By Sarah Laskow — Grist

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A team of scientists over in Europe have decided to take the idea of “green” power very, very literally: They have developed a system to harness the energy generated by moss.

Modern Farmer:

Continue reading “Moss can power a radio, and could eventually charge your phone” »

Quoted: “Ethereum will also be a decentralised exchange system, but with one big distinction. While Bitcoin allows transactions, Ethereum aims to offer a system by which arbitrary messages can be passed to the blockchain. More to the point, these messages can contain code, written in a Turing-complete scripting language native to Ethereum. In simple terms, Ethereum claims to allow users to write entire programs and have the blockchain execute them on the creator’s behalf. Crucially, Turing-completeness means that in theory any program that could be made to run on a computer should run in Ethereum.” And, quoted: “As a more concrete use-case, Ethereum could be utilised to create smart contracts, pieces of code that once deployed become autonomous agents in their own right, executing pre-programmed instructions. An example could be escrow services, which automatically release funds to a seller once a buyer verifies that they have received the agreed products.”

Read Part One of this Series here » Ethereum — Bitcoin 2.0? And, What Is Ethereum.

Read Part Two of this Series here » Ethereum — Opportunities and Challenges.

Read Part Three of this Series here » Ethereum — A Summary.

Richard Branson, Success, Unpreparedness, Failure, and Death!

The Largest God of Entrepreneurial Success, “knighted by the English Crown,” wanted to teach us that the Power of Simplicity with Boldness is sufficient to defeat the Science of Complexity and a most-unprepared à –la-Sir-Francis-Drake company called: “Virgin Galactic.”

Continue reading “Richard Branson, Success, Unpreparedness, Failure, and Death!” »

Marilyn Monroe in London and Continuous Performance Improvement

This is an actual story.

I was the Insurance Broker House EVP for the world’s global oil corporation number two and got asked a delicate official favor from the Client.

To give you an idea of this piece of business, the Client was paying cash US$ 100 million for insured and re-insured premiums over their fixed and liquid assets. The latter via a major and reputable London Reinsurance Brokerage House.

Continue reading “Marilyn Monroe in London and Continuous Performance Improvement” »

Brandon Baker — Nation of Change

It’s good to refrain from wasting energy, but it’s even better to procure energy from items that you otherwise would waste.

That’s the thinking behind the latest announcement from Sainsbury’s, the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom. The chain’s Cannock location will soon be powered solely by the company’s own food waste. Waste management and recycling firm Biffa has partnered with the store to use its advanced anaerobic digestion (AD) facilities and a power link that allows the Cannock store to use the waste generated from Sainsbury’s other locations.

Continue reading “British Supermarket to Power Itself Solely With Food Waste” »

Kurweil AI

MIT researchers discovered last year that when water droplets spontaneously jump away from superhydrophobic (water-repelling) surfaces during condensation, the droplets can gain electric charge in the process.

Now the same team has demonstrated that this process can generate small amounts of electricity, which could lead to devices that can charge cellphones or other electronics using just the humidity in the air. As a side benefit, the system could also produce clean water.

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Princeton

Research to curb global warming caused by rising levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, usually involves three areas: Developing alternative energy sources, capturing and storing greenhouse gases, and repurposing excess greenhouse gases. Drawing on two of these approaches, researchers in the laboratory of Andrew Bocarsly, a Princeton professor of chemistry, collaborated with start-up company Liquid Light Inc. of Monmouth Junction, N.J. to devise an efficient method for harnessing sunlight to convert carbon dioxide into a potential alternative fuel known as formic acid. The study was published June 13 in the Journal of CO₂ Utilization.

Christopher Helman — Forbes

For the new issue of Forbes Magazine I wrote an article about David Crane, the visionary CEO of NRG Energy . When I met Crane for lunch a couple weeks ago, no sooner had we sat down than he began singing the praises of this new contraption he had in his basement. The machine — which can generate 10 kilowatts of continuous power, fed by Crane’s natural gas line — is a new iteration of an old creation, the Stirling engine. This version, called the Beacon 10, was created after a decade of engineering by famed inventor Dean Kamen.

I caught up with Kamen (who is best known for creating the Segway scooter) over the phone last week to ask him about the device. “We’ve turned his basement into an extension of our laboratory,” said Kamen. “It’s certainly not a machine made for the typical home, but he has a gigantic swimming pool and a huge house.”

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Written by Beverley Mitchell — The Mind Unleashed

“Tesla was right and we are ready to prove it!” So say the two Russian physicists who have just launched an Indiegogo campaign to rebuild Nikola Tesla’s Wardenclyffe Tower in Fall, 2014. Tesla believed that the tower could transmit power wirelessly but this was never definitively proven in his lifetime.

If he was right, and after extensive study the team are convinced he was, the project could provide an efficient, worldwide energy transmission system that would distribute all the clean energy we can use.

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