Renew News » Discover http://www.renewnews.com A down-to-Earth resource about renewable energy and renewable resources. Sat, 03 Sep 2011 16:50:51 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 A Strong Argument for Nuclear Power… in the Short Term http://www.renewnews.com/2007/08/28/a-strong-argument-for-nuclear-power-in-the-short-term/ http://www.renewnews.com/2007/08/28/a-strong-argument-for-nuclear-power-in-the-short-term/#comments Wed, 29 Aug 2007 02:34:23 +0000 Mark http://www.renewnews.com/2007/08/28/a-strong-argument-for-nuclear-power-in-the-short-term/ I have been against nuclear power for as long as I have given any thought to the issue.  I hate to say it, but I have just changed my mind.  There is a great article in a recent Discover Magazine that lays out the important details, and is the first comprehensive comparison I have seen of the pros and cons of nuclear vs. wind, solar, and coal.

Of course I strongly believe that we need to put massive effort into making solar power and other renewable energy sources viable, but the truth is that wind is not constant and solar is not yet very efficient.  When compared to the massive amount of coal we as a nation (the United States of America) burn, nuclear seems to be the lesser of the two evils until we can get renewables to cover a greater percentage of our energy needs.  To be sure, I ONLY see nuclear as a stop-gap measure, but we need to take action now to decrease our national carbon emissions.

Read the Discover Magazine article here.

]]> http://www.renewnews.com/2007/08/28/a-strong-argument-for-nuclear-power-in-the-short-term/feed/ 0 The Distant Future of Biofuels http://www.renewnews.com/2006/11/10/the-distant-future-of-biofuels/ http://www.renewnews.com/2006/11/10/the-distant-future-of-biofuels/#comments Fri, 10 Nov 2006 21:13:13 +0000 Mark http://www.renewnews.com/2006/11/10/the-distant-future-of-biofuels/ This month in Discover Magazine there is an article celebrating their Scientist of the Year and two nominees. The Scientist of the Year is Jay Keasling, and he is what has become known as a synthetic biologist. His immediate work is shooting for a low-cost, mass manufacturing method for producing an effective drug against malaria called artemisinin. His lab is working on reengineered yeast to produce the drug. The interesting thing that is mentioned very briefly in the article is that in the future he thinks that it won’t be too large a step to modify the process to create biofuels. You put sugar and bacteria or yeast into one end of a big vat, and you get fuel out the other end. This is a very distant technology, but it’s very exciting.

Read the articles: Scientist of the year and the two runners-up.

]]> http://www.renewnews.com/2006/11/10/the-distant-future-of-biofuels/feed/ 0 Swedish Cow Train http://www.renewnews.com/2006/06/25/swedish-cow-train/ http://www.renewnews.com/2006/06/25/swedish-cow-train/#comments Sun, 25 Jun 2006 14:26:34 +0000 Mark http://www.renewnews.com/2006/06/25/swedish-cow-train/ It used to be that people only got methane from dung. That is no longer the case. Check out what those crazy Swedes are doing. Svensk Biogas of Linkoping Sweden has figured out a way to use the whole cow too!

In addition to the dung they can now use chopped up cow parts in their fermenters. I’m working under the assumption that they aren’t throwing prime-cut steaks in there.

More on the cow train from Discover magazine here.

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