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Archive for the ‘sustainability’ category: Page 426

Feb 1, 2019

Smart Blinds with Solar Panels

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

Window blinds that have solar panels. Solargaps is elegant decision that let you generate energy while keeping your home cool.

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Jan 31, 2019

The world’s first floating dairy farm will house 40 cows and be hurricane-resistant

Posted by in categories: climatology, sustainability

  • The Dutch company Beladon is opening the world’s first floating dairy farm in the Netherlands.
  • Located in Rotterdam, the farm will house 40 cows in a high-tech facility on the water.
  • Minke van Wingerden, one of the project’s leaders, told Business Insider that the farm will produce an average of 211 gallons of milk each day.
  • Most of the cows’ food will come from city waste products, such as grains left over from local breweries and by-products from mills.
  • Beladon is also interested in launching floating chicken farms and floating vertical farming greenhouses.

A Dutch company is set to debut the world’s first floating dairy farm near Amsterdam.

A high-tech, multilevel facility will soon be floating in the water in Rotterdam, located roughly 50 miles outside of Amsterdam. Minke van Wingerden, a partner at the property development company Beladon, told Business Insider that the 89-by-89 foot farm will produce an average of 211 gallons of milk each day.

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Jan 31, 2019

Window Blinds Double as Solar Panels

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

Beat the heat while generating electricity with solar panel blinds

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Jan 30, 2019

Turning manure into gold: The excrement economy

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, economics, sustainability

Behold the new black gold. Dark and warm, it oozes water and teems with beneficial properties. It even harbors precious metals.

And boy does it stink.

Call it the excrement economy. Between the rise of fecal transplants and water strained from latrine sludge, the poop market is hot. Besides removing toxic waste, the commodification of crap could mean big bucks, especially in the developing world. Sounds crazy, but look at what happened with used cooking oil — now processed into biofuel instead of dumped into landfills — which went from being worth nothing in the early 2000s to $3.30 a gallon in 2011, according to the Utah Biodiesel Supply.

Continue reading “Turning manure into gold: The excrement economy” »

Jan 30, 2019

The zero-waste movement is coming for your garbage

Posted by in category: sustainability

Forget recycling, meet precycling.

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Jan 30, 2019

All-in-one transparent transistors

Posted by in categories: computing, solar power, sustainability

Small tweaks in component ratios generate electronically different layers from the same material to create transparent transistors.

Worldwide demand is growing for transparent conducting oxides for use in , , smart windows and semiconductor-based consumer electronics. KAUST researchers have engineered a zinc-oxide-based that displays tunable electronic properties depending on the tweaking of a new type of dopant.

Transparent electronics rely on indium tin oxide, a transparent and electrically conductive material that has an exorbitant cost due to the scarcity of indium. Zinc-oxide-based materials, such as hafnium-doped zinc-oxide materials, are expected to offer affordable, green and abundant alternatives to . However, hafnium-doped zinc-oxide materials typically require high deposition temperatures and display inadequate performance for real-life device applications.

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Jan 30, 2019

‘Recycling’ Energy Seen Saving Companies Money

Posted by in categories: economics, energy, sustainability

A Chicago-based entrepreneur says many industrial power users can save money, get more electricity, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by using the energy they already consume more efficiently. It’s called recycling energy — capturing waste heat and turning it into power.

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Jan 30, 2019

Light-filled, sustainable office in the Netherlands produces all of its own energy

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

This green office in the Netherlands produces its own energy thanks to solar panels. See the other sustainable design features, like a green roof and more.

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Jan 26, 2019

Scientists Create Liquid Fuel That Can Store The Sun’s Energy For Up to 18 Years

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

No matter how abundant or renewable, solar power has a thorn in its side. There is still no cheap and efficient long-term storage for the energy that it generates.

The solar industry has been snagged on this branch for a while, but in the past year alone, a series of four papers has ushered in an intriguing new solution.

Scientists in Sweden have developed a specialised fluid, called a solar thermal fuel, that can store energy from the sun for well over a decade.

Continue reading “Scientists Create Liquid Fuel That Can Store The Sun’s Energy For Up to 18 Years” »

Jan 25, 2019

Self-assembling nanomaterial offers pathway to more efficient, affordable harnessing of solar power

Posted by in categories: nanotechnology, solar power, sustainability

Solar rays are a plentiful, clean source of energy that is becoming increasingly important as the world works to shift away from power sources that contribute to global warming. But current methods of harvesting solar charges are expensive and inefficient—with a theoretical efficiency limit of 33 percent. New nanomaterials developed by researchers at the Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) at The Graduate Center of The City University of New York (CUNY) could provide a pathway to more efficient and potentially affordable harvesting of solar energy.

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