NewNergy

Environment Friendly Solar Water Fountains

Do you have a spot in your yard, patio, or porch where you could place a beautiful fountain that adds to your relaxation and the landscape of your property? Environmentally friendly solar water fountains run free of charge, courtesy of the sun of course! There is no tricky electrical system, or wiring that you need to run, just a solar panel, pump, and the fountain.

Read more from this post and see a nice illustration @ Energy Refuge

Labels: environment, solar, unique

Twirling Tower Could Power Itself, Ten Others

By Hank Green - 13 May 2007

An architect has designed a wind-powered rotating skyscraper. While the technical details of the wind-power system are not fully known, the architect, David Fisher, claims that the tower could power itself and ten other similar sized buildings. Though the claim appears unbelievable, if it is even able to produce just it's own energy, it would be a significant achievement.

The architect has proposed that towers be built in a new way, basically by stacking platters on a central concrete core. This will allow for two unique and awesome features. First, a wind turbine between every floor (see image above) and, second, rotating floors.

Read more from this post @ EcoGeek

Labels: green-buildings, inventions, unique, wind

New Enzyme Discovery Could Make Ethanol Cheaper

A new plant enzyme has been discovered by Cornell University researchers, which could make the production of cellulosic ethanol less expensive.

A critical step in producing cellulosic ethanol involves breaking down a plant's cell wall material and fermenting the sugars that are released. This enzyme, according to scientists, could potentially allow plant materials to be broken down more efficiently.

The new class of plant enzymes has a structure similar to the microbial enzymes called "cellulases" which are used to digest the cellulose in grasses and similar plants.

While the scientists found the new enzyme in a tomato plant, they are confident that such proteins are present in other plant species that could be used for biofuel production.

Labels: cellulose, ethanol, prices, research, unique

Conoco, Tyson Alliance on biodiesel from Animal Fat

Conoco-Phillips and Tyson Foods have announced plans to team up to make biodiesel fuel out of animal fat, according to a report @ The Wall Street Journal

Tyson produces over 300 million gallons of beef, pork and chicken fat each year. The company plans to ship about 60 percent of its fat to a Conoco-Phillips plant for processing. The remaining 40 percent will be used in cosmetics, soap and pet food, as it is now.

Labels: animal-fats, biodiesel, biofuels, fuel-from-animals, unique

Sugar-fuelled battery soon to juice up portable electronics

New technology uses any sugar source from soft drinks to tree sap for fuel

Liz Tay (PC World) 26/03/2007

Fuel cell technology that is currently in development boasts the ability of extracting energy from virtually any sugar source to power portable electronics like cellular phones, laptops, and sensors. The new technology is expected to be biodegradable, environmentally friendly and more energy efficient than current options, providing a green alternative to current Lithium-ion batteries.

The cell operates at room temperature and uses enzymes to oxidize sugars, hence generating electricity. So far, researchers have run the batteries on glucose, flat soft drinks, sweetened drink mixes and tree sap.

Read the full news story from here @ Computer World, Australia

Labels: batteries, efficiency, electricity, inventions, unique

Alberta biofuels plant to weave straw into gold

23 Mar 2007

RIMBEY -- A central Alberta town is on track to build a plant that will turn straw and municipal waste into millions of litres of biofuel each year.

Rimbey Mayor Dale Barr said construction on the plant could start as early as this summer, with an estimated cost of about $30 million.

Read the full report from here @ the Calgary Sun

Labels: biofuels, canada, unique, waste, waste-canada

Energy from Vacuum? - Perhaps, says Institute of Vacuumenergy

Came across an interesting site by Institute of Vacuumenergy...

Following is their introduction about themselves and what they do.

"In the Institute for Vacuumenergy we are researching a method, which may enable us to use the active potential inherent in the vacuum as an energy source. We would like to give mankind the possibility of clean electromagnetic energy.

The Institute for Vacuumenergy is an independent and privately financed project.

How does a free energy machine work which uses the active vacuum as an external energy source?

Asymmetrical vacuum energy machine

A device which is able to use the quantum mechanical vacuum as an external energy source, intervenes into the active vacuum in the sense of an open system. It is possible to design an EM system in such a way, that a certain amount of electromagnetic energy is being used to create a so called asymmetric situation. A channel can be opened through which the potential of the vacuum in the sense of an external energy source can flow into our system because of a mechanism of asymmetry.
So the energy from a vacuum energy machine of course does not derive from nothing, but from the active vacuum. Ironically our source charge (dipole) is already a vacuum energy machine,concerning the extraction of the energy from the vacuum, meaning that our common electric circuit is already beeing potentiallized through an asymmetry towards the active vaccum. The scalar potential has an internal dynamic nature like any standing wave having an internal dynamic nature. If we don´t want to violate the first law, we just have to consider the vaccum as an energy domain and add it to our calculations.

...

Interesting, isn't it?

More can be known about them at their web page on vacuum energy

Labels: electromagnetic, renewable, unique