When the company first started, they earned a lot of honors for what they had created and planned to do. Both BuisnessWeek and BioFuels Digest have listed them as one of the hottest up and coming companies. Recently, in the past 2 months they have finally moved from the lab to creating bio-fuels on a large scale.

This article from http://www.cleantechnica.com describes what BioFuelsBox is doing:

The New “Black Gold”: Biofuel from Sewage

by Tina Casey

We’re already harvesting methane from sewage and spreading treated sewage solids on farms and open space, so it’s not a stretch to imagine running our cars on biofuel from sewage, too.  Specifically, running our cars on sewage grease.  An enormous amount of grease enters our sewer systems – about  495 million gallons annually in the U.S. alone.  Most of it gets captured and collected at sewage treatment plants.  So what’s stopping us – the ick factor aside – from siphoning off this readily available and potentially valuable biofuel feedstock?

Recycling sewage grease into biofuel dovetails neatly with at least one fundamental aspect of sustainability, the zero waste society.

On-site waste recovery and recycling is another aspect of the BioFuelBox model that fits into the overall picture. The BioFuelBox refineries are mobile, scaleable units suitable for land-strapped areas and wide open space alike.  They can be deployed relatively quickly where needed, providing the kind of site-specific flexibility that large centralized refineries don’t have.

The BioFuelBox model also stands to reduce costs and emissions associated with infrastructure maintenance. By converting waste into a usable or marketable product it provides a direct financial incentive to capture more grease on-site, before it enters the sewer system and clogs up the arteries.

Sewage grease carries none of the carbon footprint baggage related to growing crops for biofuel feedstock.  In particular, it skirts the ugly pricing and supply issues that can (and have) arisen when a program of using food crops for biofuel is poorly planned and executed.

With biofuel from sewage grease, let’s chalk up another score for our sewers. Wouldn’t want to live in them, but increasingly, can’t live without them.

One of the problems with implementing a smart grid is how to get everybody connected. It was previously thought that you would have to get rid of all the old equipment and replace it with new meters. The company eMeter has solved this problem with their new meters made to complement the smart grid. The great advantage of the new meters is that they can adapt to old technologies and relate them to new data. This save time and enormous costs of completely swapping out new systems.

Their website does a good job a summing up what they do

“eMeter provides the essential software that enables electric, gas and water utilities to achieve large-scale Smart Grid deployments.  Leading utilities worldwide depend on eMeter’s Smart Grid Management software to reduce operational costs, increase service reliability, boost customer satisfaction and drive energy efficiency.  With over 24 million meters under contract today, eMeter has the most large-scale deployments in the industry and provides the lowest risk way for utilities to achieve Smart Grid success.”

This company has already broken through to the market in Texas. Center Point Energy, based in Houston, has already implemented eMeters for their energy usage. I wasn’t surprised to see Texas implementing smart grid technologies; Texas has always been one of the cleanest energy consuming states in the U.S.

Check out the list right here

Here’s an article about it for more information:

Harnessing the Earth’s Heat for Food and Power

As the rumbling temblors beneath Yellowstone National Park continue (over 900 hundred such weak quakes in 2008), media attention shifts to two topics: the possibility of a super-volcanic eruption (not likely, according to most geologists), and secondly, the harnessing of geothermal energy.

This latter consideration is all the more fashionable these days as America struggles to embrace an alternative and sustainable energy future.

Geothermal energy offers the promise of a virtually unlimited source of power. Although less energetic in terms  of total constant power output compared to the sun, harnessing the geothermal venting from a single, sufficiently high-grade, hot-spring could conceivably provide power for a population of tens of thousands, and it’s not weather dependent.  But there are also plenty of “lower grade” springs that can be put to other uses, such as growing hothouse produce (and the spring water is also used for watering the plants) and  naturally warming water for fish farming (the Talipia species, a popular dinner fish, is one species farmed this way). Not all animals that are farmed this way are used for food, some, like the farmed alligators in Mosca, CO (see photo), are raised for their skins primarily (though some do eat the meat).

