Pecologix Political Ecology Blotter

A startup in Germany has developed a new kind of solar panel made of small, organic molecules deposited on polyester films. The technology is similar to what’s used for OLED displays for phones and flat-screen TVs. The panels are flexible, and far lighter than conventional solar panels, yet in some locations—particularly where it’s hot or [...]

The key finding is that new residential heating systems fuelled by LPG are 20% lower carbon and 15% lower overall-environmental-impact than those fuelled by heating oil. An unexpected finding was that an LPG system’s environmental impact is about the same as that of a bio heating oil system fuelled by 100% rapeseed methyl ester, Europe’s [...]

A number of commercial products are available for solar cooling components in residential and vehicular uses from Climate Well: http://www.climatewell.com/index.html#/applications

This paper presents the results of a life cycle assessment of domestic heat pumps in the UK in comparison with gas boilers. The study considers air (ASHP), ground (GSHP) and water (WSHP) source heat pumps. The results show that heat pumps have higher environmental impacts than gas boilers due to the use of electricity. On [...]

Regional supplies of biomass are currently being evaluated as feedstocks in energy applications to meet renewable portfolio (RPS) and low carbon fuel standards. We investigate the life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and associated abatement costs resulting from using densified switchgrass for thermal and electrical energy. In contrast to the large and positive abatement costs [...]

Recently, there is growing demand for energy saving technologies in buildings due to global warming and environmental impact issue. As a result to this, energy-efficient technologies are becoming more popular amongst researchers and designers. In this regards, to fulfil energy conservation demands, researchers have focused on the development of advance heat or energy recovery with [...]

This research compares two generation components in grid-connected and stand-alone power supply (SPS) systems (6 kWp solar photovoltaic array, and a 6 kWp diesel generator), separately supplying a homestead’s electricity load (12 kWh day−1 average, 10 kWp), against a 2 km underground electricity distribution line extension. The technical simulation intervals (15 min) included realistic peak [...]