As if turning grapes into wine wasn’t enough, now wineries are aiming to transform their waste into fuel.

The first example of a new renewable method for generating hydrogen fuel from wastewater is now operating at a California winery. The refrigerator-sized generator takes waste from the Napa Wine Company in Oakville, Calif., and feeds it to microbes inside. With the aid of a little electricity, these naturally occurring bacteria break the organic material in the wastewater into hydrogen gas.

There is a lot more energy locked in the wastewater than is currently used to treat it, explained researcher Bruce Logan, an environmental engineer at Penn State University. Eventually, the winery would like to use the hydrogen to run vehicles and power systems.
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Ever wonder how sharks stay so squeaky clean, while whales and other sea creatures attract barnacles and other critters? That smooth skin inspired Sharklet Technologies, which based a new bacteria-busting film on it. And the navy’s going to put it on their boats.

Researchers have been designing products inspired by or flat-out aping mother nature for years, a process called biomimicry. Sharklet Technologies is the latest to employ biomimicry, having studied the pattern of shark skin and printed it on a thin film in order to repel smaller bugs—bacteria.

Popular Science notes that the film, which is covered with microscopic diamond-shaped bumps, is the first “surface topography” proven to keep the bugs at bay. In tests in a California hospital, for three weeks the plastic sheeting’s surface prevented dangerous microorganisms, such as E. coli and Staphylococcus A, from establishing colonies large enough to infect humans.

The Office of U.S. Naval Research is just one partner using the technology, having announced new hull coatings for Navy ships based on the substance, which should cut fuel use and protect the environment.

President Obama visited the small town of Arcadia, Florida today, population 6, 671, to tout solar energy and efforts of the Economic Recovery Act to bring jobs to Florida, but Republicans on the hill say the President’s proposals for energy and in particular solar energy, won’t do enough for the 11.2% unemployed people in Florida.

<pThe President visited DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy center, billed as the largest solar photovoltaic center in the country. The company's 90,500 solar panels are able to generate about 42,000 megawatt hours each year, but the project cost $150 million to build and only provides power to 3,000 homes, prompting critics to say the administration doesn't have an overall energy strategy.

Washington Representative Doc Hastings, the Ranking Member on the House Natural Resources committee said it’s not nerves that are causing pause on Capitol Hill. It’s the plan itself, and the taxes it will impose on Americans that are the real problem. “Another day, another empty promise from the President to support ‘comprehensive’ energy development,” he told Fox News.

For more, read the full post on Row 2, Seat 4.

Vancouver’s premier yacht-building company has won a $1 million federal stimulus grant that will allow a sister business to bring as many as 200 people back to its waterfront fabrication facility to begin producing renewable energy equipment by year’s end. The newly created sister business, Renewable Energy Composite Solutions LLC, is using the money to get into the wind turbine and hydrokinetic (wave motion) energy component manufacturing, said Joe Foggia, managing partner of RECS and president of Christensen Shipyards at 4400 Columbia Way.

For more than 25 years the company has built sleek luxury yachts for the world’s wealthiest, using composite materials. Now it will apply the technology to new engineering and fabrication projects. “This diversification promises to bring back people we’ve laid off in the past 13 months who work in composite manufacturing,” Foggia said. “Seventy-five percent of our yachts are built with composites there are a lot of man-hours there.”

The $1 million grant, announced by Gov. Chris Gregoire and the Washington Department of Commerce on Tuesday, will allow the company to retro-fit manufacturing equipment to make vertical wind turbines, as well as buoys that use the continuous wave energy of the ocean to generate power. RECS engineers are working with such entities as Oregon State University’s tsunami center and SAIC, an international engineering and technology company based in McLean, Va., to develop wave technology and build test buoys. It has partnered with Skyron Systems Inc., an energy products company in Portland, to manufacture vertical axis wind turbines, which have field applications including onsite generation for urban and remote sites.

For more information, read the full story on The Seattle Pi.

A new technology from Panasonic aims to green the electric car. The Japanese electronics giant announced a technology that binds together the ordinary lithium ion batteries you’d find in your laptop in order to power an entire car. According to the Reuters story, the new technology should enable Panasonic to make electric car batteries at half the cost of specially designed lithium-ion batteries, since it can use existing battery plants and production expertise, the company said.

While there has been much enthusiasm and interest surrounding electric cars, developing a system to power them has been a tremendous engineering challenge. Some companies have developed massive battery packs with hundreds of smaller sized batteries. Other businesses have focused on smaller, easily replaceable batteries; Better Place has one such concept, which calls for multiple service stations that can swap out a battery in minutes. The company recently announced with Renault an expanded commitment to a volume of at least 100,000 electric automobiles in Israel and Denmark by 2016.

Whichever technology takes off, there’s clearly public demand for electric cars. The race is on!