Scientists working for the US military have started to put the latest green energy systems to test out in simulated frontline conditions.

Trials involving CERDEC's (the Communications-Electronics Research, Development and Engineering Center's) REDUCE and RENEWS technologies are now underway at California's Fort Irwin National Training Center. The goal in both instances is to draw on renewable resources to give warfighters less of a workload and manage the risks presently linked to transporting traditional fuel supplies.

US Army Microgrids

The RENEWS US Army microgrid system blends batteries, wind power and solar power, allowing warfighters to select whichever energy source is best suited to the conditions in hand. Intended as a power source for small media devices in remote sites, RENEWS can feed up to three laptops simultaneously, either in real time or via released, stored power, of which it can accumulate five hours worth.

REDUCE, meanwhile, is at an early development phase and is a mixed-mode automated clean energy and fossil fuel supply platform.

US Army: Cleaner Energy

Both RENEWS and REDUCE are set to help the US Army power itself away from fossil fuel dependence and embark on a cleaner, more efficient future energy drive.

In a US Army press release, Research, Development and Engineering Command representative Marnie de Jong explained how there's been a "larger demand from the field for fuel reduction and power in remote locations. As that demand has increased, we have increased our focus in those areas."

She continued: "Microgrids will be able to take solar, wind and batteries and use them together. You can use solar when there is no wind available. Different pieces of the puzzle work better in different places. By making this a solution set, you can take what you need given your location."

"Renewable energy solutions are helping to reduce the carbon footprint. They generate energy more efficiently on-site from renewable sources. It's good for the Army, good for the Soldier, and good for the environment."

Image copyright Dennis Simon, US Central Command. Used solely for representational purposes

Carbon capture and storage is now a well-recognised method of stopping CO2 emissions from entering the atmosphere but what happens if something goes wrong and there's a carbon leak? That's a scenario now being addressed by a research team who are exploring the impact of a simulated underwater CO2 escape.

Based in the northern UK, they're carrying out an experiment in Scottish waters, letting CO2 pass through a sea floor pipe and then seeing how this gas affects local marine life, including molluscs, sea urchins and polychaete worms.

The pipe's located around 30 feet below the surface of the water and it'll emit up to 800 kilograms of carbon dioxide on a daily basis.

Carbon Leak Study

This carbon leak study is thought to be the first of its kind and it was expected to be underway as this article was being prepared. The scientists involved think that a significant pH change will be produced by the carbon flow - predicting it'll drop from 8.2 to 6.5. They also say that if the marine life impact is severe, they'll bring this research to a close.

The UK presently has no marine-based carbon capture and storage systems in operation but, being an island, is arguably well-placed to embrace technology of this kind. Right now, there are a number of firms - Shell and SSE included - bidding for a £1bn UK government investment that would allow the first UK CCS system to be constructed.

Underwater CO2 Emissions

"We want to study what happens if there is a leak from a carbon capture and storage reservoir - or more likely, from a fault in a pipe or at the injection site", underwater CO2 emissions study head Henrik Stahl, representing the Scottish Marine Institute, explained to the BBC.

He added: "We'll study how this affects the ecosystem, the animals and microbes living in the sediments, and how the CO2 transforms in its passage through the upper layers of the sediment."

US scientists have developed a groundbreaking personal power generation technique that draws on viruses to transform energy into electricity.

The method opens up the potential for humans to be able to charge small electrical devices, like iPhones and MP3 players, from nothing other than everyday motions - walking, for example.

Based at the US DOE's (Department of Energy's) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the scientists put their approach to the test by manufacturing a small generator, with enough power to run a simple LCD screen.

Personal Power Generator

This personal power generator got to work through the application of a simple finger tap motion, converting the energy unleashed into electricity.

Never before has a generator been able to generate electricity through harnessing a biological material's piezeoelectric attributes.

From here on in, it's envisaged that a whole array of minute energy-harvesting devices could be manufactured that are triggered by the shutting of a door, the climbing of stairs or other, typical household tasks. It's also expected that microelectronic devices could become much less complex, since the viruses used automatically position themselves in the right way to make the generator work. That's especially significant since, within nanotechnology, such a self-assembling process has long been sought.

