Designer Patty Yuan has stepped beyond the Segway by producing a two seat, two wheel, umm...covered chair thingy specifically for the future of China. I'm behind people innovating specifically for China. In general, I think China will require, and produce, a lot more innovations than any other part of the world in the next fifty years. If a gyroscopically controlled covered chair thingy is going to take off anywhere, it'll be China.

The thingy, is also called the "Camper Lotus" which made me think it was supposed to be dragged behind a bigger vehicle. It is not. What it is is both pretty and pretty cool. Any small vehicle is great, but they're better when their designed specifically for short trips and are electrically powered. China, with it's monstrous traffic problems and generally difficult to breathe air, needs some options between cars and bicycles. This...covered chair, might provide an excellent solution.

 

Via TreeHugger.com and Yanko

 

Sure you can purchase some cheesy solar powered lawn ornaments or make your gingrebread house with all organic wheat flour, but I've seen some better ideas floating around.

First on the list, Chrstmas trees. You may have heard that plastic trees, for all their reusability, aren't exactly environmental either.

So why don't we make our own re-usable Christmas tree?

The first, and most obvious option, is to create the Tree out of whatever is lying around your house that happens to be christmassy in coloration. For me, this is of course the mountain dew can, which are red and green, shiny, and plentiful.

There's a video of the innards of the tree after the jump, and check out MDewTree.com for the complete story on the construction of the tree.

 

Or, you can make your reusable christmas tree out of high-efficiency spinning LED lights. I mean, why not right? You can even include one of those annoying spinning message displays like this guy did.

 

 

Obviously, if light is shining through a solar cell, it isn't operating at it's full efficiency, right? Not exactly. If it's efficiency per unit of expensive silicon, absolutely not. Some slim-thinking guys at the Australian National University have created a solar panel that uses extremely thin slices of silicon that are still able to convert light into solar energy. These silicon slices have achieved 20% efficiency, which is great as long as the cell is cheap.

The good news is, by using very small amounts of silicon, they've kept the costs of the panels quite low. These thin film silicon cells are different than anything we've seen at EcoGeek and could be extremely promising in household applications such as nearly invisible, but electricity generating, window or roof linings.

Of course, there's no mention of price in their paper, and mass production is likely a long way off. But we're definitely keeping our eyes on these australians and their thin-film silicon technology.

Via ABC.net.au

 

We at EcoGeek don't talk a lot about genetically modified organisms. It's one basket where we're generally not prepared to put our journalistic eggs. Like nuclear power, we've never been certain whether genetic manipulation will come to more harm than good. Our policy on both is very similar to the Bush Administration's policy on climate change...more research is necessary.

But we're gonna go ahead and say that this is pretty cool. I honestly can't complain when scientists make yeast produce more ethanol more quickly from organic materials. We need more ethanol and we need to get it from cheap sources without a doubt. These little organisms can withstand higher sugar and ethanol concentrations and can convert sugars to ethanol more quickly.

We look forward to hearing more from these guys at MIT.

Via Science Daily

Sure, thousands of people die in car accidents each year. But, apparently, we don't care so much about that, because we keep driving anyhow. But it does upset me, and so does the waste involved when a vehicle gets totaled and sent to the scrap heap. Car crashes are a humongous waste of resources, and that's why EcoGeek takes notice when car companies attempt to prevent them with technology.

Apparently, some 2009 model Volvo's will contain 'City Safety' technology that incorporates a dashboard sensor and an automatic break. The car senses when you're approaching an object too quickly, and will apply the break for you. Now, while this might seem like handing over a bit too much control to the machines, I'd rather hand over the control than die proud. The fact is, almost all car accidents are caused by drivers not paying attention. If a car can keep an extra eye on the road for you, we're all for the decrease in vehicle scrap that might provide.

Via Engadget

 

I've just come across more cool EcoGeeky videos than I can handle all at once, so here's a roundup, which I've never done before, but maybe will do more in the future.

 

Starting out with something that could only happen in an American cookie-cutter suburb: A remarkably powerful go-kart built by a middle-aged man with NO BRAKES. Not clever.  Also, turn your speakers down because it makes some horrible noises when he starts peeling out.

 

 

 

Amazing light-weight three-wheeled car with a power-to-weight ratio rivaling a Ferrari, it's the Peugeot 20 Cup.

 

 

 

Check out CNN.com for a cute little report on vampire power at Christmas time. 

 

And these Japanese people seem to be doing something pretty amazing, I'm just not sure what. They're definitely pouring water into a car...and then the car goes. I've sent out some messages to Japanese speaking friends and am awaiting translations.

 

 

 

This video shows Tom Friedman hitting Tim Russert with a very well organized impassioned monologue on the future of green technology and the environmental movement. Frankly, this video makes me proud to be covering green technology and the future of the environmental movement here at EcoGeek. Thanks Tom.

