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Written by Gavin D.J. Harper
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Friday, 08 September 2006 |
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Innovative British Consultancy XCO2 has come up with an novel design of urban wind turbine that it believes will help wind power acheive better market penetration than other designs.
The aesthetic of the design differs significantly from the traditional horizontal axis turbine that we're used to seeing, but breaks with the tradition of horizontal axis turbines by being both vertically oriented and also helical in shape.
Named the Quiet Revolution 5, to reflect its low noise design features, the turbine incorporates a number of features into its design that are designed to minimise the audible intrusion generated in operation.
More after the jump.
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Written by Gavin D.J. Harper
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Friday, 08 September 2006 |
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 You might have read about innovative UK consultancy XCO2's innovative quiet revolution urban turbines. Well, they have another trick up their sleeve in the form of their ground-breaking display turbines.
These turbines rely on the theory of persistence of vision – our brains ability to fuse many fast, static, images into a single moving image.
The theory is simple. The wind turbine blade has embedded within an array of light-emitting elements – high powered L.E.D's for example. These are coupled to an embedded processor, which controls these L.E.D's. For multi-coloured displays, the outputs of a red, green and blue L.E.D can be fused by the eye into a single coherent image.
When we finally start to invite wind turbines into the city, they might carry advertisements and information as we've never seen them before.
More after the jump.
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Written by Philip Proefrock
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Thursday, 07 September 2006 |
Southwest Research Institute is developing a new membrane technology to be used for extracting hydrogen for use in fuel cells and other
hydrogen-fueled applications. One of the biggest obstacles to the advent of
the "Hydrogen Economy" is the difficulty acquiring large amounts of hydorgen. Electrolysis (shocking water into hydrogen and oxygen) is not efficient and extracting hydrogen from fossil fuels has proven very difficult.
"Hydrogen is costly to produce or to separate from gas mixtures, such
as reactor effluent or waste streams, due to the high capital and energy
expenditures associated with compression, heat exchange, cryogenic
distillation, and pressure swing adsorption (PSA)." So, basically, it's really hard to pull hydrogen out of a mixture of other gasses.
But this ultra-thin, metallic membrane of palladium
alloyed with other metals enables hydrogen from coal
gassification to pass through, but prevents other gasses from contaminating it.
Using a membrane to filter hydrogen would make it possible to produce hydrogen
without the need for expensive and energy-consuming refining equipment, making
hydrogen a more economical possibility.
Think of a coffee filter, but with high-energy gasses.
We still hold some doubts about hydrogen being the best technology for future
energy needs, after all, we'd still need to mine the coal befor 'gassifying' it and EcoGeek will never promote coal mining. But this will undoubtedly help make it easier to produce hydrogen from other more environmentally friendly sources as well.
via: EC&M Magazine
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Written by Hank Green
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Wednesday, 06 September 2006 |
Toon Beerten, a guy with some LED experience, has put together an amazing 3 watt LED mood light pretty much from scratch. The device actually plugs into a wall socket, while his previous lamps have run off batteries. Using batteries actually significantly reduces the overall efficiency of any electronic device, so I like this one for that.
I also like it because it's really well done. He's programmed the LEDs to fade between colors, or go through a variety of transitions that he can control with an input. If I went over to his house, I'd probably assume he bought it from Target for fifty bucks.
Definitely a worthwhile project.
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Written by Hank Green
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Wednesday, 06 September 2006 |
Inhabitat has been running a amazing series called Green Building 101. Today, the series got ultra-ecogeeky with their Design Innovation segment. They list the top 10 eco-innovations for green living and I wanted to share them.
1. Living roofs and facades
2. Building-integrated photovoltaics
3. Light emitting diodes
4. Organic light emitting diodes
5. Rain water and grey water
6. Electrochromic Glass
7. Energy monitoring devices
8. Sunlight Transport
9. Structural insulated panels
10. Insulated daylight panels.
On the whole, I find each of these innovations very cool and very necessary. All of them (except OLED's) are available to consumers right now, and each of them have a strong place in the future of a sustainable world.