Hot springs and geysers—commonly found in parks and protected areas–are what most folks think of when they hear the phrase “geothermal energy”. But geothermal energy also refers to utilizing the hotter rocks deep below the earths surface to heat water. This is accomplished by the active pumping of water deep into the earth (2000 feet or more), permitting it to absorb heat from the hotter rocks, and then returning it to the surface. At that point, the water can be reused over and over. The extraction of heat from this water provides the “heat engine” needed to drive electric turbines. This type of system is described as a “closed loop” (it does not permit the heat to escape the system) and represents a more efficient means of generating power from the Earth.

The technology for doing this still needs improvement and there are some concerns about environmental damage from an unregulated drilling boom and the necessary road building to support it. However, geothermal energy systems such as the one described above cover vastly less land area than wind farms and solar arrays, and, if  the industry were guided by wise management practices (and had proper oversight), the environmental damage can be dramatically minimized, as compared to the coal-bed methane industry, for example.

Adding geothermal power to America’s growing list of possible energy alternatives can only strengthen our energy future;  it’s part of “diversifying our energy portfolio”, same as you would your stock portfolio, so as to decrease the possibility of a crisis (caused by a sudden shortage of a crucial energy source). This may mean less profit for any one particular industry (perhaps a clue as to why we have stayed hooked on oil for so long), but will mean a richer nation for all of us in the long run.

Fully functioning geothermal plants are still a few years off—ten years by most estimates—but just like the proverbial fruit tree that’s best planted twenty years ago,  the best time to start saving money and energy in the future is always yesterday.

According to the Department of Defense News report, the Defense Department’s total energy costs for fiscal 2006 and 2007 was above $13 billion. In the year 2008, due to soaring rise in oil prices, their department’s energy bill was $20 billion. It is not a surprise when various defense departments are trying to use clean and green energy that will lessen the use of fossil fuel. Even the Pentagon is trying hard to reduce its dependency on fossil fuel. They are trying to develop jet fuels from algae, bacteria and rapeseed. The Pentagon also announced to the American Forces Press Service in June that they are trying to develop newer military vehicles with the use of lighter and stronger titanium. Titanium is better than steel as far as fuel efficiency and safety are concerned.

U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus claims that the Navy will take measures to go “green” in the next few years. Mabus informed that the Navy has already manufactured a new diesel-electric hybrid ship in Pascagoula. This ship will be able to lessen the burden of $2 million in fuel costs on one simple trip to San Diego, California. Mabus shared his enthusiasm about the Navy’s growing determination to create more fuel-efficient ships and aircrafts. He also showed the keenness about the implementation of energy-saving policies and the use of fuel from renewable sources. He said, “I think my chances (of arranging green mandates for the Navy) are pretty high… It’s a strategic war-fighting thing. And the big advantage we have is that we build our ships, and we control our bases, and as we move into new energy technologies, we can design them into our ships and our aircraft.”

The United States Navy had its proud moments in “green history” because US Navy had just completed the maiden voyage of the USS Makin Island. The ship is of the WASP-class multipurpose amphibious assault ship. The honor of building the USS Makin Island goes to Northrop Grumman. This ship will be utilized during wartime and peaceful humanitarian support. It was delivered to the Navy on April 16th and the warship is going to be commissioned on October 24th in San Diego. This ship will be spending lots of time off-line engaged in rescue operations during natural disasters like cyclones and tsunamis.

This warship is the first in the world to be powered by a clean and green technology driven engine. This ship is driven by gas turbines and electric motors. This ship will enjoy the distinction of world’s first “green” naval vessel. By using this unique combination in the propulsion system, the Navy expects to save fuel of more than $250 million during its lifespan. The latest advancements in electric battery technology aren’t just being used to power cars to a longer distance at a fast speed but are also being used by massive machines such as the USS Makin Island.

