The Fraunhofer Institute for Wood Research has developed a non-toxic insulation using wood, which is renewable, instead of petrochemicals. They claimed that it insulates as well as traditional polymer-based foams. “Our wood foam can be used in exactly the same way as conventional plastic spray foams, but is an entirely natural product made from sustainable…
Cattle waste will be used to halve the $1.7 million annual energy cost of a beef plant in Darling Downs, Australia. How? The plant, Oakey Abattoir, will convert its cattle waste into biogas. Biogas consists primarily of methane, and in this case, it would substitute natural gas as a fuel. ‘On a single shift, between 1000 and…
At the 2014 Detroit Auto Show (NAIAS), the Lexus RC F made its global debut, and what makes it unique is the combination of the fuel-efficient Atkinson cycle technology with the conventional, more powerful Otto cycle to achieve fuel efficiency without compromising horsepower. This Otto-Atkinson cycle engine, uses the Atkinson cycle for lower speeds, and…
Originally published on Cleantechnica. By Nicholas Brown. A battle has been brewing between utility companies and the rooftop solar industry in California, and, of course, it’s about money. They compete with each other because rooftop solar systems enable people to purchase less power from utility companies, but the companies still have a leg to stand…
Originally published on Cleantechnica. By Joshua S. Hill. It is quite possible that daylight saving time is one of the most unambiguously contentious issues of our time. I’m not saying it’s the only one, but given the sheer weight of legislation, vials of ink, hours of discussion dedicated to the issue of daylight savings, whether we should…
Originally published on Cleantechnica. By James Ayre. Thin-film solar cells may soon possess the ability to absorb a notably larger portion of the light that strikes them, thanks to the recent development of a “superabsorbing” design by researchers at North Carolina State University. As well as improving the light absorption efficiency of thin-film solar cells,…
People have driven more than 1 billion miles in Tesla, Nissan Leaf, and Chevy Volt electric vehicles. This signifies that the public, and the electric vehicle manufacturers now have over 1 billion miles of EV driving experience and test data. This is critical to the electrification of the automobile, as early adopters are putting EVs…
The Nashville Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) has ordered seven battery-powered electric buses from Proterra, along with a charging station. Delivery to Nashville, Tennessee is slated for this year, after they are constructed at Proterra’s Greenville, South Carolina manufacturing facility. The buses, which will operate in the free Downtown Music City Circuit, were funded by the city…
Originally published on Cleantechnica. By James Ayre. Tesla’s stock has exploded upwards once again, climbing up to about $264 a share at about 10:00 am on February 26th — that’s a climb of over 15%, and only a week or so after a separate large percentage jump. The most recent big boost that the stock…
Tesla Motors Takes Another Step Forward Tesla Motors’ electric vehicles are among the best-selling EVs, and that means they need many batteries to build their cars. The company intends to construct an enormous ‘Gigafactory’ (possibly in Nevada) which could produce up to 500,000 electric vehicle batteries annually. The batteries are to be constructed from the…
Juan Pablo Montoya is a racing legend who has won the Indy 500, the Monaco GP, the Daytona 24, and he raced in NASCAR. This became apparent when he posted a picture of himself at the wheel of a Tesla Model S on Facebook, which stood out especially because of its 17 inch LCD screen. Now,…
Netflix created an amusing spoof of drone delivery services called Drone2Home. [yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucz3JpvDQjk’]On a serious note, drones have the potential to deliver packages very efficiently, both in terms of speed and energy usage. Drones demonstrated by Amazon and the UAE are the lightest, and smallest vehicles to deliver packages yet. Instead of using one large…