To kick off our “luxury green” series, I’ve been testing Timberland’s EarthKeeper range of mountain trainers. “That’s weird”, you say, “That’s a bit leftfield for Greenbang.” Well the truth is that we have a lot of companies pitching us luxury products. And from our last round
information technology
Information technology has not only given us an unprecedented ability to identify complex problems like climate change before the worst effects are felt, but promises a way forward for a more sustainable future, former US Vice President Al Gore said at a business and technology conference today. Gore, who shared
carbon capture and storage
Figuring out how to capture and store away carbon dioxide emissions — and then starting to do so soon on a global scale — isn’t optional for our future security … it’s essential, according to the author of a pivotal report on the economics of climate change. In an interview during
As a group of islands far from the mainland US, the state of Hawaii probably has more reasons than most to worry about a sustainable future. That’s why it’s exploring a variety of ways to reduce its dependence on imported fuel, which currently provides about 90 per cent
waste-to-energy
A new type of reactor that converts waste materials into liquid fuels has won the 2010 award from CWC World XTL, a conference for the gas, coal and biomass to liquids industry. The microchannel reactor developed by Velocys, an Ohio-based subsidiary of the UK’s Oxford Catalysts, is designed to
fusion energy
They’re not making any immediate promises, but Italian and Russian researchers say a new type of fusion reactor being built to study the physics of stars could also end up being the first device to produce a self-sustaining fusion reaction — society’s long hoped-for source of clean and endless
rare earth metals
Building a clean-energy future will take a lot of things, the most obvious being lots of money and a well trained workforce capable of keeping the needed technology up and running. Less obvious, perhaps, but equally important, is this: an adequate supply of rare earth metals. While not actually rare
greenhouse gas emissions
Attention, world leaders: it’s time to stop playing creative accounting tricks with carbon emissions and energy and time to start dealing with the cold, hard facts. Creative accounting tricks, after all, are what nearly brought the global economy to its knees two years ago. While banks and financial firms
electricity
Researchers in Spain have developed a superconducting electric cable that could cut energy losses across parts of the grid by 50 to 70 per cent. The 30-metre cable, as well as the terminals to connect it to a network, was constructed using a high-temperature superconducting material called BSCCO. The team
How could game theory help build a cleaner, more reliable and cheaper energy future? A group of computer scientists in the UK have envisioned a system that could get us there. Today’s energy optimists envision a day when homes will all connected to a smart grid that manages electricity
lighting
What if we didn’t have to replace all the world’s old light bulbs with compact fluorescents and LEDs to dramatically reduce lighting’s energy footprint? What if, instead, we could “tweak” how electricity pulses through lighting systems to cut energy consumption without having to dim the lights? A
Jurdy gets a bit ruffled over fuel …
