Solar Power is cropping up in some weird places. While it'll take some time for sunlight to become the fuel of the future, already solar power is being adopted by individuals and communities you might not expect.
The city of Rizhao, for example, is a poor coastal city in China. While the per-capita income is significantly lower than surrounding cities, almost every flat surface is covered in solar panels. Of course, these aren't the electricity-creating kind, they're the hot-water-creating kind. 99% of the hot water in the city comes from roof-top solar, and all the streetlights are powered by photovoltaics. Though it's a poor city, Rizhao has turned solar power into an economic engine while becomming one of the ten cleanest cities in China.
And then there's the Amish. You wouldn't think that the Amish would be early adopters of anything (as many of them aren't ready to embrace innovations such as buttons on pants) but solar seems to be right up their alley. Amish families are the leading per-capita adopters of solar in Pennsylvania. Their values of self-sufficiency and moderation are served perfectly by the panels.
So, as it turns out, poor people in China and the Amish are leading the way into the future. It's about time we caught up.
OK, I know where I want to live. I've been thinking about Georgia for a while, but I dread the labyrinthine freeway system of Atlanta. But the new Aquarius Tower in downtown Atlanta offers more than any other American building I've seen yet.
Yes, it's wired for high-speed internet and surround sound. Yes, it has a robotic car parking system that decreases driving time. Yes all 113 units have south-facing windows overlooking Centennial Park. But the building also has integrated wind turbines and solar panels decreasing the amount of power residents pull from the grid.
The wind turbines are specially integrating into the building. In fact, the building acts as kind of a wind-collector, that channels and concentrates winds into the turbines.
Of course, the one bedroom units are $300,000, and the penthouses top out at $2.5 million. But it's safe to say that it's a good investment. If all goes well, we can all start moving in at the end of 2009.
Ethanol gets a lot of attention as the biofuel of choice in America. But BP claims that butanol will provide greater benefits than ethanol and is betting at least some of their chips on it as the gasoline-alternative to watch out for.
Butanol's advantages over ethanol arise from its gasoline-like properties. A criticism of ethanol is the reduction in mileage per gallon because it has 2/3 the energy density of gasoline. Butanol, on the other hand, has more than 80% energy density of gasoline. Also, traditional fuel pipelines can not be used with ethanol since water mixes into it, but Butanol does this to a lesser extent and so could be used with more existing infrastructure. Best of all, butanol can be made from the same feedstocks as ethanol: corn starch, sugar beets, and other sugar starches.
BP currently has partnered with DuPont to find better ways to make butanol. They note that ethanol has taken a long time gain a foothold, and so butanol likely will not be available for quite some time.
Whatever the reason, if butanol really is better than ethanol, there is no reason why there should not be space for it in the world's search for cleaner energy.
Honda's Insight was great and all, but nobody wants a two seat car these days. So while the hybrid Accord is certainly an exciting addition, what's more awesome is Honda competing where we expect them to: with cheap cars for younger people.
Which is why they might be putting the Insight's engine into the Honda Fit. The Fit is already selling fairly well, as a stylish five door for way under $20k. And it already gets good gas mileage. But with the Insight's well tested and now fairly inexpensive drive train between its wheels, it could be boosted into the 60 mile per gallon range while staying a very inexpensive car.
But, as we reported earlier this month, Honda is also producing a small, cheap, full hybrid model in 2009. And that car is definitely not the Fit. So, while some executives at Honda have been talking up the Fit hybrid, its future seems unclear. I almost expect the Fit to go hybrid without much fanfare and be sold for around %15k, while the new, all-hybird model will be larger with more bold styling, and sell for slightly more.
But, by this point, it's all conjecture. In any case, the future of Honda's hybrids will be exciting, and we're not-so-patiently awaiting some real, hard news.
Mayor Micheal Bloomberg is about to announce that every Taxi in New York City will be a hybrid in a mere five years.
Holy Moly. I guess these are the kinds of things you have to do quickly if you want your city to produce 30% less carbon in a mere 30 years. Bloombergs plan will see a 20% increase in hybrid taxis every year for the next five years.
The current standard taxi, the Crown Victoria, gets about 14 mpg in the city. It'll be replaced by a wide variety of new taxis, from the smaller Prius, to the Ford Escape hybrid SUV. 13,000 Taxis is a lot to replace, but apparantly a 20% per year churn is about what taxi companies deal with in New York, so, basically, every new cab they buy will have to be a hybrid.
Looks like those yellow cabs might have to have a splash of green after all.
Here's some good news. Yahoo's new green properties (Yahoo Green and Be a Better Planet) have launched and are already sucking in the users.
As Yahoo is so fond of saying, they have access to around 500,000,000 unique visitors a month and, because of that, have a great deal of power. Which is why I'm so excited that EcoGeek is providing content to Yahoo Green. EcoGeek, with our premium, grade-A content is in high demand these days, but we figured that the folks at Yahoo! needed some good EcoGeeky updates.
Even cooler, we were able to talk with Yahoo! co-founder David Filo last week in preparation for the launch. Though Filo is a known green, he attributed Yahoo's recent green interest mostly to employees, who are allowed to take off time from their regular duties to work on "Yahoo for Good" projects. Filo said the Green Team pretty much materialized on it's own, and that they've been putting together projects like these for over a year now.
But obviously, these new projects, with full support of Yahoo! and 10 hybrid taxis donated to New York City, are the biggest yet. Though Filo doesn't take any credit personally, he did say that he views environmental education as one of Yahoo's responsibilities.
