Good Fact

Kill Mold with Vinegar

- Adam Clare 2 Comments

About a year ago we looked at the greatness of vinegar to solve your problems, and now we have more news on how good vinegar is. Vinegar is great for getting rid of mold.

Instead of reaching for industrial bleach or the M2A1-7 flamethrower, try using white vinegar instead. Now, I know many of you are disappointed, hoping the flamethrower would be the first choice. Vinegar may not be as fun, but at least you will have a house to come home to. Restaurants have been effectively using vinegar, to clean cooking surfaces for years. If you need to get to surfaces not easily reached by wiping them down, try filling a spray bottle and saturate the area. Let it sit. 82% of the mold strains can be eliminated, by vinegar alone. For tougher mutant molds, try two teaspoons of tea tree oil and two cups of water. Again, the smell will be strong and can linger a few days, in addition to being toxic to animals. So, tea tree oil is the last resort, when you are wanting to fight molds, without using harsh chemicals.

UN Sees Green Jobs as the Future

- Adam Clare

A new report from the UN says that the future will be filled with green jobs.

The report, ‘Green Jobs: Towards Decent Work in a Sustainable, Low-Carbon World’, was commissioned and funded by the UN’s Environment Programme (Unep).
It says the manufacture, installation and maintenance of solar panels should add 6.3 million jobs by 2030, while wind power should add more than two million jobs.
Major opportunity
Unep director Achim Steiner said that if the world did not transform to a low-carbon economy it would “miss a major opportunity for the fast tracking of millions of new jobs”.
The report was written before the current global economic crisis.
However, Mr Steiner said that to ditch green energy policies because of the crisis would be a mistake because in the long term the new jobs will make economies stronger and help make goods with less oil and gas.

Thermal Towers in Namibia: Energy and Food

- Adam Clare

Namibia is examining the feasibility of using solar thermal towers.

Thermal towers work by creating an airflow that spins turbines and the bigger they are the more efficient they become. Namibia appears to be a great place for thermal towers due to the amount of sun it gets. The proposed thermal towers in Namibia will also act as greenhouses for growing food.

A new breed of solar tower may soon be sprouting up in Namibia, providing the nation with a carbon-free source of electricity and food during the day and night. At one and a half kilometers tall and 280 meters wide, these massive solar updraft towers could potentially produce 400MW of energy each – enough to power Windhoek, the nation’s capital. Proposed by intellectual property company Hahn & Hahn, the towers generate energy by forcing heated air through a shaft lined with wind turbines. Additionally, the base of each tower will function as a 37 square km greenhouse where crops can be grown.

Amazing Algae Aviation Fuel

- Adam Clare
algae
algae

There has been a lot of interest into using algae as a fuel before, and recently we on Things Are Good we saw that algae can be used for nearly any engine. The aviation industry is no different when it comes to celebrating algae as they are looking into mixing kerosene with algae.

According to the ASU researchers, their kerosene provides a competitive advantage because it eliminates an expensive thermal cracking process which is necessary for traditional kerosene production.

The new algae kerosene fuel is compatible with jet planes when mixed with a small amount of fuel additives.

And with the increasing speed of new developments in algae fuel, we may all be driving around in algae-powered cars and flying algae-powered planes within the next few decades.

Algae Good For Most Strokes

- Adam Clare 1 Comment

Algae is freaking awesome! Here’s more information on the goo of goodness: it can be used as fuel for nearly any engine.

I’m utterly convinced that if we heavily funded algae research we could create amazing fuels, clean the air, and basically save the world.

ome oils created by algae might be appropriate for fueling a motor vehicle; another might be more suited for home heating oil; and yet another might be the right type to power an airplane. While we’re at it, some algae oils might also provide useful for other products, in the same vein that omega 3 fatty acids make fish such a popular and healthy product.

In fact algae’s are quickly turning into the star of the biofuel world. It does not require masses of farmland to produce, and can use wastewater instead of diverting freshwater. And with fuel prices skyrocketing, water availability a real and present issue, and the loss of farmland for these products a concern, algae comes out on top in all categories.

And though it could take 10 to 25 years before algae-based biofuel is readily available to the public, the possibilities are huge. Erick Rabins, vice president of Allied Minds, based in Quincy, Mass, and interim manager of the startup company between Allied Minds and UW, says that “The most optimistic assessment that I’ve heard is that it could be six to eight years before there’s something that’s useable, but the tools and techniques to make it possible are being created right now.”

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