Doggie Doo Powered

Dogs and cats in the United States produce about 10 million tons of waste a year, according to Will Brinton, an environmental scientist and owner-director of Woods End Laboratories in Maine. If the feces could be harvested into a digestor to trap and burn methane in an effecient cogeneration facility, both electricity and home heating requirements for a small number of homes could be met. This would go a long way to reducing landfill waste and the resultant leachate from organic decomposition, which currently compromises about 5% of the waste stream.

Norcal Waste Systems Inc., San Francisco’s garbage company, plans to test collection carts and biodegradable bags in a city-center park popular with dog walkers. San Francisco runs an aggressive program to recycle bottles, cans, paper and other trash and now diverts two-thirds of its garbage away from landfills.

A picture of the fuel was purposefully not added.

Parallel Path Power from Electromagnets

Open Source Energy Network has a really groovy article on a new device that can increase magnet motor efficiency over 100%!

From the article: “At Flynn Research, Parallel Path electromagnetism is explained as a method of controlling and directing magnetic flux within the core of a motor to provide an exponentially greater motive force than conventional motors. From their technical brief about the technology, Parallel Path could very well usher in a new age of powerful and highly-efficient electric motors.”

I’ll I have to say is that is really really cool, for some reason I find magnets to be something magical.

Psiphon for Freedom

A program named Psiphon, being created by University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, can allow people behind firewalls to bypass them completely. The idea is to allow those living in countries that have national firewalls to get around the state’s censoring mechanisms, and access information that is otherwise hard to get at.

The way the program works is rather clever: it uses a connection port that is used by banks for secure transfer.

Nanotechnology Allows for Spray-On Solar Cells

Scientists have discovered a way that allows solar power cells to be sprayed on to most any surface and produce power even on a cloudy day!

The plastic material uses nanotechnology and contains the first solar cells able to harness the sun’s invisible, infrared rays. The breakthrough has led theorists to predict that plastic solar cells could one day become five times more efficient than current solar cell technology.

This is a huge advancement; yeah for renewable resources!

New Devices to Aid World’s Poor

Segway Scooter inventor Dean Kamen is at it again. But this time instead of helping those in rich countries to get off of their feet, he wants to help poor countries get back on their feet!

He’s developed two washing-machine sized devices: one that filters 1000 litres of water per day; and one that continually produces a kilowatt of energy, powered by cow dung.

Kamen has partnered with Iqbal Quadir, of Bangladeshi company Grameen Phone (see our previous coverage of Grameen Bank). Their business model encourages entrepreneurs in developing nations to offer power and water as services to local populations.

CNN.com has the full story.

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