Scientists mimic essence of plants’ energy storage system |
In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn’t shine. |
Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is prohibitively expensive and grossly inefficient. With today’s announcement, MIT researchers have hit upon a simple, inexpensive, highly efficient process for storing solar energy. |
| Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. “This is the nirvana of what we’ve been talking about for years,”See more at web.mit.edu |
Energy independence is the wrong goal. Here is a plan Americans can stick to. |
In fact, we may be at a critical juncture, the kind that can creep up, in a gradual and insidious way, on companies and industries, and even on societies. Invariably, the actions that are needed to change course at such times are painful. Leaders rarely appreciate the gravity of their situation, and even when they do, they are loath to take appropriate action. |
Let’s put this situation in perspective. Google’s share of the U.S search market is more than half. This allows the firm to wield tremendous influence over the very nature of the American advertising market. Google may even have the power to transform and redefine how advertising is carried out. OPEC has a similarly dominant share of the worldwide oil market, and it may have a correspondingly large influence on its customers. |
We can do that by increasing our reliance on electricity. |
 Electricity: Energy That Sticks |
One of the benefits of being around a long time is that you get to know a lot about certain things. I’m 80 years old and I’ve been an oilman for almost 60 years. I’ve drilled more dry holes and also found more oil than just about anyone in the industry. With all my experience, I’ve never been as worried about our energy security as I am now. Like many of us, I ignored what was happening. Now our country faces what I believe is the most serious situation since World War II. |
The problem, of course, is our growing dependence on foreign oil ” it’s extreme, it’s dangerous, and it threatens the future of our nation. |
| Let me share a few facts: Each year we import more and more oil. In 1973, the year of the infamous oil embargo, the United States imported about 24% of our oil. In 1990, at the start of the first Gulf War, this had climbed to 42%. Today, we import almost 70% of our oil. |
| The U.S. uses nearly a quarter of the world’s oil, with just 4% of the population and 3% of the world’s reservesSee more at online.wsj.com |
BioPower Systems is commercialising ocean power conversion technologies. Through application of biomimicry, we have adopted nature’s mechanisms for survival and energy conversion in the marine environment and have applied these in the development of our proprietary wave and tidal power systems. |
Our technologies inherit benefits developed during 3.8 Billion years of evolutionary optimization in nature’s ocean laboratory.The resulting systems move and sway in tune with the forces of the ocean, and naturally streamline when extreme conditions prevail. This leads to lightweight designs and associated low costs. |
The inherently simple bioWAVE™ and bioSTREAM™ devices are designed to supply utility-scale grid-connected renewable energy using efficient modular systems. These systems will reside beneath the ocean surface, out of view, and in harmony with the living creatures that inspired their design. See more at www.biopowersystems.com |
With gas prices going through the roof and regulators requiring cars to be ever more miserly, Volkswagen is bringing new meaning to the term “fuel efficiency” with a bullet-shaped microcar that gets a stunning 282 235 mpg.
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Volkswagen’s had its super-thrifty One-Liter Car concept vehicle — so named because that’s how much fuel it needs to go 100 kilometers — stashed away for six years. The body’s made of carbon fiber to minimize weight (the entire car weighs just 660 pounds) and company execs didn’t expect the material to become cheap enough to produce the car until 2012. |
According to Britain’s Car magazine, VW has approved a plan to build a limited number of One-Liters in 2010. They’ll probably be built in the company’s prototype shop, which has the capacity to build as many as 1,000 per year. That’s not a lot, but it’s enough to help VW get a lot of attention while showing how much light weight and an efficient engine can achieve. See more at blog.wired.com |
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![[My Plan to Escape the Grip of Foreign Oil]](http://content6.clipmarks.com/image_cache/wildcat/512/BEFB8782-A9C5-4DFA-81AF-21A347F5231A.jpg)
