This Spring week, News Checker is all about change, out with the old …and in with the new. While we try to find wireless solutions to replace all that toxic e-junk from the nineties, WIRED magazine has come up with a novel and hysterical way to dispose of old gadgets. The running is on for the best photograph of a gadget being destroyed. Known as "Gadget Abuse", I’m sure everyone has had at least one “smash your computer” moment. Surely?
More photos Here

Photo submitted by Nick Kiest from www.wired.com

We can dispose and forget about almost everything once we have used it, including an old car. But now there seems there is no more space even for those. Spiegel tells us about an “old timer” graveyard, where nature has taken over the old car parts, but may soon have to go. On a more creative note, Inhabitat points out the artwork of Phil Ross, made from recycled cell phones and “adapted cameras” ie the artist dumped a series of cameras into a cement mixer and ground them into future, recycled versions of themselves. Inspiring.

Part of the Chronic Revalator series by Phil Ross

So what we need is atmosphere control. Controlling means sensing and actuating. We need to know the actual state of the atmosphere, compare it with an established standard and to have the means to modify it accordingly. This sounds easy, but is awfully difficult. Atmosphere is a global system. How can we measure atmospheric constituents entirely? What are acceptable limits for garbage constituents? And once we know the unwanted constituents and their wanted levels, how can nations ensure that every one sticks to reducing the un-wanted garbage? Let’s start with the first step: How can we measure garbage concentrations globally? Take a probe here, take a probe there? Even if we would do that at thousands of sampling stations worldwide, would this give us the overall concentrations? No, because we would also have to climb mountains and even would have to go much higher at any place to sample the entire atmosphere. What we rather need is a globally integrating sensor. We do have sensors like this. They are called environmental satellites. The most sophisticated of these is the European Environmental Satellite, ENVISAT. ENVISAT constantly monitors our atmosphere and Earth’s surface properties from space since March 2002. It is the biggest one as well, com-parable with a truck: 10 meters long, 3 meters wide, and weighting 8 tons. With 2.3 Billion Euros it was also by far the most expensive.

“Hydrogen”. Hearing this word - what comes to your mind?
Even in my not so technical minded brain first associations popping up are: New. Clean. Car.
The combination of it: the Hydrogen 7. A vehicle I or most of the mobile population are not yet able to drive - even if we agree with the concept. That’s at least what I thought. Until recently when I found out that I already had: in a different version though but nonetheless… I drove in a hydrogen run vehicle, not a BMW but sponsored and developed by the BMW group.

How so?
Starting in August 2005 two hydrogen-powered passenger buses were running at Munich airport. They were part of H2 argemuc, a hydrogen pilot project launched in 1997. In cooperation with the Bavarian State Ministry for Economics, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology and a group of technology leaders (among others the BMW Group and the Linde Group) the Airport Munich GmbH aimed for an ambitious goal: trying to reach a milestone in the use of gaseous and liquid hydrogen in the mobility sector, proving the technology’s suitability in everyday use on a wide scale.

Running passenger cars, buses and forklift trucks on hydrogen, the project crowned itself by operating the world’s first public hydrogen filling station - demonstrating a reliable supply of energy for hydrogen-powered vehicles. Coming to a (wanted and planned) end in December 2006, the success of the H2 argemuc project represents an important step from the prototype stage towards market maturity. Thterefore, the future outlook for is more than promising.
The technology is ready - just has to be applied. A steady stream of visitors at the filling station (15 000 over the last years) shows public interest and acceptance. With the hydrogen project at the Munich airport not only the State of Bavaria has proven once more to be one of the most progressive German states in the field of clean energy but also the airport presents itself to be amongst the most innovative and modern. Rainer Hörl, leader of the department servicefield energy, water and waste management, explains that environmental protection and sustainable innovation are highly stressed in their official guidelines and employed practically wherever possible.
Since 2003 one of the terminals in Munich carries the largest solar power system ever built on an airport. The next coup will be to run the fleet of ground buses on canola oil.

So what’s the outcome?
First, there is more innovation and especially practical application going on in the field of clean energy than most of us realize. If I took a hydrogen bus without noticing it you might have as well.
Second, big companies need to take a stance and offer a platform for experiments to speed up the process of growing out of the prototype stage. Therefore: two thumbs up for the free thinkers at Munich Airport – keep going!Fotos: Munich Airport

Once many small rivers in the northeastern United States had pocket hydropower stations that supplied clean, easy to tap hydroelectric power to municipalities and local industries. These were largely phased out and supplanted by large dams and by monolithic power authorities in the 1950's & 60's.Most of these stations are no more but a few small facilities have been restored and there is great interest putting the machinery back in some of the old stone power-plant buildings and spillways.

Photo by Kit Latham: Housatonic River, MassachusettsNew York City on the other hand is trying out a tidal electric installation on the bottom of a river. Verdant Power, a developer of free-flow turbine systems recently began installing its new kinetic hydropower plant in New York City's East River. The East River is a tidal estuary that runs right by Manhattan through the middle of New York City. Tides flow through the river which connects New York harbor with Long Island Sound and can sometimes run in excess of 8 knots, fast enough to roll good sized boulders along the bottom of the river according to some coast guard personnel. The Roosevelt Island Tidal Energy Project (RITE) seeks to harness the potential kinetic energy of the river's motion by installing free-flow hydopower turbines on the riverbed. These turbines resemble smaller versions of wind turbines often seen on land using the flow of water instead of air to generate energy potential.

