Greenpeace has challenged South Africa’s top five retailers to up their game when it comes to renewable energy. In a report to launch its “Renewable Energy Champions” campaign‚ the environmental activist group says between them, the retailers use enough energy to power 178‚400 homes.

“This campaign provides an opportunity for Pick n Pay‚ Shoprite‚ Spar‚ Woolworths and Massmart to take the lead and show the millions of South Africans who support them that they really care about the future of this country‚” said Greenpeace Africa climate and energy campaigner Penny-Jane Cooke. The report outlines renewable energy investments and commitments from each retailer and ranks them against one another on four key criteria – energy transparency‚ commitment to renewable energy‚ greenhouse gas mitigation and lobbying for clean‚ renewable energy.

Woolworths ranks highest with a score of four out of 10. Woolworths and Pick n Pay have solar installations that contribute a small percentage of renewable energy to their overall operations. Shoprite received the lowest ranking because of its lack of transparency about energy information.

“Ranking the five retailers against one another makes it clear that none of them are doing particularly well when it comes to a commitment to a 100% renewable energy vision‚” said Cooke. “Also‚ none of the retailers are engaged in active lobbying for the barriers to renewable energy to be removed‚ which is an essential step if a 100% vision is to be achieved‚ and this has heavily impacted on their scores.”

The report says Pick and Pay uses the same amount of energy as 65‚000 households‚ Woolworths 55,000 homes and Massmart 53 000.

Cookes said if the retailers committed themselves to renewable energy it would set a good example for the country to follow. “They also need to articulate how they will achieve this vision in the short and long term‚ make the required investments and take the next step by lobbying government to remove the barriers to renewable energy for the benefit of their loyal consumers and the country.” – TMG Digital

One hundred billion times more power than humanity currently needs is available right now, out in space. It comes through solar wind, a stream of energized, charged particles flowing outward from the sun. Brooks Harrop, a physicist at Washington State University and Dirk Schulze-Makuch of Washington State’s School of Earth and Environmental Science, think they can capture these particles with a satellite that orbits the sun the same distance Earth does.  Their so-called Dyson-Harrop satellite would have a long copper wire charged by onboard batteries in order to produce a magnetic field perfect for snagging the electrons in the solar wind. The energy from the electrons would be beamed from the satellite via a infrared laser to Earth, since the infrared spectrum would not be affected by the planet’s atmosphere. This Dyson-Harrop satellite holds a few technical problems that researchers are currently trying to fix. It has no protection from space debris, and some of the power could be lost as it’s beamed through Earth’s atmosphere. Plus, finding a way to aim the laser beam across millions of miles of space is no small task. What seems more realistic is to use this satellite in order to power nearby space missions.

[Source: http://bit.ly/1T3bE5r]

MIT scientists have recently described how various types of coal could be used to create thin films with adjustable electrical properties. Eventually, according to the scientists, coal could be used to fashion solar panels, batteries, or various types of electronic devices.

“When you look at coal as a material, and not just as something to burn, the chemistry is extremely rich,” Jeffrey Grossman, an MIT professor in materials science and engineering, advised.  The chemical, electrical, and optical properties of thin films of four different kinds of coal: anthracite, lignite, and two bituminous types.

Some naturally occurring coal varieties have a range of electrical conductivity that spans seven orders of magnitude, making them suitable for a wide range of electronic uses — and without the extensive purification and refining that silica, a standard raw material in electronics manufacturing, requires.  For that reason, coal might provide a cheaper alternative!

The researchers demonstrated coal’s potential by using it to make a simple electrical heating device, which could be utilized for jobs such as defrosting car windows or airplane wings.

[Source: http://bit.ly/1T3bE5r]