and TiO2 are found in sunscreen lotions so they are fairly cheap and plentiful. 

The source of the PS-I is also cheap and plentiful.  You can use simple grass or other plant clippings that are normally considered trash.  While MIT does use a centrifuge to separate the PS-I from other element of the plant, using a filter would do the same thing eliminating the need for expensive equipment.

While improvements still need to be made to the system, Mershin sees the final process as simple enough that a single sheet of illustrations would be enough to teach anyone how to do it.  The only ingredient that would need to be purchased would be a bag of chemicals to stabilize the PS-1 filtered from plants.  It would be cheap and simple enough that anyone in the most remote parts of the world would be able to construct their own functional solar cells.

Meanwhile, Mershin and colleagues are continuing to work on improving the efficiency of the final solar cells and are hoping that the recently published paper will entice other researchers to help find improvements.

One day we may all be able to make our own solar cells out of whatever plant material we find and trash pieces of metal or glass as substrates.  Not bad, not bad at all.

Above and below illustrations from Scientific Reports used under a creative commons license.

Way back in 2008, we reported on Better Place’s partnership with France, Israel and Denmark to install battery swap and charging stations.  The company also partnered with Renault to create electric cars with easily swapped out batteries.  According to Technology Review the company just received the first 100 Renault Fluence Z E (Zero Emission) electric vehicles that will be used in Israel to demonstrate Better Place’s battery swap technology. 

The process works as follows:

1. 1.  A Renault Fluence Z E alerts its driver that the battery is low. 
2. 2.  The driver consults her navigation app that shows where to find the closest battery swap station.
3. 3.  The driver drives to the nearest station and pulls into the battery swap bay.
4. 4.  The used battery is removed and a fully charged battery is installed all from below the vehicle using a robotic process.  It takes about the same amount of time that it takes to fill up a gas tank.
5. 5.  The driver exits the bay and continues on her way.

The battery swap technology makes long trips much easier than having to plug into a charging station every so often for a fifteen minute to four hour charging process.  Instead you pull in for a matter of minutes and continue driving until you need another swap.  Of course there are charging stations available as well that allow for charging overnight and while shopping, working, sightseeing or dining.

The Renault Fluence Z E uses  “225-kilogram lithium-ion batteries with a range of 160 kilometers”(about 100 miles).  The cars will be initially leased only by Better Place employees.  Once the kinks have been worked out of the system, Better Place will offer others the option of leasing a Fluence  through another company and using battery swap technology and charging stations through a subscription service.

Better Place signed a leasing agreement with The Eldan Group, the largest car rental group in Israel, back in December.  Eldan will “acquire hundreds of Renault Fluence Z.E. electric cars from Better Place in 2012.”  Companies and private customers that sign up for electric cars will also sign for a membership subscription with Better Place for use of the charging infrastructure and Customer Care. Fossil Fuels are extremely expensive in Israel, as are taxes on fossil fuel vehicles. So switching to an electric vehicle will be an attractive option for many. 

Better Place is the only company that provides battery swap technology for its customers.  Coulomb, GE and other charging infrastructure companies are building charging stations in various parts of the world, but only Better Place gives you a quick way to simply “swap and go” when needed.

Above Photo from Better Place.

According to the Ministry of Defense, Lockheed Martin’s TPS-77 radar was installed and tested along the Norfolk coast.  The test results showed that Lockheed Martin’s radar system was indeed able to shut out “clutter” associated with the turning turbine blades on wind farms, thus allowing five new wind farms to be built.  Those five wind farms should generate and additional 3.3 GW of renewable energy. 

Two more installations will go up in Northumberland and Yorkshire.  All total, the two additional installations should allow an additional 750 MW of wind energy.  The cost of installing the new improved radar systems will be paid by energy companies.

Minister for Defence Personnel, Welfare and Veterans Andrew Robathan said:

"The MOD was instrumental in convincing the energy companies to collaborate and jointly fund the cost of the radar, meeting operational requirements and ultimately enabling the generation of more renewable energy. This is good news for all parties to this arrangement."

Energy Minister Charles Hendry said:

"We must rapidly increase the levels of homegrown clean energy produced in the UK. Wind farms and other forms of renewable energy will help boost our energy security, and ultimately our national security. I am pleased that an outcome has been reached that is beneficial to our national security, energy security and decarbonisation goals."

Lockheed Martin had previously test this radar system “at land-based wind farms near the company’s outdoor test range in Cazenovia, NY, as well as in trials with the Horns Rev offshore wind farm in the North Sea.”  The radar worked well.  Another great feature of new radar system is that it uses “just half the power of comparable S-band radars.”  So not only will it allow more renewable energy installations in the United Kingdom, it is also more energy efficient than many other radar systems.

The new radar has proven that it will work in both the US and UK.  That should allow additional wind farms to be built on both sides of the Atlantic without compromising defense security.  This is great news as more and more installations are planned for both countries.  By the end of 2015, the UK is expecting to have over 1000 offshore wind turbines installed. This should also help the Cape Wind project that has been fighting regulations and objections for years. 

Lockheed Martin’s TSA-77 will allow more renewable energy installations.  It is also greener than other radar systems making it pretty green as well.

Joule Unlimited’s new funding will allow the company to continue building its facility in Hobbs, New Mexico.  According to Technology Review the facility will allow the company to begin scaling up its production operations in five acre increments.  Each acre is covered in SolarConverters that consist of “clear panels circulate brackish water and a nitrogen-based growth medium bubbling with carbon dioxide.”  Joule’s genetically modified algae continuously converts sunlight and CO2 to fuel within that medium.  Eventually the company hopes to have all 1,000 acres covered in SolarConverters producing biofuel. 

Currently Joule’s algae have reached 60 percent of that 20,000 gallon goal. In order to continue moving towards that goal, the company is continuing to tweak the algae by “limit[ing] all biological processes that compete with fuel.” Once the genetically modified algae are perfected that could mean 20,000,000 gallons of biofuel total per year.  The company has previously said that once the modified algae are perfected they should be able to produce 20,000 gallons of biofuel per acre. 

According to Bio Architecture Lab (BAL) there process “first transform[s] seaweed into a renewable chemical intermediate, and from this intermediate, chemicals and fuels are produced through chemical synthesis or fermentation.” BAL considers seaweed to be a better feedstock that even algae because it doesn’t require the use of any land or fresh water.  That’s important since fresh water is scarce in many parts of the world.  Even areas that currently have abundant fresh water are expected to see water shortages in the future.  Preserving land and fresh water for habitation and food crops only makes sense.

After the demise of GreenFuel in 2009, the viability of algae based fuels was questioned. Other algae based biofuel companies have continued forge ahead. According to OilPrice.com algae based biofuels have already been successfully tested in Navy ships and commercial airlines flights.  Unfortunately, the cost of algae based biofuel is not currently competitive.  Joule expects its process to be affordable once it is maximized and scaled up.  BAL is working toward the same goal but is not as far along.

Algae and seaweed may someday provide all the fuel we need for our transportation and chemicals to replace other fossil fuel products like plastic.  We won’t see that happen for years to come.