What could be more American than a railroad?  It was but a short step from the widely hyped joining of the eastern and western ends of the nation’s first transcontinental railroad in 1869 with a symbolic golden railroad spike to the mania for staged train crashes throughout the later 19th century,  followed quickly by what is widely acknowledged to be the first silent movie that followed a narrative, 1903’s The Great Train Robbery, to action-comedy genius Buster Keaton’s fact based 1927 epic The General to countless film noir productions leading up to Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train and North by Northwest, and so on and so forth to 1985’s much-underlooked Runaway Train.

And after the 1980’s?  Phooey!  Our fascination with the public drama of rail travel stalled, a victim of the same hyper-consumerist trends that gave rise to McMansions, Hummers, and outdoor air conditioning.  Well, get ready for a railroad revival because just as the emerging green economy is getting up steam, our long overlooked rail systems are jumping into a more energy efficient future – with a little help from organized labor, too.

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In yet another example of the U.S. military leading the civilian world into a healthier and less fossil fuel reliant future, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is aiming to qualify for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification for the new energy efficient office complex at Fort Belvoir in Virginia.  The complex was initially designed to meet a lesser standard but the Department of Defense has developed a policy of going beyond minimal compliance with environmental regulations, in order to stimulate more aggressive action on environmental security by the public sector particularly in regard to climate change.

USACE Commanding General Lt. Gen. Robert Van Antwerp recently blogged about the Corps’s sustainability policy with a quote from one of his predecessors: “Environmental ethics and values must be more than an overlay.  They must be a bone-deep part of our way of doing business.”  Van Antwerp has also noted that climate change is “a very real concern that could have very real consequences all over the world.”  That doesn’t leave much wiggle room for supporting our troops in the drill baby drill ethos but then again, that’s the whole point.

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The U.S. Office of Naval Research has awarded a $400,000 grant to desalination tech leader NanoH2O, to develop a high efficiency desalination nanomembrane that is more resistant to fouling.  The effort, part of the Navy’s Future Naval Capabilities program, is aimed at increasing energy efficiency and portability for shipboard use. The NanoH2O grant also dovetails with the U.S. Navy’s focus on addressing climate change issues through its Task Force Climate Change program.

In contrast to climate science deniers like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other key organizations representing the interests of fossil fuel industries, the U.S. Department of Defense is moving aggressively to prepare for a future that is far more sustainable and energy efficient, and far less dependent on fossil fuels.  Hey, if those business “leaders” aren’t going to support our troops, they could at least get out of the way while everybody else is busy working.

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Working with the social investment group FEMSA, the government of Chiapas, Mexico is introducing sustainable disinfection technology to 175 local water systems, in support of the United Nations’ Millenium Development Goals partnership to reduce extreme poverty, hunger and disease.  The new systems will be installed by MIOX Corp., a water treatment company that specializes in producing disinfection chemicals on site from salt, water and electricity rather than going the conventional route of trucking in supplies of chlorine.

By ditching chlorine shipments, the MIOX system significantly reduces the carbon footprint of transportation and  fuel consumption.  As for an overall improvement in sustainability, a few tweaks in the system could make an enormous difference.

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In their ever expanding drive to create a more sustainable military, the various branches of the U.S. armed forces have entered some interesting new territories, from wastewater recycling to weed-powered jet planes (okay so biofuel powered jet planes).  Now the U.S. Army Research Office has upped the ante with funding for a new technology that could drastically reduce the energy consumed by ceramics manufacturing.

At first glance the Army’s interest in ceramics may seem somewhat off base but in addition to its usefulness in the manufacture of coffee mugs, ceramic material plays a significant role in military equipment such as ceramic body armor and heat shields, as well as numerous other uses including insulators and spark plugs.

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When it comes to the future of computing, why not skip the middleman?  That’s the basic idea behind Skinput, a technology that skips the whole notion of using manufactured touchpads or keyboards to interface with electronic devices.  What could be more simple, elegant and sustainable than using your own skin, which you already have, which lasts a lifetime, and which you will never leave behind in a taxi?  Skinput was developed by a team headed by Carnegie Mellon University student Chris Harrison, as a way to enable people to manipulate ever-smaller electronic devices.

Though new technologies are bringing us closer to molecular-sized computers, the size of touchpads and keyboards is still somewhat limited by the size of the average human finger.  Freed from that equation, electronic devices like phones and MP3 players could shrink down to truly microscopic sizes – and that could have some important implications for e-waste, energy efficiency and the sustainable future of electronics.

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Almost 50 years ago, Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore came up with a little idea called Moore’s Law, which basically says that computer processors roughly double in efficiency every two years due to advances in technology along with affordability.  So how much smaller, faster and cheaper can computers go?  Lots, if graphene, the nanomaterial of the new millennium, has anything to say about that.

Discovered just a few years ago, graphene is only the thickness of one atom but it scores on strength and it can function as a conductor.  One difficulty to overcome, though, is manipulating “raw” graphene on an atomic level to create a useful material.   With support from the National Science Foundation, researchers at the University of South Florida have accomplished a breakthrough of sorts by developing a way to form precise graphene “nanowires” that are just a few atoms across.

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So who knew? The manufacture of cooking oil involves hexane, a solvent that separates the oil from crushed seeds.  Hexane is a volatile organic compound found in gasoline.  Hexane is also a degreaser used in the printing industry.  It dissolves glues, varnishes, and inks.  Aside from the ick factor of having the same compound used to dissolve glues and inks pop up in the production of your bake sale items, hexane is a pollutant that contributes to smog and greenhouse gas emissions.

This is where Queens University of Ontario, Canada comes in.  Researchers there have discovered a new energy efficient way to use the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide to help separate oils from seed and vegetable crops including corn, canola, peanut safflower, sunflower, and soybean.  That’s the sustainable twofer we’re so fond of: a new twist on a conventional process that reduces negative impacts while providing a remedy for additional problems as well.

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Pittsburgh-based Alcoa and the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory have partnered up to take us another step closer to low cost solar power.  The lab is hosting a test run of Alcoa’s new concentrating solar power technology, which was designed to be competitive in the U.S. energy market partly due to a low cost, energy efficient process.  It could also result in more green jobs in manufacturing – if the company takes advantage of opportunities in the U.S.

Conventional solar technology relies on glass mirrors, and glass is not Alcoa’s area of expertise.  That would be aluminum, one of the world’s most inexpensive and abundant metals.  In addition to its other advantages Alcoa notes that aluminum can be “infinitely recycled” (nicely put!), which is something to think about for future sustainability because at this rate the world will soon be awash in solar panels.

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Buffy step aside, there’s a new vampire slayer in town.   AT&T is gunning for those notorious energy-sucking cell phone chargers known as “energy vampires.”  The company is introducing a new energy saving cell phone charger that automatically shuts down when the battery is charged.  Old-school chargers keep bleeding energy out of your wall socket even after you unplug the phone end.  An automatic shutdown might seem like a small deal but all that wasted electricity adds up over time.

There other other ways defeat a vampire charger (unplug it from the wall when your phone is charged, duh), but who remembers to do that?  Besides, AT&T’s new charger has some bonus sustainability tricks up its sleeve.

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