Wind Up Battery

Polar Bear picture by Kathy Crane, NOAA Arctic Research Program

A new study in November 2014 has found that polar bears in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago may be at risk of starvation and reproductive failure by the end of the 21st century.

Throughout the world, or at least the icy northern parts of it where polar bears actually live, the global population of polar bears is split into 19 separate sub-populations.  Seven of these subpopulations reside in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, comprising about a quarter of the world's total polar bears and almost a tenth of the global polar bear habitat. 

It has previously been thought that the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and Greenland were the most likely places for Polar bears to survive global climate changes until the end of the 21st Century.  

The BMW ActiveE Electric Car.

Electric cars could well be one of the answers to a sustainable future, but currently unless you can find a recharging station that actually uses electricity produced in a renewable way, like a wind-powered Sanya Skypump or a solar powered recharging station, you'll find the electricity which goes to charge your vehicle originates from the electrical grid.  As such, a good deal of that electricity is likey to produced at power stations which burn those nasty old fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.

The ability to split water into its consituent elements of hydrogen and oxygen using electolysis has been known for over 100 years. This process can provide large amounts of hydrogen which can be used to power our homes and cars in a non-polluting and renewable way. However, traditional methods of electrolysis require highly purified water to ensure that components in the hydrolysis system do not become fouled up. In addition, an already-existing method of producing electricity is required to power the hydrolysis process itself.

The MidSTAR-1 space satellite with its high efficiency gallium arsenide solar cells. Picture by USNA

Solar cells are becomng increasingly commonplace and research is constantly being done into new materials which may be introduced in the future to improve efficiency and cost-effectiveness. We have learned over the years that it's never a good idea to bet against silicon completely being replaced, but there are some very interesting thin film materials which are coming into play.

Large Solar Panel array at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada Picture by Airman 1st Class Nadine Y. Barclay

Many people first became excited about convering sunlight to usable energy to power devices in the 1970s when the first boom in solar power happened. There is something special about the direct conversion of sunlight to electricity - a solid state device that sits there quietly and does its job with no movement or moving parts.  Solar cells have been deployed all around the world which are often still working even as much as 25 to 30 years after they were first installed without maintenance or the need for refurbishment in a way that a mechanical system would require.