 

Tom Freidman has been a columnist for the New York Times for about a long time now. He's won three Pulitzer prizes (when he won his first, I still thought they were Pullit Surprises (because I was three.)) He's probably the most influential newspaper columnist in the world and it is a very big deal that five of his last ten columns have been about energy and the green movement. 

 

For more on his environmental philosophies check out Charles Lockwood's recent interview with Tom Friedman. 

 

Finally, I suggest watching this excellent episode of Charlie Rose from May of this year. Charlie Rose isn't actually the interviewer, but John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a venture capital firm, does a fine job in his stead.  If you've got some free time, it's very worth watching.

 

Via Jetson Green 

 

No matter what you get for your loved ones this Christmas, you're likely to need some batteries for it. Whether the devices comes with on-board in a proprietary casing, or a "batteries no included" label, it's important to consider what juices your gifts.

First Rule of Holiday Power Supplies: Never buy anything that has standard batteries included. Alkalines are evill and, if they're included with a device, they are likely also horribly cheap and inadequate.

Second Rule: Avoid Alkalines. At all costs! Anything that is expensive, made of heavy metals and disposable is bad for you, your bank account and the environment. You don't have to bother as much with recycling if you use can re-use your batteries.

Third Rule: If you do use alkalines, buy an alkaline recharger. "Alkaline recharger?"  you ask?  Yes, they do exist, and though they're fairly expensive, they're great if you can remember to never charge them all the way down. At that point, the batteries become unusable. But if you keep some juice in them all the time, you'll have the batteries for 10 to 15 times longer.

Fourth Rule: Try to Stick with the standards. While on-board proprietary battery packs often provide more power per gram, they are more expensive to produce, and thus more expensive to replace. They're also a heck of a lot harder for the recycling folks to handle. If you're not dealing with a super-high powered, necessarily light-weight device, it's best to buy something that can take AA or AAAs.

 

And the Final Rule: PRECHARGE. There's nothing worse than that three-hour Christmas morning charge, when you know you've got a fancy new digicam, but you can't actually use it because the gift giver didn't have the courtesy to pre-charge some batteries for you.

Of course, the precharge can now be avoided if you include some Hybrio's on your christmas list. These standard-size rechargeable NiMH's hold their charge as well as alkalines and thus can be used the moment you open the package.

Finally, here's my battery ranking based on cost, performance, toxicity and recyclability.

1. Li-ion
2. NiMH
3. NiCD
4. Lead Acid (which you probably will never see anyway)
5. Alkaline

Note: Li-ion batteries do come in standard sizes, but shouldn't be used in unapproved devices.

All across the world, we've submerged forests. Huge areas of productive lands are buried beneath massive amounts of water every time we build a dam. And while we've mostly stopped building dams in America, those forests are still down there, preserved for decades, completely unproductive even as fish habitat.

One might ask "why didn't we clear-cut the forests before we damed the rivers." But Triton Logging is asking, and answering, a better question: "Why don't we clear-cut them now."

Triton Logging has created a submersible lumberjack, the Sawfish, which can latch itself onto the base of a submerged tree, and cut it 'down.'  I use quotation marks here because, in this case, the tree will actually be cut upwards. The sawfish connects inflatable bags to the trees, ensuring that, Instead of falling, the tree floats to the surface, where it can easily be floated to onshore processing plants.

Estimates of submerged timber in British Columbia alone reach five billion board-feet (7.5 billion feet of  2x4s) and the worldwide value of submerged timber approaches $50 billion.  A pretty good business opportunity, but it has yet to be seen if the sawfish, with it's multiple operators and high introductory cost, can make harvesting of long-dead forests profitable. But if it can, I'm planning on never buying wood from any other source.

 

Via TreeHugger

The Department of Energy has just confirmed that Boeing-Spectrolab has produced a solar cell that will convert sunlight to electricity at 40% efficiency. Boeing-Spectrolab has long been the leader in high-efficiency, high-cost solar panels. They've achieved 40% efficiency by using 'multijunction' solar cells that basically have several layers of photovoltaics, each one absorbing a different set of wavelengths of light.

The bad news is that cheaper solar cells, while creating less electricity per unit of sunlight, create more electricity per unit of moola. So, while the DOE press release talks a lot about hoping this will usher in 3 cent per watt solar, the chances of that are really really unlikely.

Applications in high-density solar industries (space, mostly) abound, but we might not see 40% efficiency on Earth for quite a long time.

Via the DOE

I'm not really the type for lawn art or even Christmas lights. But I've got nothing against them. OK, yes I do, they're a god-awful waste of energy. But they don't have to be! Check out this listing from the American Inventor Spot of solar powered Christmas decorations and I will officially stop giving you such a hard time.