The first two of the six turbines were deployed on December 11th and 12th of 2006, the remaining four turbines will be installed in the first part of April for an 18 months test. One of the initial turbines has a dynamometer to measure load factors and the other turbine contains a power generation system.According to Trey Taylor at Verdant Technologies the turbines are being put through their operational paces in their first 5 weeks with following results:• 40 days of continuous operation (about 155 tides)
• 100% turbine availability during that period.
• reached or exceeded every performance specification
• world's first grid-connected power without any switching or power-quality problems
• generated power to the grid 77% of the time
• performed equally well in both tide directions, another first
• average power output during tidal generation periods of 14.5 kW
• average energy production of 270 kWh/day = 8.1MWh/month = 97 MWh/yr
• generated a total of over 10 MWh

This underwater turbine farm is completely submerged but essentially located directly in front of the United Nations Building, not a bad location for the first test of its kind in the United States.

When did you start the research on Hydrogen and for what reason?The LH2/LOX - Ariane motor was the starter. I was in that days (the 70s and 80s of the last century) heading the German Rocket Test Center in Lampoldshausen. We were - and most probably still are - the heaviest liquefied hydrogen user in Germany. - Then, in 1973, the first oil crisis occured, and the Federal Governement asked us ("us" is the Energy Research Department of the German Aerospace Center) to try to "bring down to earth" what we had learned in space - and later in aviation.Major "products" of our research and development were the H2/O2-steam generator for spinning reserve application; the German/Saudi Arabian HYSOLAR
project, installing for the first time in the world a solar hydrogen production and utilization plant under the real conditions of the highly insolated Arabian peninsula where insolation is highest; and not at all least, the first LH2 BMW 3-series which was in that days the beginner of decades long development efforts of BMW; now, it is displayed in the BMW museum in Munich.How were the reactions about this new venture then?What we had to learn was that processes like this ususally follow three steps:
The first one was lacking understanding among audiances when you stood up and gave a talk on the forthcoming hydrogen energy economy, "funny what he brings, where
in general he seems to be a proper chap!"; the second step was fighting back with verbal injuries and the like, but that was already a confession that there might be something real in it, but, sorry, that it was not brought forward by us; and the third step is bringing the subject to
market.If you look back: What were the difficulties you faced in all these years of development?We faced not really difficulties, money was not a problem, not to speak of great ideas and enthusiasm of my staff. - Perhaps one thing is worth mentioning: We researchers were sometime a little too "early" with our work packages.
The public, industry or the political arena were not yet readily prepared to except our results and carry them further. Many of the outcomes of that early days are still in a waiting stage, only piece by piece they are taken
over by market forces. Of course, that applies for applied research results.What could Hydrogen be used for in the future?
Hydrogen energy and its technologies are one out of a number of economic growth engines of the future! The hydrogen energy economy is on the verge to replace more or less the complete hydrocarbon economy, in place since more than two centuries and a half: Climate change abatement will not be feasible without hydrogen energy;
decarbonization of fossil fuels is only possible through hydrogenation; storing and transporting renewable energies and, thus, their participation in the
global energy trade will be facilitated by hydrogen; environmentally and climatically clean transport on land, at sea, and in air and space, here again hydrogen is key; and finally, hydrogen energy and its technologies help avoiding price dictates and irrational supply shortages,
energy import depending nations particularly suffer under! Which are the critical steps that will have to be taken in order to make Hydrogen more useable as it is theses days?On principle, novel energy technologies need time! Hydrogen energy technologies make no difference.
Many decades up to almost half centuries are necessary to bring new energy technologies to market, irretrievably. And another point: In democratic
societies, people have to have a certain insight into a matter before voting for it. Still, hydrogen energy needs more popularization. People need to understand what is beneficial and where the backlashes are. - And then,
another point: Money! The hydrogen energy economy will not be introduced at a shoestring. What you need is not millions, not billions, you need trillions! Because what we have before us is the revolvement of something
which was installed over centuries, the hydrocarbon energy economy! 6.) In terms of cars: How do you see the new Hydrogen 7 by BMW?BMW is a forerunner. Excellent to see that a world ranking company is bringing the first LH2 ICE propelled limousines to market. More or less all the other competitors have to follow suite. They prefer the hydrogen fuelled fuel cell under the hood. For the engineer, the competition between the ICE and the fuel cell is a highly exciting race. And by far, that race is not
yet decided. Let's wait for the market result. The customer has not yet had the chance to make up his mind and decide.Your facit:Hydrogen energy is not the silver bullet. After the renewable energies of the first solar civilization, in operation until far into the 18th century; after coal in the 19th; and oil, natural gas and nuclear fission in the 20th; now at the start of the 21st century all sorts of energy efficiency gains, the renewable energies, now of the second solar civilization, and hydrogen energy are the consequent next additions to the energy mix.