Like it or not, at least for the near future most of us are stuck with internal combustion engine powered cars. While a lot of hype is behind future cars and technology, from electric to hydrogen to everything in between, a lot of improvements can yet be made on the ICE engine.

To that end, the Department of Energy has awarded GM with $2.7 million to develop a working prototype of a Shape Memory Alloy engine. In theory, this engine could recycle the waste heat and turn it into electrical energy, perhaps one day even replacing alternators and improving fuel efficiency.

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During the hot days of summer, I want them to stay hydrated and I also want them to get good nutrition.  We are drinking lots of flavor infused water and gobbling up all kinds of frozen creations.

We like commercial molds because they contain all the necessary pieces and use a smaller space in the freezer.  However, ice cube trays & cups work well also.  For reusable “sticks” opt for plastic spoons or other easy to clean item.  We go through about 24 a day so I just toss things into the blender until its full, leftovers can be a nighttime snack!

Make a bunch every night, this is a good post dinner/before bed activity.   The kids love to choose the ingredients and help mix everything up.  There are a few simple ways to go about this…

Frozen Pops

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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.’

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A Swedish town announced last month that it will use cremated bodies to provide heat, and now the British town of Reepham has decided to heat many of its buildings by burning oil made from melted cow and pig carcasses. Are dead bodies— human or otherwise— the next big thing in heating?

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Millions of people around the world heat their homes with charcoal burned on small grills. Now a group of Japanese scientists has developed a biomass charcoal combustion heater with a thermal efficiency of 60-81 percent— a big step up from current biomass stoves, which have an efficiency of 46-53 percent.

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The company responsible for the project, Solar Spark Australia, is the first to be awarded Major Project Facillitation status under the Rudd government, and it plans to begin powering 9,000 homes by late next year.

This marks increased hope that Australia can meet goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 60% by 2050.

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Besides the comical slant of the titles, it is surprising that biogas is often presented as something amazing & unknown although it has been around for hundreds of years, is used in tens of millions of rural household and is a significant contributor to Europe’s renewable energy production.

Biogas - Amazing Natural Technology

The fermentation of organic material such as biomass, manure, sewage, farm waste, municipal waste, green waste and energy crops in the absence of air produces biogas. The same anaerobic fermentation produces swamp, marsh and landfill methane.

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For the first time ever, kids are ‘burnin’ down the house’ with ideas and innovation to pitch renowned PBS hub WGHB for 3 to 5 minute youth videos on how climate change affects kids’ own community environs, vying for $2000 production grants and potential PBS airing.

WGBH has made it even hotter for green teens by hosting ongoing webinars starting Feb. 3rd to help kids conceptualize, remix, pitch ideas and amass public opinion…(accessible via archive too, so don’t sweat the date)

Popular pioneer vloggers Ryanne Hodson (who I can attest is very generous with her knowledge, as I’ve attended her Media Center how-tos and checked out her book) and Jay Dedman (her partner, former CNN journalist/co-founder of Yahoo’s videoblogging group) will contribute their skill sets to get kids started. Partner org Teachers Domain makes it a cinch for students to get up to speed with factoids and resources too. The inspiration for the contest? The Frontline documentary, “Heat” all about global warming and businesses’ reactions in the court of public opinion contributing to make or break success. Deadline for entries at WBGH is March 15, 2009. Next up on the eco-competitions…

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Harnessing the Earth’s Heat for Food and Power

As the rumbling temblors beneath Yellowstone National Park continue (over 900 hundred such weak quakes in 2008), media attention shifts to two topics: the possibility of a super-volcanic eruption (not likely, according to most geologists), and secondly, the harnessing of geothermal energy.

This latter consideration is all the more fashionable these days as America struggles to embrace an alternative and sustainable energy future.

Geothermal energy offers the promise of a virtually unlimited source of power. Although less energetic in terms  of total constant power output compared to the sun, harnessing the geothermal venting from a single, sufficiently high-grade, hot-spring could conceivably provide power for a population of tens of thousands, and it’s not weather dependent.  But there are also plenty of “lower grade” springs that can be put to other uses, such as growing hothouse produce (and the spring water is also used for watering the plants) and  naturally warming water for fish farming (the Talipia species, a popular dinner fish, is one species farmed this way). Not all animals that are farmed this way are used for food, some, like the farmed alligators in Mosca, CO (see photo), are raised for their skins primarily (though some do eat the meat).

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On a cold winter evening, who of us is not tempted to go to the living room, stoke up a fire in the fireplace, and read a book in front of the hearth? You may be thinking “I am doing myself a favor by supplementing the furnace with additional heat”. But there’s a dark secret about your fireplace: you are making your house colder, and could be contributing significantly to pollution depending upon how you burn. Fireplaces can be monstrous energy eaters!

