Henry Daniell, a scientist from the University of Central Florida has developed a method of using household waste materials to produce ethanol.
Sources claim his approach could be greener and less expensive than current methods used to fuel vehicles which are powered by the substance.

The Engineer reports Daniell’s method has been used on products such as orange peel and newspaper, but can also be applied to products such as sugarcane, straw and switchgrass.

The method uses plant-derived enzymes to break down materials into sugar which can then be fermented into ethanol. Currently corn starch is used in the fermentation process and conversion into ethanol but this method is believed to produce more greenhouse gas emissions than petrol.

200 million gallons of ethanol could be produced from the discarded orange peels of Florida state alone, said Daniell.

British Airways have revealed a plan to create Europe’s first sustainable jet fuel plant which will convert household waste into environmentally-friendly aviation fuel.

In a partnership with US bioenergy group solena, British Airways will set up the new plant in east London claims eTravel and hope to be able to power part of its fleet by 2014 with the greener, low-carbon fuel.

The plant will convert roughly 500,000 tonnes of waste materials from households into some 16 million gallons of green jet fuel via a process that offers lifecycle greenhouse gas savings of up to 95 per cent compared to fossil-fuel derived jet kerosene.

The environmental savings would see the equivalent of 48,000 cars being removed from the roads each year.

In addition to the fuel conversion, using household waste would also lessen the impact on the volume of waste sent to landfill sites, as well as cutting down on the production of methane. The project will also see 20MW of electricity generated each year.

Willie Walsh, British Airways’ chief executive, said: “This unique partnership with Solena will pave the way for realising our ambitious goal of reducing net carbon emissions by 50 per cent by 2050. We believe it will lead to the production of a real sustainable alternative to jet kerosene. We are absolutely determined to reduce our impact on climate change and are proud to lead the way on aviation’s environmental initiatives.”

Anti-whaling activists and Japanese whalers have exchanged hostile water cannon fire in the Antarctic Ocean as two activists’ boats tailed the Japanese whaling fleet in an attempt to foil the killing of any whales.

Wales Online report that the Sea Shepherd conservation group said its ships – the Steve Irwin and the Bob Barker – had surprised the Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru early yesterday.

Each year, the US-based activist group sends vessels to confront the Japanese whaling fleet and two collisions have already occurred this year alone.

Japan’s hunt for whales is allowed under world whaling regulations as a scientific expedition even though commercial whaling is banned.

The government has unveiled a new shatterproof pint glass which it hopes will help to save billions of pounds in healthcare costs says the Huffington Post.

The glasses are designed to prevent them being used as weapons when smashed and the government has developed two prototypes of the new barware. The government plans to introduce the new glasses for use on a voluntary basis in pubs, providing tests show the glasses’ durability, safety and cost-effectiveness.

With around 87,000 alcohol-related glass attacks each year, the new glasses have been met with a positive reaction by alcohol concern charities and groups with healthcare costs incurred by attacks resulting in hospital treatment being estimated at around £2.7 billion.

Harry Potter star Emma Watson – Hermione Grainger in the films based on the books by JK Rowling – has launched a fashion range in collaboration with People Tree, a sustainable fashion label to produce environmentally friendly clothes and accessories reports Edie.

The range is scheduled to launch next week (February 8th) and Emma acted as creative advisor on the designs which includes jerseys, t-shirts, dresses and trousers among others. The range will be available to both men and women.

Emma previously also fronted advertising campaigns for Burberry.

The People Tree line will use 100% organic and fair-trade cotton, and will be made entirely by hand by fair-trade groups in India, Bangladesh and Nepal.

A Japanese company has developed a fire alarm that alerts hearing-impaired people by emitting the odour of WASABI!

The pungent foodstuff was chosen from a host of different scents during tests to determine which odour would cause people to wake the fastest from their slumber. It was found that wasabi – Japanese horseradish – acted quickest with almost all the test subjects waking within 2-and-a-half minutes of first exposure.

Wasabi contains a substance called allyl isothiocyanate – the same substance as found in mustard – and further tests were required to find the appropriate amount of odour release required without causing people’s eyes to water – which could hinder peoples’ attempts to escape a fire.

