New York's Largest Green Roof Has Major Impact
by: Eco Geek Latest, 2010-12-02 16:15:45 UTC
New York City's largest green roof sits atop the U.S. Postal Service's Morgan Processing and Distribution facility in midtown Manhattan. On this roof resides 2.5 acres of dense vegetation that two years after its installation have made a major impact on the building and the city.
The green roof, which is one of the largest in the country, was completed in December 2008 and since then has really become living proof of the power of green roofs. The roof has has reduced the building's storm water runoff by 75 percent in the summer and 40 percent in the winter. The U.S. Postal Service says the roof's ability to cool the building in the summer and insulate it in the winter saves about $30,000 a year in energy costs.
While green roofs are more expensive than traditional roofs initially, they last 50 years -- more than twice as long as a traditional roof and they quickly lead to savings in storm water management, heating and cooling, cleaning the air and costs related to the urban heat island effect.
Toronto, the first city to mandate green roofs on new construction just this past year, has conducted studies that concluded that if 75 percent of the city's roofs were greened, the city would save $37 million a year. Urban heat island effects could be reduced by as much as 2 degrees Celsius. You can read more about the Toronto bylaw here.
via Yale e360
Flexible Solar "Power Plastic" Hits New Efficiency High
by: Eco Geek Latest, 2010-12-07 17:20:31 UTC
Konarka, a solar company that makes a flexible, organic solar technology called
Power Plastic has scored a new record by achieving an 8.3 efficiency rate. The rate was certified by NREL and pushes organic thin-film technology to another level.
This new efficiency rate still puts organic solar technology at half the efficiency of crystalline silicon PV panels, but organic solar cells have the added benefit of being cheaper to produce and flexible solar film is portable and easy to install anywhere.
The Power Plastic may ring a bell because it's the material used in the
solar bus stops in San Francisco. The city plans to install 300 solar bus stops, producing a total of 43,000 kWh per year.
via
Grist
Cubebot replaces plastic and batteries with wood for green entertainment
by: The Design blog, 2010-12-06 10:50:31 UTC
Taking a cue from Japanese Shinto Kumi-ki puzzles, David Weeks Studio has come up with a toy robot named the “Cubebot” that replaces plastic and batteries with wood to create a piece of art. Combining conventional Japanese artwork with contemporary toy culture, the Cubebot despite of its hardwood structure is flexible enough to take different shapes, providing food for your thought or ideas. Made in beechwood, the toy robot once you are done with your brainstorming folds into a standard cube for easy storage. Available in two different sizes, Medium measuring 9.5 x 13.5″ (H W) that folds into 3.5 x 3.5″ inch cube and Mini measuring 6.75 x 9.25″ (H W) that folds into 2.5 x 2.5″ cube, the Cubebot presenting a clean, green design gives a new dimension to traditional battery powered robots.
Via: David Weeks Studio
Bloom eco-superyacht integrates retractable sail to harness renewable energy
by: The Design blog, 2010-12-06 12:25:54 UTC
Bridging the gap between eco tech and superyacht design, Netherlands-based designer Xiang Yu has developed a mega yacht that harnessing renewable energy offers a sustainable sail without compromising the style and comfort of the luxury yachts. Dubbed the “Bloom,” the futuristic superyacht features a retractable wind/solar sail that blooms in the middle like a flower to harness wind and solar energy to power lighting system and electric motors, becoming a floating landmark in harmony with the society and the natural world. Employing the vertical-axis windmill and solar fabric to produce optimum renewable energy, the sail when not in use folds back into the yacht. Running on a hybrid diesel-electric motor system, the superyacht can reach a top speed of 20+ knots. Measuring 60m in length to provide adequate space to accommodate guests and crew in comfort, the Bloom also presents a 11.5m tall beam and 3m draught for a smooth sail.
[Cheers Xiang]
Prosthetic Arm adjusts to allow different grips for a variety of tasks
by: The Design blog, 2010-12-07 13:49:45 UTC
Pushing the boundaries of current upper-limb prosthetic design, designer Kaylene Kau has created a prosthetic arm that supports the dominant functioning hand in accomplishing day-to-day tasks with ease and efficiency. Featuring a flexible design, the prosthetic arm adjusts to allow a variety of different grips to hold a variety of objects with minimum fuss. The Prosthetic Arm also integrates motors and cables, which help the user control the amount of arm curls required for different tasks. Presenting a simple yet effective design, the new prosthetic limb makes users self-reliant, as they can carry out their everyday tasks without any assistance.
