CleanTechnica

A recent study concluded that it’s dangerous to text while driving.

What about texting while bicycling?

That’s also not advised, but a device from a company called PedalPower+ will charge your Blackberry while you ride. It also will charge your iPod.

The device, similar to the old school dynamo systems used to power headlamps via the back wheel of a bike, also stores generated power in a battery and will charge with solar panels even when you’re not riding, according to a report from the Austrailian Broadcasting Corp.

Gizmag, a technology blog, explains that developers spent three years working on PedalPower+, to work out the kinks of safely regulating current to electronic devices via a spinning bike tire.

As a result, the patented technology will charge a mobile phone from flat to finished in about two hours, the company says.

How much? Right now, the devices are only available Down Under. But the company says it’s setting up distributors in the United States and Europe.

(Image Credit: PedalPower+. Caption: Bottle dynamo installed on the back wheel of a bicycle.)

Yet another reason for protecting the seas and the biodiversity that exists (including nuisance species): scientists at Ben Gurion University in Israel have developed a biogel that helps fight heart disease. The source of this gel? Seaweed. Read the rest of this entry »

When the sun goes down, some walkways in Birmingham, Michigan, start to glow.

They’re fitted with a phosphorescent glow-in-the-dark pavement marking system from Glow-Mark Technologies LLC of Royal Oak, MIchigan.

The system consists of encapsulated “pucks” fitted into brick pavers, wood or other material with a boring drill. Read the rest of this entry »

Bruce Foods, maker of legendary “Original” Louisiana Hot Sauce, is leading all other hot sauces into a more sustainable future.  The company has nearly completed an expansion of its food processing plant in Wilson, North Carolina that includes a major methane capture installation.  The Wilson plant, one of four owned by the Tex-Mex specialist, produces canned yams, potatoes and gravies, which results in huge mounds of food waste and consequently a prodigious output of methane.  Previously, the plant simply vented the methane but purchased natural gas to run its equipment.  After the expansion is complete, the plant will run mainly on recovered methane.

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David Schiraldi has seen the future and it is clay.  The Case Western Reserve University professor and his research team are developing a clay aerogel that transforms common clay into a super lightweight material that could be used as insulating or packing foams, magnets, conductors, and yes, even high tech kitty litter that weighs only 1/10 as much as conventional clay litter.

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Let’s say you have a clothing company that supplies Walmart.

They’ve hinted for years that they are about to demand sustainably produced merchandise.  And last week they announced it: Walmart’s new Sustainability Index.

Governments have been unable to change the world. But the planet’s shopkeeper is just so much more powerful.

Oh dear, you say. We can’t lose Walmart. Let’s answer the first question. 1. What is your carbon footprint?

Well, um…gee.

Let’s start with that one handbag we sell to Walmart: We make the handbag parts in 3 factories in 2 continents and an island. We receive the raw materials for the handbag…

1. by camel to that little handbag clasp factory outside Calcutta (5 miles X 120 days per year; camel eats 356,794 pounds of grain shipped by diesel ship 254,998 miles = carbon cost of 2 tons per year for inbound shipping costs),
2. by UPS to a factory in a business park in Seattle (2,900 miles X 340 days per year; using 57% diesel-hybrid trucks =  inbound shipping carbon cost of 34 tons per year )
3. by airfreight to a little factory on Tuvalu (whatever…you get the idea)

and then we ship the finished product 3,900,798 miles by ship powered by… (and so on…)

…to say nothing of figuring out the carbon footprint at each of the factories:

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Rubber sidewalks are all grown up.  Once perceived mainly as a safe surface for playgrounds, rubber sidewalks have developed into a means of preserving urban trees, reducing stormwater runoff, recycling tires, and curbing greenhouse gas emissions.  A company called Rubbersidewalks (what else?) began installing the modular units in 2002, and its rubber sidewalk products now appear in almost 100 cities across the country.  Even the U.S. military is getting into the act.  Plans are in the works to install rubber sidewalks at Coast Guard Island in Alameda, California, and they’re being promoted by the Pollution Prevention Program at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

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OK, he’s not exactly a retired rocket scientist; he’s a retired airplane product development engineer - but Gary Reysa has built his own homemade very simple-tech solar hotwater system that is the functional and thermal equivalent of commercial systems costing 6 or 7 times as much!

This simple design has survived Montana winters with temperatures down to minus 30F with not even a hint of a problem, while providing an unusually high solar fraction of 94% (75% is typical of commercial solar hot water systems.)

For details and a picture of his solar thermal shed hit the fold:

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Researchers have developed an environmentally friendly, biodegradable lubricant based on castor oil and cellulose derivatives.

The new grease, which does not contain any of the pollutants that traditional petroleum and synthetic lubricants have, may lighten the toxic load from manufacturing and industry on our water and soil. Read the rest of this entry »

Now, I’m no Bob Villa, but as a new homeowner who has to replace his roof, I have been looking into environmentally friendly alternatives to either asphalt or “premium” wood. And Enviroshake definitely falls into the first category. Made primarily of reclaimed materials, Enviroshake might just be the answer. Read the rest of this entry »