The wood burning fireplace is an “Energy Eater”

The air action that a wood-burning fireplace initiates in our home is wasteful. The second the damper is opened, heated air begins pouring out of the top of the chimney. As the fire in the hearth accelerates, the combustion process grabs already-heated air from your home and burns the oxygen and combustible gasses in it. The heat that is created in this combustion quickly rises and grabs more heated inside air and tosses it up the chimney. You can restrict the amount of inside air that the fireplace has access to by installing glass doors, but this will also severely limit the amount of radiant heat that fireplace can cast forward into your living space. This radiant heat is the heat you feel on your skin in front of the fireplace, and is the only usable heat that the fireplace will produce since the combustion heat is pouring out the top of the chimney. In the meantime the home is drawing in cold outside air from other places (i.e. windows, light sockets, doors, etc) to replace the air that is escaping the home through the chimney. This is referred to as the “stack effect.”

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Operating a Mass Heater
Mass heaters are a different approach to burning wood. If you don’t don’t understand this, you won’t just be disappointed — you’ll fill your house with smoke or, worse, poison your family in their sleep! Getting proper performance from a mass heater requires a little planning, and some involvement, on your part.  The tradeoff for this extra effort is safety and tremendous energy efficiency.

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Clean and Super-Efficient Wood Heating
Super-efficient wood burning heaters with lots of mass are called by many names: masonry stoves, russian stoves, finnish stoves or finnish fireplaces, mass heaters. Though mass heaters may look like traditional fireplaces, they’re actually very sophisticated heating devices.

Burning wood in a mass heater doesn’t involve feeding in wood a few pieces at a time. The wood is added all at once, lit, and burned as quickly and as hotly as possible. Because of the high combustion temperature, there’s virtually no smoke. Combustion is so complete that, with the exception of a bit of smoke released when the fire is first started, most of what comes out of the chimney is carbon dioxide and water vapor.

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Author’s note: the following article on home heating is the fifth in an eight-part series.

Open fireplaces have a reputation for polluting air. Actually, a fireplace, when burned hot and fast, creates very little pollution. The trouble is, a hot fire in a fireplace sometimes yields less heat than a smoldering fire. Where does the heat go?

The optimal amount of combustion air contains just enough oxygen to burn all combustible gases liberated by the heat. Any additional air grabs heat and sends it up the chimney. Under some circumstances, fireplaces can so far exceed this air-to-fuel ratio that they suck more heat out of a house than they radiate back into it. The fire actually makes the house colder!

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When you are in the shower, the hot water from the shower strikes your body and transfers some heat before it falls away. But most of the heat in that water simply goes down the drain. Reportedly, 80 to 90 percent of the energy used to heat water for the shower is lost down the drain.

A drain water heat recovery unit (DWHR) transfers heat from water running down the drain to cold water going to the water heater. This preheats the water so that the heater is starting with warmer water, and thus needs less energy. A DWHR unit can save as much as 25-30% of the energy used for water heating, and payback periods range from 3 to 7 years, depending on use patterns.

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Forced air systems are the most common heating systems in California and are used in most new construction elsewhere. They have two big advantages: they are cheap to install, and they provide heat at a moment’s notice. Having “instant-on” heat is vital for intermittent use spaces like ski cabins. Otherwise, forced air is the least energy efficient and least comfortable way of heating a typical home. Why?

Ventilation and Heat Loss

For the health and well-being of its occupants, a home must exhaust stale air and refresh it with new air drawn from outdoors. Forced air systems heat and blow this air, via ducts, throughout your house. Since new air is continually entering and leaving, you are heating the outdoors.

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According to the U.S. Department of Energy, heating and cooling amounts to 46% of all energy consumed by our homes. Water heating uses another 14%. In coastal California, where extreme heat is rare and winters are mild, a properly sited, well designed passive solar home can generate its own heat and hot water, and do without air conditioning.

Historically, few homes are so well sited or built. Since our area has more heating days than cooling days, most homeowners need a heating system. What few know is that many indoor air quality problems can be by-products of forced air heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems installed in their homes.

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Ooms Avenhorn Holding BV is siphoning the heat from blacktop roads and parking lots to warm homes and offices. This technology was first dreamed up about 10 years ago, but advances in cleantech and global warming concerns have caused some people to take a second glance.

The technology is called the “Road Energy System” and it’s actually a spin-off of a method to heat roads and reduce the need for maintenance due to cold weather. A grid of flexible, plastic pipes filled with water lay under the pavement and are heated by the sun. As the water is heated, it’s pumped underground, where it stays about 68 degrees Fahrenheit. The water can then be brought up later to heat the road and keep the ice off.

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It is time to start thinking about getting our homes ready for winter. Maintenance and repair work done while the weather is still mild will pay off not just in the coming cold weather, but with year round benefits. Here are five common issues to think about when considering your winterization projects, and how to avoid making some common mistakes while improving your house.

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In the Northern Hemisphere, the heat is on.

There’s no doubt summer is here — and with it, the perpetual quest to stay cool. For those of us interested in sustainability, the thought of huge summer cooling bills (and all the greenhouse emissions they cause) is enough to send a chill down the spine.

