Commission eyes resource efficiency targets for EU-27
by: Euractive, 2011-01-27 07:51:10 UTC
While the European Commission's flagship initiative on resource efficiency, adopted yesterday (26 January), does not set any national targets, Environment Commissioner Janez Potočnik said these could well be tabled by the end of June.
White House clean energy standard gets key support
by: Reuters: Green Business News, 2011-01-31 23:10:55 UTC
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Monday won a key endorsement for its proposal to boost U.S. electricity generation by clean energy sources as the head of the Senate's energy panel said he...
H&M: waste
by: Designboom - Weblog, 2011-01-29 08:10:00 UTC
expected to retail in only one store per country, the new line is designed out of scrap fabric from the company's lanvin collection.
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2011 Electrolux Design Lab Compettiton – Are You Ready For Intelligent Mobility
by: Yanko Design, 2011-01-31 11:53:25 UTC
One of the most nail-biting moments of my life was seeing the 8 Finalists of 2010 Electrolux Design Lab explaining their projects to some very inquisitive judges. It is one thing to just submit concepts on paper for evaluation and another thing to defend your views, stand your ground and come out triumphant! This is what Electrolux Design Lab is all about, standing up for your convictions! The 2011 competition is looking for you to offer Intelligent Mobility solutions for cooking, storing food and cleaning up whilst using existing technologies.
This year’s brief comes out as a video message by Henrik Otto, Senior Vice President of Global Design at Electrolux. Have a look and get all geared up to enter the 2011 Electrolux Design Lab Competition.
Entries Close: Sunday May 1, 2011, 23:59 (Central European Time), on the Electrolux Design Lab website.
What you win
- Eight finalists will each be invited to participate in a final event in the autumn of 2011 held within a European city (to be announced) to present their individual concept to a jury of expert designers.
- The event will be telecast live online!
- First prize of a six-month paid internship at an Electrolux global design centre and 5,000 Euros.
- Second prize of 3,000 Euros.
- Third prize of 2,000 Euros.
Design Brief
Electrolux Design Lab 2011 invites industrial design students to create home appliances that consider intelligent mobility. Your ideas will shape how people prepare and store food, clean and do their dishes, both within and beyond the home. In particular they seek a design concept that will offer personalization and inspires users whilst utilizing existing technology to offer support and guidance. Additionally, and in keeping with the heritage of Electrolux, your concept should reflect Scandinavian Design values – being sensitive to the environment, providing intuitive ease of use and aesthetic appeal.
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Braille Punch Sticker
by: Yanko Design, 2011-01-31 14:57:00 UTC
The Braille Punch Sticker reminds me of the Label Maker we saw two years ago. Like all processes, innovation sometimes comes in refinements. This one comes in a sleeker package, no cumbersome wheel and an easy punching mechanism. What remains the same is the sticker aspect. Neat!
Designers: Kim Joonmin, Kim Seonil & Lee Eunjoo
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The Green Trial: PC Aero's Elektra One Vs. Yuneec E430 electric aircrafts
by: Ecofriend, 2011-01-31 11:02:17 UTC
Garima_goel:
Air travel has always been criticized as the most polluting form of transport. However, with people getting used to the reduced duration of travel, the eco-credentials of aircrafts have to be improved for a cleaner future. To make air travel green and emission free in the near future, companies over the globe are working on electric airplanes, with PC Aero’s Electra One and Yuneec E430 being just two of them.
Why the comparison?
Both aircrafts i.e. PC Aero’s Elektra One and Yuneec E430 are powered solely by electricity, look similar and can be used as private planes as they offer seats only for 1 to 4 passengers. Both of them are quite similar in technical specifications but have different performance specifications.
