>From [Mad_Cowboy] 02-01-05 newsletter: www.madcowboy.com
*07: Germany Shines, Oily Bus, Orange Plastics, the Laddermill ************************************************ GERMANY SHINES A BEAM ON THE FUTURE OF ENERGY: (12/20/04): "A solar-power project built by a Berkeley company may point Germany toward a pollution-free future. Set in the heart of Bavarian farmland, the 30-acre facility went online earlier this month, becoming the biggest solar energy plant in the world. For the government of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, the Muhlhausen solar farm represents a gamble that Germany, the world's third biggest economy, can replace its principal energy sources -- coal, natural gas, oil and nuclear power -- with clean, safe and renewable alternatives. The country is now the No. 1 world producer of wind energy, with more than 16,000 windmills generating 39 percent of the world total, and it is fast closing in on Japan for the lead in solar power. Wind and solar energy together provide more than 10 percent of the nation's electricity, a rate that is expected to double by 2020. It has become a profitable business, too, with about 60,000 people employed in the design and manufacture of wind and solar energy equipment." [Very edited from the cool article discussing pros, cons, history at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/12/20/MNGRAAEL4B1.DTL BUS BOUND FOR COSTA RICA RUNS ON USED COOKING OIL: (12/13/04): "The Sustainable Solutions Caravan wants to show the world how to recyle more and create less waste. Itai Hauben, Tom Shaver and Stephen Brooks pour used vegetable oil into a 1972 modified diesel Carpenter school bus they are driving to Costa Rica. The oil was given to them by El Charro Cafe. "The engine in the bus has been modified to run on used straight vegetable oil," said Zak Zaidman, 36, one of the 10 members of the Sustainable Solutions Caravan traveling on the bus from its summer home in the San Francisco Bay area to winter quarters in Costa Rica in Central America. The group was founded last year to promote sustainability through the use of renewable energies, organic farming and sustainable lifestyles, he explained. That means less waste and more recycling. The group also promotes Earth-friendly farming, which will be critical if the fuels of the future are to be grown rather than mined. The destination of the caravan is Punta Mona Center for Sustainable Living and Education, an 85-acre organic farm and education retreat in Costa Rica, he said. For more information, go to puntamona.org. [Edited from: http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=local&story_id=121304a4_caravanwart [The Sustainable Solutions Caravan website: http://caravan.thefractal.org/modules/wfchannel/index.php?pagenum=2 PLASTICS MADE FROM ORANGE PEEL AND A GREENHOUSE GAS: (01/17/05): "A Cornell University research group has made a sweet and environmentally beneficial discovery -- how to make plastics from citrus fruits, such as oranges, and carbon dioxide. In a paper published in a recent issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (Sept. 2004), Geoffrey Coates, a Cornell professor of chemistry and chemical biology, and his graduate students Chris Byrne and Scott Allen describe a way to make polymers using limonene oxide and carbon dioxide, with the help of a novel "helper molecule" -- a catalyst developed in the researchers' laboratory. Limonene is a carbon-based compound produced in more than 300 plant species. In oranges it makes up about 95 percent of the oil in the peel. The Coates laboratory comprises 18 chemists, about half of them striving to make recyclable and biodegradable materials out of cheap, readily available and environmentally friendly building blocks. "Today we use things once and throw them away because plastics are cheap and abundant. It won't be like that in the future," says Coates. "At some point we will look back and say, 'Wow, remember when we would take plastic containers and just throw them away?'" [Edited from: http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Jan05/Orangeplastic.deb.html A NOVEL CONCEPT TO EXPLOIT THE ENERGY IN THE AIRSPACE : (01/05): "There is an enormous amount of energy hidden in the winds over our heads. At an altitude of 30,000 feet, the wind energy is twenty times as large as at sea level. The laddermill is a new and novel idea to harness this immense energy resource. The laddermill consists of a large number of kites on an upward and downward motion. The kites used are of a breed between regular kites and airplanes. The kites used in the laddermill, generally called "kiteplanes", combine the ascension characteristics of kites with the descension characteristics of aircraft. By creating a large loop of kiteplanes ascending and descending, a rotation can be created. In turn, this rotation can be coupled to a generator to create energy. The loop of kiteplanes can ultimately go up to 30.000 feet, which would generate approximately 100MW." [Edited from: http://www.lr.tudelft.nl/asset/webpage/en/laddermill.php [The Laddermill Website: http://www.laddermill.com/ _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable): http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
