|
Written by Philip Proefrock on 31/07/06
|
 The Eurpoean Union is considering a mandate to require smart energy meters for homes. "A smart energy meter enables consumers to
check how much energy they are using and how much it will cost." The idea is that more informed power consumers will pay more attention to efficiency. Just like in-car efficiency meters effect driving styles, Smart Meters should effect living styles.
This is reminiscent of a competition
for a similar idea organized by Viridian Design back in 2000, for an
internal whole-house meter that would display how much power the house was using
at any given time. Viridian's intent was to have a display that would become
more interesting and beautiful as the house became increasingly efficient.
Along the same lines, there are also currently available websites for buildings with
photovoltaic arrays that display the net metering effects of the building. You
can see both the production of the solar panels and the demand from the
building, so you can see when the building is consuming more power than it
produces, and when it is "running the meter backwards" and producing more than
it consumes.
|
|
|
|
{mosimage}Okay, I admit it, I'm stretching from the Ecogeek mission of being gadget-friendly to help you all reconnect with the Earth by well ... eating it. Weed 'Em and Reap is the punnily-named offering from Roger Welsch that serves as an introduction to food you can eat right out of the ground. You'll learn about morels, cattails, and smut-fungus (ed: yikes), and also how to make wines, jams, and jellies. As I've mentioned, I'm in upstate New York dining on camp fare for my three squares a day, and I'm glad to have an arsenal of ideas if I head to the dining hall and see "Leftover Night!" scrawled on the small green chalkboard. Especially the dandelion wine, which sounds like the perfect drink at the end of a long summer day.
|
|
|
|
Written by Philip Proefrock on 29/07/06
|
 Skylights can be wonderful things. They give a house free and sustainable light and they add spaciousness to a room. But there's such a thing as too much light, especially during these warm summer months. For just this reason, manufacturers like Velux are beginning to produce skylights with electrochromic glass.
The glass itself has special layers of material which turn dark when an electrical current is applied. Instead of needing shades or blinds, the glass itself darkens and clears in order to control light levels. Some sizes are currentlyavailable and more are scheduled to be in production later in the year.
They are still several times the cost of a traditional skylight with a shade, but they could be especially useful in places where it is difficult to accessthe skylight. The shading provided is enough to cut glare, heat and UV coming through the window, but it does not a completely opaque the window.
Operating the windows takes only a small amount of electricity. "[I]t takesless electricity to operate a house full of SageGlass® products than to operate a single 40-watt light bulb." Of course, this would all make much more sense to us if it had some thin-film solar built in.
|
|
|
|
{mosimage}Well, color us happy. Just as we were tired of talking through the "is corn really an efficient form of fuel" debate, Maywa Company -- a manufacturer of agricultural and environmental equipment -- has developed a way that raw cotton can be used as fuel. The company carbonizes cotton waste stalks and leaves by cooking them for 30-40 minutes at 500-600 C in an oxygen-free environment. In the end the plants can supply 1,000 to 1,700 cubic meters of gas to a village of 250-500 homes -- enough fuel for household cooking. Even better, Maywa predicts the device will help reduce carbon dioxide and particulate emissions. They're targeting China and India, both of whom have thriving cotton industries.
|
|
|
|
Written by Philip Proefrock on 27/07/06
|
We've been considering this and we think maybe it's because wind tubines are kinda ugly.
Well, the American Wind Energy Association thought of this too. Recently they set up the first National Wind Art Exhibit in conjunction with their annual conference in Pittsburgh earlier this year. Although the conference has ended, the exhibit is still online. The idea here seems to be to celebrate the wind farm in art so that we can see how pretty they actually are. I think they're doing a pretty good job.
"Windfarm installation is controversial in many communities, largely due to the concerns the visual impact of turbines will have on the natural landscape. Enter REimaginations, which aims to elevate the discussion around the aesthetics of renewable power generation. Compared to polluting energy sources, the exhibit suggests, 21st century wind farms represent an elegant blend of form and function."
The first real-life foray into wind turbine aesthetics that we've seen is a Dutch proposal for "trees" with up to eight turbines on a single base stalk. These turbine trees have the potential to be the first visually interesting and pleasing wind power plants.
Did the people of Cape Cod complain when they put up light houses on their rocky points? No, because light houses are pretty. Well, if pretty's what they want, maybe it's about time to make wind turbines pretty too.
|
|
|
|
Written by Gavin D.J. Harper on 27/07/06
|
In
the heart of "Megawatt Valley" in the UK, the Climate Change Action
Camp is
threatening to close down Drax power station this August. Their
reason? Drax is the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide in the UK
throwing 20.8 million tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. Their
course of action? Er...Camping?
Whilst Drax is the biggest, it is also the most efficient coal
fired station in Europe, which leads me to question the group's motives. If
they're goal is to close power plants maybe they should start
with some older, smaller, more inneficient plants that are nearing the
end of their lifespan anyway.
