wastewater
The world is wasting valuable resources by not managing wastewater in the right way, according to a researcher in The Netherlands. In fact, argues Jules van Lier of the Delft University of Technology, developing countries would be better off by not emulating the West’s standard approach to wastewater treatment.
New research from an international team of scientists has found that the Earth’s natural carbon sinks could be becoming less efficient at absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The study is published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience. The research team, working under the umbrella of the Global
Last year’s spectacularly high prices for oil made believers — at least temporarily — out of many previous peak-oil atheists. Even today, the persistence of $78-or-so-per-barrel oil even in a still struggling economy continues to keep the words “peak oil” on many lips. Whether we’ve already hit that peak (as
greenhouse gases
While greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane get all the attention, the man-made chemicals we use in air conditioning and manufacturing have even greater warming potential, new research has found. In fact, compounds with fluorine show the most potential for slamming shut the so-called “atmospheric window,” an infrared frequency
Jurdy finds the tank’s looking more than a bit low …
If you’ve ever accidentally spilled tea on your laptop, you understand why liquids seem like one of the things you want to keep out of data centres, not in them. But one firm says surrounding server components with water and liquid coolant is an ideal way to save energy
global warming
Greenbang’s weekly Climate Change Index tracks research findings and events directly attributable to global warming. Our aim is to provide a numerical, week-to-week indicator of climate change developments. Items that qualify for listing in each week’s index include new climate data published in peer-reviewed academic journals and extreme
hydrogen
Cultivating algae to produce biofuels is, like, so yesterday. How about using algae to generate clean hydrogen fuel instead? That’s what researchers in the US hope to achieve. They say they might have identified a way to combine the photosynthesising powers of algae with a platinum catalyst to produce
electric cars
US researchers are hoping to develop a cheaper and more practical electric car by studying how people commute and then developing a “commute ecology” to design just the right vehicle for their needs. Carnegie Mellon University’s ChargeCar research project aims to find ways in which electric vehicles can be
COP15
With hope dwindling for a meaningful agreement when international climate negotiators meet in Copenhagen next month, a certain iconic statue in the city’s harbour is steamed. Meet “The Angry Mermaid.” A group of five organisations created The Angry Mermaid Award — named for the famed Little Mermaid statue that graces
Every day, scientists around the world use satellites and other sensors to gather a wealth of data about environmental conditions, but that data usually stays only with the researchers who’ve collected it. Under a new European project called Sensors Anywhere (SANY), though, that data could soon be freely and
“With geoengineering outlawed, will only outlaws have geoengineering?” – Stephen Dubner, writing in today’s Freakonomics blog at the New York Times. Where to begin on the lameness of this comment? First, no one’s really seriously talking about outlawing geoengineering at the moment– climate scientists like Ken Caldeira merely say