[Cheers Kaylene]
How Google’s New eBookstore Might Save Indie Booksellers
by: fast company, 2010-12-06 18:47:26 UTC
Advances in digital bookselling have usually pushed independent bookstores further and further out of the literary game. But Google's new store is dealing them back in. Here’s how.
If you stroll on over to your corner bookstore this week and ask the person behind the counter about Google's new ebookstore, which launches today, you probably won’t be greeted with the kind of teeth-gnashing that has accompanied other digital developments, like Amazon's online bookstore or the advent of proprietary e-readers. Instead, you might actually be greeted with some excitement and delight. That’s because Google is taking a different approach to selling e-books than Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Rather than create a closed system that leaves others out in the cold, Google is actually partnering with independent bookstores to sell its wares--and share the profits.
Google's e-books program will act as much as a distribution system as a retail outlet. You can buy Google’s e-books directly from the company’s ebookstore, if you like. But if you’d rather support your local bookstore, you can buy the exact same books on their site. Rather than holding on to every part of the chain, the way Amazon’s Kindle program does, “we’re building an ecosystem,” Google Books director of product management Scott Dougall tells Fast Company.
There are a few reasons Google is going a different way. The ebookstore emerged from the Google Books program, which didn’t start out as a potential revenue stream. Instead, the company’s book-scanning project was simply a program to help the company fulfill its mission to make all of the world’s information accessible. Since so much information is contained in books, the company wanted to make sure that if you were using Google Search to look for a particular topic, it would be able to point you to books containing information about that topic, in addition to relevant web pages. Then, as Google Books began partnering with publishers and contemplating a program to sell books in addition to just making them searchable, it made a philosophical decision that brick-and-mortar bookstores are critical to the literary ecosystem. “A huge amount of books are bought because people go into a physical bookstore and say, 'Hey, I want this, I want that,'” Google Books engineering director Dan Clancy told an audience at the Computer History Museum last year.
Michael Tucker, president of the American Booksellers Association, which negotiated the deal to distribute Google's e-books through independent bookstores, points to another reason Google is dealing the booksellers in: Google is fundamentally a technology company, not a retail enterprise. And it’s certainly not an expert in the book business. “They recognized that they are not a bookstore,” Tucker tells Fast Company. “They wanted to be able to access [the skills of booksellers].”
Google says it has deals to sell books from almost 4,000 publishers, including all the major houses, and that "hundreds of thousands" of books will be available for purchase. Google has arranged to get 30% of every book sale, with publishers retaining the remaining 70%. In its deal with the ABA, bookstores that sell Google e-books will get a portion of that 30 percent. Neither Google nor Tucker would divulge the terms of the deal, but Tucker said it was “more generous” than the deal booksellers currently get from Ingram Digital, the other major supplier of e-books to independent bookstores.
Bookstores seem to be cautiously optimistic about the Google program. A person who answered the phone at St. Mark’s Bookshop in New York said, “We’re looking forward to it,” before referring Fast Company to the ABA. “We’re really pleased,” said Mark LaFramboise, a buyer at Washington D.C.’s Politics and Prose. “We’ve been waiting for this for a long time.”
Darin Sennett, director of strategic partnerships at the famous Powell’s book shop in Portland, Oregon, is particularly excited about Google’s technological model. The Kindle, the Nook, and the Sony eReader all use the traditional approach to e-books: They sell DRM-protected files that customers download to devices and which must be read with specific e-reading software. Google, however, is using the cloud. Its e-books will be stored on Google servers, and readers who’ve purchased them will access their books via a browser. Unlike in the Kindle system, where Kindle e-books can only be read on Kindle devices, Google e-books will be able to be read on any device that has a browser. Until now, independent bookstores have been effectively shut out of devices like the iPad and smartphones (which are emerging as many customers’ reading platforms of choice) because the e-books available from other distributors were either not compatible with those devices or the formatting was so clunky as to make them effectively unreadable.
“Kindle and Nook are formidable technologies, but they’re islands,” Sennett tells Fast Company. “There are so many [devices and readers] outside those islands. What Google does is fill the oceans between them.”
Readers who prefer to own their own copies of Google e-books will be able to download them, in either PDF or ePub format. But Google anticipates that most customers use the cloud because of its convenience: They’ll always have access to their books, no matter what device they have with them at any particular time. (On the down side, however, using the cloud requires having an active Internet connection.)
Recently, I performed in the soap opera General Hospital. It is easy to make fun of soaps, with their melodramatic plot lines, constant exposition, unnatural lighting, swelling music, and lack of action.
