Joule uses sunlight and CO2 to make liquid fuel

Startup Joule Biotechnologies is sort of a mashup of the fuels, solar, and biotechnology industries.

The Cambridge, Mass.-based company on Monday is disclosing its technology and business plans for making ethanol and other liquid fuels from genetically manipulated microorganisms that have been fed only sunlight and carbon dioxide.

In a break with biofuels companies, Joule says its HelioCulture system works without a biomass feedstock, such as algae or others plants. Instead, the company's engineered organisms grow through photosynthesis in a brackish water solution and directly excrete fuel or commercial chemicals.
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AC solar panels may make it easier to DIY in near future

Startup GreenRay Solar has raised money to finalize development of a solar panel that puts out household-grade alternating current, a technology that backers say will make solar power more accessible to homeowners.

The Westford, Mass.-based company said that it has raised US$2 million from the Quercus Trust and 21Ventures, which will allow it to start production of its solar panels in the fourth quarter this year. Since its founding three years ago, the company had raised US$3.5 million in state and federal clean-energy grants.

GreenRay's AC Solar Module will turn out electricity that meshes with household alternating current and voltage. Solar panels put out direct current, and then an inverter, typically placed in a home's basement or outside the house, converts the direct current to alternating current.

Instead of a large inverter for many panels, there are a number of companies developing microinverters that do the DC-to-AC conversion right on the panel.
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Scientist developing "pee power" for cars

Scientists from Ohio University have come across a way to harvest large amounts of cheap hydrogen from a rather unlikely source: Urine. Apparently, plucking hydrogen atoms from urine is much easier than getting it from water.

Gerardine Botte, one of the Ohio University professors actively developing this "pee power" technology, attributes this difference to urea, a cleaner of diesel emissions and major component of urine. A molecule of urea is composed of four hydrogen atoms and two nitrogen atoms. Applying an electric current using a special nickel electrode causes those hydrogen atoms to pop right off. The trick is that it requires about 97 percent less electricity to release the hydrogen from the urea molecules than from a water molecule--specifically 0.037 volt for urine versus 1.23 volts for water.
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Burger King goes green with energy-harnessing speed bumps

It's been criticized for contributing to the obesity epidemic and condemned by PETA, but now a Burger King franchise in the New York metro area has announced that it wants in on the green movement. The high-traffic restaurant in Hillside, New Jersey, will install a speed bump designed to harness the kinetic energy produced by the hundreds of cars that pass through the drive-thru daily.

As they wait for their Double Whopper, customers will roll through a section of the drive-thru lane lined with metal plates that move down and up as cars head to the next window. The MotionPower technology developed by Burtonsville, Md.-based New Energy Technologies, could harness and capture the energy twice daily, the company reports.
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Stay environmentally conscious with Green eyeglasses

You've heard of Coke bottle glasses. But you probably haven't heard of Sprite bottle glasses.
That's the concept that Suning Chen from China came up for the "RE-think + RE-cycle" design competition organized by Designboom way back in 2005. I just happened to come across this little DIY project while doing a Google search on PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles. (A public relations representative sent me a release on an upcoming Ecogear backpack made out of recycled PET bottles and I wasn't sure what PET stood for).
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