Tree-power and homemade submarines… all that and more in your green tech finds for the week.

• Google… the solar company?: The company announced on Wednesday that it’s “working to develop its own new mirror technology that could reduce the cost of building solar thermal plants by a quarter or more.”
  
  
• Wind power from the air conditioner: Renewable energy company EarthSure has announced its WindAir system, which is designed to “[transform] the exhausted air flow from central air conditioning units into a source of renewable, clean energy.”
  
  

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Beer and gas? Sound like a National Lampoon movie… but it’s your green tech finds for the week.

• Fart-powered fuel cells? Sort of… Danbury, Connecticut-based FuelCell Energy recently installed two fuel cell power plants at food processor Gills Onions that “…create electricity using old onions and a process that mimics how the human body expels gas”
  
  
• Solar-powered parking: Austin, Texas is replacing traditional parking meters with “pay stations [that] are solar-powered, take credit cards, debit cards and coins, and will replace the 3,800 outdated single-space parking meters around the city.”
  
  

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It’s Friday… time for your round-up of interesting and innovative green tech stories.

• Sony Ericsson announces the release of two new “Greenheart” mobile phones. The company claims both models have a 15% lower carbon footprint than comparable models, and feature a minimum of 50% recycled plastic. (via eWeek)
  
  
• Ever had your hat blown off in an urban “wind tunnel?” Ohio-based start-up Green Energy Technologies is trying to replicate the effect of wind tunnels, and harness the energy, with its WindCube wind speed amplifier. (via earth2tech)
  
  

Check out more green tech finds and see if you can greenify your life!




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This is the second in our list of the best green jobs as our country converts to a 21st century Green economy. If you missed it, read the first entry in the list.

Energy courses through every aspect of industrialized civilization. Since everyone can agree that polluting energy sources need to be cleaned up, solar technology seems to have an absolute advantage when it comes to providing sustainable energy. Being a solar panel technician will allow you to directly improve the environment. Every unit you install adds more alternative energy to the nation’s grid.

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Welcome to Eco-mmunity. This website aims to connect people to all the green resources in the world. One of those resources is environmental events and important environmental locations. Creating event and location markers in Eco-mmunity is a great way to create awareness about ways to lessen damage to the environment, and also to protect special areas of wildlife, so that the ecologic system of our planet can continue to exist.

Step One(Can be skipped if you already have an account with Sundance Channel) – Create a membership with Sundance Channel. Once you have logged in to your membership, click “My Profile” (in the upper right corner of the screen) whenever you want to access your membership, subscribe to newsletters, or add/edit map markers on Eco-mmunity Map.

Step Two – Create your first map marker for your event. This map marker will allow people to learn about your event, discover when the event will take place, and also a place for people to get contact info about the event. If you are making a location, like “Yellowstone National Park,” then you would be helping society remember the value and importance of these parks. On your “My Profile” page click the link called “View/Add Green Map Markers.” The first question you are asked is what type of marker you should make. Select “Event Map Marker.”

Step Three – Filling in data about your event or location.

- Title

This is the most important piece of data in the marker, as it is the first thing people will see when they open your marker. The name of the event is a great place to start but you may want to add a dash and use one to three words that describe the purpose of your event. Examples might be, “Picking Up The Trash Day 2009,” “Green Groceries – Sustainable Shopping Workshop” or “Solar Power and Coffee – Power your notebook with Solar Energy.”

- Marker Address

This is the location on the Google Map where your marker will exist. It should represent the location of your event so that your marker is in the correct location on the map. If you are making a location, like the Grand Canyon, then just pick a close city in Kansas, you can always drag the map marker over the map manually later on.

- Display Address

This is the public address that you can put so that people will know where the event or location is.

- Contact Information

Email and/or Telephone information for the event can be listed if there is any.

- Website

This crucial piece of information allows people on Eco-mmunity to navigate to your website, which should be directly related to your event if at all possible, most locations of environmental importance do have some type of website, you might be able to find it if you decide to make a map marker for something like the “Florida Wetlands,” which is a threatened ecosystem in the great gator state.

- Date and Time of Event

Self-explanatory.

- Event Description

This is your first spot to write a well-written and hopefully enticing description of why your company is great. Try to keep this section direct, assertive and short, about three to five sentences. Make your event sound awesome but do not get overly wordy, you only have a few words to make an impression before people get bored.

- Marker Keywords

It is utterly crucial that you enter a few keywords into this field, as they will help people find your event or location when they search Eco-mmunity Map. Separate them with commas. Try selecting words that relate to your event’s main purpose or general objectives. For locations, put as many keywords as you can think of that relate to that location, it could be the type of animals that live in that location, there could be water there, there could be an old mining site there, it could be a superfund site, the list is long. If you pick a handful of keywords it will help people to find your marker.

- [b]Select An Icon For Your Marker[b]

Pick a picture for your marker and click “Update Marker.”

Congratulations, you have listed a new resource on Eco-mmunity and people will now be able to learn more about how they can be an integral part of preserving our beautiful planet.

Parking lots are one of the necessary evils of the average American life. The only people who really like them are skateboarders, and then only if it is relatively empty. We do have to park our cars somewhere, so perhaps it would be good to make better use of them…

This is where solar parking lots come into play. A cleared open space without much shade is basically describing a solar energy paradise. A company called Solar Envision has pioneered a new concept in solar power that takes advantage of the multitude of parking tarmac found in America. They call their aesthetically pleasing power generators: “solar trees”. Solar trees provide shade underneath them and when there are many of them in ‘planted’ together, you can cutely call them a “solar grove”. Not only will these solar trees reduce energy needs on the grid, but they also keep your car cooler in the shade. If they become the norm, perhaps mall shopoholics will have more shaded spots to fight over on their Saturday morning shopping bonanzas.

For more info, check out the Envision Solar Homepage [www.envisionsolar.com]

If you have any ideas about what we could do with parking lots to green them, or improve them in any way, please comment on this post.