Cleantech ticker: 3 June 2009
Cleantech news as it happaens — check back for regular updates:
- Producing new commercial buildings that use 80 per cent less energy than today’s buildings is a new target in the fight against global climate change. Berkeley Lab researchers are developing the technologies that will help make this possible;
- French oil firm Total believes tactical investment in the North Sea as well as strict cost control could help it to become the UK’s biggest oil and gas operator within three years, a report suggests;
- More carbon emissions are generated by the meat industry than “all of the world’s transport put together,” according to a spokeswoman for the charity Friends of the Earth, who explained that meat bought from abroad is cheaper than local produce because of EU subsidies;
- A research project has examined the potential of ryegrass to be used as biofuel. The study, carried out by the Biological Environmental and Rural Sciences at Aberystwyth University in Wales, found that the sugar content of the grass could be used to produce bioethanol;
- A national campaign to demonstrate how UK scientists and engineers are solving some of the biggest challenges facing society is launched today at the Cheltenham Science Festival by Britain’s largest funding body for science, the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council);
- Not a plant to be seen, the desert ground is too dry. But the air contains water, and research scientists have found a way of obtaining drinking water from air humidity. The system is based completely on renewable energy and is therefore autonomous;
- If solar cells were transparent, they could be fitted to windows and building facades. Physical modeling helps in the development of suitable materials for transparent electronics and thus in creating the basis for transparent solar cells.