"We're in a unique position and we take that responsibility seriously."
Ryan Lipscomb was biking home from school when a delivery truck turned in front of him. Ryan slammed on his brakes, fell off his bike and slid underneath the wheel of the truck, which then drove over his head.
Ryan is fine.
"I didn't see it coming, but I sure felt it roll over my head. It feels really strange to have a truck run over your head."
Yeah...ok...I'll take his word for it. Obviously there's a lot of luck here, but also some good technology. Though his helmet was crushed, it managed to protect him enough to keep his brains on the inside of his head. While he's got all kinds of scrapes and a concussion, he is not dead and that makes me want to write a nice letter to the folks that make bike helmets.
Popular Mechanics just spent a bit of time with the "Stealth Motorcycle." This all-electric motorcycle is powered 100% by lithium ion batteries and can be charged with any wall socket. Though the max speed of 50 mph makes the current model good only for city driving, it's exciting for two reasons.
First, because I live next to a fairly busy street and thus love the idea of a quiet motorbike. And second, because it looks, for all the world, like a regular vehicle. It didn't hop off the pages of a Manga, it isn't bright green or yellow. It looks an awful lot like a regular motorcycle. It shouldn't be an innovation to be excited about, but it's about time electric vehicles started looking normal. ]
A re-usable water bottle is part of the attire of any serious enviro. But its uses are limited and, frankly, they aren't that cool. Which is why we're pretty excited about this solar powered, water bottle lamp. Using a photovoltaic cell on the top of the cap and LEDs on the bottom, the LightCap becomes a lamp as well as a bottle. It seems pretty well thought out, even including a switch that turns on a low drain red LED allowing you to keep it on during the night. Also a light sensor on the cap turns the light off when it isn't dark.
The bottle holds 32 oz of liquid goodness and the battery will last at least 300 cycles. Of course, it is a little pricier than most bottles at $24.95. The only element we question is their use of toxic Cadmium batteries. Metal hydrides are so cheap these days that that seems like an unfortunate oversight.
But if you want an absolutely indispensable water bottle that will impress all your EcoGeek friends, this is probably your best bet.
EcoGeek loves giant metaphors. In New York, an area called the Iron Triangle - it's in Queens near Shea Stadium and is presently home to auto shops and a ton of pollution - may be in the sights of the old eco-rifle. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg would like to see the area overhauled and turned into a "vibrant, mixed-use neighborhood" in the city's largest ever green development project.
From the Mayor's office:
"Through the remediation of heavily contaminated land, the use of innovative green building technologies and the development of considerable parks and open space, Willets Point can and will serve as a model for sustainable development."
Knocking out auto shops and replacing it with sustainably-built homes and other businesses? Replacing some 1,300 jobs with over 6,000? And a Republican's calling for it? EcoGeek needs a drink.
With temperatures on the rise we're on the lookout for new technologies that can help us keep cool and save energy too. One new tech is the refrigerant known as "R-718", or more commonly "Water Vapor".
But you've got to ask: How does it work? Is it efficient, and if it is so cool why doesn’t everyone use it?
It turns out water refrigeration been around for a long time. In Europe they have used it for years, primarily driven by their high energy prices. R718 can be more efficient than our current refrigerants (R134A for example), but it takes a special type of compressor to make it work. The compressors used in Europe use titanium turbines. Expensive titanium is used because R718 compressors have to spin very fast to get the right pressures. In Europe where the energy costs are relatively high, R718 makes good economic sense. Here in the United States, with historically cheap energy it takes too long to recover the initial expense through energy savings. That is ’till now.
The Stratos Company LLC (of which I am president) is working with Prof. Norbert Muller of Michigan State University on the development of a novel R718 air conditioner that is very inexpensive. The key to success has been the development of a special turbine that is made in a very cleaver way such that you can substitute relatively cheap carbon fiber plastic for titanium!
No expensive metal, no toxic refrigerants and more efficient designs. Who knew that it was all possible with water?
Hey, maybe we're a little behind on this, but we wanted you to know that your phones aren't killing bees. There was a flurry of ecogeeky concern--one friend of ours went into graphic (and yet still very boring) detail--that cell phone frequencies were confusing bees and causing them to die.
And so it is with glee that EcoGeek types the following sentence:
Carbon credits. Kind of like gift certificates for your conscience, aren't they? But can we actually buy our way to a better planet? The New York Times recently explored the hipness of being "carbon-neutral" via purchasing carbon credits and came away less than impressed. Noting that:
A largely unregulated carbon-cutting business has sprung up. In this market, consultants or companies estimate a person's or company's output of greenhouse gases. Then, these businesses sell 'offsets,' which pay for projects elsewhere that void or sop up an equal amount of emissions — say, by planting trees or, as one new company proposes, fertilizing the ocean so algae can pull the gas out of the air. Recent counts by Business Week magazine and several environmental watchdog groups tally the trade in offsets at more than $100 million a year and growing blazingly fast.
Some folks say it's a nice, symbolic gesture to buy carbon credits, but not much more. The real work, they say, is in cutting energy use or just using renewable energy rather than paying off our debt to the environment with the wrong kind of green.
Where do you stand? Hard-liner? Credit buyer? A little of each?
Science, technology gadgets and...baby seals. We're in a bit of an eco-mess, but we've got the brains to lick any problem. And that's why EcoGeek.org publishes up to ten stories daily about innovations that are saving the planet.
And if that sounds interesting to you, then congratulations, you're an EcoGeek.
