When you were a high school student, how did you prefer to learn your science: formulas on the board and text books, or hands-on experiments involving building things (or maybe even blowing things up, or dropping items from high distances)? Yeah, I thought so… Southern California’s Metropolitan Water District has provided a hands-on opportunity for kids throughout the area to learn about engineering principles, solar power and electrical systems, and even water pollution and other broad environmental issues through its annual Solar Cup boat races.
Bricks, robot fish, and eco-warriors… this week’s green tech finds!
Find a green business… and a coupon:GenGreen Digital Media has just added a new feature to its Find Green iPhone app: coupons. Find a business that has what you want (and shares your values), and save some money in the process.
Online carbon reduction for builders: the Rocky Mountain Institute has just released Green Footstep, an online tool that allows builders to assess (and reduce) that carbon emissions of building and retrofitting projects.
Arizona has massive solar power resources. Texas, Kansas, and South Dakota together could power the whole country with wind. And the Rocky Mountain region holds vast potential for geothermal power generation. Traditional thinking in renewable energy development holds that we should tap these resources, and then move the power generated around via a next-generation national electric grid.
A new report from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance challenges this conventional wisdom, though, and makes the rather startling claim that 30 of the 50 US states could meet their own electricity demand entirely from in-state sources; seven more could generate 75% of their electricity needs this way. Thus, major (and expensive) improvements to the national grid may not be the most efficient use of resources.
From a green ride to a clean (hand-cranked) shave, it’s all here: this week’s green tech finds.
Solar that doesn’t stand out: Or, not as much, anyway… Iowa’s Powerfilm has developed “thin, flexible solar sheets that can be integrated with architectural building materials.” (via Springwise)
Eco wifi: Australia’s D-Link has announced its Green EthernetTM technology which “automatically detects link status and network cable length, then adjusts power accordingly.” It’s also allows a user to schedule wireless up time (like thermostats).
Things that go “zoom”… plus online tomato swapping, bike power harnessing, and another good reason to upgrade to Snow Leopard. Green tech finds galore…
Online vegetable trading: Got more tomatoes from your garden then you could possibly eat? Really want some homegrown watermelon? Veggie Trader is a new site that allow you to “…trade, buy or sell local homegrown produce.” (via Planet Green)
EVs hit prime time: Prime time television, that is: Jay Leno plans to host a “Green Car Challenge” regularly on his new show that will feature “…celebrities who will take turns trying to best one another’s track times in a specially prepared Ford Focus-based battery car.” (via Examiner.com)
Turns out that Madison, Wisconsin’s Benedictine sisters aren’t the only ones greening their house of worship: churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples around the US are implementing a range of green building and energy saving features. In most cases, they’re driven by religious imperatives; cost-savings likely play a role, too. The federal government’s even trying to encourage this behavior: Environmental Leader noted today that congregation buildings are now eligible for ENERGY STAR status.
Solar power is one of the first things most of us consider when trying to cut our energy costs and lighten our carbon footprints. Religious congregations are no different… here are a handful that have added solar features to their houses of worship.
Can the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid really deliver 230 mpg? Can you power your DVD player with your exercise bike? Answers to these questions and more in this week’s green tech finds…
Powering up with your bicycle: Exercise bikes aren’t just good for keeping fit; many people are figuring out innovative ways to harness that power and create electricity.
A showcase green home in Silicon Valley: Eco-entrepreneur Marc Porat has turned his 1936 English Tudor Revival home into a carbon-neutral showcase of green tech.
Smart car charging comes to San Diego: If you envision freeloading friends trying to charge their cars up at your place in the future, fear not: as a part of its testing of car-charging stations, San Diego will have participants use a Plug Smart “intelligent charger” that makes sure the drivers get the bill for the electricity.
Package delivery by UrbanMole: Both Fed-Ex and UPS (among others) are doing there best to green up their operations. Designer Phillip Hermes’ UrbanMole concept would take the trucks off of the street completely with a “capsule-like device … that travels through an underground pipe network that transports packages of all stripes.” (via Cleantechnica)
From Spain to Toledo, green tech stories are popping up everywhere. Here’s your round-up for the week.
Electric vehicles are winners on CO2 emissions:DVICE crunches the numbers, and finds that, even when electricity comes from coal-fired power plants, EVs produce less CO2 than gas-powered cars. (via AutoBlog Green)
Solar Mudhens: Rust-belt poster child Toledo, OH, is on its way to reinventing itself as a hub of solar manufacturing.
Techies rejoice! Here’s your weekly run-down of some of the cooler green tech stories out there…
Free energy? There’s a ton of it out there — 7 quadrillion BTUs — in the form of wasted heat. The Department of Energy has announced funding opportunities for R&D on how to tap this massive source of energy. (via Cleantechnica)
NYC — the wind energy capital? It seems counterintuitive, but the Carnegie Institution and California State University have found that high-altitude winds, which are concentrated over the Big Apple (among other places), “contain enough energy to meet world demand 100 times over.” (via Green Living Ideas)
Wearable lighting?: That’s one potential use envisioned by art students for GE’s planned “flexible, paper-thin lighting panels” featuring organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). (via OLED-info.com)
From a green ride to a clean (hand-cranked) shave, it’s all here: this week’s green tech finds.
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