oil

Solar Revolution?

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By now, many of you have heard of the MIT professor which, with his team, developed a new technique to break apart hydrogen from water with earth abundant materials, at room temperature. The "oxygen and hydrogen [can then] be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night." Daniel Nocera, the professor in question, says that the technique was "inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants." The process is described below:

The key component in Nocera and Kanan's new process is a new catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water; another catalyst produces valuable hydrogen gas. The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity -- whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source -- runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced.

Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis.

The new catalyst works at room temperature, in neutral pH water, and it's easy to set up, Nocera said. "That's why I know this is going to work. It's so easy to implement," he said.

Link.

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Post-Carbon London meeting

Aug 12 2008 - 7:30pm
Location: 
Central library, beside The Red Roaster

Post-Carbon London Monthly Meeting
(On the second Tuesday of each month.)

Location: Seating area inside the Central Library on the main floor, next to 'The Red Roaster'.

This is an open meeting, where we will be organizing Post-Carbon London projects.
Newcomers are welcome to attend.

Further details will be posted soon.

Al Gore Challenges America

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Al Gore boldly challenged the entire US American population to ending their contribution to the globe's environmental crisis.

America must commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and other clean sources within 10 years.

Go to wecansolveit.org for more information.

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Real Alternatives to Fossil Fuels?

Plant workers weigh out the raw farm waste before it is fed into the reactor, where it will be turned into fertilizer and combustible oil. [image taken from The Sentinel.]Is this a real alternative (click here or on the image to find out more)?

Sustainable Power Corp. "takes such agricultural refuse as cracked soy beans, rice and cotton seed hulls, grain sorghum, milo and jatropha and turns them into bio-crude oil." They claim, that "just one bushel (60 pounds) of organic waste can yield about six gallons of bio-crude" using this process, which they call the "Rivera Method". This translates into replacing "every gallon of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel in the United States using just 12 percent of the waste byproducts in the country." They also claim that this fuel can be even further refined for applications such as petrochemicals applications.  read more »

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