Recycling and reusing electronic components could be made much easier with a new polymer that produces a circuit board that will dissolve when immersed in hot water. The circuit board was developed by the UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL) as part of the ReUSE (Reuseable, Unzippable, Sustainable Electronics) project.

The circuit board material is hardy enough to withstand ordinary heat and moisture, but full immersion in hot water acts to release the components from the board. This allows for over 90% of the electronics materials to be recovered, whereas typically less than 2% of the materials on a circuit board are re-used.

Although this is not necessarily beneficial for the repairability of electronics, it could be a definite improvement in helping get a handle on the growing mountains of electronics waste and make recycling of electronics components and recovery of minerals an easier process.

Video link: YouTube

image: CC BY-SA 1.0 by Mark Pellegrini/Wikimedia

via: Treehugger

An English company called Air Fuel Synthesis has begun producing gasoline (petrol) directly from air and water. Using carbon capture technology to sequester CO2 out of the atmosphere, and electrolysis to crack water into its constuituent hydrogen and oxygen, the company's process then combines the hydrogen and carbon dioxide to create synthetic gasoline or other fuels.

To be carbon emissions neutral, any carbon that is going to be burned as fuel ought to have come from the atmosphere, rather than from fossil sources buried in the ground. That is why plant-based and microbial methods of producing fuel are considered relatively clean, since the carbon in them was atmospheric. This process short circuits that even further by directly extracting the CO2 from the air and synthetically creating the gasoline replacement.

In addition to the direct atmospheric carbon extraction, the process also uses renewable energy to power the electrolysis process, so that the carbon debt is not merely transferred. Although the feedstock is free, the other costs of the process are likely too high for this to be an immediate replacement for oil drilling and refining, at least in the short term. And the process has only been able to produce a small amount of fuel in its test facility, yielding just five liters (less than 1.5 gallons) in two months. But cost and capacity are issues that can be improved as the method is developed and scaled up.

This adds to the number of non-petroleum processes being developed for fuel production we have seen. It seems less a question of whether these methods will work than it is one of which ones will reach commercial scale, and how soon that happens.

via: Treehugger

While it may sound like a repeat of the Organic Vinyl April Fools joke from a few years ago, new bio-polymers are getting touted as a green alternative for conventional plastic. While there are some positive aspects to using plant-based feedstock rather than fossil materials, Building Green offers a strong critique of the problems still inherent in bio-PVC.

Avoiding petroleum feedstocks is a good move in general, although the diversion of food crop products is as troubling to us as it is when it is done to produce fuel. Price fluctuations and increased volatility in the oil markets make this a good business strategy for companies producing and using these plastics. But, the core question remains: "Is it greener, or is it merely greenwash?"

Although carbon issues are now closely linked with the broader green movement, carbon isn't the only deciding factor that makes something green or not. With vinyls, as Building Green writes, "The problem is that material sourcing isn't the issue with PVC--and the biggest concerns that have made PVC the subject of more debate than other polymers have come from problems on the "salt" side of the manufacturing process. Dioxins--the most potent cancer-causing chemicals known to science--are produced in large quantity in the manufacture of the vinyl chloride monomer and then again when this chlorinated plastic is burned in incinerators and uncontrolled landfill fires. Getting the polymer from a biobased source merely sugarcoats PVC without addressing the fundamental problem."

Other plastics like PET, the primary material used for carbonated beverage bottles, are also being produced from biomaterial stocks. This is more of an advantage since the resulting products are compatible with current recycling programs instead of needing to be separated as some other bioplastic containers have needed.

image credit: Cjp24/Wikimedia Commons

via: BuildingGreen

Further bad news for the electric vehicle market comes with word that A123, the company that owns the largest battery manufacturing plant in North America, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this week.

The two A123 manufacturing plants, which have been making batteries for electric vehicles including those built by General Motors and Fisker, will be taken over by Johnson Controls, which is acquiring A123's automotive assets.

In addition to its vehicle batteries, A123 also produces cells and batteries for portable equipment, telecommunications and electric grid applications, and stationary power backup systems.

An earlier deal to sell most of the ownership of A123 to a Chinese manufacturer, the Wanxiang Group, apparently fell through, and the bankruptcy filing coincided, at least in part, with A123 failing to make a scheduled loan repayment to Wanxiang.

via: Autoguide.com

For efficiency, solar panels need to be as absorbtive as possible of the light that strikes them. Any light that reflects off the panel is not producing energy, so anti-reflective coatings have been studied by researchers trying to boost the performance and efficiency of solar panels. Highly efficient coatings have already been available for a number of years, but recent developments have been able to bring the costs down, as well.

The latest coating development from the Australian company Brisbane Materials is able to be applied at room temperatures, rather than needing high temperatures, as other coatings have needed to affix the coating. With this coating, solar panels can have an improvement of about 3% in efficiency. This may be a small increase, but, as we've pointed out before, accumulating small increases in efficiency are how improvements come about.

In addition, the coating can also be combined with anti-soiling coatings, which will help keep the panel cleaner for a longer period of time, which also helps maintain the effectiveness of the panel.

via: Treehugger

Cork is a very versatile material with a great green pedigree. It is considered a rapidly renewable material because the bark of the cork oak can be harvested without killing the tree, allowing repeated cycles of production over the 200+ year lifespan of the tree. While cork has long been an attractive choice for flooring, it is now being used to provide building insulation boards, as well.