On the official website of the US Navy, their daily news update informs, “We Can Get Underway Faster Than Any Other LHD In The Fleet. In An Emergency, We Can Be Underway Within Two Hours. And It’s Also A Quality Of Life Issue For Our Sailors. They Can Come In The Morning Of Getting Underway And Be Underway Before Lunchtime.”

Maybus accepted that producing the Green Fleet is a daunting undertaking but expressed confidence that innovation and the technology will come through. “The Navy, we have never backed down from a challenge, and we’re not going to back down today,” Maybus claimed.

This really does nothing for the cause, but I thought it was a funny story.

The Crown Estate that manages the royal property is buying the Worlds Largest Windmill – for an amount that shall not be revealed. Its going to produce 10 megawatts when completed – thats enough to replace the harmful effects of 724,000 tons of Carbon Dioxide over its life time that would otherwise be produced while trying to generate the same amount of power.

This compared to the usual measly 2 megawatts of power that commercial windmills produce. The wingspan of this behemoth is going to be equal to two soccer fields and it shall be 574 feet high. Thats almost 1.5 times the length of the Big Ben and more than 111 of Queens standing one on top of another – if you can imagine that.

To be built by Clipper Windpower of Carpinteria, Calif. ; the windmill shall be completed in 2012 and will be able to power 3700 average homes.

Too find out more check out this article: http://www.impactlab.com/2009/11/09/japans-space-agency-planning-solar-station-in-space-as-new-energy-source-by-2030/

It may sound like a sci-fi vision, but Japan’s space agency is dead serious: by 2030 it wants to collect solar power in space and zap it down to Earth, using laser beams or microwaves.

The government has just picked a group of companies and a team of researchers tasked with turning the ambitious, multi-billion-dollar dream of unlimited clean energy into reality in coming decades.

With few energy resources of its own and heavily reliant on oil imports, Japan has long been a leader in solar and other renewable energies and this year set ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets.

But Japan’s boldest plan to date is the Space Solar Power System (SSPS), in which arrays of photovoltaic dishes several square kilometres (square miles) in size would hover in geostationary orbit outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

“Since solar power is a clean and inexhaustible energy source, we believe that this system will be able to help solve the problems of energy shortage and global warming,” researchers at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, one of the project participants, wrote in a report.

“The sun’s rays abound in space.”

The solar cells would capture the solar energy, which is at least five times stronger in space than on Earth, and beam it down to the ground through clusters of lasers or microwaves.

These would be collected by gigantic parabolic antennae, likely to be located in restricted areas at sea or on dam reservoirs, said Tadashige Takiya, a spokesman at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

The researchers are targeting a one gigawatt system, equivalent to a medium-sized atomic power plant, that would produce electricity at eight yen (cents) per kilowatt-hour, six times cheaper than its current cost in Japan.

The challenge — including transporting the components to space — may appear gigantic, but Japan has been pursuing the project since 1998, with some 130 researchers studying it under JAXA’s oversight.

Last month Japan’s Economy and Trade Ministry and the Science Ministry took another step toward making the project a reality, by selecting several Japanese high-tech giants as participants in the project.

The consortium, named the Institute for Unmanned Space Experiment Free Flyer, also includes Mitsubishi Electric, NEC, Fujitsu and Sharp.

The project’s roadmap outlined several steps that would need to be taken before a full-blown launch in 2030.

Within several years, “a satellite designed to test the transmission by microwave should be put into low orbit with a Japanese rocket,” said Tatsuhito Fujita, one of the JAXA researchers heading the project.

The next step, expected around 2020, would be to launch and test a large flexible photovoltaic structure with 10 megawatt power capacity, to be followed by a 250 megawatt prototype.

This would help evaluate the project’s financial viability, say officials. The final aim is to produce electricity cheap enough to compete with other alternative energy sources.

JAXA says the transmission technology would be safe but concedes it would have to convince the public, which may harbour images of laser beams shooting down from the sky, roasting birds or slicing up aircraft in mid-air.

According to a 2004 study by JAXA, the words ‘laser’ and ‘microwave’ caused the most concern among the 1,000 people questioned.

Via Physorg.com