Will we finally achieve the long sought-after perpetual motion machine that is perfect (positively productive) nuclear fusion? I sure do hope so.

Yes this is a sadly short return article for TGT… but 75 hour work weeks will do that to you. Don’t worry though, this site won’t die! It will only get better with age and reconstruction surgery. ; )

Solar concentrators have been around since the days of Archimedes‘s Death Ray, but this new type of solar concentrator intended for PV cells is something new altogether. The Light-Guide Solar Optic (LSO) was created around the principles of total internal reflection and designed to concentrate the sun 1,000 times onto a PV cell in order to reduce the amount of PV material that is needed to produce the same amount of energy. The technology is soon to go into testing phases and could prove to be cost competitive with the (still expensive) thin film PV cells. You can get the whole low-down over at the Technology Review.

In Issac Asimov’s I, Robot (1950) the main source of planetary power was provided by solar collectors throughout the solar system that beamed energy back to those who needed it at the surface. Despite it’s science-fiction origin and unintuitive sound, this was never a far fetched idea, just a very difficult one to accomplish. Now however, space based solar power (SBSP) is looking to be an extremely likely candidate to change the course of human history by eliminating the need for earth based power generation. The article is so cool that I don’t want to spoil anything about it here so go check it out over at Universe Today.

Just imagine; unlimited, uninterrupted, 24-7-365 sunlight shining on advanced solar panels that stream raw energy back to the earth for distribution and use everywhere!

Similar to using (freely generated and ever present) sound wave energy to create usable electricity, MIT researchers have thought up a way to generate a little extra juice for your plug-in/hybrid by adding shock driven generators to the mix. The system uses a turbine in the hydraulic fluid that turns whenever pressure is exerted on the shock. Read the rest over in Shock Turns a Jolt into a Volt.

As another quickie, there will be a major-ish site style update coming soon.

Are your kids learning about stormwater runoff and trash disposal at their middle school? They probably aren’t… but the Sidwell Friends school in Washington D.C. that the Obama girls attend is! This (albeit private) school has become the first Platinum Certified LEED building in D.C. and hasn’t stopped there. Their curriculum is backed up with loads of green teaching; from biodiversity (yay!) to water quality issues and composting methods. Maybe your kids go to public school but this doesn’t mean they can’t be learning as well! The school board and PTA are always loud voices that can make change, so get out their and be a voice that will help shape the minds of our next generation to insure a safe future for us all.

Get the full low-down about this seriously green school and it’s curriculum over in Addition, Subtraction and Composting the Trash. I couldn’t help but include the links they list at the bottom because they are really excellent resources for parents and green folks alike. They have been added to the Connect page.

• Green Cleaning Resources and State Laws
• Institutional Green Cleaners
• North American Association for Environmental Education
• Sidwell Friends School

In this seemingly bleak article, Why Sustainable Power is Unsustainable some of the downfalls of current renewable energy systems are discussed. The main limiter on many of these technologies is the resources used to produce them, namely; extremely rare metals like indium and platinum. These metals are used in the more advanced technologies such as multi-junction solar cells and hydrogen fuel cells. The story won’t end here though, technology will always progress and human creativity will eventually, with effort, find new and better ways to implement these technologies while using materials that are more abundant, less expensive, and hopefully renewable/recyclable themselves. Make sure to check out the article, there are a bunch of great links throughout it.

This all makes a really great case for increased use of wind power generators by the way! I guess they will be the best option for the time being.

The coast has always been an enormously productive area that has trafficked the majority of a nation’s resources. However, this high level of activity is extremely damaging to the environmental, locally and globally. One of the less looked at type of damage comes from mooring systems. These chain systems that hold boats in their place even during rough weather are extra long to account for rising and falling sea levels. Because of this they drag along the bottom, completely destroying everything in their ‘scour radius.’  There is an alternative however, and it has been around longer than you’d think!

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You decide:

“First, the sprayed droplets would transform to water vapor, a change that absorbs thermal energy near ground level; then the rising vapor would condense into sunlight-reflecting clouds and cooling rain, releasing much of the stored energy into space in the form of infrared radiation. Kenneth Caldeira, a climate scientist for the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University whose computer simulation of Ace’s invention suggests it would significantly cool the planet. The simulated evaporation of about one-half inch of additional water everywhere in the world produced immediate planetary cooling effects that were projected to reach nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit within 20 or 30 years, Caldeira said.”

Scientist Patents New Method To Fight Global Warming

I’ve always found the idea of generating electricity from constant sources of kinetic (‘free’) energy like rain or dancing but I can’t say I’ve ever thought of how practical this idea would be! Texas A&M has thought up the bright idea of using the energy packed air vibrations you generate while talking to power you cell phone. Using Piezoelectric materials to capture the vibrations and convert them to electricity these researchers hope to revolutionize the way we power mobile devices. I wish them luck! (I would be happy to test them out for them… if they’re reading)