Like cork flooring, the cork insulation is also made from granules of cork that are left over after wine corks have been punched out of the bark. Cork granules are treated under heat and pressure to release a natural binder and produce billets of expanded cork which are then cut to size. The expanded cork has an R-value of 3.6 per inch. This isn't as good as the highest performance materials, but is comparable to fiberglass batts, cotton (blue jean insulation), and cellulose insulation.

Expanded cork insulation at present is a comparatively expensive material for insulation. The cost comparison from Building Green (who have an extensive write-up of the material) indicates that cork might be as much as 5 times the cost of a similar amount of polyisocyanurate insulation board, and more than twice as expensive as extruded polystyrene. But the cork does not rely on petrochemicals for its manufacture, and offers an all-natural insulation product that will definitely appeal to some builders and building owners.

In addition to its energy performance, the cork insulation is also highly flame resistant, helps with sound absorbtion, and does not offgas any significant VOCs. From a LEED perspective, it is a very useful material, qualifying as a rapidly renewable material in addition to being manufactured from the waste byproduct of the manufacture of another product (wine corks). Many cork forests are already FSC certified. And, from the perspective of a materials red list, it is 100% natural.

via: Jetson Green

An intriguing method for storing excess power from renewable generation sources is based using super cooled air as a means of storing power until it is needed. British-based Highview Power is developing the system with a pilot plant adjacent to a heat and power plant at Slough.

The frozen air storage system cools air to cryogenic temperatures around -200 degrees F (-129 degrees C) and stores it in tanks. When power is called for, the liquified air can be evaporated and used to run turbines to produce electricity. Fundamentally, it is similar to other steam-based systems, relying on a phase change of a liquid to a gas being used to run a turbine. The process can be coupled with systems that produce waste heat which can be used to augment the efficiency of the system.

The current pilot frozen air storage does not have nearly the efficiency as many other power storage systems (most of which average 70-80% if not better). But the engineers working on the project believe that they can reach similar efficiencies as other systems offer when the system is scaled.

As a small added benefit, the frozen air storage system requires the air to be cleaned of soot and small atmospheric particles, as well as water vapor, before it is cooled down, so in addition to storing power, the process also results in slightly cleaner air.

via: Treehugger

Installing solar power in Denmark is going faster than planned, and the country has already reached its goal of 200 megawatts of solar capacity. This amount was the goal that the Danish government had set to reach by 2020.

At present, the country is adding 36 MW of solar panels each month, and industry predictions are that there will be 1000 MW of solar panels (five times the goal) installed by 2020. Denmark has one of the highest levels of renewable power installed as a percentage of total power requirements. The national goals on that front are 35 percent (to be reached by 2020) and 100 percent (to be reached by 2050). More than 20 percent of Danish power is supplied from renewable sources at present.

The Danish energy market makes this an attractive option for homeowners and other building owners. “The demand for solar cells has increased dramatically since net metering was implemented in 2010. Net metering gives private households and public institutions the possibility of ‘storing’ surplus production in the public grid, which makes solar panels considerably more attractive.”

via: Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Press Release

Automakers have a strong interest in understanding and improving the fuel market. After all, without a stable fuel infrastructure in place, their products (the cars they build) are nothing more than big sculptures. So it's not surprising that Audi is involved in a carbon-neutral fuel called e-gas.

Working with an organic waste burning facility, CO2 is captured and then combined with electrolytically produced hydrogen (powered by clean energy sources like wind and solar) to create synthetic methane (which is natural gas). To use this fuel, Audi is building a dual-fuel car called the Audi A3 TCNG which can use either the e-gas or regular gasoline. The feedstock is non-food organic waste, to avoid competition between food and fuel. In addition to the e-gas, Audi is also producing e-diesel and e-ethanol, to provide cleaner fuels for the entire range of its engines.

This is not too different from any number of other biofuel manufacturers. And this is not the first time that an automaker has taken an interest in fuel manufacturing. (GM was an investor in Coskata, a biofuel startup that got a lot of attention in 2008.) The issue with this, and other, biofuel schemes is to make the entire process carbon neutral. Not only the fuel itself, but also the energy used in producing the fuel must all be clean or carbon neutral in order to be sustainable in the long term.

via: Jalopnik

Last month there was a great deal of media attention paid to a study about organic food (Are Organic Foods Safer or Healthier Than Conventional Alternatives?: A Systematic Review), which was widely cited for concluding that "[there is no] evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods." But the study is more spin than significant science.

A critique of the study in the New York Times by columnist and food writer Mark Bittman points out the weaknesses and oversimplifications in the study that have been used to "debunk" organic food based on criteria that are significantly immaterial to the organic label.

Bittman says of the study, "[it] was like declaring guns no more dangerous than baseball bats when it comes to blunt-object head injuries. It was the equivalent of comparing milk and Elmer’s glue on the basis of whiteness. It did, in short, miss the point." The other half of the conclusion of the study, "Consumption of organic foods may reduce exposure to pesticide residues and antibiotic-resistant bacteria," was much more overlooked.

Organic food has never been about some perception of super-food with extra nutritional value, except perhaps to those who don't understand organic in the first place. But this study was so narrow in its definitiion of "nutritious" (which was taken to mean "containing more vitamins") that, as Bittman points out, "you can claim that, based on nutrients, Frosted Flakes are a better choice than an apple."

The benefits of organic farming are numerous, and are far beyond relative comparison of the amount of some vitamin content. Not only are there potential individual benefits (the aforementioned reduced exposure to pesticide residue and so forth), but contributing to such broader environmental benefits as reduced pesticide use and more sustainable farming practices are also worthwhile goals.

image: CC BY-SA 3.0 by Ragesoss

via: NY Times (apologies; this may be behind their paywall)