The bugs were Gates’ example of a living “energy miracle” – the kind we’ll need to solve the enormous energy problems that face mankind. Some perspective, from his speech: even if we were to maximise energy efficiency and limit the impact of population size, we’d still be emitting 13 billion tons of carbon annually from energy production.

So what’s his solution? First: excluding coal and natural gas altogether from our energy future. Instead, the focus needs to be on carbon capture, nuclear, wind and solar power. In particular, Gates singled out depleted uranium supplies as having the potential to power the US for centuries. The technology is possible; it’s just not being funded.

Despite advances in nuclear power – and particularly the regulation thereof – the idea of nuclear energy still makes Americans skittish. So if Gates is serious about wanting this to happen, he’s going to have to do more than open up his wallet. He’s going to have to change our perception entirely. [CNN Tech]

[GigaOM Pro via Treehugger]

His lithium hydroxide CO2 scrubber broke, allowing the lethal gas to build up to dangerous levels. Lithium hydroxide is a corrosive alkali hydroxide, a white hygroscopic crystalline material that is used in filters to purify air. Cassidy didn’t notice any apparent effect, but the spacewalk came to a sudden ending after Houston noticed that things weren’t right at all inside his suit.

His words after getting into the ISS airlock: “I’m just going to sit here and wait for Dave and enjoy the view.”

Balls of titanium, I tell you. [Aviation Week]

The units, demo versions of which already exist (this is assuredly not a concept), take CO2 in from the air and turn it into liquid, which is easier to store and manage. Professor Klaus Lackner, lead developer, notes that the synthetic trees are not designed to replace, say, coal plants that reduce emissions from the inside, but this could be one very useful plastic plant if it sees mass production. [CNN]

Furthermore, the trees inside the structure would be nourished using a windmill-powered pump system, so it would not significantly contribute to our energy consumption. Would something like this actually work? Maybe—that is until the wind kicks up and we have trees falling all over the streets of L.A. [Core77]

The carbon dioxide is the main reason for the excitement because, under the right circumstances, it could have a connection to biological activity as it does on Earth. The very fact we are able to detect it and estimate its abundance is significant for the long-term effort of characterising planets to find out what they are made of and if they could be a possible host for life.

Until now, the Hubble was mostly used for observations of stars and galaxies in the distant universe. However, the new analysis method created by Mark Swain, a research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., uses the space telescope’s near infrared camera and multi-object spectrometer to make these findings.

The technique requires the planet to block its star. At that time, the light of the star could be subtracted from the light of the star and the planet prior to the eclipse. That way, scientists can analyse the chemical composition of the planet’s atmosphere by looking at the resulting light, because the gases “absorb certain wavelengths of light from the planet’s hot glowing interior”.

According to NASA, HD 189733b is too hot to actually have life (at least, life as we know it), but the method opens the door to the discovery of life in distant solar systems.

As if Tom wasn’t proof enough that aliens actually exists. [NASA]

The scrubber takes in air and binds the CO2 to sodium hydroxide. The heavier concoction is then sent through a few more chemical intermediaries, eventually resulting in a batch of separated CO2 that can be piped away, while the hydroxide gets fed back into the machine.

According to the university, the scrubbers can capture around a ton of carbon dioxide for less than 100 kwh of electricity, about ten times as much CO2 as was released to keep it running. Unfortunately, that’s not quite enough to keep it from being prohibitively expensive. The cheapest way to keep CO2 emissions out of the air is still not generating it in the first place. [Popsci]