You’ve probably already heard the basics of summertime energy management: keep your air conditioner filters clean; make sure your weather stripping is tight; draw the drapes during the heat of the day; and avoid the use of big heat-creating appliances like ovens and ranges whenever possible. If you want a quick review of hot weather energy-saving ideas , check Lighter Footstep’s Giant List of Summer Cooling Tips.

But there are other ways to keep your cool through the summer. We’ve rounded up five for your consideration, including several tried-and-true methods from the days before central air. Give one or two a shot, and see how they work for you.

Go Tropical

Take the lead of those who spend most of their lives in tropical climates: loose, lightweight cotton and linen clothing rules.

The guayabera, sometimes called the ÒMexican wedding shirt,Ó is constructed to cool you naturally. A relative of the traditional Filipino barong,
the guayabera wicks moisture from the skin and is worn untucked to
promote air circulation. Madras is another good summertime choice for
both men’s and women’s’ clothing.

Don’t forget the old standard of the American Deep South: seersucker.
Originally an Indian import, its crisp cotton and cooling ridges make
it a hot weather classic.

Cool That Pulse Point

When you were sick as a child, you mom may have brought you a cold facecloth. This idea works the same way.

Chill your pulse points by running cold water over your wrist for a minute or so each hour. Splashing water on your temples or face can produce a similar effect. And be sure to put some of that tap water into a glass and stay hydrated.

Don’t Eat: Graze

Ever notice how you feel hot after a big meal? It’s not just because the food was served warm.

Big, protein-laden meals force your body to stoke its metabolic fires. The solution is to break up your eating into smaller, more frequent meals. You’ll feel cooler — and it’s better for you, anyway.

Eat to Sweat

Latin America, India, Thailand — some of the world’s hottest places. And they happen to serve some of the world’s hottest foods.

Scientists have argued for years over why this is the case, but the most likely reason is that spicy foods make you sweat without actually raising body temperature. Chalk it up to capsaicin, a chemical found in things like hot peppers. Once your skin is damp, you’ll feel cooled by its evaporation.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea to also reread our article on Choosing a Safer Deodorant.

Stay Cool Under the Covers

A lot of people find it difficult to sleep in hot weather.

Want to cool the bed down? Fill a standard hot water bottle with ice water. Use it to cool your ankles and the back of your knees — it works. You can also try bagging your sheets and tossing them in the freezer for an hour or two before bed.

Cooling your head cools your entire body. Opt for a cool and absorbent pillow of organic cotton it at all possible. Put aside down and latex pillows until the weather cools down this autumn.

Stay hydrated — stay cool — and enjoy an Earth-friendly summer!
—
Copyright © 2007 Lighter Footstep Media

PRESS RELEASE:

o Department of Energy Awards GM $2.7 Million Create Prototype with Partners
o Latest Example of Collaborative R&D Model to Speed Commercialization

WARREN, Mich. — The day is coming when the heat from your car’s engine exhaust is captured and converted to mechanical energy capable of powering your vehicle’s stereo, power seats and air conditioning.

General Motors R&D received a $2.7 million federal award Monday that will help build a prototype using Shape Memory Alloy, or SMA, that would generate electricity from the heat in automotive exhaust.

“When you heat up a stretched SMA wire, it shrinks back to its pre-stretched length, and when it cools back down it becomes less stiff and can revert to the original shape” said Jan Aase, director of GM’s Vehicle Development Research Laboratory. “A loop of this wire could be used to drive an electric generator to charge a battery.”

It is too soon to identify a vehicle where this technology could work, but hybrid or conventionally powered vehicles are possible applications.

“No one else anywhere in the world is doing this work as far as we know,” Aase said. “In a hybrid system, the electrical energy could be used to charge the battery. In a conventional engine, this could perhaps even replace the alternator without any load on the engine.”

The award from the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Program Agency – Energy, or ARPA-E, was the only grant to an automaker among $151 million in distributed by the DOE. GM will work with HRL Laboratories; Dynalloy, Inc., a Tustin, CA manufacturer of shape memory alloys specially made to be used as actuators, and the Smart Materials Collaborative Research Lab at the University of Michigan.

“This award is significant for the gains in energy efficiency it could bring, and because it signifies how GM is doing business though collaboration and partnership,” said Alan Taub, GM vice president of global R&D.

“The days are gone when we would do this kind of groundbreaking work on our own. We need to continue to find ways to combine our deep technical knowledge with others who can help take our ideas from concept to commercialization,” he said.

The idea of an SMA heat engine “has been around for 30 years,” Aase said, but the few devices that have been built were too large and too inefficient to make it worthwhile.”

Even now, the technology is in the very early stages. Over the next two years, GM and its partners will work to create a working prototype.

“We’re taking advantage of a network of people that we’ve been working with for a number of years on shape memory alloys,” Aase said. “And we have some novel approaches to make this high-risk, high return project successful.”