Blog posts tagged with 'efficiency'

The park that surrounds the City Hall building in Los Angeles, California has been under renovation for the past eight months. The historic park underwent several “green” changes, including retrofitting the lampposts with efficient LED light bulbs. The light bulbs that previously illuminated the park were 130 watt, high-pressure sodium post-top bulbs. The environmentally unfriendly, inefficient bulbs were replaced with 27 watt LED post-top bulbs. The replacement of LED bulbs provides the park with many benefits consisting of:

-Energy savings of 103 watts per unit

-Reduced replacement and maintenance costs, due to the long lifespan of LED light bulbs

-Improved visibility and enhanced night vision which aids in crime prevention

-Reduced light pollution due to the direct beam of light that LED lights emit

-Instant illumination when the lights are switched on

-Fewer insects because the LED bulbs do not emit an ultraviolet light in which insects are attracted to

In addition, although the entire project of renovating the park cost the city a large amount of money, the park will now begin to save money on electric bills due to the amount of energy conserved by the LED light bulbs.

An exciting research project is taking place at MIT that could greatly increase the efficency of power grids and reduce CO2 emissions. Researchers have discovered that by adding just a few nano-particles of gold to copper, the rate at which copper can convert CO2 to fuel rapidly inreases.  Copper is one of the few metals that can change CO2 into hydrocarbon fuel without lots of energy. If implemented, powerplants would be able to take CO2 waste and reuse it to power the plant, instead of releasing it into the atmosphere.

Gold makes copper more stable because it is resistant to oxidation and corrosion. With just pure copper, the reaction takes much longer and runs the risk of producing carbon dioxide and folic acid. Only a little gold is needed to help copper along, and elimates the dangerous by products. This exciting discovery could mean big changes for power usage to be cleaner and less greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.