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Written by Philip Proefrock
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Wednesday, 06 September 2006 |
 A Concept Plan including several shape-shifting sky scrapers in Chicago. Photo: Tristan d'Estree Sterk, oframBFRA.com
Mostly we post about things that go into
buildings rather than the buildings themselves. But
greener buildings are a huge part of sustainable innovation. And on
the cutting edge are buildings that move beyond the current rigid and
static versions.
Some architects are looking at making the structures
of the buildings
themselves responsive and dynamic. First, this will allow
for lighter structures that use fewer building materials and can be
more responsive to the environment. This system would produce odd
looking buildings, but also
buildings that could dynamically respond to their environment to better
respond
to external forces such as wind and earthquakes.
Even cooler,
these buildings could change shape according to the needs of the
people. Imagine a building that can shrink at night, when no one's
around, and then expand dramatically at the coldest part of night to draw in all the fresh cool air. Or how about a building that continually
expands and contracts to improve ventilation, as if the building itself
were breathing. Or, to use an example from Tristan d'Estree Sterk from
the Office of Robotic Architectural Media, a house that can shake the
snow of its own roof.
Sterk is creating light-weight but robust "building
envelopes" using actuated tensegrity strctures. Basically, just a
series of rods, cables and pneumatic muscles that would give the
building it's shape-shifting capabilities.
 A concept actuated tensegrity structure. This model is fully programmable and responsive. Photo: Tristan d'Estre Sterk, oframBFRA.com
Buildings that twist in the wind can, themselves, become massive
wind power plants. Small inexpensive generators can be built in
creating devices that we've previously heard called "undulating kinetic
baffles." Whatever you call them, they produce power from the movement
of buildings in the wind, a force that was previously dreaded by
building designers. Or, the buildings could conceivably change
orientation, allowing wind to blow through them, increasing
ventillation and also possibly powering internal wind turbines.
This is the first we've heard about actuated tensegrity, but it won't be the last.
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Written by Hank Green
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Tuesday, 05 September 2006 |
 EcoGeeks have firm handshakes. Or, at least, they will once the get an
AladdinPower handheld and operated generator. Just squeeze the thing
and the juice starts flowing. It'll recharge anything up to the size
of a portable DVD player. You're not going to have much of an effect
on a laptop computer, but anything else is fair game.
The device comes with a built in high-powered light as well as a
cigarette lighter-type connector. So as long as you've got a car
charger for your device, you'll never run out of batteries again!
I've never actually gotten my hands on one of these, so I don't have
any idea how difficult it is to squeeze or how quickly it can charge a
device. But I do know that it'll set you back 60 bucks and could be
the secret ingredient in any of a thousand awesome DIY projects.
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Written by Hank Green
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Tuesday, 05 September 2006 |
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Below is an amazing scene from an amazing movie, You Cant Take it With
You. About half way through to film, Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur sit
down on a park bench and have a five minute conversation that covers
the meaning of life, the politics of fear, the future of solar power
and falling in love. It's five minutes long and has no cuts, just Jimmy
and Jean acting their hearts out. The longest piece of the scene is the
bit about solar power.
It was 1938, and Jimmy's character, Tony Kirby, had been
forced to decided between his utopian research and joining in his
families bank. This scene says a lot of things, but it's worth watching
just for the little bit about solar power, quoted below.
"We wanted to find out what made the grass
grow green. Now that sounds silly and everything, but it's the biggest
research problem in the world today and I'll tell you why. Because
there's a tiny little engine in the green of this grass, and in the
green of the trees, that has the mysterious gift of being able to take
energy from the rays of the sun and store it up. You see, that's how
the heat and power of coal and oil and wood is stored up.
"Well, we thought if we could find the secret of all those millions of
little engines in this green stuff, we could make big ones. And then
we could take all the power we'd ever need right from the sun's rays."
