| U of Minnesota study: Destroying native ecosystems for biofuel crops worsens global warming |
| Findings have major implications for climate change policy
Turning native ecosystems into “farms” for biofuel crops causes major carbon emissions that worsen the global warming that biofuels are meant to mitigate, according to a new study by the University of Minnesota and the Nature Conservancy. |
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| MIT PROFESSOR TO DISCUSS FUTURE OF BIOFUELS |
| High oil prices, energy security considerations and fears about global warming have helped revive interest in renewable energy sources like biofuels, which burn cleanly and can be produced from plants. |
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| COMPOUND REMOVES RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL FROM POWER PLANT WASTE. LAYERED SULFIDES BOND TO STRONTIUM 90, OTHER RADIOACTIVE IONS. |
| Strontium 90 is a common radioactive by-product of fission in nuclear power plants. When extracted from the reactor along with other isotopes, a mixture is created made up of the radioactive material and inert ions like sodium and calcium. |
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| COULD WATER RUN YOUR MOBILE? |
| Canadian researchers have demonstrated a new way of producing electricity from flowing water which could provide power for anything from mobile phones to the national grid. |
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| WHITE HOUSE ANNOUNCES INTENT TO BUILD WORLD'S FIRST ZERO-EMISSIONS POWER PLANT. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SCIENTIST CHALLENGES ACADEMIA AND INDUSTRY TO BUIL |
| A long-time advocate and designer of zero-emissions power plants, Dr. Klaus Lackner was thrilled with President Bush's statement that the United States will sponsor a $1 billion, 10-year demonstration project to create the world's first coal-based, zero-emissions electricity and hydrogen power plant, but Lackner calls for an even larger vision. |
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| NEW SOLAR THERMAL PROJECT - WHAT A GAS! |
| Australian scientists have combined solar energy and natural gas in a novel process capable of producing large-scale energy to power the country's future industrial and domestic needs. |
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| 150-TON MAGNET PULLS WORLD TOWARD NEW ENERGY SOURCE |
| A 150-ton magnet developed in part by MIT engineers is pulling the world closer to nuclear fusion as a potential source of energy. |
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| WISCONSIN TEAM ENGINEERS HYDROGEN FROM BIOMASS |
| In the search for a nonpolluting energy source, hydrogen is often cited as a potential source of unlimited clean power. But hydrogen is only as clean as the process used to make it. Currently, most hydrogen is made from fossil fuels like natural gas using multi-step and high-temperature processes. |
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| GETTING POWER FROM THE MOON |
| If a physicist in Houston has his way you’ll be able to say good-bye to pollution-causing energy production from fossil fuels. In the April/May issue of The Industrial Physicist Dr. David Criswell suggests that the Earth could be getting all of the electricity it needs using solar cells – on the moon. |
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| PHYSICS RESEARCH SUGGESTS IT MIGHT BE POSSIBLE TO LENGTHEN BATTERY LIFE |
| Experiments with carbon nanotubes, a new form of carbon discovered about a decade ago, suggest for the first time that it should be possible to store more energy in batteries using the tiny tubes than with conventional graphite electrodes. |
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Power engineering
