Chad's News

From the linked article: “3M has developed a see-through film that turns ordinary windows into solar panels. … A square meter of the film can generate roughly enough electricity to charge an iPhone under peak sunlight, but still allows for high visibility.” It’s an easy, do-it-yourself install and will go on sale sometime this year.

Link: http://www.computerworld.com/…
(via Kim Komando)

One of the problems with alternative energy sources such as wind and solar is their intermittent nature. Sometimes the wind is blowing and sometimes it isn’t. And the sun goes down every night. This is one of the reasons why fossil fuel plants are still a mainstay for any major power utility.

This problem has led to a quest for ways to store energy such that an alternative fuel power plant can supply energy on demand. One such method uses compressed air, while another has large batteries. More recently, a company named SolarReserve has received a $737 million loan guarantee from the US government for the construction of a round-the-clock solar power plant in Nevada—a plant that uses molten salt to store energy accumulated during daylight hours.

Link: http://www.forbes.com/…
(via Slashdot)

October 31^st, 2011 was the official day that the human population reached 7 billion. The last 2 billion of that happened in less than 25 years, and we’re on track to hit 8 billion in the next 15 years or so.

Link #1: http://en.wikipedia.org/…
(via Slashdot)

Link #2: http://en.wikipedia.org/…

To help quell any fears of radiation from Japan, the folks at xkcd have created a picture showing relative amounts of radiation exposure. The bottom line is that we in the United States have little to fear.

Link: http://xkcd.com//…

The linked article has an amazing picture of a supercell thunderstorm over Montana. It’s so good that it looks fake.

Link: http://apod.nasa.gov/…

The linked article allows you to opt out of receiving the yellow pages. It lists the various distributors for your ZIP code, and in most cases you can opt out online. I hardly ever use the yellow pages anymore, thanks to the internet, and it’s ridiculous to take them from the doorstep and just throw them into the recycle bin.

Link: http://www.ypassociation.org/…
(via Kim Komando)

Update: The original link no longer works, so use this one instead.

Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, decided to build an environmentally friendly house. What he didn’t realize was just how difficult that would be. In the linked article, he discusses the problems he encountered as well as some of the lessons he learned.

Link: http://online.wsj.com/…
(via Slashdot)

BP’s internal investigation into the Deepwater Horizon oil spill has uncovered eight unique problems that allowed the explosion and spill to occur. They run the gamut from poor practices/training to equipment failure and bad design.

It’s almost unbelievable how many things had to go wrong in order for the spill to occur, especially since many of them would not have happened if BP was on top of things. For example: “These tests indicated a problem … but were ‘incorrectly accepted as successful,’ in part because there were no standards in place for what constituted a negative test.” There’s also: “That returns us to the automated system that was attempting to shut the blowout preventer. Even though it kicked in, once the explosion happened at the surface, it lost power.” And then finally: “Redundant hardware on the sea floor was designed to operate independently. Unfortunately, it also failed; one of the devices had a fault in a critical piece of hardware, while the second had insufficient charge in its batteries to function.”

Link: http://arstechnica.com/…

Here at Chad’s News, we’ve previously covered one of the problems with intermittent energy sources like solar and wind: how to store the power so that it can be used on-demand. Until that happens, the need for traditional fossil fuel plants will remain.

The linked article describes a large battery nicknamed BOB, that will provide reliable power to the town of Presidio, Texas. The battery is expensive ($25 million), and the town is small (pop. 4167), so I’m not sure how well this would work on a larger scale. But it’s a step in the right direction.

Link: http://www.inhabitat.com/…
(via Slashdot)

Here’s an alternative to burying nuclear waste in the ground for thousands of years. Scientists in France and Texas are developing technologies to destroy the the radioactive by-products of nuclear power plants. The article isn’t clear about the method used by the French scientists, but the researchers in Texas are working on a hybrid fusion/fission reactor.

Link: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/…
(via Slashdot)

Here are some really neat pictures of the recent eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano. Brings back memories of Mount St. Helens, although I don’t remember the US shutting down its airspace like Europe has done.

Thanks to Josh for the link.

Link: http://www.boston.com/…

One of the major problems with alternative energy sources such as solar or wind power is that they’re intermittent, while demand is continuous. All the turbines in the world are useless if the wind isn’t blowing. So alternative energy has been delegated to a role where it only supplements traditional power plants.

A possible solution to this problem is compressed-air energy storage (CAES), where energy is stored as compressed air then converted to electricity as needed—thus providing a steady power supply. And CAES doesn’t only apply to alternative energy. It can be used to store energy from traditional, coal-powered generators, allowing them to run more efficiently.

CAES is not a new technology, but it’s gaining popularity because of the growing use of alternative energy sources. Let’s hope we see more of it.

Link: http://www.wired.com/…
(via Slashdot)