Ed Ring

The tiny nation of Luxembourg is home to a company, Epuramat, with a very big idea - they have a technology that promises to revolutionize wastewater treatment.  This is a big deal - in the United States, for example, over 60 cubic kilometers per year of wastewater are processed, and less than 5% of this wastewater is reused, mostly for irrigation.  By greatly reducing the cost of wastewater treatment, more water can be recycled, not only for irrigation, but even for drinking water. Epuramat's 'ExSep' (Extreme Separation) unit replaces primary and most of the secondary wastewater treatments in one small unit. Epuramat's technology replaces the first stage of conventional...

When one thinks about what is at stake, one would think the media would be very careful about the facts when reporting on global warming.  One would think if important new findings arose to contradict previously relied upon information concerning global warming, the media would report this as big news.  One would be wrong. VENUS - EARTH'S HOT TWIN What if the Earth became like Venus, totally overheated and unlivable because we burned living rainforests instead of fossils while going solar? (Photo: NASA) The price we're paying for this one-sided, biased reporting on global warming is not trivial.  We are all grateful for environmentalist...

Show me one head of state in the world, besides Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who is willing to stand up to the anti-CO2 juggernaut?  We've reported on President Klaus before, in our post "Vaclav Klaus, Skeptic," and he's in the news again. Czech President Vaclav Klaus "The climate change debate is not about science, it's about ideology." Klaus addressed the UN Climate Change Conference on 9-24-97, then four days later he gave a follow up speech in Salt Lake City, Utah.  He is the only politician on the international stage who is correctly identifying what is really at stake in the debate on global warming, saying:  "I don’t talk about climatology but about environmentalism, about an ideology which puts nature and environment and their supposed...

We have posted features on nuclear power - reader comments aren't yet possible on our features - and we've received several emails reacting to these stories.  Two of these features were "Nuclear Power - Cleanest & Coolest Choice?" and "India's Nuclear Power."  Here is an email just received from a reader in France: Three Mile Island (photo: EPA) Table of World's Nuclear Reactors List of "Nuclear Club" Nations "Dear Editor:  To me it is amazing somebody promoting an "EcoWorld" should have the gall to pretend "the US desperately needs to become more like France" meaning they should produce more nuclear electricity as this (but maybe you don't know it) bypasses two major issues : 1. France as only a tiny country on a world map, is the third producer in the whole world of death weapons...

This is incredible.  How could I have been in the dark for so long?  This is definitely love at first sight.  Introducing the Aptera "Typ-1," which has quietly taken shape in, once again, you guessed it, sunny California! Up until late 2005, physicist Steve Fambro was working full time as an electrical engineer for a San Diego biotech company, but meanwhile in his garage a prototype was taking shape.  Apparently Fambro, who has been an accomplished auto mechanic most of his life, couldn't find a "kit car" that was sufficiently smart, clean and green.  So he decided to build his own.  And now, barely two years after quitting his job to work on his vision full time, the Aptera has...

The more lengthy, more precise name for this exciting innovation is "structural cement insulated panel" or "SCIP." If you are interested in green building, this is a concept that looks to have a bright future. Structural cement insulated panels, note interior struts for extraordinary unit strength. (Photo: Studio RMA) We learned about SCIP technology from Herman Blanke, a Los Angeles based expert on green technology who attended the AlwaysOn "GoingGreen" event. For an example of this technology in use today, Blanke recommended Studio RMA, based in Dusseldorf, Germany. On Studio RMA's website, their "What is a SCIP Building" page provides a pretty good description of how it works, and the synergies are obvious...

We fell in love with Tesla Motors back in the spring of 2006, in our post "Silicon Valley - The New Detroit? ", because when we reported on their announcement of the Tesla Roadster, a 100% electric car, it felt like this time somebody was really going to do it.  Ever since the demise of the EV-1, a car that many people thought deserved a niche - we've been waiting for the next round in the inevitable conversion of the car to an electronic device. Later in July 2006, when Tesla released the performance specs on the design for their Tesla Roadster, in our report "The Next Generation Car," we made one mistake.  We said "But if the EV-1 was a brilliant piece of engineering, ahead of its time, kind of like the first combat jet ever produced, the German ME-262, then the Tesla Roadster is kind of like America’s 2006 top-of-the-line F-18 Hornet." That is wrong.  That is incorrect.  The Tesla Roadster is not a top-of-the line F-18 Hornet.  It...

We recently caught up with John Honey, President of CCT Power, and learned more about what's called "solid polymer" lithium ion batteries.  Most lithium ion batteries still use gel technology, which is a cheaper, more proven technology, but which also is more dangerous, especially as applications be larger.  Solid polymer technologies include nano-titanate, used by Altair Nano in their lithium ion batteries, and nanophosphate technolgy from A123 Systems. Lithium Ion batteries are one of the key technologies in the race for cheap, clean, decentralized energy storage.  Their energy density makes them extremely desirable in electric automotive applications - the proposed GM Volt, the Tesla line, and most advanced automotive designs prefer the lithium ion battery.  For batteries, a good way to measure energy density is in terms of watt-hours per pound, and lithium ion batteries can now store up to...

We've just waded through the "California Water Plan," 2005 update, which is produced by the California Dept. of Water Resources and is the most comprehensive source available on California's water.  Some interesting facts pop out immediately: California has the most extensive system of water reconveyances in the world. (1) Here are the overall quantities:  In a normal year, about 250 cubic kilometers (henceforth noted as km3) of fresh water are delivered to California, nearly all of it rainfall, with the only noteworthy exceptions to rainfall being the Colorado River aqueduct delivering 6.6 km3, and the Klamath River delivering 1.9 km3.  The rest is rain. Of this 250 km3 water supply...

Back in 1998 we wondered here how long the boom would last.  In our EcoWorld post "Bulls & Bears" we noted that aggregate public stock multiples were much higher than historical norms, and wondered how they might experience a soft landing.  As it turned out, stocks appreciated for nearly two more years, and the soft landing they got was because the housing bubble inflated to replace the deflating stock bubble, keeping employment up and the economy strong.  Now the housing bubble is deflating.  How bad will it get? We have blamed the unaffordability of housing on the underlying cost increases, which are (1) land costs too much because environmentalists successfully oppose most development, which restricts the supply of available land, (2) construction materials cost too much, because environmentalists successfully oppose most new sources of building materials - mines, quarries, lumber...