Energy and the Environment-A Coastal Perspective

This past weekend (June 26) I participated in this protest called Hands Across the Sand.  The message was very simple:  Say “No!” to offshore drilling and “Yes!” to clean energy.  This was done all up and down the east coast from 12:00pm to 12:15pm so as to coincide with President Obama’s meeting to expand offshore […]

In another case of using biomimicry to our advantage, researchers at Caltech are trying to find the most optimal way to arrange a wind farm. The problem previously with horizontal axis turbines is that they must be placed far away from each other to function well. Researchers wanted to see if there was a better […]

Photo Courtesy of heatingoil. Several sources of biofuels exist today, including fuel from soybeans, corn, palm oil, and more recently, algae. Half of an alga’s weight is lipid oil, which is much more than the afore mentioned biofuel sources.1 While the production of biofuels from algae would not reduce the atmospheric CO2 concentration since the […]

This is another example of an offshore renewable energy resource.  Osmotic Power uses salinity to create electricity with zero carbon emissions.  This is based on the fact that water with low salinity levels will move to areas of greater salinity.  To create energy, a membrane that only allows for water molecules to pass through divides […]