Articles by Sarah Laskow

World's second tallest structure will power 100,000 homes a day with hot air

If a clean energy project in the Arizona desert goes forward, the second tallest structure on Earth will be a 2,600-foot solar updraft tower, which could last 80 years and generate 200 MW of electricity each day -- using only hot air. (Insert your own joke about how we could power Cleveland with Bill O’Reilly.)

The tower works on the principle that hot air rises. In this case, it rises through the tower, turning turbines as it goes. The tower uses no water, and it works pretty much all the time, unlike wind and solar projects. (At night, the ground is still letting off the heat it captured during the day, so there's still hot air available to float upward.)
 

Take a video tour of UMD’s prize-winning Solar Decathlon house

The Chesapeake Bay's sad state has yielded on positive result: the bay ecosystem inspired the  University of Maryland's "WaterShed" house, which won the Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon over the weekend.

You can take a tour of the house above. WaterShed features solar panels, a green roof, a rain harvesting system, solar thermal water heating, sink and shower water filtration, "constructed wetlands" instead of gardens, and an indoor waterfall (!) that helps control humidity.

Critical List: Green jobs program flounders; India calls Monsanto out on biopiracy

Oof. Only 10 percent of people the Labor Department trained for green jobs have found work.

Using solar energy to extract oil must be the ultimate example of greenwashing.

In Afghanistan, networking generators together can relieve 7,900 fuel trucks of their duties and keep soldiers from risking their lives to bring oil into the country.

These hairy crazy ants are invading America and they do not screw around

Start playing the video above, and after you're suitably grossed out by the close-ups, skip to about 0:45. These are insects called hairy crazy ants -- that is what they’re really called -- and they are terrifying. How do they move that fast? 

These guys are invading the American South. They are called hairy, because their bellies are hairy. They are called crazy, because they move crazy fast, and also they are crazy with nothing to lose. And they're hard to kill.