Personal Electric Power

Details of this new personal electric power process are covered in a piece published on May 13 by the Nature Nanotechnology journal.

"More research is needed, but our work is a promising first step toward the development of personal power generators, and other devices based on viral electronics", Berkeley Lab's Seung-Wuk Lee explained in a press release.

He added: "We're now working on ways to improve on this proof-of-principle demonstration. Because the tools of biotechnology enable large-scale production of genetically modified viruses, piezoelectric materials based on viruses could offer a simple route to novel microelectronics in the future."

Image copyright Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Unused household milk has the same impact on the environment as thousands of emissions-producing motor vehicles, say UK scientists.

Describing how, in the UK alone, 360,000 tonnes of milk are simply poured away every single year, they tell us how this process produces some 100,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

That's the annual emissions total generated by approximately 20,000 cars and, although this is a UK-led study, it has implications for households around the world.

Milk Emissions

Carried out by an international group spearheaded by Doctor David Reay from the University of Edinburgh, the milk emissions research forms part of a wider study that appears in the current edition of Nature Climate Change. This study follows in-depth examinations of how agricultural processes affect climate change and, alongside these, different nations' household eating habits.

The UK's unused milk, Reay and colleagues found, can be saved in all but one per cent of cases. Close to 50 per cent of it's wasted because there's too much of it used at any one time: the remainder's thrown away because it's out of date or gone sour.

Waste Milk: CO2 Production

Waste milk and CO2 production levels aside, other food and climate change links are also covered. A massive emissions cut could be implemented, the scientists said, if developed nations' poultry consumption levels drop down to those found in Japan.

They also reported, in general, that nitrous oxide emissions can reduce through lowering food waste, eating more vegetables and eating fewer dairy and meat products.

While not as much in the public eye as CO2 - which has virtually become the flagship greenhouse gas - nitrous oxide is actually several-hundreds of time more powerful and strongly-related to agriculture.

"Nitrous oxide is the major greenhouse gas from agriculture", Doctor Reay explained, in a statement. "It stands out as the gas you can really reduce in terms of emissions if you can cut down on agricultural waste and increase agricultural efficiency. Eating less meat and wasting less food can play a big part in helping to keep a lid on greenhouse gas emissions as the world's population increases.

He added: "At present about 30 per cent of food is wasted globally. If we can tackle this, it would be like taking about 20 million cars off the road permanently."

Scientists in Australia are set to use hi-tech measuring equipment to try and establish the impact of cow emissions on climate change. Employing reflectors and lasers, they'll attempt to get a much more accurate picture than previous studies of this kind have managed.

Spearheaded by the University of Melbourne, this is an emissions-monitoring programme also involving four other universities and CSIRO - the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation.

With agricultural emissions responsible for approximately 10 per cent of all Australia's greenhouse gas output, they'll aim to deliver a better way of measuring and managing methane emissions in Northern Australia, whose cattle population is believed to account for no less than five per cent of the nation's emissions total.

Cow Methane Emissions

According to the University of Melbourne's Professor Deli Chen, who's one of this cow methane emissions programme's leaders, the scientists will use innovative techniques and observe these cows grazing in real-time.

One method will involve laser beams which, after being streamed across a several-hundred metre range, will hit a reflector, sending them back again. "The frequency of the laser is sensitive to the methane gases in the air", Professor Chen explained, "[so)...we can measure the concentration of the methane gases across the paddock."

Australian Cow Emissions

This Australian cow emissions study's been named the Livestock Methane Research Cluster and, in further comments, Professor Chen referred to it as "a critical step if we are to help agriculture reduce its emissions because, if you can't measure, you can't mitigate."

Australia's presently aiming to have achieved an overall 80 per cent greenhouse gas emissions reduction by the middle of this century, compared to 2000 levels.

Methane, while less publically-visibly than CO2, is nonetheless a highly powerful greenhouse gas. A carbon/hydrogen compound with no odour and no colour, methane is highly effective at trapping solar energy and is twenty times better at doing this than carbon.

North America's got the underground capacity to store a minimum of 500 years of global warming-enhancing CO2 emissions, says a new study.

