New, highly efficient methods turn heat into electricity

by Keith Pickering

Physicists have known about the thermoelectric effect for decades: there are some materials that, when heated, produce electricity. Alas, these materials tend to be both expensive and inefficient. In other words, not much bang for the buck.

But with two interesting new discoveries this week, all that may be about to change. Not soon, perhaps – these are still just a theoretical results in quantum physics, after all – but much, much for the better.

Imagine capturing electricity from the heat of your exhaust pipes, or your brakes, and using it to recharge the battery in your hybrid vehicle. Imagine a solar energy system that converts solar heat directly into electricity cheaper and more efficiently than any photovoltaic cell ever could. Imagine capturing waste heat from a factory, a furnace, or a powerplant, and putting it to good use.

Impossible? Perhaps not for much longer.

continued at Daily Kos....

BP's airborne pollutant levels dramatically increase in Florida

by 8ackgr0und N015e

Pensacola Bay, in the panhandle of Florida, is about 115 nautical miles from the site of the BP disaster.  Nautical miles are slightly larger than statute miles, or the miles you are used to measuring on land.  

On land, 115 nautical miles would be the same as 132 statute miles. In a car, it takes more than two hours to cover that distance.  That's the distance from Washington, DC to Philadelphia.  Toledo is closer than that to Cleveland.   Sacramento is closer than that to San Francisco.  

If something was burning in Cleveland, the folks in Toledo would be surprised to see it show up in their city.  If something was spilled in Philly, you wouldn't expect to smell it in Washington.  If something fouled the air in San Francisco, you wouldn't expect it to hurt people in Sacramento.

I make the point because our friends at the EPA have been measuring the levels of benzene, toluene, and xylene in the air along the shore of the Witch's Brew formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico.  If you look at their numbers for the area around Pensacola Bay it is clear the concentrations of these compounds in the air have increased substantially over the last few weeks.

continued at Daily Kos....

Gulf Oil Spill Mythbusters

by murrayewv

This blog is quick to condemn technological solutions on little data.  Diaries on the inadequacy of science and engineering abound (ironic, since we all are using computers to reach the internet).  Folks are quick to jump to conspiracy theories.  The problems of the oil spill are bad, but to read Daily Kos, the horrors are incredible, often in contradiction to all logic.  Chiming in to doubt some of these claims has resulted in What the hell, dude? You sounded earlier as if you were defending BP, and there's shitloads of anecdotal AND empirical evidence that they're in no way worthy of it. There's a point where you just have to stop playing "devils advocate" or "supporting the underdog". Or whatever that earlier bit was. Truthfully, it didn't make a whole lot of sense in context with the rest of the discussion, but seemed more designed to introduce the idea that "the fumes just aren't that bad, so people really didn't need masks anyway....

continued at Daily Kos....

BP's Assault on the Great Lakes

by agnostic

2005 - 15 people were killed and over 170 injured from a fire and explosion on the Isomerization plant (ISOM) at the BP Products North America 2006 - BP's Prudhoe Bay  pipeline exploded, spilling hundreds of thousands of gallons of heavy crude. BP attack on the Great Lakes comes in three parts: a) BP wants to drill under Lake Michigan, almost a mile below the lake's bottom. Think of the Gulf leak, but with fresh, not salt water. b) BP is the 6th largest polluter in the Chicago area. With its new Whiting Refinery capacity (Canadian oil shale & tar sands), that will increase by 40%. c) BP is deliberately pollutes Lake Michigan with benzene & mercury. Remnants from tar sands refining process will be far, far worse.

continued at Daily Kos....