Green News Round-Up: Making Oil from CO2, Sky Sails, and Paris Hilton?

Lots of interesting green news out in the last few days:

• Los Alamos Laboratories (yes, the guys that do the nukes) says that it has figured out how to suck CO2 out of the air, mix it with water, and turn it into oil. Wow, that would solve a lot of problems. The downside? It requires large amounts of nuclear power. My opinion: if this is possible, there's got to be a way to do it with solar. Still, it's extremely promising technology.
• A UN draft report says that the emissions from the shipping industry has overtaken emissions of the aviation industry. Good thing they've started pioneering the Sky Sail which could make ships 3x more efficient.
• UCLA researchers have created a material that can soak up and retain 80x its volume in CO2. It does this without requiring a lot of energy to make the process work, which makes it a great candidate for installing in coal-fired plants.

Scientists are making all kinds of breakthroughs in what I like to call micro-energy. Micro-energy harvests small amounts of energy from everyday sources. Some cool recent examples:

• Researchers have figured out how to capture the energy of your shirt or pants adjusting to your movements.
• Bionic-looking knee braces capture energy from the motion of your legs as you walk. Not very attractive, but certainly useful.

And finally: Paris Hilton declared she was going green for her 27th birthday by buying herself a GMC Yukon Hybrid. If that isn't a sign that green has thoroughly invaded the cultural consciousness, I don't know what is...

Comments

[Peggy]

Cool green news. Thanks.

[Simmons]

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Simmons