Recent content by Straw_Cat

They do use a lot less power per household. One source, the pdf file linked below, had them using an average of 6,200 kwh per household in 2009, and this one has a figure much lower: 3,512 kwh. http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/average-household-electricity-consumption Pdf file from 2009...

Hasn't this already been done, by some lab in Australia? From what I recall, they selected various strands of DNA, assembled them, and had a new life form. I don't remember which lab it was, sorry.

An easy way t graft branches onto trees is to use a tapered drill to drill into the trunk of the tree and use a pencil sharpener to put a tapered point on the branch to be grafted. A tool name 'The Plugger', available fro Lee Valley Tools, and a common pencil sharpener are used for that. The...

A combination of both freezing and then applying a strong vacuum would do the trick. This is what is termed 'freeze drying' and used in the food industry to prepare dried food stuffs. When a vacuum is applied to the frozen food, the water content sublimes from the solid state to the gaseous...

On El Hierro Island, the westernmost of the Canary Islands, there's a project to harvest renewable energy from wind and solar, etc. The surplus power from those will be used to pump water uphill and store it in a storage pit that was at one time a volcanic crater (!) so that the water can be...

Windpower Engineering magazine has this article about some storage batteries the Chinese are buying to store renewable energy. http://www.windpowerengineering.com/featured/business-news-projects/corvus-signs-12-5-million-10-mwh-energy-storage-contract/ http://www.corvus-energy.com/

We can make a level playing ground by switching form subsidies to the Depletion Allowances other industries have enjoyed for 100 years. It's still corporate welfare, but gussied up by rebranding. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/03/01/1654501/oil-subsidies-century/ Quote: "The percentage...

Add: The Energy Collective link above was a valuable one to me since I had thought it might be possible to include algae into part of a small sewage/ waste processing plant to handle the wastewater and perhaps kitchen wastes at a small mining plant. It might be worth looking into recovering the...

I suspect the net BTU production of any given algae farm is highly dependent on which algae strains one has, the local climate and lighting conditions, and the weather for any given period. It seems there is a lot of research into this, and one demonstration project even has an algae farm on a...

A test plant in Spain that was basically a large water glass that used sunlight, seawater, and captured CO2, to grow algae, from which the researchers could produce algal biofuel, and the left-over bits could be turned into either feed for animals or composted for use as a soil amendment. (I...

Seawater, or salt water, greenhouse links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seawater_greenhouse Quote: "The technology was introduced by British inventor Charlie Paton in the early 1990s and is being developed by his UK company Seawater Greenhouse Ltd." http://www.seawatergreenhouse.com/...

A mineable uranium deposit contains between 1 and 2% uranium. That leaves you with 98-99% waste to deal with, a lot of it radioactive or otherwise a major problem (thorium, radium, radon, lead, and so-on). So, for every 1 kilo of U238 and U235 you extract, you will have to place 98 or 99 kilos...

Sure, no problem at all, Texasman. A simple minded fix with one small problem: Not one bit of all the uranium that has ever been refined has yet to be put into long term storage. And I mean long term. What are you doing for the next 45,000+ years? Keep in mind that nuke plants spend almost as...

Try using a laminated spruce/ balsa wood lay-up. (or spruce-cedar) Spruce is very strong for its weight, which is why it's used for guitar tops and home-built aircraft construction. (It has the highest strength to weight ratio of all woods, except perhaps pitch pine, which is nearly impossible...

A rounded structure will make the wind flow around it: hurricane ties that tie the roof structure to the foundation will help prevent wind lift so the roof is less likely to be pulled off. Shear panels inside the wall will strengthen the structure, and you can increase the wall's resistance to...