Geothermal Efficiency Projects

Geothermal power generation has been used all over the world and can be used for power generation of small and large power plants. It can be a local installation that powers a house to mega projects like those in Iceland that can power cities. In the USA there are two projects underway that are designed to test and demonstrate how easy and productive geothermal energy can be.

The first is a community-scale geothermal project in Massachusetts. We’ve heard a lot about community-scale solar PV projects, but community geothermal is also starting to emerge. New England Renewable Energy Systems has installed a community geothermal project in Provincetown, Massachusetts that uses a single loop field to heat and cool ten homes. The system has 19 vertical bores that supply 44 tons of geothermal heat pumps, or about 154 kilowatts of capacity. The challenge for community-scale geothermal, like community-scale renewables generally, is coordinating the investment among homeowners. But the benefit is clear: Homeowners participating in the program can pool their resources with others and save about $2,000 per year in heating costs from avoiding burning oil.

Read more here.

A Solar Powered Combustion Engine May Be in Your Future

This may sound counter-intutitive, but researches have begun a project to build an internal combustion engine (a common car engine) that runs off of solar power. Instead of using gas to ignite everything they want to heat water, add a dash of oil, to create a replacement to the overused pollution producing machine that is one of the leading causes of global warming.

To begin, mirrored parabolic solar collectors would be used to heat oil to a temperature of at least 400 to 700ºF (204 to 371ºC). This hot oil would then be injected into the cylinder chamber of the engine, just like gasoline ordinarily is. A few microdroplets of water would then also be introduced, which would turn to steam immediately upon contact with the hot oil.

The rapidly-expanding steam would serve the same purpose as exploding gas, driving the piston downward and turning the driveshaft. As the piston reached the bottom of its stroke, the spent steam and oil would exit the cylinder and be run through an oil/steam separator. They could then each be returned to their respective reservoirs, for re-use within the closed-loop system.

Read more at gizmag.

Clearing Minefields With Help From the Wind

In 1997 many nations of the world signed the Ottawa Treaty which banned the use and trade of land mines. The majority of countries signed on, but countries from Russia to the USA to even Armenia still need to commit to not using such dangerous weaponry. As a result of the use of these mines entire regions of nations are unable to be used.

Clearing land mines is expensive and very dangerous, which is where this really nifty idea comes in for using a nifty device to help clear the mines.

Mine Kafon | Callum Cooper from Focus Forward Films on Vimeo.

Via Reddit.

Australia Starts Two-Year Super Trawler Ban

Commercial fishing is one of the most damaging things one can do to gather a food source. Trawlers are so inefficient they perform the equivalent task of cutting down an entire forest to get a couple cows. With this hugely negative impact that trawling can have on undersea life in mind Australia has decided to ban, for at least two years, trawling by large boats in some protected waters.

Conservationists have welcomed the Government’s decision, saying the trawler would have “plundered” domestic fish stocks.

“The Government is right to take a precautionary approach, because monster boats like the Abel Tasman have no place in our waters,” Greenpeace spokesman Ben Pearson said in a statement.

The Greens also welcomed the announcement, but Tasmanian senator Peter Whish-Wilson says he is concerned other fisheries may be open to the Abel Tasman.

“There are other fisheries, both in the state water such as the sardine fisheries that it could fish, and potentially in mackerel,” he said.

Read more at ABC.