8 Technologies for a Green Future (3)
2010-03-09

6. Sonic water purifier

Here's a sci-fi solution for an age-old problem that leaves 1.1 billion people without access to clean water: Beam ultrasound waves into polluted water, blowing up the cellular walls and carbon bonds of contaminants. What's left is a cool drink of fresh H2O.

Filters and chemicals are normally used to purify dirty water, but researchers are experimenting with ultrasound technology as a cheaper alternative. Ultrasound waves have already been used to break up sewage in sanitation systems.

Now that the probes that produce the sound waves are getting more powerful, however, scientists are retooling the devices to decontaminate large tanks of water, a process called sonolysis.

The goal is twofold. First, portable sonolysis machines could be deployed to isolated villages in developing countries. In urban areas, meanwhile, sonolysis could treat water tainted with industrial pollution. Scientists like Villanova University's Rominder Suri are studying how sound waves can break down chemicals into less harmful components, detoxifying wastewater.

7. Endangered-species tracker

Old: Save the whales! New: Web 2.0 those whales, and then clone 'em! There are more than 16,000 known threatened animal and plant species; their plights worsen each year as deforestation, development, and climate change take their toll.

Conservationists are looking to tag endangered animals like the Amazon's piglike white-lipped peccary with radio frequency ID tags and GPS sensors, and then use Web 2.0 mashup techniques to overlay their locations and map details of their habitats and habits with other landscape features. The plan is to identify and design better wildlife preserves to ensure the survival of species edging toward extinction.

California utility Pacific Gas & Electric (Charts) is developing the electricity grid of the future, one that will look more like the Internet - distributed, interactive, open-source - than the dumb, one-way network of today that pushes dinosaur molecules from a carbon-spewing power plant to your home.