Livermore is a bit inland from the Bay Area of San Francisco. What that means in practical terms is that it gets real hot real fast and can be pretty windy. But Livermore Cinemas is not worried. The cinema is now the United State’s largest solar-powered movie theater. Largest of a mere handful, but still has the bragging rights.

Livermore Cinemas Becomes Largest Solar-powered Theater in the US

The announcement of the achievement was timed when Disney nature movie “Earth” began to play nationwide on— Earth Day.

The 20K square foot roof is covered with a 132-kilowatt system covers the bulk of the theater’s roof. It is not only the largest known solar-power system for a movie theater but also one of the largest solar “modules” anywhere in the country.

The modules are not like traditional solar panels. They are cylindrical tubes about the length and width of shower curtain rods. They are lined up side-by-side and put on a flat roof where they cannot be blown away.

The modules are good for areas like Livermore which is also quite windy as well as hot. When the solar panels don’t work, it’s cloudy and windy enough for the wind turbines on nearby hills to fill in.

There are some 800 modules, about 21 miles of solar cells and accounts for about 35% of the electric needs of the movie house. We wonder if when God turns out the light (the sun goes down) do the lights in the movie house go off, too?

According to the EPA, the Livermore system will save more than 3,400 metric tons of greenhouse gases over the next 25 years.

Source

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With each passing day it is getting harder for us to imagine a world that is devoid of the television, laptop, PC, mobile phone and even the MP3 players and the gaming consoles. Sure, not everyone sports them al, but most of us are addicted to electronic gadgets and gladly enjoy the comfort and convenience they have to offer.

The problem though does not crop up from the usage, but the fact that you ultimately need to throw them away after they become old and less fashionable. And acccording to the Environmental Protection Agency, 1.5 million to 1.9 million tons of electronic waste was deposited in U.S. landfills in 2005. So is there a better way to deal with this looming hazard for the planet? Sure thing!

The problem is that e-waste contains hazardous chemicals and toxic metals such as flame retardants, arsenic, mercury and cadmium; making it lethal. With that in mind, initiatives like the European Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) are taking shape in Europe to force consumers to recycle them responsibly and to dispose them in a manner that does the least damage to environment.

There are many companie’s that offer WEEE Compliance schemes and pick up trash from your doorstep so that it is dealt with in the appropriate fashion. This might cost you a tad bit, but it’s very little compare to what ill-disposed electronic waste causes to the planet. And of course you can always choose to donate the waste to your local church or school community which will gladly use your old laptop or even mobile and put it to good use.

Since most of us discard the old gadgets for new ones just to stay in style or because our technical requirements have outgrown the product, there is no reason why someone else could not use your perfectly good old device. And have you thought of those computer recycling programs offered by companies which are selling the products in the first place? You can mail your old monitors and systems back to the producer and most often they will deal with that responsibly.

A cool new initiative is being offered by Apple which appeals a lot to all the techno geeks who end up creating most of the electronic trash. Apple is willing to take in any old mobile phone or MP3 player and it will even send you the packaging.

Ilegally and obviously not morally correct to dispose off electronic waste in any other fashion, US and Europe are waking up to the fact, with large developing nations like China and India are turning into hot beds for poorly disposed electronic waste.

Images by maiac and zilpho

Panasonic is planning to spend Y100 billion ($1billion+ depending on the yen rate) to develop eco-friendly energy technologies like rechargeable batteries and solar cells.

This plan is in align with the company’s desire to acquire Sanyo Electric for a sum close to $9 billion.

Sanyo’s strength is in rechargeable batteries (leader in Li-ion batteries) and solar cells (ranks 7th), which Panasonic considers as strategic areas.

“We needed to take drastic measures to secure growth amid a global economic downturn and structural changes in the electronics industry,” said Panasonic’s President, Fumio Ohtsubo.

When the two are combined it will create a giant manufacturer more competitive to ride out a worsening global downturn, with consolidated sales of more than 10 trillion yen, equal to Japan’s No 1 electronics and electrical machinery maker – Hitachi Ltd.

The Panasonic/Sanyo duo will also make for a powerful force in developing eco-friendly technologies, too.

Source: Nikkei (sub req)

Jatropha is a weed that grows in plenty in nations like India, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania and is often a serious threat to food crops as it grows at a rapid pace and uses up all nutrients in soil. But Air New Zealand along with Boeing and Rolls Royce’s testing unit are turning this unwanted pest into biofuel for flights of tomorrow.

Boeing committed to going the biofuel way for jets because it sees a very urgent need to change from fossil fuel dependency that has been affecting the planet and the aviation industry in a seriously negative way.

Air New Zealand is helping them in this regard as both of them are coming together for a test flight on December 3 that will be powered by a 50/50 blend of Jet A-1 fuel and a synthetic paraffinic kerosene derived from Jatropha that was developed by UOP (!! pdf link)

Rolls Royce has successfully tested this mix and has found it good enough for a Boeing flight. Now it will be just a matter of time, some fine tweaking and maybe a little luck before we have jets that are completely powered by biofuel derived from algae and weed. – via Ecogeek

Image courtesy of Thomas@Bod

Japan’s greenhouse gas emissions hit a record high making Japan the world’s fifth-largest CO2 producer and putting them at risk of an embarrassing failure to meet its Kyoto target over the next four years. The increase of 2.3 percent last year was largely due to the closure of Japan’s biggest nuclear power plant after an earthquake.

Emissions rose to 1.371 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent in the Japanese fiscal year through March. The year before Japan finally saw a decline of 1.3 percent decline. Japan needs to cut emissions by an estimated 13.5 percent to hit its 2008-2012 target under Kyoto of down 6 percent from 1990 levels.

The task of cutting emissions may be its worst since the onset of a global recession, a diversion of governments’ focus away from climate change the investment needed.

Japan is not going to make their goal.

Source: Yahoo!

Carbon Sciences has recently declared that it has made an important breakthrough that can convert CO2 emissions into fuels. This would cut down on the 62 billion metric tones of CO2 – root cause of global warming, which is let out into the atmosphere every year.

The technology will use these harmful emissions and convert them into useful sources of energy.

As CO2 requires a lot of energy to break them into hydrocarbons that is used for fuel, Carbon Sciences is working on a technology, with the help of chemical and bioengineering principles that would hasten up this process. Since this process is highly energy efficient, they’ll set up a CO2 transformation plant that would use the CO2 released by a larger producer such as a power plant, and transform it into useable fuels.

This breakthrough technology promises that it can successfully give the world a cleaner atmosphere by closing the loop on carbon releases. – via Inhabitat

The world’s speed and nuclear power do not belong in the same sentence, but sure enough China is doing its darnedest to build as many nuclear power plants as it can, using OLD technology. Their target is 4 new generators each year, through 2015.

However, the nuclear plants are going to be just a partial answer for its mounting pollution, energy security problems and the fast growing electricity use, because they will not be able to provide more than 5 percent of its power. Is coal still an option for them? Did they never hear of wind or solar power?

China’s nuclear power companies want to export that ability and technology overseas and the biggest problem would be a huge push to expand the country’s reliance on nuclear power domestically.

Nuclear power is an alternative if it is managed correctly, and when it does go wrong, it goes seriously wrong. But, who manages it correctly?