http://www.renewnews.com A down-to-Earth resource about renewable energy and resources. Fri, 27 Jun 2008 20:11:57 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I've been adding articles to this site from time to time and I think I ought to make a plug for the company I work for, which is working on making renewable energy available to everyone. Hey, Mark okayed it, so plugging your company must be cool! ; ... http://www.renewnews.com/2008/06/25/beutilityfree-aims-to-put-the-means-of-production-of-renewable-energy-into-the-hands-of-the-people/ We all use rechargeable batteries everyday in everything from cell phones, to razors, to hybrid cars, to power tools. It is SO frustrating to be working on a project and discover that your rechargeable tool is out of juice. Now you have to either wait hours for the ... http://www.renewnews.com/2008/06/09/ultracapacitors-have-finally-arrived-in-consumer-electronics/ Since open land is limited in New Jersey, and the state has pledged to get more of its power from renewable resources, moving wind turbines offshore seems to be the answer.  New Jersey is taking a leadership role in going for this offshore angle after other states have tried and ... http://www.renewnews.com/2008/05/11/new-jersey-looking-into-offshore-wind-turbines/ When I first started recycling in the 1980s it took some effort to find a place that would accept office paper. Lots of people recycled cans, since you got money back, and a few people would take in glass bottles, but that was about it. You couldn't recycle ... http://www.renewnews.com/2008/03/22/at-long-last-recycling-has-become-normal/ Yup, a stirling engine that uses the heat from your mother boards CPU to cool it. All at a 70% efficiency. This is a weird time for tech, and isn't the tiny stirling engine cute? The article is here. http://www.renewnews.com/2008/02/29/a-stirling-engine-for-your-motherboard/ Well here we are again, cheap hydrogen, the holy grail of environmental energy storage. We have the way to use the stuff (fuel cells) and some ways to store it, but now we need to produce it from water. The problem is it's not too efficient to split water into the ... http://www.renewnews.com/2008/02/29/cheap-hydrogen-production/ There is a new proposal from two scientists from the Los Alamos National Laboratory for creating gasoline from carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.  Although all of the idea is not new, some modifications, and the current high price of gasoline make their idea plausible.  The downside?  It requires a ... http://www.renewnews.com/2008/02/20/gasoline-out-of-thin-air/ One of the most surprising things about this new invention is that it was (in a roundabout way) inspired by the SuperSoaker. Lonnie Johnson, the man who made "squirt gun" synonymous with inadequacy, is currently working on a prototype heat engine which would use heat from the sun to ... http://www.renewnews.com/2008/01/08/solar-heat-engine-to-be-60-efficient/ Nanolsolar Inc. has been talking big lately about making a leap in solar panel technology that will drop the cost to under $1 a watt. The current standard for solar panels has been hovering around $4 a watt (wholesale cost) for a while. Well, on December 18th Nanosolar announced their ... http://www.renewnews.com/2008/01/08/nanosolar-breaks-4-a-watt-by-a-long-shot/ All those sci-fi novels with the hero of the story taking a nap in the back of the car while driving across the country are starting to look like they could come true. DARPA, the US military's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,  sponsored a rally in November of 2007 offering a ... http://www.renewnews.com/2007/12/14/driverless-car-rally/