Hasta La Gadget!

Going green is de rigeur, so the sun is becoming a much-preferred source of power. However, solar cells’ inefficient harvesting of heliacal energies is a major reason they haven’t usurped the power of petroleum. Good thing the big brains at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are looking to change that with nanocone-based solar technology. The teeny-tiny cones are made of zinc oxide and create “an intrinsic electric field distribution” to improve electrical charge transport within solar cells. We aren’t sure what that means, but we do know the prickly-looking design provides a 3.2 percent light-to-power conversion efficiency that’s a substantial improvement over the meager 1.8 percent offered by today’s flat photovoltaics made of similar materials. That’s 80 percent more efficient, and 100 percent more awesome.

Nanocones make solar cells more efficient, sinister looking originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 May 2011 05:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Physorg  |  ORNL  | Email this | Comments

Hybrid and electric cars are slowly gaining in popularity, but Honda may have its sites set on another market as well: motorcycles.

According to a patent filed back in September 2010, dug up by Motorbiker, the company is working on creating a hybrid motorcycle. And based on the sketch included in the patent filing, it looks like that bike could well be a Honda Goldwing. Strangely, though, the Goldwing is primarily designed for long-distance driving, not the shorter urban commuting that hybrid vehicles are made for.

Of course, it’s just a sketch, so Honda could very well be making a brand new line of bikes for the hybrid market. But since all we have to go on right now is a patent filing, it could be a while before we find out what the bike will look like. Or if it exists at all.

As we recently learned, growing marijuana indoors uses up a whole lot of energy. Possibly as much as one percent of the entire country’s energy consumption. But what if marijuana were legal and therefore didn’t need to be grown indoors?

An infographic created by Lumin Interactive and designer Jacob O’Neal, and comes with a not all that surprising answer. According to the infographic, commercially growing marijuana outdoors could reduce energy use by 75 percent. Or 0.75 percent of the nation’s entire energy consumption. But there’s more.

“The carbon footprint of covert cannabis production might also be easily offset by the energy used to enforce the laws against it,” the infographic reads, “electricity for the some 60,000 inmates in prison on marijuana related charges at any time, and the fuel for the police cruisers that brought in the offenders, among other things…”

Currently 17 states legally allow marijuana cultivation.

Via Treehugger

KFC has announced that it’s joining in on the recent trend of fast food restaurants going green by opening a new eco-friendly location in Indianapolis.

The new restaurant, which opened on Tuesday, uses 25 percent less electricity and water than a traditional KFC location. Some of the energy-saving techniques used in the restaurant include energy-efficient cooking equipment, LED lighting, locally sourced building materials, and fixtures designed for reduced water use. Customers driving hybrid vehicles are also given preferable parking spaces.

“We are very proud of this restaurant, which is a tangible example of the work we are doing to reach our goal of reducing our environmental impact, while serving the food our consumers love,” said Roger McClendon, Chief Sustainability Officer for KFC parent company Yum! Brands.

“This is one step along our path toward designing and building greener restaurants and we’ll be using it as a ‘test lab’ to evaluate the performance of technologies and processes. What we learn at the Indianapolis restaurant could potentially impact the design of future buildings worldwide.”

While oceans absorb much of our CO2 output — somewhere around 30 percent — when the temperatures rise the reverse happens, and that CO2 is then released back into the air. Previously scientists believed that this process would take anywhere from 400 to 1400 years, but it turns out things could happen much, much sooner.

“We now think the delay is more like 200 years, possibly even less,” Tas van Ommen from the Australian Antarctic Division, told New Scientist.

The research team looked at ice cores in Antartica and dated CO2 bubbles found in the ice to come up with the 200 year estimate. Their findings, of course, aren’t 100 percent certain, and the potential difference could be by around 200 years. Which means that while the output of ocean CO2 may not happen for 400 years, it could also be happening any day now.