These emissions, produced as a result of industrial fossil fuel burning activities, could be trapped beneath the earth for quite literally centuries, according to the NACSA (North American Carbon Storage Atlas) programme incepted by the governments of the US, Mexico and Canada.

NACSA reports on the best and worst case carbon storage scenarios. Even within the lower estimate range, it's envisaged that oil and gas fields, coal fields and saline reservoirs could hold 136 billion, 65 billion and 1,738 billion metric tons of CO2, respectively.

US Carbon Storage Capacity

The combined 500 years' worth of US carbon storage capacity significantly exceeds figures previously put forward and that, according to the US DOE (Department of Energy) is a result of improvements in carbon capture technologies.

"By identifying North American geological formations with large carbon dioxide storage potential, this new atlas provides the kind of fundamental information that, combined with technological innovation, can help fossil-fuelled facilities continue their essential energy role while reducing carbon pollution", Steven Chu - the US Energy Secretary - explained in a statement.

"This initiative can also help identify opportunities for enhanced oil recovery projects that can further increase domestic oil production, enhance American energy security and support economic growth in states across the country."

US Carbon Emissions Storage

Besides indicating the North American sites where carbon could feasibly be stored, the US Carbon emissions storage report also pinpoints over 2,000 high-emissions sources, the majority of them industrial power plants.

Carbon capture and storage technologies work by converting emissions into liquid, then pumping this liquid underground.

As reported by Enviro News, in March 2012, MIT released a study putting the carbon capacity of saline aquifers alone at 100 years-plus.

Image copyright Fir0002/Flagstaffotos - Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

There are now 100 times more tiny pieces of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean than in the early 1970s, according to studies carried out around California by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

They say that these microplastics - less than five millimetres across - pose a serious environmental risk.

Very little microplastics were present in the North Pacific between 1972 and 1987, according to samples since looked at. Now, however, there's estimated to be an area around the size of Texas just filled with this waste material, leading to it being called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Ocean Plastic Waste

According to the UN's Environment Programme, microplastics abound in all ocean waters, with approximately 13,000 pieces present in every square kilometre, but the North Pacific is home to the worst concentration of ocean plastic waste by far. Toxic chemical-heavy, the swirling plastic mass is a potential food source for marine life and it's reached its densest-ever level.

The Scripps Institution's research - now published by the Biology Letters journal - also describes how this area would be virtually impossible to clean-up, given its sheer size and - at 1,500+ kilometres north of Hawaii - its relatively remote location, too.

Pacific Ocean Plastic

"We were really surprised - it is a very large increase", head author Miriam Goldstein explained in a statement on the Pacific plastic waste.

"Plastic had been detected in the open ocean in the early 1970s. People were raising the alarm then. The fact it has gotten so much worse is really disappointing."

She added: "Most people who work on this issue agree that prevention is the critical step. Once a piece of plastic is in the ocean, it is really hard and expensive to get it out again."

As a result of these latest findings, there's expected to be new calls made to eliminate additional ocean pollution and, right now, there are plastic bag bans in force in no less than 45 of California's counties and cities, prohibiting their supply at food stores.

With robots now in widespread use for a variety of tasks, including bomb disposal and manufacturing processes, two British scientists are looking at ways to make robotic technologies more eco-friendly.

Specifically, they're developing a biodegradable robot design and, potentially, that will see them bypass the plastics and metals traditionally used in robotics and draw on more organic types of materials.

Armed with a £200,000 grant, Bristol Robotics Laboratory's Doctor Ioannis Ieropoulos and Doctor Jonathan Rossiter will essentially spend the next 24 months trying to discover and build a robot that naturally breaks down in the environment.

Biodegradable Robot

Rossiter and Ieropoulos stress one key advantage to a biodegradable robot - that it will decompose without human intervention. Bearing in mind the huge variety of geographically-spread roles engaged in by conventionally-made robots, it's crucial that, if they're going to be recovered, taken apart and made-safe, they're constantly tracked and that involves time, effort and money.

‘This adds enormous complexity to the running of robotic projects and there is the ever-present risk that the robot will be irrecoverable with consequent damage to the eco-system', explains a press release issued by the University of Bristol in May 2012. ‘Additionally, these characteristics severely limit the number of robots that can be employed since each must be tracked and recovered.'

