November 2009 - Page 3 of 8

Eco-Artist Creates 'Puff' Device to Monitor Car Emissions

November 23, 200916 years ago Michael Ricciardi 0 Comments

Puff (a car exhaust monitoring device) is attached near the exhaust pipe of your vehicle. Its color changes dynamically, visualizing the amount of pollution your car is producing. Green indicates the lowest rate of pollution, red the highest. Karolina Sobecka, the artist/designer of Puff, explains: In this project, design is used as a strategy to explore the overlap between the material and immaterial worlds and spur discussion on the hidden social and psychological mechanisms behind the cultural use of accessories as ‘objects to think with’…Amateur Human (the design project’s official name) focuses on the environmental issues since we all are inadvertently becoming more eco-conscious whether we want to or not, and these issues seem both overwhelming and ambiguous.

Recovery Act Incentivizes Portugal to Build $4 Billion Worth of New US Wind Power Projects

November 22, 200916 years ago susan 7 Comments

Through its Texas subsidiary Horizon Wind Energy, the giant Portuguese company EDP Renewables; the second largest wind company in the world, intends to almost triple its US projects to $4 billion worth of new wind energy projects in the United States through 2012. This year alone Horizon Wind Energy installed … [continued]

Transit Use Boom, but in Some Surprising Cities

November 22, 200916 years ago Zachary Shahan 8 Comments

Transit use boomed from 2006-2008, but not in traditionally transit-friendly areas. This shows hope for more transit use in traditionally car-oriented places in the US in the future. An analysis of the most recent transit use data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that transit use grew by up to … [continued]

EU Paper Industry Has Cut Carbon Pollution by 42% – Exceeded Kyoto Goals

November 21, 200916 years ago susan 8 Comments

The US paper industry is one of the three non-fossil-energy industries that will be affected under the Clean Energy Jobs & American Power Act; the climate bill being attempted in the Senate; to regulate the industries that emit over 25,000 tons/yr of carbon dioxide. Cement-making and steel production are the … [continued]

Wave Energy Looking for Breakthrough — Using Aerospace Design

November 21, 200916 years ago Zachary Shahan 5 Comments

The oceans seem like a great potential source for clean energy. The force of the waves, the constancy, the size of the oceans — it all seems like something that could produce energy for humans without much harm. (I still have some concerns, though it seems like one of the … [continued]

Scientists Developing Swarms of Miniature Drifting Robots to Patrol the Ocean

November 21, 200916 years ago Tina Casey 0 Comments

The National Science Foundation has just awarded researchers at UC San Diego a $1million grant to develop small robotic devices that will drift with the ocean currents to study the mechanisms that support plankton and other tiny marine creatures. Swarms of the autonomous underwater explorers (AUE’s) could provide a window … [continued]

Storing Renewable Energy in Boxes of Air

November 20, 200916 years ago susan 27 Comments

Storage is needed to harvest the full yield available from intermittent sources of energy like wind and solar. One of the options is compressed-air storage; till now only possible in underground caverns. But SustainX Energy Solutions; a Dartmouth College start-up that got $4 million in VC funding from Polaris Venture … [continued]

Best Counterargument to Price on Carbon Hurting Jobs?

November 20, 200916 years ago Scott Cooney 6 Comments

At yesterday’s Sustainable Industries Economic Forum, keynote presenter Paul Hawken was asked, “What is the best counterargument to the argument that carbon caps will raise energy costs and hurt our economy?” In typical Hawken style, his earlier speech was well done, inspiring and insightful. In typical Hawken style, his off-the-cuff … [continued]

Paul Hawken on Being a 'Doomer'

November 20, 200916 years ago Scott Cooney 12 Comments

During yesterday’s Sustainable Industries Economic Forum, keynote speaker Paul Hawken suggested that it will take a somewhat monumental effort to get back to 350 ppm in our atmosphere (we’re at 387 right now). His list was daunting. We’d need one new olympic sized pool of bioalgae fuel production every second … [continued]

Quick-Charge Batteries Get a Boost from Defective Carbon Nanotubes

November 20, 200916 years ago Tina Casey 0 Comments

Researchers at the University of San Diego have discovered that carbon nanotubes don’t have to be perfect to do a better job. The team of UCSD Professor Prabhakar Bandaru and grad student Mark Hoefer found that defective carbon nanotubes actually store energy more effectively than their unflawed counterparts. [social_buttons] The … [continued]