The camp offers to raise awareness
of global warming, climate change and the impact that big carbon
emitters are having on our environment.
I appreciate the camp's sentiments - their
case is very valid... but the question remains "How Are They Going To
Shut Down Drax?" Expect a full report of whether they achieved
their aims and how it was done early September - don't touch that dial!
The camp will be wholly powered by renewable energy, the
logistics of renewably lighting and powering the enterprise may turn
out to be the most powerful part of the camp. As such, there are
opportunities for EcoGeeks to get involved, they will very likely need
your expertise. So if you are tech-savvy and fancy a week in Yorkshire,
get in touch with the camp organizers at :
|
|
|
|
{mosimage}
Panasonic, insistent on proving that its new oxyride batteries have been increased by 120% in terms of efficiency and longevity, decided to prove the batteries' buffness in a logical way -- by powering an airplane with them earlier this summer.
Hell-bent on showing off the batteries, the Tokyo Institute designed a glider plane that flew -- albeit, briefly -- on 100 of the oxyride batteries. While it's certainly not the "21st Century Wright Brothers" as they're already claiming, we'll certainly salute you with our battery-powered flashlight over our solar-panel charging monitor.
|
|
|
|
Written by Hank Green on 25/07/06
|
 Bill Joy, one of the founders of Silicon Valley giant Sun Microsysetms, was recently asked if there were going to be any more Googles.
His answer, "yes," and they will come from green technology. Oh man!
That's just about the most exciting thing we've heard since we started
this magazine! Bill Joy, someone who has proven himself to have the
ability to see when something new and amazing is on the horizon thinks
that green technology will give birth to the next Google.
Anyhow, Joy continues:
"John [Doerr] used to say
Google is the greatest legal creation of wealth, and I think the
greatest legal creation of wealth today is in the green area -- not
just in the U.S. but in the developed world. We have been looking at a
lot of things related to new fuels, such as ethanol, fuel cells,
advanced battery technology, and new ways of using biotech to make
fuels.... There will be an enormous amount of new [green] technology,
new wealth, and we are trying to create the Googles, the Microsoft's of the new era."
Oh yeah! You create those Google's of the next era! As soon as I get a few million dollars I am SO joining your Venture Capital Firm.
Via Business Week, Spotted at The Sustainable Future
|
|
|
|
Some of us here at Ecogeek have chosen to spend our summers in the thick of the Adirondacks, and while New York's finest foggy mountains are quite pretty, some of their accomodations are well ... er... a bit rustic. While I've managed to find a way to power my clunker of a desktop computer, every time I so much as try to plug in my socket-charged flashlight my entire cabin gives a disappointing flicker and fades into darkness.
Needless to say, I've been desperately searching for battery-powered anything.
Thanks to Treehugger , I found the following round-up:
The fan is boasted to be the longest-running battery-powered fan on the market, but we're also enamored with its versatility. Our cabin has a square footage that rivals a tool shed, so we're happy to know it can be mounted on the wall, can stand on the floor or a table, and also has a handle that can be used on a wire or clothesline.
On the left is the gadget that's going to make me very popular with the other folks around me up here -- a Coolmatic cooler that runs on a 12V battery. You can set the cooling temperature you want, and boasts that your food and drink will stay cold for two days.
Finally, since plugging in our flashlight doesn't seem to be an option, we might be checking out the little gadget in the middle, the 20-LED Pivot Lantern . It has a couple levels of lighting to choose from, runs on 8 D-sized batteries, and lasts about 24 hours.
|
|
|
|
Written by Hank Green on 23/07/06
|
|
When we say Complete Burn, we mean that all of the fuel is being turned
into carbon dioxide. While no one is ready to get excited about CO2
anymore, it is the desired product of combustion and it is not deadly
like carbon monoxide and the various nitrous oxides that spew forth
from tail pipes and power plants as a result of improper combustion.
We breathe carbon dioxide every day, it's pleasant. Carbon monoxide,
on the other hand, we only breathe right before we die of carbon
monoxide poisoning.
A new type of combustion chamber created by researchers at Georgia Tech. has reduced the amount of CO and NOX
gasses created by combustion to below anything seen in tradtional
combustion (> 10ppm and > 1ppm respectively.) The new chamber
might almost be called emissionless, if it weren't for all that pesky CO2 that it's still emitting.
{mosimage}
This ultra-low emission combustion chamber alters one simple precept of
combustion. Instead of mixing the fuel and the air before injecting
them into the chamber, it injects the fuel and the air separately. The
flow of air and fuel into the chamber can be directed and altered in
order to ensure a more complete and proper burn of the fuel. The
design is much more simple than other high-tech emissions reducing
chambers and it could be cost effective for anything from power plants
to household water heaters.
We can also go ahead and add this to innovations that will be making
flight more environmentally friendly as putting one of these in an
single airplane engine could prevent literally tons of nitrogen oxides
from being released into the environment.
|
|
|
|
|
Share
JUL 31