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Renewable Energy News

Google Reels In Wind-Kite Firm Makani
Extending its already deep reach into renewable energy, Google reportedly has acquired a startup and its flying-kite wind turbines that promise to tap better wind energy resources at higher altitudes with far lower costs and more efficient output.
Tracking and Analyzing Energy Legislation Across the US
A new online database created by Colorado State University's (CSU) Center for the New Energy Economy (CNEE) aims to serve anyone interested in clean energy legislation in any state in the U.S., or even those who are crafting policy themselves.
UK Urged to Boost Clean Energy Over Natural Gas
Britain, under pressure to build new power stations, could save as much as 100 billion pounds ($150 billion) through 2050 by spending on wind, nuclear and carbon capture rather than gas, the governmentâ€™s climate adviser said.
US Equipped to Grow Serious Amounts of Pond Scum for Fuel
A new analysis shows that the nation's land and water resources could likely support the growth of enough algae to produce up to 25 billion gallons of algae-based fuel a year in the United States, one-twelfth of the country's yearly needs.
EU Solar Import Duties Seen Hurting China-U.K. Companies
The European Union is poised to penalize imports of Chinese solar products, a move that would increase Europeâ€™s cost for most photovoltaic panels an estimated 45 percent overnight.

The Econimist: Science & Technology

Invasive species: Thorny questions
Taking out the enemy
CONSERVATIONISTS, being by definition conservative, usually view the introduction of new species into an environment with horror. If such a species is successful, it is described as â€œinvasiveâ€â€”a rather pejorative word. But how much change such species actually cause (or how much damage they do, from the conservationist point of view) is often moot. So two recent studies of European buckthorn in North America, which attempt to find this out, are a welcome shaft of light on the debate.Buckthorn was imported from Europe to America in the 19th century, to make garden hedges. Since then it has spread through the countryâ€™s woodlands, which many naturalists think has been bad for local wildlife. The new studies suggest they are rightâ€”if you are a frog or a small bird. If you are a coyote or a raccoon, though, buckthorn is a good thing.Seth Magle, of Lincoln Park Zoo, in Chicago, suspected these predators are commoner where buckthorn grows. He therefore set up motion-activated cameras in 35 woods near the city. Some sites had a lot of buckthorn. Some did not.He did indeed find more coyotes and raccoons where buckthorn is commonâ€”...
Personality, social media and marketing: No hiding place
I detect a laid-back personality
IN AMERICA alone, people spent $170 billion on â€œdirect marketingâ€â€”junk mail of both the physical and electronic varietiesâ€”last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. If the bumf arrived electronically, the take-up rate was 0.1%. And for online adverts the â€œconversionâ€ into sales was a minuscule 0.01%. That means about $165 billion was spent not on drumming up business, but on annoying people, creating landfill and cluttering spam filters.Which might, in the modern, privacy-free world of sliced and diced web-browsing analysis, come as something of a surprise. Marketing departments gather terabytes of data on potential customers, spend fortunes on software to analyse their spending habits and painstakingly â€œsegmentâ€ the data to calibrate their campaigns to appeal to specific groups. And still they get it almost completely wrong.A group of researchers at IBMâ€™s Almaden Research Centre in San Jose, California, however, is here to help. According to Eben Haber, the groupâ€™s leader, the problem is that firms are trying to understand their...
Cryptography: The solace of quantum

CRYPTOGRAPHY is an arms race between Alice and Bob, and Eve. These are the names cryptographers give to two people who are trying to communicate privily, and to a third who is trying to intercept and decrypt their conversation. Currently, Alice and Bob are aheadâ€”just. But Eve is catching up. Alice and Bob are therefore looking for a whole new way of keeping things secret. And they may soon have one, courtesy of quantum mechanics.At the moment cryptography concentrates on making the decrypting part as hard as possible. The industry standard, known as RSA (after its inventors, Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), relies on two keys, one public and one private. These keys are very big numbers, each of which is derived from the product of the same two prime numbers. Anyone can encrypt a message using the public key, but only someone with the private key can decrypt it. To find the private key, you have to work out what the primes are from the public key. Make the primes big enoughâ€”and hunting big primes is something of a sport among mathematiciansâ€”and the task of factorising the public key to reveal the primes, though...
Microbiomics: A virus shield

THE story of the microbiomeâ€”the community of tiny organisms that coexist symbiotically with people and other animalsâ€”gets weirder every day. Until now that story, which has emerged over the past few years, has seemed one of friendly collaboration. In exchange for a place to live, bacteria aid digestion and help regulate their hostâ€™s metabolism. The storyâ€™s latest chapter, though, describes a different deal: between the animal host and viruses. And in this deal, bacteria are the targets.Jeremy Barr of San Diego State University and his colleagues, who have just published their results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, were intrigued by the high concentrations of viruses called bacteriophages in the mucus secreted by soft-tissue membranes ranging from the outer layers of sea anemones via the skins of fish to the mouths of people. Such membranes are prime targets for pathogens, which is why so many people suffer from throat and lung infections, and upset guts. Bacteriophages (or phages, for short) parasitise bacteria, a process pictured schematically above. Dr Barr wondered if they were actively working with their hosts to...
DSM-5: By the book

A BOOK with the title â€œDiagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Editionâ€ does not sound destined to be a bestseller, particularly at $199 a pop. But DSM-5, as it is known for short, is almost certain to become one. Its predecessor, DSM-IV, which was published in 1994, has sold more than 1m copies. DSM-5, which will go on sale on May 22nd, is likely to do at least as well.The reason is that the DSM series, which is published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), has become the global standard for the description of mental illness. Indeed, the DSM is treated by many people less as a medical handbook and more as holy writ. Insurers use it to decide whether or not to cover ailments. And diagnoses based on it determine whether people get special services at school; whether they qualify for disability benefits; whether they are stigmatised in their careers; even whether they are able to adopt children. Doctors, patients, drug companies and insurers have all thus been waiting for the latest edition of what has become known as the psychiatric bible.The DSMâ€™s purpose is to set strict criteria for identifying mental disorders. This is supposed to make...