We hit double digits. Champagne all around!
In this episode: A timelapse video of the U.S.'s carbon footprint, a plan to turn pollution into DVDs (and fleece Al Gore?), a warning against nanotoxic socks, and a duel between two green-tech press releases.
Created, written & designed by John Pavlus / Screencasts produced by Smashcut Media / Music by Jeff Alvarez
Lonnie Johnson is a nuclear engineer who's worked as Acting Chief of the Space Nuclear Power Safety Section at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory, Senior Systems Engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and formed the energy research firms Excellatron Solid State and Johnson Electro-Mechanical Systems. But his most important contribution to society thus far is the Super Soaker, an all-purpose weapon for watery destruction, in any season. I bet life and limb on my Super Soaker many a summer, and along with a fannypack full of water balloons, it helped me survive the Great Water War in the jungles of Spring, TX back in '87.
But spaceships and water guns aren't the endpoint of Johnson's achievements: Johnson has invented a solid-state heat engine that has the potential to boost solar-power efficiency by as much as 60 percent, making the traditionally expensive source competitive with more destructive sources like coal or oil.
Continue reading 'Inventor of Super Soaker aims to boost solar energy, summertime fun' >
Imagine powering your computer, iPod, or refrigerator for that matter, by solar power originally gathered in space. The idea is increasingly appealing at a point in time when population is growing, natural resources dwindling and many consider energy scarcity a major national threat.
Continue reading 'The Pentagon is reconsidering space-based solar power' >