The alarm, which measures 21cm by 8cm and weighs just half-a- kilogram was developed by the Japanese fire extinguisher company Air Water Safety Services and has already been sold to residential homes for the elderly as well as hotels says the Daily Telegraph online.

It wouldn’t work for this writer, however, as the scent of wasabi is likely to lead to the kitchen rather than any escape point!

‘Apprentice’ star Howard Ebison is in training to run Derby’s 10k run in memory of a fellow contestant’s mum, who died of cancer; he also hopes to run in the London Marathon.

Ebison finished sixth in 2009’s edition of the BBC series, becoming a casualty of Sir Alan Sugar’s boardroom after choosing low-risk products as product manager in his team’s shopping channel challenge.

But Ebison, who moved to Derby in 2008 to live with his partner is aiming now to be a hit and raise £3,000 by running both the Derby race and the London Marathon in aid of the MacMillan Cancer Support charity and in memory of the mother of his fellow Apprentice rival James McQuillan.

Both James and Yasmin Siadatan – the series’ eventual winner – will join Howard in the Derby run.

Edie.net reports that a Peterhead firm have been fined following an explosion in May 2008, which sent cement powder into the air and falling onto homes and businesses up to two kilometres away.

The firm, CEBO UK, has pled guilty to a charge of breaching its Pollution Prevention and Control (PPC) permit and ordered by Peterhead Sheriff Court to pay court costs plus a fine of £14,000.

The explosion was caused when a silo broke due to poor maintenance. It was found that the silo’s hatch lid retaining brackets were badly corroded during a SEPA investigation. It also found silo maintenance records weren’t up to date and the silo should not have been in use.

Cement, although in common use, is an abrasive powder which can cause damage and harm to the environment, human health and property, said SEPA’s investigating officer Martyn Howie.

Google’s new Nexus One mobile phone could become embroiled in a legal battle over its name. According to a report on Sky News, the family of sci-fi author Phillip K. Dick have reportedly asked Google to stop using the Nexus One name.

For geeks among us, they will know the connection between the two, but for those who don’t here’s an explanation.

Phillip K. Dick is the cult sci-fi author responsible for the book ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ which formed the basis for the film ‘Bladerunner’, starring Harrison Ford. In the book, a bounty hunter known as Nexus 6 (or six) chased down cyborgs. In the film, Nexus Six was a class of ‘replicant’ – a cyborg designed to look human.

Google’s phone, which was launched earlier in the week and has created a large amount of buzz, runs Google’s Android operating system.

The family of Phillip K. Dick claim intellectual-property infringement by Google and have asked the search giant to stop using the name, claiming there is a clear association between the characters of Dicks’ work and the name for Google’s latest creation.

Google have so far refused to comment on the claims by Dicks’ family, but say the name has nothing to do with the author’s work and that their use of the word ‘Nexus’ was used in its original sense, as a place where things converge.

Despite man’s ability to put a man on the moon and send satellites into the far reaches of space, the deepest parts of earth’s own ocean are still shrouded in mystery; indeed it’s probably true that scientists’ maps of Mar’s surface is more detailed that any map they possess of the ocean floor.

Scientists attribute this to the inherent difficulty of communicating with robots and submarines beneath the sea, due to the intense pressure, currents and even marine life that form part of the ocean’s deeper reaches.

However, in order to address this problem, scientists developed the new NEPTUNE network, which went online Wednesday 8^th December.  The deep-sea network will stream data collated from hundreds of undersea instruments, sensors and probes and stream them direct to the internet direct from the ocean floor.

The network consists of a 497-mile ring of fibre-optic cable, situated off the Canadian coast and features five nodes which act as routers to transmit data to the internet.  Each node is encased in a 6.5 ton cage to protect it from fishing trawlers, sea vessels and giant squids.

The network is expected to produce around 50 terabytes of data each year, all of which will inform scientists about everything from earthquake dynamics to the effects of climate change on the water column, and from deep-sea ecosystems to salmon migration.  It will also study gas hydrate deposits which are found along the continental margin and the effects deep-sea fishing can have on benthic communities and marine life as fishermen cast their nets wider and deeper.