By Andrew Williams •
July 23, 2009
A UK company has launched a new device that allows users to cut-off their water supply at the flick of a switch, drastically reducing wasteage and giving a significant boost to water conservation efforts.
Instead of scrabbling around looking for the stopcock, the new Surestop device allows users cut supply instantly, saving water loss, and consequent damage, whilst giving householders direct control over water consumption.
Now the company hopes to expand into areas crippled by drought, where water conservation is a pressing priority.
By Andrew Williams •
March 30, 2009
Irish scientists have discovered that adding just a small amount of fish oil to the diet of cattle can vastly reduce the amount of methane produced by, ahem…cow farts.
Climate scientists have long known that, pound for pound, methane is 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping the suns rays, making it a highly potent greenhouse gas. An incredible 900 billion tonnes of the noxious fumes are produced each year by methanogen bacteria that live in the digestive systems of ruminants such as cattle, sheep and goats.
By Andrew Williams •
March 7, 2009
German car giant BMW has announced plans to attach radioactive heat-collectors to the tailpipes of future models, in a move predicted to slash fuel use and reduce carbon emissions by around 5 per cent.
The massive fuel saving is bigger than the three per cent achieved by the two current key Efficient Dynamics technologies - stop-start and brake energy regeneration.
The revolutionary technology, originally designed to power space satellites, captures waste heat transferred down the tailpipe and converts it to electricity via a radioactive ‘thermolelectric generator.’
By Andrew Williams •
January 28, 2009
A study has revealed that poems in the loo can help tackle global warming, through cutting toilet paper use by up to 20 per cent.
A team of Japanese researchers pasted ‘toilet poems’ at the eye-level of people sitting in cubicles. One poem read, “That paper will meet you only for a moment,” another said, “Fold the paper over and over and over again,” while another read simply, “Love the toilet.”
By Andrew Williams •
January 19, 2009
A US-based company has successfully tested a revolutionary solar panel that is expected to cut the costs of photovoltaic solar power generation by more than 50 per cent, and herald a new era of improved efficiency and lower production costs of solar energy globally.
The panel, known as the Alubond Solar Collector Panel (SCP), was created by American Building Technologies, a subsidiary of the UAE-based multinational group Mulk Holdings. Commenting on the breakthrough, a spokesman for Mulk said, “We hope the success of this project will lead to an upsurge in the development of more solar energy plants, which will not only lessen the strain on existing energy resources, but also severely reduce the pollution levels that are currently witnessed in power generation.”
By Andrew Williams •
January 6, 2009
Nasa scientists have told government’s that a simple cut in worldwide emissions of soot could lead to a dramatic reduction in the effects of global warming, as well as preventing hundreds of thousands of deaths from air pollution.
Soot contains black carbon, thought to be the second largest cause of global warming after carbon dioxide. Whilst airborne, it it spread around the globe by wind, heating the atmosphere by absorbing and releasing warmth from the sun’s rays. When it falls to the surface it also darkens snow and ice in polar regions or high mountain ranges, further reducing the Earth’s ability to reflect solar radiation.
Cutting soot emissions has a virtually instantaneous effect since it disappears rapidly from the earth’s atmosphere, unlike CO2, which can linger for hundreds of years.