Politics and Prose’s LaFramboise says Google's program gives independent bookstores an effective avenue for staying in the bookselling game as some readers’ preferences shift to digital formats. “When people come to us and say ‘We really love independent bookstores and we want to buy our e-books from you,” now we can say, ‘You can.’”
Nike, 3M, Vodafone Score Richard Branson's Gigaton Prizes
by: fast company, 2010-12-06 22:38:04 UTC
Small corporate sustainability measures are important, to be sure, but nothing indicates a commitment to saving the planet more than drastic emissions cuts. That's where the Gigaton Awards come in. Developed by Sir Richard Branson's non-profit Carbon War Room, the awards ceremony highlights "outstanding performances as defined by measurable carbon reductions and quantifiable steps towards sustainability."
The first annual Gigaton Awards, handed out at this month's climate change conference in Cancun Mexico, highlighted leaders in six sectors: Vodafone Group in Telecommunications, Suzlon in Energy, Reckitt Benckiser Group in Consumer Staples, 3M in Industrial, Nike in Consumer Discretionary, and GDF Suez in Utilities. 3M also took the top prize--the Gigaton Best in Class award.
How were they chosen? The Gigaton Awards website explains:
Selection of nominees is based on
reductions in emissions intensity between fiscal year 2008 and fiscal
year 2009, with emissions intensity defined as CO2e emissions per dollar
revenue. Within each of the six sectors, companies were ordered based
on reductions in emissions intensity. The top five companies that have
achieved the greatest reductions in their emissions intensity are the
nominees.
The winners also achieved recognition for other accomplishments; GDF Suez, for example, is one of the lowest CO2 per kilowatt-hour emitters in Europe.
Each winning nominee took home an Yves Behar-designed trophy--and some serious bragging rights. 3M gets to keep its Best in Class Award until next year, when it hands the trophy over to another carbon reduction powerhouse.
Ariel Schwartz can be reached on Twitter or by email.
Konarka achieves world record efficiency for organic-based PV solar cells
by: Ecofriend, 2010-12-06 10:31:36 UTC
Eco Factor: Organic photovoltaic solar cells with efficiency of 8.3 percent.
The National Energy Renewable Laboratory has announced that Konarka Technologies’ new organic-based photovoltaic solar cells have demonstrated a record breaking 8.3 percent conversion efficiency. While the new record efficiency is much lower than the over 40 percent efficiency achieved by inorganic solar cells, it is significantly better than other prototypes.
The record-breaking efficiency is for Konarka’s large area single-junction solar cell with a surface area of one square centimeter. The solar cell is made of several thin layers of a photo-reactive printed layer, a transparent electrode layer, a plastic substrate and a protective packaging layer. The solar panels can be manufactured in virtually any length and these panels can be connected for greater output.
Via: Gizmag
Thai startup develops tech to recover pulp and plastic from laminated paper
by: Ecofriend, 2010-12-06 10:58:09 UTC
Eco Factor: New process could produce paper from hard to recycle products.
Flexoresearch, a Thailand-based startup, has developed a new process to recover pulp and plastic from materials which until today were thought to be hard or impossible to recycle. The company has developed a series of blended enzymes that can recover pump or fiber from laminated paper such as stickers or milk cartons, which can help save trees.
The enzymes initially attack the water-resistant chemical coating the surface and then take over and then tackle the paper and adhesive layers. The resulting pump can be used to produce new paper products or turned into building materials that can be used as an alternative to asbestos. The firm which was recently named one of the 31 “Technology Pioneers” by the World Economic Forum and one of the “10 start-ups that will change your life” by Time Magazine, is now looking for people overseas who want to license the technology to save the environment.
Via: Discovery News
Dissecting Batteries for Better Mileage
by: Eco Geek Latest, 2010-12-05 23:42:40 UTC
Scientists at Ohio State University have been dissecting exhausted batteries to learn more about what happens when electric vehicle batteries die. There's a lot to like about electric vehicles, but with them there's potentially a major problem ahead. Batteries have a tendency to lose their ability to store power over time. Different automakers have been looking at various aproaches to keep from having this be a consumer problem, with plans to lease batteries separately from the vehicles in some instances.
Users of cell phones, laptop computers, and all kinds of battery-powered devices are already well aware of this fact. Researchers hope to give battery makers new insight that can lead to ways of extending the life of these batteries. Preliminary examinations of automotive lithium ion batteries shows that "a fraction of the lithium," which transfers charge between the cathode and anode of the battery, is being lost to use when it "combined with anode material in an irreversible way." Battery manufacturers may be able to work with this knowledge to create batteries that are more resistive to this loss. Better batteries that hold charge longer will provide vehicles that can run farther and longer.
via: Treehugger
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