A quick look at the work being done with porphyrins shows us
that there's still a lot of work to be done. But, Tony Kirby, your work
continues!
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Written by Hank Green
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Tuesday, 05 September 2006 |
Usually when we talk about solar cells, there are just two varieties.
Silicon and thin film. Both were our ideas. We thought, "Well, if a
photon can knock an electron off a substance a plant made, why not a
substance people made." So we came up with substances that lose
electrons when hit with photons.
But, just now, when blogging about Jimmy Stewart and the future of
Solar Power as seen in 1938, I realized that EcoGeek has never once
mentioned what is still the future of solar power: Porphyrin. Instead
of creating our own substances that will lose electrons, some
scientists are using porphyrin, the chemical that plants use to convert
light into electricity.
Porphyrin chemistry is confusing and troublesome. And while it's been
going on for a while, practical applications are still a ways off.
But, when they do arrive, we can expect much broader capabilities from
solar power. Porphyrin complexes, for example, can be painted on in
huge swaths or incorporated into plastics. They're also two to three
times more efficient than anything silicon or thin film.
The Fresh Science Initiative has announced that a team in Sydney has
taken the first steps to practical organic solar cells. By attaching
hundreds porphyrin molecules to the outside of several bucky balls, the
team has managed to create a high enough density of porpharyn molecules
to produce a significant amount of electricity. Though they're
certainly in the first stages, it will be very exciting to follow their
progress.
Leaves are extremely efficient, inexpensive, and environmentally
neutral solar cells. It's in our best interest to figure out how they
do it as soon as possible so we can rid ourselves of our clumsy first
attempts at mimicking nature.
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Written by Hank Green
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Sunday, 03 September 2006 |
 We at EcoGeek have to keep
our eyes open all the time for good environmental news. Besides us and GreenGeek.ca, there's no
one service that provides specifically environmental
tech news, so we've got to prowl around a lot for good stories. Digg is great for tech with occasional green articles. But Hugg is great for green with occasional tech articles.
Hugg is technology for the environment, and I feel bad I haven't posted about them before. So thanks to the folks at TreeHugger for putting together an awesome environmental Digg-clone.
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Written by Hank Green
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Sunday, 03 September 2006 |
If you ever
wanted to get your hands on every single issue The New Yorker, but
were afraid of killing trees, fear no more! You can now purchase The Complete New Yorker, over 4000 issues, on a portable harddrive
for $300. This includes every cover, ever cartoon and every
advertisement since 1925. Nothing is left out. This is actually significantly
cheaper than it would be in print and, I dare say, much more
environmentally responsible. Not to mention much more manageable.
I am honestly not a huge fan of The New Yorker, but this move has broader
implications for publishing and media in general. What else might we
see in similar formats. They fit 4,000 issues of a magazine on an 80
gig harddrive, might we
soon see every issue of whole newspapers? And why stop at hard
drives. In another two years we could see a decade The New York Times
on a flash drive.
And why not bundle genres, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, and Scientific American on a something I can put in my pocket. Now that's something I'd pay $300 for.
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Written by Hank Green
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Sunday, 03 September 2006 |
 Quad Core technology is still about a year off, but AMD
is releasing a continuous stream of news relating to this next
generation of chips. While they haven't much discussed the clock
speeds (we imagine they will be sufficiently impressive,) what we are
hearing from AMD is more about efficiency.
AMD's focus on efficiency has created a huge shift in the processor industry. As Intel struggles to catch up, AMD
is doing everything in its power to ensure that its quad cores help
them continue their unquestioned leadership in terms of efficiency.
The main advantage of the quad core system is that some of the chips
can remain idle when not needed. Running one core at 100% and three at
30% provides a power savings of 40% over single core architecture.
Most of the time, a computer doesn't even need half of its power.
Full cores can even be completely shut down, decreasing power use even
more.
Via TGDaily
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