Tag: enviromentalism

Saturday Special from the Vaults: The Adventures of Bigfoot

I’ve not written a lot of comics…but here’s one I did, with an environmental theme, for Communities of Tomorrow via the Saskatchewan Science Centre. It appeared (maybe it still does, I’m not sure) in an exhibit at the Science Centre. I don’t think it was ever actually printed as a comic per se. The art …

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Making fuel from air and water

Download the audio version.Get my science column weekly as a podcast. We can and do recycle all sorts of things. Paper, plastic, glass (OK, that last one not so much right now), Christmas fruitcakes…the list goes on and on. Wouldn’t it be great if we could also recycle the hydrocarbons we burn as fuel? Imagine …

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Taking on an environmentalist icon

John Tierney of the New York Times dares to point out the feet of clay of environmentalist legend Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring. A sample: The obsession with eliminating minute risks from synthetic chemicals has wasted vast sums of money: environmental experts complain that the billions spent cleaning up Superfund sites would be better …

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Forget your hybrids…

…how about a car that runs on compressed air? Most importantly, it is incredibly cost-efficient to run – according to the designers, it costs less than one Euro per 100Km (about a tenth that of a petrol car). Its mileage is about double that of the most advanced electric car (200 to 300 km or …

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A big step toward the hydrogen economy?

It sounds promising, at least: A Purdue University engineer has developed a method that uses an aluminum alloy to extract hydrogen from water for running fuel cells or internal combustion engines, and the technique could be used to replace gasoline. The method makes it unnecessary to store or transport hydrogen – two major challenges in …

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Talk about your low-emission automobiles…

…this one runs on compressed air. Not only that, it’s on the verge of production.

Stick it where the sun shines:

A Swiss entrepreneur says his thin-film solar panels will provide power more cheaply than fossil fules within five years: Even though solar technology has made significant gains since the 1970s when it cost $100 per watt (now it’s $3 to $4 per watt), that sweet spot of beating out fossil fuels is $1 per watt. …

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The fire down below

The surface of our planet is nice and cool. (A little too cool, this time of year.) But not all that far beneath us, it’s anything but. In fact, says Chris Marone, Penn State professor of geosciences, enough heat emanates from the interior of the planet to make 200 cups of hot coffee per hour …

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Mining the Earth’s heat

We don’t hear a lot about geothermal energy in discussions of alternative, environmentally friendly energy sources, but maybe that’s about to change: A comprehensive new MIT-led study of the potential for geothermal energy within the United States has found that mining the huge amounts of heat that reside as stored thermal energy in the Earth’s …

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Down with dihydrogen monoxide!

A very funny video from Penn & Teller–as their crew has absolutely no trouble getting people to sign a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide. All they do is tell the truth about this dangerous substance that “leads to increased urination” and “is found in reservoirs, fruits and vegetables, and even baby food.” Dihydrogen monoxide, of …

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