Cleantech and Environmental News – Latest Headlines

Managing renewables intelligently

Smart energy management systems are the way to put robust supply networks in place and to ensure that renewables are harnessed as efficiently as possible.

March 25, 2014 Read more

Bioenergy from sustainable forestry does not meet EU emission reduction criteria

The levels of forest residue bioenergy, considered to be sustainable from a forestry perspective, may provide considerable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in European countries. Still, these reductions fall short of a 60 % threshold planned by the EU. This mismatch may have important climate policy implications.

March 25, 2014 Read more

New perspective for soil clean-up: Microscopic ciliates transport poisonous tar substances

Microscopic ciliates can increase the mobility of poisonous tar substances, PAHs, by up to 100-fold according to a new study carried out by Danish researchers. The results open new possibilities for cleaning soil that is contaminated with organic chemicals.

March 24, 2014 Read more

Simulations to reduce emissions from road transport

Scientists are developing a methodology to estimate atmospheric emissions from road transport that will help to make environmental decisions.

March 24, 2014 Read more

Wind farms can provide society a surplus of reliable clean energy

Stanford researchers have found that the wind industry can easily afford the energetic cost of building batteries and other grid-scale storage technologies. However, for the solar industry, the Stanford team found that more work is needed to make grid-scale storage energetically sustainable.

March 20, 2014 Read more

Web tool successfully measures farms' water footprint

A new University of Florida web-based tool worked well during its trial run to measure water consumption at farms in four Southern states, according to a study published this month.

March 20, 2014 Read more

Recovering valuable substances from wastewater

Phosphorus can be found in fertilizers, drinks and detergents. It accumulates in waterways and pollutes them. For this reason the German Phosphorus Platform has the goal to recover this valuable, but at the same time, harmful element from water.

March 20, 2014 Read more

Renewable energies: Smartly controlled infrastructures neutralize fluctuating availability

More and more frequently, companies are generating part of their electricity themselves in order to cut costs. As far as possible, the energy is supposed to come from renewable sources? whether from a biomass-fired power plant, a solar complex or a wind turbine. Unfortunately, they are not always available. Researchers now have developed a novel, dynamic management system that compensates for their volatility.

March 20, 2014 Read more

Algae may be a potential source of biofuels and biochemicals even in cool climate

Algae are organisms useful in many ways in the transition towards a bio-economy. Even in a cool climate as in Finland, algae might be used to produce biochemicals and biofuels, besides use in capture of industrial carbon dioxide emissions.

March 20, 2014 Read more

Consortium aims to accelerate the rollout of an infrastructure for hydrogen-powered vehicles in the U.S.

H2USA aims to further fuel cell vehicles and related technologies.

March 19, 2014 Read more

EU could afford to lead international climate action

Despite the fragmented state of global climate policy, such front runner action could reduce future global warming by more than 1 degree if it induced others to join by 2030. This is shown by a study now published by an international team of scientists.

March 19, 2014 Read more

The science of creating catalysts for energy storage

In Inorganic Chemistry, Dr. Dan DuBois at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory shares three fundamental discoveries made to build catalysts that drive the storage of electrical energy inside chemical bonds.

March 18, 2014 Read more

A better water wing to harvest tidal energy

Researchers are developing a hydrofoil - a water wing - as a means to harvest tidal energy. And unlike other tidal energy technologies, the wing is a shallow water specialist.

March 18, 2014 Read more

A new algorithm improves the efficiency of small wind turbines

Researchers have developed an adaptative algorithm. The improvements that are applied to the control of these turbines will in fact contribute towards making them more efficient.

March 18, 2014 Read more

Australian soil carbon map sets a baseline for future gains

A new map of Australia's stored soil carbon provides an important benchmark against which Australia can track future changes in soil carbon storage or carbon sequestration.

March 18, 2014 Read more

Berlin can be climate-neutral until 2050: Feasibility Study

On behalf of the Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development and the Environment, a consortium led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) analyzed scenarios and developed recommendations how to achieve climate-neutrality.

March 17, 2014 Read more

A battery that 'breathes' could power next-gen electric vehicles

The main difference between lithium-ion and lithium-air batteries is that the latter replaces the traditional cathode - a key battery component involved in the flow of electric current - with air. That makes the rechargeable metal-air battery lighter with the potential to pack in more energy than its commercial counterpart.

March 16, 2014 Read more

Automatic self-optimization of wind turbines

The turbines are learning to use sensor data on parameters such as wind speed to make changes to their settings. These changes ensure the turbines can optimally exploit the prevailing conditions.

March 12, 2014 Read more