To address concerns over solar and wind power fluctuations, the UK is installing a 10MWh battery…it’s not huge in terms of typical grid power usage, but is another big milestone in weaning us off of fossil fuels. Read more over at gizmag.
Portable EV charger
The idea behind small trailers like the one shown here is simple, it’s a gasoline powered generator to extend the range of an electric car, but only for those rare times you actually NEED a range extender. It’s not a completely new concept, but so far, these are mostly still ‘in development’ so I wonder if it’ll ever manifest itself as reality. With battery technologies continuing to improve and Tesla rolling out its free nationwide EV charging network…the market window for devices like these is narrow and if they don’t start selling them soon, they’ll miss their chance.
(via gizmag)
Low(er) cost solar
The cost of solar/PV energy production continues its sharp decline…with the latest advancement being a California company named RSI that has found a way to produce large thin film PV modules at about one third less cost than current technology. This cost target wasn’t expected to be reached by the industry until 2017…and RSI plans to deliver modules in 2014. The industry is seeing lots of steps like this in both energy production and storage…things are changing fast and that bodes well for our future and the future of this planet…the big question is how quickly clean energy can be implemented and CO2 emissions eliminated…
via CleanTechnica
How Big is the Ocean?
With a surface area of around 360 million square kilometers and a volume of around 1.3 billion cubic kilometers of water, the ocean on Earth is truly massive. This short video below has a bunch of great stats like that, check it out!
Pepsi decides to stop using a known carcinogen
The power of corporate greed is such that, even after 4-methylimidazole was found to cause cancer, Pepsi continued to ship product containing it. They removed it from product sold in California after a new law requiring labeling of carcinogens, but it’s taken until now for them to commit to removing it nationwide (and even then, not until around the end of 2013). Well, at least they’re finally taking this step. You’re probably still better off sticking with tap water though!
(via smartplanet)