Innovation in the Internet industry has tended to occur in marketing and software engineering. In clean tech, a lot of the innovation is in engineering but also in basic science, such as chemistry and physics. The other day I saw a presentation about what you’d think was a thoroughly mundane topic: extracting energy from waste. [...]

What I’ve learned so far is that fuel cells, a technology that has been around a while and has had niche applications till now, has the potential to become a mainstream alternative to internal combustion engines in cars 5 to 10 years from now. The technology is way too expensive to be practical for automotive [...]

I’m doing some research on fuel cells. I’ll be looking at the cells themselves; hydrogen as an energy carrier; and distribution and storage questions. I plan do to couple of posts over the next few days. The dimensions you need to consider to assess any energy technology include: efficiency greenhouse gas emissions cost and depending [...]

The New York Times recently ran an article on efforts by retailers to incorporate environmentally friendly designs into their stores. Pizza Fusion has store in Florida that reuses draft from ovens to heat water McDonalds renovated a restaurant on the South Side of Chicago “crammed with energy- and water-saving gadgets,” including pavement that filters rainwater; [...]