Good Fact

CO2 Turned into Fuel by Solar Powered Device

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

A device that can transform CO2 in fuel can prove to be revolutionary. The very idea of using the sun’s rays to get rid of CO2 is great in itself – making that same process create a type of diesel fuel is even better. In theory, waste from inefficient gas cars can be used to make cheaper fuel for more efficient diesel cars, which would drive demand for more diesel cars from cheaper fuel.

The researchers housed a 2-centimetre-square section of material bristling with the tubes inside a metal chamber with a quartz window. They then pumped in a mixture of carbon dioxide and water vapour and placed it in sunlight for three hours.

The energy provided by the sunlight transformed the carbon dioxide and water vapour into methane and related organic compounds, such as ethane and propane, at rates as high as 160 microlitres an hour per gram of nanotubes. This is 20 times higher than published results achieved using any previous method, but still too low to be immediately practical.

If the reaction is halted early the device produces a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen known as syngas, which can be converted into diesel.

Green Roofs Changing Architecture

- Adam Clare

Over at Treehugger they have a good slideshow about the state of green roofs in architecture.

Sometimes they developed naturally and organically, like this rooftop garden in lower Manhattan that like Topsy, just grew. And grew, and eventually evolved from a New York roof garden into what they now call a Green Roof.
Green roof new york

China Building World’s Most Efficient Skyscraper

- Adam Clare

Guangzhou, China will have the world’s most efficient skyscraper when it’s completed in 2010. The country that is known for bad air quality in its cities is realizing that things need to change and they’re working on it.

The Pearl River Tower, now being erected in Guangzhou, the provincial capital of Guangdong province, is being billed as the most energy efficient superskyscraper ever built.

With wind turbines, solar panels, sun-shields, smart lighting, water-cooled ceilings and state-of-the-art insulation, the 310-metre tower is designed to use half the energy of most buildings of its size and set a new global benchmark for self-sufficiency among the planet’s high rises.

Engineers say the tower could even be enhanced to create surplus electricity if the local power firm relaxes its monopoly over energy generation.

Due for completion in October 2010, the structure currently looks no different from the many other masses of steel and concrete that are reaching for the sky in Guangzhou.

People are Optimistic

- Adam Clare

Not much to add to this: study proves that people are universally optimistic.

“These results provide compelling evidence that optimism is a universal phenomenon,” said Matthew Gallagher, a psychology doctoral candidate at the University of Kansas and lead researcher of the study.
At the country level, optimism is highest in Ireland, Brazil, Denmark, and New Zealand and lowest in Zimbabwe, Egypt, Haiti and Bulgaria. The United States ranks number 10 on the list of optimistic countries.

Freight Containers as Student Housing

- Adam Clare

Tempohousing uses shipping containers to create housing and other buildings for places that can use it. Simple, modular, mobile, and funky.

In 2002, the city of Amsterdam had a very urgent need for student housing and was looking for new and original ideas to quickly solve the problem. Only temporary building sites were available (as in any city, land was scarce), so the solution had to be mobile, affordable and had to have a quick set up time. Traditional construction was not going to work: too expensive, not mobile, and too slow. Tempohousing (at the time also known as “Keetwonen”) was the only company who could offer solutions with the budgets and timeframes. But to live in what looks like a shipping container was completely new in Holland, so many hearts still had to be won.

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