PC Aero’s Elektra One
a) The green side
The Elektra One, from German aircraft engineering and designing company PC-Aero is built with modern technologies including electric motors, batteries. This single-seat ultralight plane has a composite airframe and a 16-kilowatt motor with a range of 400 kilometers and a max flight time of three hours, with a 100 mph top speed. Elektra One is an easy to fly plane that can remain air-borne for 3 hours on single charge, which thereafter must return to its specially devised solar hangar, designed by SolarWorld of Bonn, Germany that can recharge the aircraft using an array of rooftop-mounted solar panels. It is built with lightweight fiber composite structures and is powered by a high-efficiency, brushless 21 horsepower electric motor, controller and lightweight battery pack. It consumes 17 kWh of the batteries’ energy and has a maximum range of about 250 miles. Therefore the electric powered aircraft is emission free and comes with reduced operational costs. A more advanced two-seat Elektra Two and a four-seat Elektra Four are expected to be produced sometime in the next few years as part of the E-Plane family.
b) The dark side
Its main disadvantage of the aircraft is the lack of speed and operating range.
Yuneec E430 electric aircrafts:
a) The green side
The Yuneec E430 is a two-seat, LSA class electric aircraft designed for commercial production. The two-place high-wing composite aircraft is powered by a 40 kilowatt electric motor driven by a “three-pack” of lithium polymer batteries, all designed and manufactured by Yuneec. The aircraft’s battery pack, giving two to two and half hours endurance. The batteries can be recharged in 3-4 hours from a 220v outlet. The E430 is designed with simplicity as its main advantage being low maintenance, simple to fly, and with the experience of flight significantly enhanced by the low noise and lack of vibration. On top of that it is a zero-emission aircraft and the all-up cost will be $89,000 when it goes on sale. It’s take-off speed is 40 mph, cruise speed is 56 mph with a maximum speed of 93 mph. The E430 has a range of 140 miles.
b) The dark side
The low range of the aircraft turns to be its main disadvantage. By addition of solar panels the developers can increase the range of this zero-emission aircraft.
The Final Verdict
Both the aircrafts let consumers enjoy a zero-emission commute, which can be made better if the aircrafts feature better range and speed. However, while the Elektra One offers more speed and longer flight duration, the Yuneec E430 is for those who need a companion.
Factbox
Would You Drink Milk from a Papier-Mache Bottle?
by: TreeHugger Design, 2011-01-31 10:06:49 UTC
Photo: facebook/greenbottle
Since the average plastic bottle takes 500 years to decompose, more solutions to this rapidly growing landfill crisis are needed, quickly.
An English inventor has come up with a sturdy papier-mache bottle that can be recycled or composted. Local Suffolk dairies are trying it out and now Asda (Walmart) is putting it in some of their stores. So how does it work... ...
Read the full story on TreeHugger
Would You Wear the Same Jeans for a Year Without Washing Them? It’s Not as Gross as You Think
by: Inhabitat , 2011-01-30 14:47:41 UTC
College students are well known for their questionable hygiene, particularly when it comes to clean laundry their first year in. Not yet ready for the world of responsibility University of Alberta student Josh Le wore his tight-fitting raw-denim jeans every day for 15 months and one week, after just one wash. Privy to Le’s “experiment”, one day his professor took bacterial counts from his pants before he threw them into the wash, then sampled the same jeans a couple of weeks later. So was the bacteria count out of control or were the jeans just as fresh as they were straight from the wash? Jump ahead for the results!
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You Have Less Than 24 Hours to Enter the Wild Energy Competition!
by: Inhabitat , 2011-01-30 15:55:40 UTC
Hey green design super heroes! Want to make a positive green design difference to one of the last, great untouched and natural places of the world? The Wild Energy Competition is giving you twenty four hours to save New Zealand’s wild rivers and change the course of their power generation history forever. The international design challenge was initiated three months ago to inspire New Zealanders to open their minds and get creative with environmental conservation, but now these Kiwis want to hear ideas arriving from all over the world! So what do you have to do to make a difference? Wild Energy is asking for just a one page entry, images and video before midnight, 31st of January! That’s tomorrow night, so you better act fast!
+ Wild Energy Competition
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Reused to be Relit
by: Yanko Design, 2011-01-27 15:39:45 UTC
The most effective way to dispose waste is not to recycle but reuse it. The MOLLIGHT uses components from the most unlikely of places. The spring is from an old armchair and the transformer is just a cable from an old lamp. Thomas Edison said it best, “to invent, you need a vivid imagination and a pile of junk.”
Designer: Alessandro Marelli
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