Eco-Robots

In contrast, biodegradable eco-robots could be left alone to get on with the task in hand and, once finished, decompose without human input, with no direct impact on the environment.

"In this project, we will take a radical step away from conventional robots and we hope to create a biodegradable robot", Doctor Rossiter explains in the Bristol University eco-robotics press release. "Once a biodegradable robot has reached the end of its mission, for example having performed some environmental cleanup activity following an oil spill, it will decompose into harmless material."

The £200,000 in allocated funding hails from the Leverhulme Trust - an-almost 90 year-old organisation that, each year, distributes some £60m towards research programmes.

Image copyright Milky - Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Image used solely for representational purposes

A US scientist has devised a straightforward and low-cost method to produce safe drinking water, even if it's muddy to begin with. The technique could have a deep effect in developing nations, where poor quality water and sanitation are partly responsible for almost 80 per cent of the diseases that develop there.

The water treatment breakthrough's been made by a Michigan Technological University scientist and, in a press release, the university explains how it came about.

First, it outlines the SODIS (Solar Water Disinfection) method, which involves exposing water contained in clear plastic bottles to six hours of direct sunlight. This, by itself, eliminates the majority of pathogens responsible for triggering diarrhoea - a condition that claims 4,000 African children's lives every single day.

Solar Water Disinfection

In order for Solar Water Disinfection to work, though, the water's got to be clear in the first instance and, in Africa, that's often not the case for fresh water supplies. A process known as flocculation is needed to purify the water and, now, Michigan's Joshua Pierce has discovered that table salt - an extremely widely-distributed mineral - is a highly effective flocculation catalyst.

Table salt, also known as sodium chloride, is highly abundant and not at all expensive to get hold of. Its performance is optimised when it comes into contact with one specific type of muddy clay - bentonite.

Other water-suspended clays aren't so easily treated but, according to Piece, can still be made good enough for the SODIS technique, if a small amount of bentonite is added to the mix.

Muddy Water Purification

Limited information on this muddy water purification process has been published, so far, but the next issue of the Journal of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for Development is set to publish Pierce and colleagues' paper on the technique, named ‘Optimizing the Solar Water Disinfection (SODIS) Method by Decreasing Turbidity with NaCI'.

"I've drunk this water myself", says Piece. "If I were somewhere with no clean water and had kids with diarrhoea, and this could save their lives, I'd use this, no question."

UK-based scientists have developed advanced 3D air pollution monitoring technology that will be in use during the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Created at the University of Leicester, the technology collects scattered sunlight particles to assess areas the size of cities and studies air particle levels to examine the impact on air pollution of excess traffic.

Technologies already in use can only determine air pollution levels at specific city points, so it's envisaged this system, with its much wider scope of coverage, will highlight in much more detail how air pollution is affecting London while the Olympics are in progress.

London Olympic Air Pollution

The London Olympic air pollution monitoring technology's called CityScan and, once in place, it will show the times of day when air pollution reaches peak levels.

It's anticipated that, combined, the 2012 Olympic Games and the follow-on Paralympic Games events will attract 11 million visitors to London and, as a result, there'll be literally millions of additional car journeys made through London.

According to its developers, CityScan's likely to be the world's first ever nitrogen dioxide emissions measuring instrument with a full 360 degree coverage capability.

London Olympic Pollution Monitoring

The CityScan London Olympic pollution monitoring technology will be installed at three locations, including a 30-storey building sited in London's North Kensington district.

"We will be able to map the pollution in 3D to show emissions of nitrogen dioxide and how far they spread", Doctor Roland Leigh from the University of Leicester's Earth Observation Science Group explained in a 30 April press release.

He continued: "Traditional sensors take in a single point measurement, giving a very accurate measurement that might be by a roadside. Between two or three CityScan instruments, we can map out a complete urban area and tell you where the nitrogen dioxide is in that space. CityScan makes the link between emissions and poor air quality downwind, enabling better management of the respiratory health of sensitive individuals.

"We want to make a practical difference, and contribute to systems which inform people when and where poor air-quality may occur."

Image copyright EG Focus - Courtesy Wikimedia Commons